Adoption Of Certain Practices Research Articles

Socio-cultural beliefs and practices during pregnancy, child birth, and postnatal period: A qualitative study in Southern Ghana

Despite investments in interventions to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality, progress has been slow, especially in developing countries. Socio-cultural beliefs in communities often lead to the adoption of certain practices during pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal period. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify these beliefs and practices and how they affect maternal and child health care services. Purposive sampling was used to select focus group discussion participants (13) among community members, pregnant women whose gestation was at least 6 months, and women with babies less than 6 months of age. In addition, 22 in-depth interviews were conducted among health workers at district, subdistrict, and community levels. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. With the aid of NVivo 11, the data was analysed thematically. The study’s findings showed that socio-cultural beliefs and practices are widespread covering antenatal through childbirth to the postnatal period. Both harmful and harmless practices were identified. Protecting pregnancy from evil forces resulted in the practice of confinement and consequently late initiation of antenatal care. The use of herbal preparations to augment labour was reported and this practice favoured home delivery and use of Traditional Birth Attendant. The study concludes that socio-cultural beliefs are common and transcend the entire peripartum period. Some of these social practices tend to affect utilisation of some essential maternal and child health practices. However, accepting harmless social practices during labour will improve trust and cater for community’s worldview about childbirth and foster skilled delivery.

Gynecological and obstetrical violence, biomedical technologies andabortion care in a public maternity ward in North-East Brazil

Brazilian legislation restricts the practice of abortion. In Brazil, abortion is a major public health problem due to the morbidity, mortality and hospitalization caused by the practice of unsafe abortions. Complications related to induced abortion and miscarriages are treated in “maternity wards”, where obstetric violence can be perpetrated. To analyse, based on ethnographic data, the practices of biomedical technologies and their relation to practices of gynecological and obstetrical violence. Three main practices are systematized for didactic purposes: treatment of complications from abortion in maternity wards; ultrasound; and curettage. Despite the existence of national standards – due to the advances of the brazilian health and feminist movement – and international standards, there is still institutional resistance to the adoption of practices that prioritize women’s well-being. The way in which the ward is organized and materialized and the adoption of certain practices and technologies (and the omission of others) contribute to reproducing obstetric violence. The daily practices in the hospital do not escape the moralization of abortion, and the strong economic, racial and gender inequalities that go beyond the institutional space of the hospital. The analysis allows us to understand that the practice of biomedical technologies shapes and is shaped in a symbolic and situated way and can serve as an instrument for practices of embodied violence. Finally, it is necessary to review the model of post-abortion care.

Activism Among Bureaucrats: Creative Social Housing Work in a Conservative Institutional Setting

How can activist bureaucrats unexpectedly influence policy outcomes? What strategies do these actors adopt in order to defend and implement public policies in institutional settings unfavorable to their ideas? How do the individual trajectories of activist bureaucrats influence their strategies and repertoires of action? Drawing from the literature on institutional activism, this article shows how bureaucrats worked as activists to create and institutionalize participatory arenas in slum upgrading projects, within an institutional setting adverse to popular participation. Our research was carried out through interviews with bureaucrats and local community actors, as well as participant observation. The main results of our study were: the identification of four distinct profiles of bureaucrats and four main activist strategies used by them, as well as the identification of bureaucrats’ profiles more associated with the adoption of certain practices - so that specific profiles of bureaucrats have influenced the policy-making process in different ways, according to their relational skills, previous trajectories, and worldviews. These findings suggest that the individual characteristics of bureaucrats are important to understanding the variations in bureaucrats’ activist strategies within the state, as well as how bureaucrats can influence policymaking in heterogeneous ways.

Editorial How the Covid-19 pandemic has affected, and will affect, operations and supply chain management research and practice

Purpose – This article considers how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted research and practice in operations and supply chain management (OSCM). It also introduces the papers selected for the EurOMA 2020 conference special issue. Design/methodology/approach – We review salient events occurred over the last year to identify emergent trends and novel research questions in OSCM. Findings – We find that the pandemic has had three main types of implications, as it has (1) reinforced the importance of existing topics such as collaboration in supply chains; (2) accelerated the adoption of certain practices in various areas including new product development and digital transformation; (3) questioned some approaches, such as the implementation of lean in times of volatility and uncertainty, and giving the opportunity to investigate further ones in relation to complex supply chains, strategy implementation and people management. Originality/value – The article identifies significant changes in practice and puts forward a research agenda for OSCM research. Paper type - Research paper.

Institutional Drivers for Managers: A study on Training Adoption and its Impact on Social Enterprises Legitimacy and Performance in Pakistan

BACKGROUND: Despite wide global attention to training programs in business organizations, research on training programs and their outcomes at the social enterprises in general is very limited. This study aims to explicate the drivers and effects of manager’s training.OBJECTIVE: Based on institutional theory, this research explores the reasons why social enterprises train their managers as well as how the legitimacy and performance improves in response to training.METHODS: Our theoretically derived model is tested using survey data obtained from ninety-nine senior managers of social enterprises in Pakistan. Data was analyzed through Partial Least Square structural equation modeling method (PLS-SEM).RESULTS: The results of analysis support the idea that training of managers is synergistically and interactively driven by institutional forces e.g. normative, mimetic and coercive pressures. These institutional pressures spur social enterprises and induce them to adopt training programs to enhance their external and internal legitimacy and improve their performance.CONCLUSIONS: This research emphasizes the importance of institutional pressures in adopting training programs in social enterprises. In sum, the present study provides important insights for senior managers in social enterprises who seek to foster external and internal legitimacy and improve performance. This study makes important contribution to the literature by developing an empirical link between institutional pressures and social enterprises performance. This research reiterates finding in previous studies to show the significance of the institutional forces in adoption of certain practices e.g. training of managers, to monitor the outcomes of training and providing further explanation regarding effects of training on legitimacy and performance.

A Proposal for Global-Change Education based on an educational board game: A Planet on the Abyss

“Global change” is a complex term still widely unknown, and often confused with climate change. The Spanish Secondary School Curriculum indicates that the idea of global change is absent. Globalchange components are distributed among different subjects and courses. This scattering of the subject matter hinders students from gaining a cohesive understanding of global change and its implications. The main objective of this proposal is to develop an educational approach aimed at expanding children's knowledge regarding global change, and fomenting awareness of the interrelations between human actions and this environmental crisis. In addition, we seek to aid students in understanding that the adoption of certain practices could help them achieve a sustainable lifestyle. To this end, we have designed and manufactured a prototype board game called “A Planet on the Abyss”, with a cooperative play. The pilot study realized have showed that the students recognize that Global Change incorporates more components than climate change and the students related Global Change with an anthropocentric origin and they became to use new terms, such as habitats, ecosystems, deforestation, etc.

The Influence of External and Internal Stakeholder Pressures on the Implementation of Upstream Environmental Supply Chain Practices

This study examines the independent and combined influences of internal and external antecedents to upstream environmental practices. Proactive environmental strategy is considered as an internal antecedent and competitive pressure as an external antecedent. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the hypothesized relationships using data from a sample of 149 manufacturing companies located within the U.K. food industry. The results suggest that proactive strategy and competitive pressure exert both independent and combined influences on environmental supply chain practices. Proactive strategy appears to be a stronger driver of these practices, suggesting that internal stakeholders such as directors, managers, and employees may be more influential in the adoption of certain practices than external stakeholder pressures. This article builds upon the recent wave of research highlighting the potential for internal and external factors to generate a combined influence on the adoption of environmental practices within companies and their supply chains.

Diffusion of Policies, Practices and Social Technologies in Brazil

Diffusion of Policies, Practices and Social Technologies in Brazil * (Faria, Carlos Aurelio Pimenta de; Coelho, Denilson Bandeira, and Jard da Silva, Sidney (eds). Difusao de Politicas Publicas. Sao Bernardo do Campo: Publisher UFABC, 2016)It is welcoming introduction to the Brazilian academic community the arrival of the book 'Public Policy Diffusion', edited by Professors Faria, Coelho and Jard da Silva. As is stated in the opening pages of the book, the use of diffusion models is very incipient in Brazil in comparison to the level of knowledge accumulation in the international literature, especially in the USA. In this sense, is an admirable effort to gather together ten chapters not only discussing the dissemination and adoption of public policies but also presenting diverse collection in terms of perspectives and models possible to be used as an analytical reference.But, in my view, this book could also be read as attempted explanations for the adoption of policies, practices and ideas in the Brazilian case. With the exception of the first chapter (by COELHO), which discusses analytical tools of this literature, nine out of the ten chapters include Brazil in their analysis, either as single case or in comparison to other Latin American countries and worldwide. Although is not the purpose of the editors, I could not avoid making connections among chapters thinking about possible general findings for the Brazilian case, which I will discuss further on.For the unfamiliar reader, the phenomenon of policy diffusion could be summarized in the following puzzle: why and how some policies get to be considered as 'good practices' and adopted by other governments?Let us first say that diffusion or transference of policies is not something neww in policy systems. What is new is an academic interest to study the phenomenon and to extract regular patterns for explanation. One thing, then, is to show policies, practices or social technologies being spread or disseminated among governments, but something quite different is to attempt to explain why and how this happens in the attempt of constructing theories of policy diffusion, transfer or, more generally, learning.Some models of explanations, concepts and types of mechanisms that could produce diffusion are presented and discussed. Although there is no unity in the use and applications of the analytical tools and concepts among authors, is possible to extract some basic features of policy diffusion models.We learn that countries or subnational governments may 01. innovate, that is, adopt new policy, program or practice; 02. emulate (adapting the original policy to local contexts and objectives) or 03. copy the original policy (associated with coercion). Innovation does not equate to invention as is understood as a program that is new to the government adopting it (BERRY and BERRY, 2007). These are pioneering experiences that may lead to the spreading or adoption by other governments. Emulation does not equate to copying. It means that local conditions and actors will play role by adapting the original policy to their own needs and beliefs. The case of copying the original policy without adaptation, argue some of the authors, would be more common in countries that do not have enough bureaucratic/state capacity and is normally associated with the adoption of certain practices as condition for loans from international agencies. Hence the label 'coercion' for this type of mechanism in which governments do not have, really, much of choice.Countries may also be analyzed as 'importers' or 'exporters' of policy innovation as some of the authors argue.Based on the readings of the Brazilian case presented throughout the book, one learns that Brazil (also valid for other Latin American countries) has 'imported' and/or diffused domestically the ideas of economic liberalization, regulatory agencies after privatization (chapter by JORDANA), new models of reforming Public Pension (by JARDIM and JARD DA SILVA) and also models of administrative/management reforms (by ABRUCIO, SANO and SEGATTO; and also by PALOTTI, PEREIRA and CAMOES). …