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The purpose of this paper is to show how elements from queueing theory can be used to obtain objective measures of effective capacity in the triage function at Skaraborg Hospital in Sweden without direct observation of the function itself.

Approximately 30,000 patients arrived to the emergency department at Skaraborg Hospital in Sweden during 2011. The exact time of arrival and the exact time of triage were recorded for each patient on an individual level. Basic queueing theory uses arrival rates and system capacity measures to derive average queueing times. The authors use the theoretical relation between these three measures to derive system capacity measures based on observed arrival rates and observed average queueing times.

The effective capacity in the triage process is not a linear function of the number of nurses. However, the management of capacity seems well adapted to the actual demand, even though service levels vary substantially during the day and night.

This paper uses elements from queueing theory in an innovative way to measure the effective capacity of a service process without direct observation, thereby also avoiding the potential risk of the Hawthorne effect.

The use of social networking web sites (SNWs), like Facebook and MySpace, has become extremely popular, particularly with today's emerging workforce. Employers, aware of this phenomenon, have begun to use the personal information available on SNWs to make hiring decisions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the feasibility of using applicant personal information currently available on SNWs to improve employment selection decisions.

A total of 378 judge ratings (63 raters×6 subjects) are evaluated to determine if raters can reliably and accurately determine the big‐five personality traits, intelligence, and performance based only on information available on SNWs. Interrater reliability is assessed to determine rater consistency, followed by an assessment of rater accuracy.

Based solely on viewing social networking profiles, judges are consistent in their ratings across subjects and typically able to accurately distinguish high from low performers. In addition, raters who are more intelligent and emotionally stable outperformed their counterparts.

Human resource (HR) professionals are currently evaluating social networking information prior to hiring applicants. Since SNWs contain substantial personal information which could be argued to cause adverse impact, academic studies are needed to determine whether SNWs can be reliable and valid predictors of important organizational criteria.

This paper is the first, as far as the authors are concerned, to address the use of SNWs in employment selection, despite their current utilization by HR practitioners.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the instrumental role of physician Caroline Hedger during the first half of the twentieth century, with her emphasis on worker health, which influenced American society and helped to improve working and living conditions of people across the USA.

Drawing on archival newspaper clippings, original journal articles and books written by the subject, historical manuscripts and other labor history resources, this manuscript pulls together information on this topic in a unique way to give a broad view of the impact of Hedger and her important role not only for the city of Chicago, but the nation as a whole.

This research concludes that Hedger was an instrumental force and tireless advocate for the improvement of public health and social change. She was a constant driver for the creation of better living and working conditions of poor laborers, especially immigrants and women, desired the enhancement of child welfare, and was also helpful in supporting the labor movement and educating those involved in the process.

This is the first manuscript to explore the role played by Caroline Hedger in relation to her impact on the importance of the health of workers and their families. Her story is a testament to the powerful effect of a single person in a dynamic world, and demonstrates how understanding a worker's health contributes to greater insights about management history.

The Australian National Standards for Mental Health Services (Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, 1996) were developed as a plank of the first National Mental Health Plan (Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, 1992). Over the two subsequent national five‐year plans, they have become the basis for accreditation surveys for all Australian mental health services, both hospital and community components, whether acute or rehabilitation oriented, throughout the psychiatric career of all mental health service users and their families. The development and implementation of these standards are described. Innovations in this set of standards are detailed, specifying requirements of each phase of care, including access, entry, exit and re‐entry, and the parallel development and training of paid consumer and family carer surveyors. Largely due to the brevity and clarity of these innovations, because of a broad consultation process, and incorporation of interventions and service delivery systems that are both evidence‐based and congenial to service users, they have achieved a wide acceptance among, and championing by, service user and family carer networks. A recent review of the national standards was timely and welcomed, but is still incomplete, contentious in its protracted process, has a lack of consistent consultation and contains diluted and disorganised results. Implementation guides will now be developed to be superimposed on this revision in an attempt to improve and navigate it.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this century.

The author reviews the work of Peter Medway.

The paper addresses the issue of how his work reflected – or not – the curriculum thinking of his time and the complexity of ideas he brought to this endeavour.

This paper is an original look at the work of Peter Medway in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Total Quality Management (TQM), this framework proposes, can be achieved only when the organization develops the ability to cater to customers' needs, monitor the internal and external environments on an ongoing basis to obtain and disseminate information needed by empowered group decision makers, establish and maintain an atmosphere where there is strong vertical and horizontal communication, collaboration, and cooperation among individuals in internal units, as well as among individuals in external units, develop and maintain a bond and a “sense of ownership” among employees; and develop and maintain ongoing training programs.

Adopting a socio-spatial approach, this study develops a consumer-centric conception of service experience customization. In contrast to existing service customization research, which has focused on company-centric approaches, the purpose of this paper is to examine the practices through which consumers use, abuse, subvert, transform, or complement organizational resources to construct their consumption experiences.

The empirical context for this study is a Meetup group: a consumer network organized around members’ shared interests and activities in theme parks. The research utilized participant observation of members’ face-to-face activities during two years and over 80 events, interviews with key informants, and content analysis of online interactions.

The findings outline how consumers interact across physical and virtual spaces utilizing technologies and material objects. The data are used to propose a new consumer-centric conceptualization of experience customization, distinguishing between three modes: collaborative co-production, cooperative co-creation, and subversive co-creation.

It is argued that the three modes of customization provide a way to understand how consumers mobilize and (re)deploy organizational resources to create experiences that may complement existing service propositions, but may also transform them in ways that challenge the service provider’s original goals and expectations. Furthermore, this study identifies the factors that shape which modes of customization are possible and how they are enacted. Specifically, the discussion examines how experiential complexity, governability, the compatibility of consumer and organizational practices, and the collective mobilization of resources may determine the scope and form of customization.

The purpose of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, whether an employee training program can enhance the collective perception of empowerment of work units within an organization. The authors hypothesized that training participation relates to empowerment by enhancing the potency, meaningfulness, impact, and autonomy of the employees.

The authors collected data at two time points, before and after the training intervention. Over the two periods, the sample consisted of an average of 2,383 employees nested in 36 work units of a large multinational company.

The results indicated a positive relationship between training participation and increased levels of collective psychological empowerment, with differential effects on the dimensions of empowerment.

This study provides evidence of the positive relationship between training and empowerment, suggesting training effects across levels of analysis. The results indicated dimensions of empowerment that are more and such that are less prone to training. Such knowledge may help to inform organizations in developing training strategies. The authors provide recommendations for a respective training program.

This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between training participation of individual employees and shared empowerment perceptions within their work units, adding an important antecedent to the research on empowerment. In addition, the authors propose ways of how individual employees can affect shared perceptions among work-unit members. The study offers insights into the development of empowered work units, the vertical transfer of training across levels of analysis and implications for training programs.