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Increasing amount of empirical research in operations and supply chain management is using institutional theory as its theoretical lens. Yet, a common scale to measure the three institutional pressures – coercive, mimetic and normative – is lacking. Many studies use proxies or a single, grouped, construct of external pressures which present methodological challenges. This study aims to present the development of multi-item scales to measure institutional pressures (in a purchasing context).

First, items were generated based on the theoretical construct definitions. These items were then tested through academic sorting and an international survey. The first empirical testing failed to produce reliable and valid scales, and further refinement and analysis revealed that coercive pressure splits into two separate constructs. A second q-sorting was then conducted with purchasing practitioners, followed by another survey in Italy to verify the new measurement scale for four institutional pressures.

The multimethod and multistage measurement development reveals that empirically the three institutional pressures actually turn into four pressures. The theoretical construct of coercive pressure splits into two distinct constructs: coercive market pressure and coercive regulatory pressure.

The results of the paper, namely, the measurement scales, are an important theoretical and methodological contribution to future empirical research. They present a much-needed measurement for these theoretical constructs increasingly used in management research.

The authors empirically determine the stages and leadership styles that enhance the effectiveness of firm response and recovery efforts during each stage.

The authors use an inductive exploratory approach and mixed-method research design. Study 1 uses a combination of qualitative data gathered through two rounds of exploratory focus groups (26 managers and executives), Q-sorting (60 participants) and a confirmatory focus group (6 experts) to highlight how expert practitioners perceive the staged progression of a supply chain disruption. Study 2 uses responses from 90 experienced managers in an experimental vignette to determine the most effective leadership style during each stage.

Expert practitioners are strongly partial to a two-staged disruption model that includes an early/response and late/recovery stage. They consider decisiveness to be the most effective style in the response stage. However, in the recovery stage, a style that combines decisiveness and task-centered leadership is perceived to be the most effective. Further, effective leadership hinges on applying distinct styles depending on the progression of events during supply chain disruptions.

Empirical evidence and validation of conceptual models on leadership behavior during crises are essentially nonexistent in the literature. This study is likely the first to pursue the subject of leadership during stages of crises and the first to offer empirical evidence thereof. Relatedly, the authors contribute to the growing research on crisis management, which is likely to receive even more attention as the frequency and size of crises facing organizations increase.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe different viewpoints on the use of social networking sites (SNSs). It analyzes perceptional typologies of SNS users and the characteristics of each type, which has similarities and differences. It also examined possible relationships among different perceptional types, users’ self-identities, and their personality.

This study utilized Q-methodology in order to identify diverse explanations of SNS users’ perspectives. Q-methodology requires participants (referred to as P sample) to sort a series of items (Q-statements). After completing a questionnaire including demographics, self-identity, etc., each respondent performed the Q-sorting work. This task involves sorting well-composed statements about SNSs (Q-sample). In all, 46 SNS users from a university in Korea were chosen as participants. Once the P sample had finished Q-sorting, participants had in-depth interviews. When all interviews were finalized, analysis of the Q-sorts was done with the help of QUNAL program.

Consequently, four types of SNS users were identified and given the following descriptive labels: Impression Management Type, Lurker Type, SNS Enjoyer and Relationship Focus Type, and Social Value Orientation Type. Further, there was a significant difference in “Relational Identity” among user types. Regarding personality, the extraversion of Type III appeared to be the highest, and the extraversion of Type II appeared to be the lowest.

Combining aspects of both qualitative and quantitative research to study the subjectivity, the findings of this study provide insight for further research regarding an audience study or an examination of the media behaviors of SNSs. It also suggests theoretical and practical implications.

There is little consensus regarding what constitutes an effective therapist when working with adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) who have a mental health problem. This study aims to explore whether clusters of clinical psychologists (CPs) could be differentiated with regards to beliefs as to what defines an effective therapist for adults with ID experiencing psychological distress and seeking treatment.

Four interviews with CPs and an associated thematic analysis created the 49-item Q-set. These items were then sorted into a forced quasi-normal distribution by N = 27 CPs via an online Q-sorting task.

Three participant clusters were identified in the principal components analysis that accounted for 49% of the variance. These clusters were labelled the creative collaborator, the reflective expert and the system integrator.

Differences exist regarding beliefs as to what the psychotherapeutic approaches effective therapists working with ID and comorbid mental health problems should take. These differences approximated to preferred psychological therapy models. This study is critiqued to enable future research on this topic to progress.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore what constitutes an effective psychological therapist for people who have ID.

This study is the first of a five‐phase research project sponsored by the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD), an organization of environmental program managers operating under the umbrella of the National Council for Science and the Environment. The purpose of the project is to determine if a consensus on core competencies for environmental program graduates is achievable, and if so, to make recommendations for consideration by program managers.

Q methodology was used to discern the perspectives of program managers at 42 CEDD member institutions on environmental curriculum design. An online survey preceded the Q sort exercise to elicit managers' curricular views and program characteristics. Survey responses were analyzed to select statements for the Q‐sorting exercise and categorized according to emergent themes. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the relationship between perspectives (factor loadings) and host institution Carnegie classifications.

Three distinct, but not opposing, perspectives were identified from the initial Q‐factor rotation, which suggests the possibility of agreement on core competencies. The perspectives differ in their views of: curriculum orientation (professional training versus liberal arts), curriculum breadth versus depth, and flexible versus fixed core competencies. Host institution classification (Carnegie) is a small but significant predictor for two of the three perspectives. A second Q‐factor rotation reveals a consensus perspective that accommodates most respondents and aligns well with principles of sustainability, thus suggesting that sustainability may serve as a guiding paradigm for defining areas of core competence.

No national study of program managers' views of curriculum design and the identification of core competencies has been conducted in the USA.

Decision-makers, practitioners and community members have a need to assess the disaster resilience of their communities and to understand their own capacities in disaster situations. There is a lack of consensus among researchers as to what resilience means and how it can be measured. This paper proposes a novel technique to achieve consensus among stakeholders on definitions, objectives and indicators for measuring a key dimension of community disaster resilience (CDR), physical infrastructure (PI).

This study uses a five-step approach utilizing Q-methods to contextualize a resilience index for PI. Interviews, focus groups and Q-sorting workshops were conducted to develop a tool that ranked measures according to stakeholder preference. A total of 84 participants took part in the workshops across four countries (United Kingdom, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).

The initial set of 317 measures was reduced to 128 and divided into the three community capacities of anticipatory, absorptive and restorative. The physical infrastructure capacity assessment tool (PI-CAT) was then finalized to have 38 indicators that were also ranked in order of importance by the participants.

The PI-CAT can be useful for local governments and communities to measure their own resilience. The tool allows stakeholders to be confident that the metrics being used are ones that are relevant, important and meet their requirements.

The Q-method approach helps stakeholders to develop and use a community capacity assessment tool that is appropriate for their context. The PI-CAT can be used to identify effective investments that will enhance CDR.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the leadership roles the Ethiopian civil service managers preferably embody in their setting. As such, contextually preferred roles were identified and briefly contrasted with the leadership literature. It also outlined the directions for the future research agenda.

Q-methodology, an approach reasonably like “grounded-theory” was used. It is suited to embrace life as lived by the actors themselves. In this specific case, Q-methodology allows the managers to conceptualize their definitions or preferences of leadership roles. The data were obtained from 51 managers working in the federal civil service organizations covering a broad range of public policy and service fields.

Based on the Q-sorts of 51 managers, the authors found three distinct yet interrelated archetypes of role preferences, which the authors labeled as the change agents, affective leaders and result-oriented realists. The study, however, demonstrates that although the ostensible echoes of each of these perspectives were professed, there were overlooked functions that are needed to be performed for full practice of each.

Understanding the contextually preferred leadership roles, if considered in designing the management training and development programs, could prove productive. It also informs the staff recruitment and promotion activities of the civil service organizations.

Conceptualizations of public leadership roles are abound in the literature. As they mostly emerged in a Western context, their applicability to other settings is questionable. Studying the subject in the context of Ethiopia, this paper contributes to the growing body of African literature on administrative leadership and informs the practice as well as the scholarship in this area.

Ketamine intoxication has been mooted as a model of some of the signs and symptoms of psychosis. However, little research has focused on the self‐report experience of ketamine users. The purpose of the current study is to quantify (the frequency of occurrence of) ketamine induced phenomenology in recreational users. The paper also seeks to meaningfully group these experiences into facets and their principal components.

Respondents completed a checklist of experiences, the Ketamine Experiences Questionnaire (KEQ). Two samples were recruited via opportunity and snowball sampling one in 2009 (n=52) and one in 2010/11 (n=35).

The “Q‐sort” and principal component analysis (PCA) indicate that there are two factors, factor one representing aversive ketamine experiences (accounting for 48.2 per cent of the variance) and factor two representing appetitive ketamine experiences (accounting for 20.1 per cent of the variance). Ketamine induces a raft of appetitive, aversive and transcendental experiences many of which are illustrated. The data suggest that a decision about whether to continue using ketamine (and if so, how often) depends in part on an intuitive cost‐benefit analysis of the phenomenology that it induces.

There are some notable limitations to the current study; the small sample size to variable ratio necessitated a “Q‐sort” before PCA; the sampling procedure prohibited the generation of a representative sample; and there were no means of independently verifying ketamine use.

This study represents a novel exploration into ketamine phenomenology and the principal components of these experiences.

The results of a Q methodological study of professional understandings of the notion of risk in mental health services within the UK are discussed in relation to the relevance for staff training and quality assurance. The study attempted to access the diversity of understandings of risk issues amongst a multi‐professional group of staff (n = 60) attending inter‐agency risk training workshops in 1998. Q methodology is presented as both an appropriate means for such inquiry and as a novel experiential technique for training purposes. A tentative argument is advanced that the qualitative accounts generated by Q research could assist in systematic reviews of quality, complementing the singularly quantitative approaches typically represented in the audit process.