Agency Boards Research Articles

Mental Health First Aid training and assessment in Australian medical, nursing and pharmacy curricula: a national perspective using content analysis

BackgroundSuicide is among the leading causes of death among people aged 15 to 29 worldwide. Healthcare professionals interact with people at risk of suicide regularly, yet mental health and crisis first aid training is lacking in curricula. Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training teaches crucial communication and crisis first aid skills and is increasingly recognised as integral to healthcare education. This study aimed to explore the extent of, as well as barriers and enablers to MHFA training delivery and assessment in Australian medical, nursing and pharmacy curricula.MethodsAll accredited Australian medical, nursing and pharmacy program providers were identified through Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and National Boards websites and invited to participate in a semi-structured interview. A purpose-designed interview guide explored if and how MHFA training was delivered and assessed in curricula, as well as perceptions of and barriers and enablers to MHFA training. Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim, allowing for deductive content analysis to compare MHFA training provision across programs.ResultsOf 75 invited program providers, 36 (48%; 13 medical, 13 nursing and 10 pharmacy) participated, of which 15 representatives (42%; six medical, two nursing and six pharmacy) reported providing MHFA training to students. Differences in mandating training, year level of students completing training, type of training delivered and source of MHFA instructors were identified. Barriers to MHFA implementation included perceived adequacy of existing curricula, lack of funding and time, while facilitators included perceived benefit and availability of funding.ConclusionMHFA training is provided to more than one third of medical, nursing and pharmacy students in Australia. Increased funding may facilitate the integration of MHFA as a minimum standard of mental health training for future healthcare professionals. Further research exploring the effectiveness of MHFA in improving behaviours and its impact on patient outcomes is warranted.Trial registrationThis study was approved by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee [Project number: 2020/087].

Political appointees vs. elected officials: Examining how the selection mechanism for state governing agency board members influences responsiveness to stakeholders in higher education policy-making

Through an exploratory comparative case study of two U.S. states (Georgia and Nevada), this study investigates how the selection mechanism to state higher education governing agency boards influences the responsiveness of board members to stakeholders and their role in the policy-making process. Framed around the recent national policy agenda to improve postsecondary degree attainment and college completion, findings suggest that state agency board members in both states prioritized the opinions, insights, and goals of the state governor and governing agency staff, regardless of selection mechanism. However, for more localized issues and on-the-ground decision-making, stakeholders formally involved in the day-to-day operation of higher education, such as administrators, faculty, and students, serve a larger role, though this influence can be mediated by the selection mechanism of board members.

Undoing the Double-Cross: Promoting Public Accountability in American Science Agencies

The leadership and advisory boards of American science agencies are largely organized according to the ideas set forth by an influential scientist, Dr. Vannevar Bush, after World War II. Although American science agencies are publicly funded, only experts control what research is funded and how each agency operates. Wielding his unique position of power after the war, Dr. Vannevar Bush suppressed the ideas of his adversary, Senator Harley Kilgore, resulting in the absence of public accountability and citizen input that defines American science agencies today. We argue that citizens must have a seat at the table in the leadership of science agencies to promote trust in science, reduce inequity, increase efficiency, embrace democratic principles, and address the needs of the American people. By providing a mechanism for non-expert citizens to influence the direction of American science agencies, Congress can now finally rectify the double-cross of Senator Harley Kilgore by Dr. Vannevar Bush.

Understanding Transit Agency Perceptions about Transportation Network Companies, Shared Mobility, and Autonomous Transit: Lessons from the United States

Emergent technologies like autonomous/connected vehicles and shared mobility platforms are anticipated to significantly affect various aspects of the transportation network such as safety, mobility, accessibility, environmental effects, and economics. Transit agencies play a critical role in this network by providing mobility to populations unable to drive or afford personal vehicles, and in some localities carry passengers more efficiently than other modes. As transit agencies plan for the future, uncertainty remains with how to best leverage new technologies. A survey completed by 50 transit agencies across the United States revealed similar yet different perceptions and preparations regarding transportation network companies (TNCs) and autonomous transit (AT) systems. Transit agencies believe TNC market share will grow, either minimally or rapidly (72%), within the next 5 years and have either a negative (43%) or positive (35%) impact on their transit system. Only 30% of agency boards instructed the agency to work with TNCs, despite no perceived transit union support. For AT systems, 22% of agencies are studying them, 64% believe the impacts of AT over the next 10–20 years will be positive, but fewer agencies are influenced to consider new technologies because of AT systems (38%) compared with TNCs (72%). Surprisingly, transit administration is mostly unsure about driver and transit unions’ perceptions of these technologies. In addition, a significant number of transit agencies do not believe they should play a role in ensuring TNCs are safe and equitable and that TNCs should not have to adhere to the same regulations (50%, 28% respectively).

Leadership Attributes Among Women Bankers

Women make up a disproportionately small percentage of executive boards at banks and financial oversight organizations. Less than 20% of board positions in banks and financial oversight organizations are held by women across the world. In contrast, there is a sizable pool of qualified female graduates. In the United States and the United Kingdom, women accounted for half of all business and social science graduates in 2010-2011, but just 30% of all economics graduates. A "glass ceiling" in finance is becoming more evident, yet it may not have much of an effect on financial outcomes like stability. Existing research is patchy, with studies focused on either narrow characteristics of risk-taking or narrow geographical regions. This paper compiles a large dataset on the banking industry, including its features and performance, and also on the proportion of women on the boards of trustees from various sources, covering 72 nations over 13 years, in order to investigate the correlation between gender and financial security. The study also introduces a new dataset on the percentage of women serving on banking supervisory agency boards in 113 countries to investigate whether or not the presence of women on such boards correlates with certain banking outcomes like stability. Our research adds to the scholarly conversation in two ways. In the first place, we provide extensive data that enables us to give fresh stylized statistics on the proportion of women serving on bank boards and in managerial positions across different banking sectors and geographies. Women make up fewer than 2% of CEOs in the banking industry, as shown by the sample, which also confirms the low representation of women on boards. When comparing savings banks to investment banks, holding companies for banks, and insurance companies, the former has a larger percentage of women working there. Our data challenges conventional wisdom by revealing that women make up a disproportionately large proportion of bank board members and banking supervisory agency board members in several low- and middle-income nations. Second, the article discovers fresh data indicating that the presence of women on boards of banks may have an impact on bank stability, through larger capital buffers, while other important characteristics are held constant. There seems to be a correlation between the number of women on banking oversight boards and the health of financial institutions.

Women in Finance: A Case for Closing Gaps

Women are underrepresented at all levels of the global financial system, from depositors and borrowers to bank board members and regulators. A new study at the IMF finds that greater inclusion of women as users, providers, and regulators of financial services would have benefits beyond addressing gender inequality. Narrowing the gender gap would foster greater stability in the banking system and enhance economic growth. It could also contribute to more effective monetary and fiscal policy. New evidence suggests that greater access for women to and use of accounts for financial transactions, savings, and insurance can have both economic and societal benefits. For example, women merchants who opened a basic bank account tend to invest more in their businesses, while female-headed households often spend more on education after opening a savings account. More inclusive financial systems in turn can magnify the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies by broadening financial markets and the tax base. The paper also studies the large gaps between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and in banking-supervision agencies worldwide. It finds that, shockingly, women accounted for less than 2 percent of financial institutions’ chief executive officers and less than 20 percent of executive board members. The analysis suggests that, controlling for relevant bank- and country-specific factors, the presence of women as well as a higher share of women on bank boards appears associated with greater financial resilience. This study also finds that a higher share of women on boards of banking-supervision agencies is associated with greater bank stability. This evidence strengthens the case for closing the gender gaps in leadership positions in finance.

Banking on Women Leaders: A Case for More?

Using a new dataset, we measure the large gap between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and bank supervision agencies worldwide. Women occupied less than 2 percent of bank CEOs positions, and less than 20 percent of the board seats in more than 80 percent of the observations across banks over time. Contrary to common perceptions, many low- and middle-income countries have a higher share of women in bank boards and banking supervision agency boards compared to advanced economies. Econometric analysis suggests that, controlling for relevant bank and country-specific factors, the presence of women as well as a higher share of women on bank boards is associated with greater bank stability, as represented by higher z-scores and lower nonperforming loan ratios. We also examine the share of women on boards of banking supervision agencies by compiling a new dataset. We find that it is associated with greater bank stability. Further research is needed to identify specific mechanisms through which these stability benefits are achieved, and to understand the conditions that have facilitated entry of women into leadership roles in banks and supervision agencies.

Banking on Women Leaders: A Case for More?

Using a new dataset, we measure the large gap between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and bank supervision agencies worldwide. Women occupied less than 2 percent of bank CEOs positions, and less than 20 percent of the board seats in more than 80 percent of the observations across banks over time. Contrary to common perceptions, many low- and middle-income countries have a higher share of women in bank boards and banking supervision agency boards compared to advanced economies. Econometric analysis suggests that, controlling for relevant bank and country-specific factors, the presence of women as well as a higher share of women on bank boards is associated with greater bank stability, as represented by higher z-scores and lower nonperforming loan ratios. We also examine the share of women on boards of banking supervision agencies by compiling a new dataset. We find that it is associated with greater bank stability. Further research is needed to identify specific mechanisms through which these stability benefits are achieved, and to understand the conditions that have facilitated entry of women into leadership roles in banks and supervision agencies.

Nonprofit Organization Governance

Organizational governance has become a popular and important topic in the nonprofit sector literature. This review focuses on the governance of non-membership, paid-staff nonprofit organizations (also called nonprofit agencies), which are characterized by a hierarchical structure, where the board has the ultimate power and the responsibility to ensure that governance functions are carried out. Such agency boards are usually self-perpetuating, unlike the situation in voluntary membership associations, where the members usually elect the board. We contribute to the literature on the governance of nonprofit organizations in three major ways. First, we discuss research themes identified by previous review articles, analyze empirical and conceptual contributions from the recent nonprofit organization governance literature, and identify a number of governance challenges for nonprofit organizations. Second, we present a wide array of theoretical perspectives from different disciplines that may be useful when studying the governance of nonprofit organizations. From a practical viewpoint this is important, as it may assist researchers in the theoretical framing of their papers and help them in the formulation of theory-based hypotheses. Third, we integrate a number of theoretical perspectives by using a paradox perspective. We focus on four important contemporary governance challenges in nonprofit organizations: (1) stakeholder accountability, (2) environmental dependence, (3) volunteer reliability, and (4) board group dynamics. By using a multi-theoretical approach to analyze the ambiguities, paradoxes, and dilemmas associated with these governance challenges, we provide more general theory-based frameworks for the governance of nonprofit organizations than currently available in the literature.

Policy properties and political influence in post-delegation: the case of EU agencies

The literature on EU agencies has examined the issue of political control and independence in EU agency design and in post-delegation. However, studies measuring and providing accounts for the political influence that the Commission, the member states and the European Parliament exert in decision-making across a wide sample of EU agencies are missing in the specialized literature. This article addresses this topic and poses the following questions: How influential is each of the main parent institutional actors on agency boards' decision-making? Do agency powers and policy properties affect political influence? Based on an online survey, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, this article combines a quantitative and a qualitative study identifying differentiated patterns of political influence by supranational and intergovernmental actors. Regulatory functions and saliency decrease the leverage of the Commission and the European Parliament, whereas complexity decreases the influence of the member states. Moreover, highly centralized and far-reaching regulatory activity affects institutional balances in post-delegation.Points for practitionersThe article is of interest to practitioners concerned with the issue of political control and the independence of EU specialized agencies. The article identifies certain conditions under which political influence by the main parent institutional actors on the boards of EU agencies is diminished. More specifically, the Commission and the European Parliament are less influential on the boards of salient and regulatory agencies, whereas the member states have reduced leverage on the boards of agencies undertaking highly complex activities. Agency policy properties affect the political influence of institutional actors unevenly depending on whether it is exercised by supranational or intergovernmental actors.

Informal Rules and Institutional Balances on the Boards of EU Agencies

Recent research has paid increasing attention to the institutional dynamics of EU agencies in post-delegation but has barely explored the conditions under which patterns of informality shifting institutional power balances are likely to emerge on agency boards. Based on documentary analysis and 60 semi-structured interviews covering 22 agencies, this article examines under what conditions boards’ formal configurations in which the Member States hold a majority are informally altered to the advantage of the Commission. The article argues that functional motivations are present in the emergence of informal rules empowering the Commission, but those rationales are conditional to distributional considerations.

Accountable and Under Control? Explaining Governments' Selection of Management Board Representatives

AbstractThe role of national representatives on the management boards (MBs) of European Union agencies (EUAs) is crucial in two respects. From a democratic point of view, national MB representatives' accountability may constitute a possible additional source of legitimacy for these technocratic bodies. From the perspective of European integration, their relationship with national institutions tells us about the status of EUAs and the extent to which their MBs constitute an intergovernmental control tool in the hands of the Member States. Contrary to their formal design, the collected data suggest that MBs have a rather supranational, technocratic character. With regard to their contribution to EUAs' democratic accountability, although the general level of accountability is high, the findings are more diverse. However, rather than reflecting control intentions by the Member States, different levels of accountability can best be explained by functional and institutional rather than strategic factors.

The Silent Revolution: A Political History of the Politics of Patronage and Reform

For centuries, the capacity of British ministers to appoint individuals to positions on the boards of agencies, boards and commissions was viewed as little more than one element of the ‘spoils of war’ in a highly majoritarian polity. This article examines how the politics of patronage has evolved in recent decades and argues that it is possible to identify a silent revolution that has gradually but consistently constrained the reach and discretion enjoyed by ministers in deploying their patronage powers. What is particularly distinctive about British political history since 2007 is the introduction of a far-reaching ladder of legislative scrutiny that ranges from informal pre-appointment hearings, at one end of the ladder, to a statutory veto over the minister's preferred candidate, at the other. However, this ‘outlawing of the spoils’ has evolved in a typically British way with reforms being implemented on an ad hoc and incremental basis, that is, frequently without any advance consultation or planning but rather dependent on non-formal, informal and discretionary elements to counter problems as they arise. The result is a complex and frequently overlapping mixture of regulatory and scrutiny processes that arguably offer little in terms of principled underpinning or constitutional logic.

Water Supply and Sewage Infrastructure in Ontario, 1880–1990s: Legal and Institutional Aspects of Public Health and Environmental History

Jamie Benidickson surveys the evolution of water supply and sewage treatment in Ontario from the late 1880s to the late 1990s. Dividing the period into historical segments, the author focuses on legislative and institutional development, provincial government activity, the growth of municipal infrastructure, international influences, and legal and enforcement considerations that resultedin Ontario’s water supply and sewage treatment arrangements at the end of the1990s.The author describes and discusses key legislative initiatives and significant legal cases that influenced water delivery and sewage treatment in Ontario. In surveying the activity, the paper indicates attitudes and approaches to water and its uses, tracing the developing realization of the importance of maintaining a reliable supply of pure and wholesome water. This realization led to public health measures for water protection and, hence, government involvement, with the local level as the supplier of the water and the province as the responsible agent for supervising its distribution and protecting its quality.Benidickson leads the reader through the development of boards of health, conservation organizations, and water management agencies, including the Pollution Control Board of Ontario and the Ontario Water Resources Commission, as well as federal (Canada Water Act) and international measures (Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement). In examining the instruments that protect our water and enable its distribution, and in outlining the activities – such as environmental court cases – that instigated those instruments, the author presents a context in which to understand the status quo of water supply and wastewater treatment in the Ontario of the early twenty-first century.

Detection and biotechnological potential of the RNAi suppressors

The plant viruses have evolved to encode the factors, called RNAi suppressors to battle out the host RNAi factors and the infection/ symptom development or lack of it is the result of the balancing actions of these two groups of proteins. The suppressor proteins act in different pathways of RNAi activities and thus many different detection methods need to be devised to isolate and characterize these suppressors. We have developed six different assays to identify the viral RNAi-suppressor molecules and more than thirty suppressors were screened from viruses of various sources including the animal viruses. Some of these detection techniques will be presented. These molecules are generally pathogenic but could be tamed for biotechnological gains. First, we shall provide evidences to show that the ‘AC2’ suppressor from the Mungbean yellow mosaic india virus (MYMIV) could be used for molecular farming. Secondly, the catalytic activities ribozymes could be enhanced in presence of MYMIV-AC2. Thirdly, we will show that the VIGS vectors become robust silencing machines in the absence of suppressors. Fourthly and most importantly, the suppressors are attractive targets for antiviral strategies. The artificial microRNAs provided effective resistance against the Tomato leaf curl virus (ToLCV) when the ToLCVAC2 and -AC4 suppressors were targeted for silencing. Thus a host of interesting research activities is going on at various laboratories of the globe including ours, keeping the RNAi suppressors in the center stage. Biography Dr Mukherjee has completed his Ph.D. (Physics) from Calcutta University. He carried out his postdoctoral assignments at Johns Hopkins and Duke Universities in USA. Currently he is a senior research scientist at ICGEB, a premier biotechnological Institute. He has published more than fifty research papers in respected journals and is a fellow (FNA, FASc., FNASc.) of three important science academies of India. He serves as an expert member in the panel boards of many funding agencies.

Beyond journal impact factors?

Editorial CELL COMMUNICATION AND SIGNALING, which is published since August 2008 as the official journal of the Signal Transduction Society http://www.sigtrans.de has recently been included in the impact factor tracking system of Thomson Reuters ISI. For a relatively new enterprise like ours, this appears to be an important step towards establishing ourselves in the realm of serious scientific journals. Nowadays, many scientists will simply not publish in a journal that does not have an impact factor. There are multiple reasons for this. One is that many universities have started to distribute funds according to formulas that are directly linked to the number of publications a researcher produces and the impact factors of the publishing journals. Therefore, getting a paper into a certain journal and publishing two short papers rather than one longer one (with the same data) can have a major impact on the financial viability of a research group or department. Whether this increasing dependency of researchers on journal impact factors has a positive impact on the speed and quality of their research and of the resulting publications, i.e. their public visibility and the actual output of data and whether it is beneficial to science and society in general, is at least somewhat doubtful, as I shall detail further below. It has become a way of life for many researchers to create, for each emerging manuscript, a list of possibly suitable journals, which are ranked strictly according to their impact factors. Submission of the manuscript then starts at the top of the list. Quite often even the authors know that the chances for acceptance of their work in this top-tier journal are minimal, but nevertheless ‘one might get very lucky’, or ‘one might at least get a foot in the door’ (i.e. a chance to resubmit after a very major revision), or ‘one might get good suggestions for further experiments from the reviewers’, or... In reality, however, this strategy almost always leads to multiple rejections in a row, while numerous hours are spent on reviewing, reformatting and rewriting the manuscript, leading to a substantial loss in productive research time for both authors and reviewers. A second reason for the prominent role of journal impact factors is that they are used in an ever-growing number of career-deciding evaluations by review boards of funding agencies, recruitment committees, university governing bodies, external advisory panels, governmental research assessments etc. Especially researchers in the early stages of their career tend to greatly depend on the outcomes of these evaluations. Of course, with an everincreasing number of evaluations taking place, the commission/committee members neither have the time nor, in some cases, the qualifications, to read and digest all relevant publications properly. Instead, they are more and more tempted to simply look at journal impact factors as a quick, if inappropriate, substitute for a proper review. In addition, the inflated dependency on journal impact factors and hence the need for manuscript acceptance in a specific journal can have detrimental consequences for scientists that are purely driven by commercial interests. As one colleague told me not too long ago, it took him nearly three times as long to get the manuscript into its final, formally-correct shape after the scientific review was completed than it took him to generate the data in the first place. At the end he ‘was ready to strangle the editor with his bare hands’ since the editor seemed to have no interest in the actual work and only wanted the formal regulations like word number and figure size limits of the journal to be strictly met. This may have just been an inexperienced editor, but the same can happen if costly print journals are under pressure to maximise their profits, and it is not helping scientists and society at all. When asked why he put up with this, my colleague’s answer was, not surprisingly, ‘I need the journal’s impact factor for my next application’. Along the same lines, figures that are cropped to a degree that makes it impossible to judge data quality, or that are composed of a dozen down-scaled and now stamp-sized pictures that have lost much of their initial high resolution, are not an uncommon phenomenon these days, even in high impact print journals. It may be fun to joke about this in a lab’s journal club, but it does not advance science. Correspondence: stephan.feller@imm.ox.ac.uk Editor in Chief Feller Cell Communication and Signaling 2010, 8:4 http://www.biosignaling.com/content/8/1/4

Rethinking Interest Representation in the European Union

In 2004, the European Economic and Social Committee moved out of the grey cement building it had occupied in the old centre of Brussels, a building far removed from the European Union's other institutions. It moved into a modern glass and steel construction, right next to the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers, and the Commission. Did this change of abode represent anything more than the need for more office space after enlargement towards the East? The answer, judging from Stijn Smismans' recent book, is 'yes'. The Economic and Social Committee, constituted of representatives of national employer federations, trade unions, and such other economic groups as farmers and the professions, gives opinions on proposed European legislation. It is one of the original institutions of the European Union, established in 1958, as was the Council of Ministers, the Commission, the Court of Justice, and the Parliament. Since then, a number of similar committees and agency boards have been created.' They resemble the Economic and Social Committee in that they give representatives of national (or pan-European) interest organizations the opportunity to advise on European policy. These committees and agency boards differ from the Economic and Social Committee in that their mandate is far

Sports betting policy and product fees: Implications for Australian sports organisations

This paper documents the growth of sports betting services and providers in Australia, and critically reviews the policy issues of online gambling, cross-border betting, and betting exchanges that demonstrate the power imbalance that exists between interest groups in developing sports betting policy in Australia. It is argued that the policy framework for sports betting is dominated by three interest groups: the racing industry, the Totalizator Agency Boards, and state governments that have historically acted to protect revenue and taxation streams. As a result, sports organisations have been unable to maximise revenues in the form of product fees for the use of their intellectual property by wagering operators.

A Data Driven Process in Washington State to Improve Systems of Care for Children With Special Health Care Needs: The National Survey of CSHCN

The purpose of this article is to present strategies used in one state to engage public health stakeholders in the use of National Survey of Children With Special Health Care Needs (NS-CSHCN) results to improve systems of care for children with special health care needs (CSHCN). This is not a research report. Seven "CSHCN Road Shows" were conducted with 39 local health departments, five state agencies, five parent leaders, three managed health care plans, and 12 school nurses. These "CSHCN Road Shows" were used to present and validate Washington State findings from the NS-CSHCN, obtain input on additional topics for analysis and elicit ways of incorporating NS-CSHCN results into the state's MCH Five Year Needs Assessment. Overall, a majority of stakeholders reported a high level of interest in using state-level data from the NS-CSHCN for local community efforts. Uses included program planning, presenting data to local boards of health and other community agencies, and utilizing results as talking points with other partners on the needs and unmet needs of the population. The state Title V office used feedback from "CSHCN Road Show" participants to prioritize program-planning activities, initiate policy discussions, and incorporate feedback into the MCH Five Year Needs Assessment. State-level data from the NS-CSHCN are a rich source of information for driving improvements in systems of care, facilitating state and local program planning efforts, writing grants, and completing MCH Five Year Needs Assessment activities.

A Reply to 'Consolidation of the Boards of Contract Appeals: An Old Idea Whose Time Has Come?'

The principal proposition advanced in Professor Frederick Lees' Working Paper regarding Federal agency boards of contract appeals is the establishment of a single civilian board, presumably within the General Services Administration (GSA). The following is a summary rebuttal to the primary arguments advanced by Professor Lees in favor of a board within the GSA created from the merger of eight existing agency boards of contract appeals. Page numbers referenced refer to pages as numbered in Professor Lees' Working Paper.