Search results

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of new interactive, bi-lingual Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) resources called Tyfu i Fyny/Growing Up, suitable for students aged between five and 12 years. It also discusses the evidence used to support the development of the resources, the support provided for teachers and parents and an initial evaluation following their use.

Tyfu i Fyny/Growing Up are interactive bi-lingual (Welsh and English) SRE teaching resources for primary schools suitable for students aged five to 12 years. These resources comprise of two components, an interactive electronic web-based programme and a floor mat illustrating a naked boy and girl. The electronic web-based programme is used to introduce puberty changes, loving relationships, conception, pregnancy and birth and is suitable for students aged nine to 12 years. The floor mat is suitable to be used with students aged between five and 12 years. Teaching activities can include naming body parts, discussing gender differences, personal safety, distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate touching, discussing puberty changes and other health promotion activities as well as delivering aspects of the National Curriculum for Wales.

The results from the initial evaluation undertaken with year six students and teachers demonstrates how the resources have impacted on the teaching and learning experiences of primary teachers and students. It also demonstrates how the teacher training sessions and using the Tyfu i Fyny/Growing Up resources have increased teachers’ confidence in delivering SRE.

The learning experiences of students and their enjoyment of using the Tyfu i Fyny/Growing Up resources were significantly high. The implementation of teacher training improved teaching practice and increased teachers’ confidence in the subject. The resources have facilitated the delivery of effective whole school comprehensive SRE programmes for primary schools. These factors confirm the value of the investment given to their development. The resources could easily be customised in line with diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious requirements.

This paper demonstrates how the Tyfu i Fyny/Growing Up interactive SRE resources have influenced the teaching and learning experiences of primary school teachers and students.

This study aims to explore the use of specific innovations in primary care practices. The research seeks to examine whether a relationship exists between environmental factors and organizational characteristics and the level of innovation in primary care practices in Virginia.

The study utilized multiple secondary data sets and an organizational survey of primary care practices to define the external environment and the level of innovation. Institutional theory was used to explain the connection between innovations in primary care practices and institutional forces within the environment. Resource dependency theory was used to explain motivators for change based on a dependence on scarce financial, human, and information resources.

Results show a positive association between organizational size, organizational relationships, and stakeholder expectations on the level of innovation. A negative association was found between competition and the level of innovation. No relationship was found between degree of Medicare and managed care penetration and innovation, nor between knowledge of, and difficulty complying with, payer organization requirements and innovation.

Primary care physician practices exist in a market‐driven environment characterized by high pressure from regulatory sources, decreasing reimbursement levels, increasing rate of change in technologies, and increasing patient and community expectations. This study contributes new information on the relationship between organizational characteristics, the external environment and specific innovations in primary care practices. Information on the contributing factors to innovation in primary care is important for improving delivery of health care services and the ability of these practices to survive.

The paper aims to understand which location determinants are relevant in a subsidiary location decision under the interaction influence of an emerging‐market firm's (EMF) resource and internationalization motives.

The paper prepares a typology of an EMF's resources which are different from those of a developed‐country firm. It proceeds to argue which internationalization motives are likely to work for an EMF endowed with a specific resource. Finally, the paper posits the impact of resource and internationalization motives on the relevance of some location determinants over others in an EMF's location decision matrix.

The conceptual framework proposes a relationship between EMF resources, internationalization motives and location determinants and prioritizes some location determinant(s) over others for various combinations of EMF resource and internationalization motives.

The paper contributes to the literature by proposing a unique typology of EMF resources. The overall framework informs the scholars about the importance of idiosyncratic resources as the basis of differential location decisions.

This article presents a guiding framework for multinational managers to assess optimum location decisions on the basis of idiosyncratic firm resources and internationalization motives.

The paper fills a scholarly gap by proposing a framework that relates firm resources and internationalization motives to location determinants. In the process, the paper also proposes a resource typology for resources unique to EMFs.

Employee mental health problems are among the most costly issues facing employers in the developed world. Recognizing this, many employers have introduced resources designed to help employees cope with stressors. Yet, most employees fail-to-use these resources, even when they need them and could benefit from using them. We seek to understand this resource underutilization by (a) drawing on and expanding resource theories to explain why employees do not use existing resources and (b) proposing that leaders, managers, and supervisors can play a key role in facilitating the utilization of available resources. In doing so, we introduce resource utilization theory (RUT) as a complementary perspective to conservation of resources (COR) theory. We propose that RUT may provide the framework to describe patterns of resource utilization among employees, and to explain why employees do not use available resources to deal with existing stressors and demands.

This paper aims to adopt a conservation of resources (COR) theoretical approach to examine the process of value co-destruction (VCD) emanating from the misuse of customer resources by organisations.

A critical incidents approach was adopted where 120 customers recounted their negative experiences. The analysis identified both the nature of resources and processes involved.

From a customer perspective, the VCD process is triggered by a failure of the resource integration process to co-create expected value (resources). This involves customers in unexpected primary, and often secondary, resource loss. Loss “cycles” or “spirals” develop impacting negatively on well-being. Customers' attempts to restore their resources through coping strategies typically involve loss of well-being for the organisation.

The research is limited to a relatively small sample of UK customers involving diverse contexts. However, COR theory provides a framework for a better understanding of customer perceived value, the value co-creation and co-destruction process.

The findings offer a new perspective to practitioners for understanding customer expectations and behaviour. There is a need to re-evaluate and re-design value propositions in line with organisational capabilities and customers' resource needs.

Organisations' misuse of customers' resources negatively impacts on “well-being”: a phenomenon of increasing interest at the societal level.

This study is the first to empirically examine the concept of VCD, as perceived and experienced by customers, from a resource ecology perspective. It contributes to the growing body of work deriving from the service-dominant logic approach to value co-creation.

It has been suggested that “space and artifacts constitute systems of communication which organizations build up within themselves” (Gagliardi, 1992a, b, p. vi) and reflect the cultural life within that organization. This is a study of how the “landscape” of a public library (“Library X”), as an information retrieval system, relates to the values of the people who created it. The efforts here are geared towards understanding the physical instantiation of institutional culture and, more specifically, institutional values as they are reflected through the artifact.

Location choice made by emerging market multinationals (EMMs) constitutes an important yet somewhat neglected topic in business research. The purpose of this paper is to develop a research framework that elucidates the role of EMM‐specific resources and internationalization motivations on the location choice of EMMs.

The literature pertaining to firm‐specific resources and internationalization motivations as determinants of location choice is reviewed. This leads to the development of a research framework that takes into account various combinations of resources and motivations in explaining the location choice of EMMs. The paper offers research propositions by linking resources, motivations, and the appropriate choice of locations.

The paper illustrates that location choices of EMMs are determined by the interplay of various resources (relationship‐based, home experiences‐based, and country created assets‐based) and internationalization motivations (market‐seeking, asset‐seeking, and resource‐seeking).

The paper investigates the simultaneous influence of two important determinants: firm‐specific resources and internationalization motivations on the location choices of EMMs. Prior literature has extolled the importance of these factors in international business but not in the context of the location choices of EMMs. Thus, this paper fills an important void in business scholarship.

Identifies the factors associated with the over utilisation of emergency services or the under utilisation of primary care services. Uses a two year abstraction of medical records containing 2035 visits across 253 children under the age of two. Shows that parents who used less primary care services and too much emergency care provision were often black, single unsupported mother from low income families with low education and little insurance. Cites barriers as location, lack of transport and cost.

Suggests a new understanding of the category of economic value. According to this understanding, economic value is the unity of economic utility and economic costs. Interprets these categories of utility and costs as relative, and imminently implying one another. There exists a specific attitude of man towards the limited goods which are involved in his teleological activity. On the basis of this new understanding of economic value, attempts to give a new explanation of the law of increasing marginal costs, as the opposite form of manifestation of the law of diminishing marginal utility. Suggests an original interpretation of global and local criteria for optimum, and of an economic mechanism for comparison of costs and utility. Proposes many ideas which proceed from the teleological understanding of man’s activity and which are in harmony with the ideas and principles of econometrics.

The purpose of this study is to gather some empirical, baseline information on the perceived needs of end‐users of digital cultural heritage resources. The study was funded by the National Library of New Zealand in order to take end‐user needs into consideration more fully in its development and presentation of digital cultural heritage resources.

The study's research design involved a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach; a user survey comprising self‐administered, semi‐structured questionnaires, seven face‐to‐face semi‐structured interviews and one focus group.

The findings outline the barriers users face in using New Zealand digital cultural heritage resources. They also highlight the user needs and features and characteristics they most desire in digital cultural heritage resources.

Only a handful of studies exist about end‐user needs with respect to the digitisation of cultural heritage materials and very few are research‐based articles. This research is the first of its kind to describe information needs of users of digital cultural heritage resources in New Zealand, and pays particular attention to the needs of historical researchers.