Search results

The purpose of this paper is to verify whether the horizontal grab bar for the toilet and the bathtub suggested by the Code du bâtiment du Québec conform to users’ preferences. Perceived effort, comfort and safety were considered.

In total, 31 adults and seniors using manual and powered wheelchairs were asked to test different grab bar configurations for both the toilet and bathtub. A questionnaire was designed to evaluate participants’ perceptions and preferences after the trials with each grab bar. Effort was measured using the ten-level Borg scale, while participants’ comfort and safety were assessed with a five-point Likert scale. Participants were finally invited to express an overall personal preference between the two grab bar used in each setup.

Participants showed preference for an L-shaped grab bar for the toilet, and a horizontal grab bar for the bathtub. The authors’ results differ from the recommendations of the barrier-free design standards of the province of Quebec’s construction code, which states that horizontal grab bars should be used for the toilet and bathtub.

This study suggest that despite the limited sample, there is an undeniable need for testing norms for public spaces, whenever is possible and has a direct effect on end-users, before publishing them.

This study focuses on Vietnamese international students who returned from their overseas doctoral education to home universities in Vietnam (henceforth Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees). The purpose is to explore the experience of these returnees “doing research” (i.e. being research active) when resuming a lecturing role at a Vietnamese regional university. In the context of research now receiving heightened attention in both the wider global higher education (HE) discourse and the Vietnamese HE sector, this study is timely and provides valuable insights.

In total, 76 Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees from varied disciplinary backgrounds completed a questionnaire on their research motivation and their perceived constraints doing research. Eighteen subsequently took part in semi-structured interviews. The study draws on the notion of human agency from the sociocultural perspective to understand the coping strategies of the Vietnamese overseas-educated returnees in response to the challenges they encountered.

The results show that the returnees' motivations to conduct research varied, fuelled by passion, but constrained by multiple factors. Time constraints, heavy teaching loads, familial roles and lack of specialized equipment are key inhibiting factors in re-engaging in research for these returnees. Addressing them necessitated a great deal of readaptation, renegotiation and agentive resilience on the part of the returnees in employing different coping strategies to pursue research.

The paper argues for a subtle understanding of the returnees' experience of re-engaging in research that is both complex and contextual. Implications are drawn for research development in the regional Vietnamese HE context and perhaps in other similar settings.

There is little empirical knowledge about how Vietnamese returned graduates – university lecturers – continue doing research after their return. Also underexplored in global discourse is research on foreign-educated returnees doing research, while they are an important source of human resources. The present study, therefore, fills these research gaps.

The study examines the practices and efficacy of the EC's finance of Readaptation Aid paid to redundant coal and steelworkers.

Corporations within the past decade have found themselves trapped in the worst of all possible worlds. By the middle 1970's, even though profits still seemed strong, productivity growth was slowing to a crawl. By the late 1970's, the competitiveness of American manufacturers, as measured by their shares of world markets, was sagging. The Federal Reserve Board pushed up interest rates to fight inflation, and the dollar soared. American corporationsfound themselves having to cope with higher credit costs while being priced out of markets overseas and surrendering big chunks of their domestic markets to cheaper and better imports.

The objective of this chapter is to illustrate how globalization affects labor mobility and work. The impact of globalization ranges from a profound restructuring of productive agriculture and rural labor markets to the forms through which production and labor are controlled – including the internal and external systems of food quality and safety standardization. These aspects require a broad readaptation and modernization of food distribution models and the standardization of technical principles. In the sector of local food distribution, these changes have significantly affected the lives of those involved, especially in terms of increased competitiveness and the escalation of the demands associated with the enhancement of the quality of products. Moreover, accelerated technological innovations, such as information technology, have facilitated the compression of time and space and shaped forms of social resistance. In this scenario, the reduction of logistic costs in the production and distribution of commodities has become one of the fundamental conditions for the viability of large companies. This is more the case for industries that deal with highly perishable produce such as fresh food. Through an analysis of the perspectives of workers in the refrigerated cargo industry, the chapter illustrates the pressure that fall upon the individual routine of those involved in this field and the ensuing changes in this sector's operating standards. The study was conducted in the city of Recife, in the northeastern portion of Brazil.

Despite their high number, most mergers end in failure. Academic studies of how these failures occur have remained rare, first, because of the difficulty of accessing the cases, and second, because of the difficulty of obtaining – for the purposes of qualitative analysis – objective and freely shared perceptions from the stakeholders, who tend to avoid speaking about failure. This is unfortunate, however, as failure can serve as a stimulus for organizational learning and readaptation for the future.

The author investigated how an organization managed failure during the post-merger integration stage. The author described the merger of two listed French companies using longitudinal data.

This in-depth case study provides new insights into failure during post-merger integration. The paper highlights the complexity of post-merger integration processes and the failures that the integration stakeholders had to address. The author underlined how they recognized failures and put into place solutions. They particularly highlighted two failures and how they were managed by the managers who acted as knowledge brokers within the new organization and by stakeholders who deconstructed the organization to ensure its future.

The limitations are those concerning a single case study.

The paper identified trigger events in the merger process that prompted stakeholders to step in and manage and resolve failures during the integration period. Such triggers can be considered as steps for managers and stakeholders to solve organizational issues in the merger process. The paper highlighted the complexity of post-merger integration processes and the failures faced by integration stakeholders. The analysis thus contributes to an inclusive and integrative view of the challenges in this process.

Despite their high number, merger and acquisition failures remain surprisingly high. This paper explored how stakeholders deal with failures by identifying which solutions are best adapted to their organization.

The case provides a vivid illustration of failure management during a merger process. Theoretical concepts and empirical findings from the literature are combined to present a single consistent picture.

The aim of this research is to analyze sustainable value chain management based on dynamic capabilities in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A qualitative methodology is used, through a multiple case study with three SMEs, to identify the conceptual relationship between the sustainable value chain and dynamic capabilities. Interviews are conducted with managers, and the data are analyzed through content analysis.

It is observed that breaking down barriers in processes is important for establishing the sustainable value chain, generating dynamic capabilities with the readaptation of activities.

It is recommended that studies be conducted in other sectors and in large companies, to identify new perspectives.

The findings of this study demonstrate the constant processes of SMEs in response to legal, bureaucratic and logistical changes, in the generation of dynamic capabilities and sustainable value chain management, to achieve their customers' goals.

The research contributes to the literature on the management of dynamic capabilities in the value chain in Brazilian companies and to the supply chain field, particularly in relation to SMEs.

This research analyzes sustainable value chain management based on dynamic capabilities in Brazilian SMEs, gathering the managers' perceptions regarding changes in the external environment that influence adaptations and alignments, impacting on their businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to provide practitioners and researchers a more condensed and structured perspective on the adoption of information management systems by the health-care industry, given the spread and the increased amount of research concerning the topic.

This paper is a literature review. A Technology (What?) – Context and before adoption Analysis (When and Why?) – Implementation (How?) – Outcomes (What for?) framework is used to present the trends concerning information technology adoption in an accessible manner.

The main finding is that small or large health-care organizations should no longer focus on information systems’ adoption but should adopt a digital transformation paradigm. By considering this paradigm, management practices related to information technologies’ adoption projects should be complemented by practices related to the continuous organizational changes and readaptation of the organizational strategy, to benefit the advantages information systems can offer.

The main recommendation for health-care industry managers is to adopt specific practices to manage the digital transformation process of their organizations, as they should understand that it is no longer about adopting information technologies, but about managing the associated organizational change.

Instead of focusing on specific information systems’ adoption as other papers do, this paper provides a holistic understanding of the information technologies and management practices which are used in the field.

This paper proposes selecting a construction project portfolio in the context of a public institution, which makes it possible to assess quantitative and qualitative criteria, thereby meeting the needs of the institution and the existing constraints.

The research design follows a framework using technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) associated with integer linear programming.

The method involves a flow of assessments allowing criteria and weights to be elicited where outcomes are based on the experts' intra-criteria assessment of alternatives and decision-makers' inter-criteria assessment. This is of utmost interest to public organizations, where selections must result in benefits and lower costs, integrating the experts' technical and management perspectives.

Public institutions are characterized by having limited financial and personnel resources for project development despite having a high demand for requests not associated with profits, making it essential to have a framework that enables using multiple criteria to better evaluate the benefits related to these decisions.

The main contributions of this article are: (1) the proposition of a framework for selecting construction project portfolios considering the organization's strategic needs; (2) identifying quantitative and qualitative assessment criteria for project selection; (3) integrating TOPSIS with an optimization process for selecting the construction project portfolios and (4) providing a structured decision process for selecting the portfolio that best represents the interests of the institution within its limited resources and personnel.

This paper aims to explain the phenomenon of low incidence of COVID-19 in Polish prisons. This paper addresses three questions: was the Polish prison system ready to respond to the threats posed by COVID-19; what action has it taken in this regard; and with what effect?

An analysis of the current condition of the Polish prison system was undertaken focusing on items that were the focus of prisoners’ complaints, the interventions of the Ombudsman and the bulletins of the Central Board of the Prison Service. This analysis has been juxtaposed with the opinions of experts in epidemiology and medicine and changes introduced in the law relating to prisoners.

During the COVID-19 epidemic – despite serious chronic problems in the Polish penitentiary system – the statistics indicated that 24 individuals were infected and no deaths occurred. When compared to the statistics of non-prison cases, this result is extremely low.

Given the newness of the problem, the conflicts of different interests, the “double” isolation of prisons (penal and epidemiological) and the reluctance of the prison administration to provide information about what is happening behind prison walls, researchers must rely on statistics and subjective contacts with prisoners, for example, by investigating their complaints.

As a result of the research, the author believes that the transparency of institutions such as prisons should be ensured, primarily expressed in the provision of information to both prisoners and the public relating to methods adopted to prevent epidemics in the context of prison and prisoners.

The value of this paper is to show how prisons have managed in a new, exceptional situation to balance the right to health and personal safety of prisoners and warders, with the right to contact with the outside world and humane living conditions in a closed and doubly isolated space. The findings presented will add value to the knowledge and effectiveness of the prison administration’s reaction and response to an emergency such as an epidemic.