Diverse Practitioners Research Articles

Bridging the diverse leader gap in public relations through accreditation: examining US diverse practitioners’ motivations, challenges and leader development

PurposeThis study aims to examine the impact of the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) certification on the leader development of US diverse practitioners.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved six online focus groups with 64 APRs who identified as diverse practitioners and APR chairs who supported and mentored diverse candidates.FindingsDiverse practitioners identified specific knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) that they developed through the APR study process, which are consistent with those desired in leaders such as technical, relationship management and conceptual skills. Not only did diverse practitioners become more strategic thinkers and skilled in the public relations planning process, but they also were promoted or hired into management positions. Effective mentors were key to their success. These findings confirm that the APR can be a form of leader development for diverse public relations practitioners that opens doors to management positions. However, employers need to provide instrumental support for diverse practitioners to be successful, such as covering costs associated with the exam, providing study time and supporting their membership in professional associations.Originality/valueBased on the theoretical framework of self-efficacy and a lifelong learning mindset, the study reveals the value of the APR in preparing diverse practitioners for leadership roles, which can be a resource to address the gap in diverse leaders in the public relations industry.

The role of oculoplastic surgeons in minimally invasive cosmetic injectables.

In recent years, the field of aesthetic medicine has witnessed a paradigm shift with an increasing demand for minimally invasive cosmetic procedures, including cosmetic injectables. This review aims to delineate the distinctive role played by oculoplastic surgeons in the administration of cosmetic injectables, comparing their expertise to that of nonphysician practitioners. Complications arising from cosmetic injections are discussed, including skin discoloration, inflammation, necrosis, vision loss, retinal pathology, and central nervous system adverse effects. Injector expertise, patient factors, type of filler, location of injection, and management strategies are reviewed. Findings highlight diverse practitioner involvement, common adverse effects like skin necrosis and vision loss, with hyaluronic acid fillers being prominent. Areas at the highest risk for ocular complication include the glabella and nose with potential management involving dissolving fillers and reducing pressure. Emphasis is placed on expert injector selection and patient awareness. The administration of cosmetic injectables requires a profound understanding of facial anatomy, vasculature, and potential complications. In contrast to nonphysician practitioners, oculoplastic and aesthetic surgeons bring a level of anatomical precision and clinical acumen that is essential for navigating the complexities of cosmetic injectables. Emphasis on training and collaboration among practitioners will be essential in advancing the field while prioritizing patient safety and satisfaction.

Beyond the gender binary: a survey of gender marginalization and social boundaries in Australian jazz and improvisation.

Jazz and improvisation have typically been associated with ideals of freedom and liberty; however, in practice these genres are known to be constrained by entrenched patterns of male domination and gender discrimination. Despite a large number of qualitative accounts evidencing persistent sexism and gender exclusion in the field, there exists a lack of empirical data to assess the scale of this phenomenon and substantiate smaller-scale research on gender inequality. In this paper, we employ boundary theory to report on a quantitative investigation of gender marginalization in jazz and improvisation in the Australian context, positioning gender as a symbolic boundary resulting in the social exclusion and marginalization of gender diverse individuals and women. An anonymous survey (n=124) was run over a period of five months, to explore the beliefs, attitudes, and experiences concerning gender, of people participating in Australian jazz and improvisation. A means comparison found that gender was a statistically significant indicator (p ≤0.05) on almost all measures, with gender diverse respondents significantly more likely to report the effects of marginalization than their (cisgender) counterparts. Additionally, the results indicated contrasting forms of musical engagement and marginalization across gender groups, with women perceiving exclusion to a lesser extent than gender diverse practitioners, and differing in their opinions regarding work opportunities. Lastly, a widespread but historically unspoken awareness of sexual harassment in the Australian jazz and improvisation industry was reported by all genders. This paper concludes with three recommendations for future research, policy and practice: 1. Specific targeted strategies are needed to address the manifold and complex forms of marginalization experienced by gender diverse people; 2. Heightened institutional visibility for marginalized groups is needed to change gendered narratives and highlight awareness of inequities; and 3. Enhanced safety measures are critically needed to address sexual harassment throughout the industry.

An Anti-Racist Transnational Feminist Note on Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

This article critically examines Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) from an anti-racist transnational feminist perspective. It underscores the potential pitfalls of COIL’s multiculturalist assumptions. While the authors acknowledge the benefits of COIL, such as enhanced access to education and opportunities for intercultural learning, they express concerns about power imbalances, language obstacles, and the overemphasis on Western viewpoints. The authors draw from their experiences as scholars and graduate students to illustrate how seemingly harmless activities, like icebreakers, can inadvertently reinforce inequalities rooted in intersectionality. They stress the importance of COIL pedagogy being sensitive to students’ diverse backgrounds, language skills, and cultural contexts. Furthermore, they challenge the possibility of COIL reinforcing existing power hierarchies, especially those centered around language proficiency and Western supremacy. Despite recognizing COIL’s potential in bridging international communities and empowering underrepresented groups, the authors advocate for a critical approach that foregrounds equity and inclusivity. They urge for continued dialogue and cooperation among educators, diversity practitioners, and activists to create more culturally sensitive and sustainable COIL curriculum designs. The authors ultimately argue for the practice of cultural humility and the creation of meaningful intercultural learning experiences that question prevailing power structures and advocate for social justice.

Empowering indigenous enterprise through supplier diversity – The case for Puna Awarau in Aotearoa (New Zealand)

PurposeThis paper aims to demonstrate the role of supplier diversity in empowering indigenous entrepreneurship and the potential socio-economic benefits derived from Puna Awarau (supplier diversity) in Aotearoa (New Zealand).Design/methodology/approachSupplier diversity is an emerging field in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The insights and learnings shared in this article are based on the authors' own professional experiences and insights as supplier diversity practitioners that have shaped, grown and worked in this field.FindingsSupplier diversity is a global practice that is quickly gaining traction in Aotearoa. This is a highly practical tool to create equity for Maori, delivering benefits directly to whanau (families) and bolstering the conditions for entrepreneurship to flourish. Maori fare worst in multiple measures of social and economic well-being in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Super charging the country's fledgling supplier diversity movement is one of the tools in growing Maori entrepreneurship and socio-economic equity at the same time.Social implicationsThere is significant economic and social disparity between Maori and non-Maori. The median net worth of Maori is just a fraction of that of New Zealand (NZ) Europeans. What is clear is that the systems aren't serving Maori people and a “business as usual” approach simply doesn't work. Supplier diversity is a highly practical tool that can create equity for Maori, delivering benefits directly to whanau (families) and bolstering the conditions for entrepreneurship to flourish.Originality/valueThis paper is the one the first academic contributions to the supplier diversity practice in Aotearoa. This article demonstrates the case for supplier diversity, the supplier diversity journey to date and early learnings and insights from practitioners working at the coal face of this emerging practice in Aotearoa.

GLOBAL TRENDS OF MODERN INCLUSIVE ECONOMY

The purpose of the article is to highlight and work out the global trends of the modern inclusive economy. Methodologically outline the main concepts on which modern inclusive economies are based, taking into account the war in Ukraine, climate challenges, displacement of migration centers. The key point is the development of a model of a successful modern and exclusive economy. Research on building inclusive workplaces, inclusion and entrepreneurship, corporate responses to the refugee and forced migration crisis, delivery of essential services to disadvantaged groups, enriched by diverse practitioners’ perspectives. Although the global economy began to rebound in 2021, bringing some improvement in unemployment, recovery remains elusive and fragile. By the end of 2021, global economic recovery had been hampered by new waves of COVID-19 infections, rising inflationary pressures, major supply-chain disruptions, policy uncertainties and persistent labour market challenges. Сompanies need to ensure that they implement the right sustainable technologies in all of their processes and in every area of their operations in providing the inclusive economy, increasing implementation of the idea of circular economy. In deciding which circular economy actions to prioritise and integrate into climate-focused policies and measures, countries and companies are to be able to compare the relative merits, as well as emissions reductions, of individual circular economy measures.

Vive La Résistance? Standard fire testing, regulation, and the performance of safety

ABSTRACT Because fire safety cannot be measured directly, building regulation uses test ratings to determine whether materials and products meet societal expectations. Fire resistance constitutes the most enduring means of gauging fire safety, providing ratings for how elements of structure perform in a standard furnace test. Although it has long been known that this test is unrepresentative of real building fires, fire resistance testing remains central to building regulation because it has proved useful. This utility stems not just from the perceived value of the test metric as a proxy for building fire safety, but also from its role as a boundary object that facilitates regulation amongst diverse practitioners. Although fire science has developed greatly since the fire resistance test standard was defined, fire scientists are no longer a relevant social group; closure around the test standard is now widely embedded in regulations and industry practice. Advances in fire science offer the prospect of first principles fire safety engineering that can enable bespoke building solutions that are more optimised than those embedded in the conservative one-size-fits-all regulations based on fire resistance, but adherence to the fire resistance approach means most practitioners lack sufficient knowledge to make safe use of new design methods. Testing orientated to fundamental understanding has been neglected, presenting an obstacle to the innovative solutions required for the built environment in the twenty-first century.

Negotiated Conformism: Gender Norms, Everyday Politics and Pro-government Actors in Turkey

ABSTRACT Despite ideological alignment, right-wing populist constituencies and civic groups may openly resist and renegotiate the anti-gender and anti-feminist stances of populist parties through a process we call negotiated conformism. To analyse this phenomenon, we draw on two qualitative datasets from Turkey: one focusing on ordinary citizens who ideologically support and vote for the populist-conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP); the other on conservative and openly pro-AKP civil society organisations. Negotiated conformism brings three facts to light that contradict current literature on right-wing populism: 1) civil society actors and the constituency may demonstrate agency and independence from their parties with regard to gender equality; 2) populist parties fail to consolidate complete control over the civic space; and 3) multiple pathways exist to forge agency and subjectivity within populist gender orders and hierarchies. These findings highlight that populist constituencies are not homogenous and simply submissive actors, echoing only what the leaders of populist-conservative movements preach. The populist-authoritarian desire to polarise society into two clearly defined camps based on a conservative gender order does not always resonate with supporters. Our conclusion calls for the disaggregation and decentring of the ‘demand side’ of populism to account for its diverse practitioners and networks.

Measuring the immeasurable: A structural equation modeling approach to assessing soil health

Soil health is recognized as an important ecosystem property sensitive to human impact. As a concept, soil health cannot be directly measured, and so assessment and modeling efforts largely rely upon key biological, chemical, and physical indicators. Efforts to develop an overall soil health index are largely lacking due to significant statistical challenges and the necessity for regional calibration. Taken from the field of educational research, structural equation modeling (SEM) is an attractive approach to enhance the reliability and validity of soil health scoring. Therefore, SEM may be utilized to advance research efforts to understand management practices impacts on soil health. Our objectives were to develop a robust scoring function that (i) captures the concept of soil health and latent variables, (ii) adjusts scores by inherent soil properties and legacy of intensive land use to adequately reflect our regional conditions and contemporary land management, and (iii) meets the diverse practitioner needs. Through this process, we refined our minimum dataset of soil health indicators and reconceptualized soil health indicators into functional properties. Our results support the development of a robust single level or a multilevel SEM model–depending on the practitioner's goals–that accounts for repeated sampling or pseudoreplication. While the SEM scoring functions were highly related to the conventional scoring approach, SEM outperformed the conventional methods in terms of its wider distribution of scores–and thus enhanced discriminatory power on the lower and higher range of scores. We also confirmed that the SEM scoring function that includes adjustments for mineralogy and legacy of intensive land use successfully differentiates among contemporary management practices and land use. Therefore, we have confidence that the tool is reliable and appropriate to further examine more nuanced impacts of land use change and management practices within a given land use across time and space covering a diversity of soils. (300 words).

Imagining the Future of Digital Publishing

As a journal founded by graduate students in one of the few visual studies programs in the United States, Refract has always sought to consider its own role within its relatively new and often-contested disciplinary field. This focus on the possibilities and limitations of visual studies methodologies is exemplified by our Voices of Visual Studies section, an ongoing, cross-volume conversation between diverse practitioners. However, we have had fewer discussions about the implications of our open access digital publication method, despite the fact that such a format also represents a relatively novel approach to scholarly production. While Refract’s founding editors debated the merits and drawbacks of digital publication, the majority of our conversations in subsequent years have centered on the goal of increasing accessibility: our digital team has worked to ensure that Refract’s format is compatible with evolving screen reader technology and that we are producing effective alt text, for example.Recent funding from The Humanities Institute (THI) at our home campus, the University of California, Santa Cruz, has given us an opportunity to extend these preliminary efforts and deepen our understanding of the stakes of digital publishing by producing a special supplement titled “Imagining the Future of Digital Publishing.”

Introduction

As a journal founded by graduate students in one of the few visual studies programs in the United States, Refract has always sought to consider its own role within its relatively new and often-contested disciplinary field. This focus on the possibilities and limitations of visual studies methodologies is exemplified by our Voices of Visual Studies section, an ongoing, cross-volume conversation between diverse practitioners. However, we have had fewer discussions about the implications of our open access digital publication method, despite the fact that such a format also represents a relatively novel approach to scholarly production. While Refract’s founding editors debated the merits and drawbacks of digital publication, the majority of our conversations in subsequent years have centered on the goal of increasing accessibility: our digital team has worked to ensure that Refract’s format is compatible with evolving screen reader technology and that we are producing effective alt text, for example.

Exploring the Evidence: Using Technology to Improve Integrated Care Coordination

A transition of care is defined as a change in level of health care services, as patient care needs change from one location to another during acute or chronic illness. The location of services can vary from the hospital, skilled nursing facility, an outpatient setting, a primary care provider's office, or home health. Care coordination gaps can occur due to a lack of information exchange through the electronic health record, a lack of evidence-based standards, and poor communication among providers. Often, clinicians work with a silo mentality, resulting in poor health outcomes and negatively impacting the patient care experience. Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are vulnerable to suboptimal integrated care coordination during transitions of care, as individuals seek treatment from diverse practitioners within multiple settings to meet their medical needs. This article discusses methods to improve integrated care, emphasizing the use of technology-based interventions to facilitate care transitions for patients with CKD.

Knowing the Biosphere: Documentation, Specimens, Archives, and Names Reveal Environmental Change and Emerging Pathogens

One Health programs and trajectories are now the apparent standard for exploring the occurrence and distribution of emerging pathogens and disease. By definition, One Health has been characterized as a broadly inclusive, collaborative, and transdisciplinary approach with connectivity across local to global scales, which integrates the medical and veterinary community to recognize health outcomes emerging at the environmental nexus for people, animals, plants, and their shared landscapes. One Health has been an incomplete model, conceptually and operationally, focused on reactive and response-based foundations, to limit the impact of emerging pathogens and emerging infectious diseases and, as such, lacks a powerful proactive capacity. A proactive, predictive One Health is necessary, emanating in part from geographically/taxonomically broad and temporally deep biological collections of pathogen-host assemblages. The DAMA protocol (Document, Assess, Monitor, Act), the operational extension of the Stockholm paradigm (SP), accomplishes this task by encompassing holistic and strategic biological sampling of reservoir host assemblages and pathogens at environmental interfaces and more extensively through resurveys, with development of informatics resources digitally linked to physical specimens held in publicly accessible museum biorepositories. Archives of specimens are the foundations for accumulating interrelated archives of information (the baselines against which change can be identified and tracked), with collections serving as fundamental resources for biodiversity informatics under the conceptual evolutionary and ecological umbrella of the SP. A cultural and conceptual transformation is essential among the diverse practitioners in the One Health community, one that recognizes the necessity of placing pathogens in an evolutionary, ecological, and environmental context by integrating specimens and associated informatics into an infrastructure and networks for actionable information. As a community, it is essential to abandon response-based business as usual while looking forward toward proactive transboundary approaches that maximize our conceptual and taxonomic view of diversity across interconnected planetary scales that influence the complexity of pathogen-host interfaces. Evolution, where the past always influences the present and the future, defines our trajectory, as the need for sustained archives that describe the biosphere becomes more acute with each passing day.

Analyzing social wrongs

Analyzing social wrongs

Fighting shadows? The concept and emergence of ableism in society and at the worplace

Ableism is both an ideology and a belief system that privileges ableness and normality considering disability as a lower form of human existence and rendering people with disabilities invisible. Based on a literature summary, the current paper intends to describe the concept and roots of ableism and to show how it is manifested in society and the labour market as well as within the individual. It also introduces some research that uses ableism as an analytical tool to address issues of marginalisation and discrimination. The results provide insight into the broad and complex ways in which ableism can influence and constrain the opportunities of people with disabilities and their responses to social challenges. The paper aims not only to raise awareness of ableism as a potential form of oppression for interested academic researchers, university students, and diversity practitioners, but also to encourage them to conduct further research and identify ways of eliminating it.

More than funders: The roles of philanthropic foundations in marine conservation governance

AbstractEnvironmental governance scholars have overlooked philanthropic foundations as influential non‐state actors. This omission, along with the continued growth in funding from private foundations for conservation issues, presents important questions about what foundations do in governance spaces. To address this gap, we examine The David and Lucile Packard Foundation's involvement in Fiji and Palau in the context of the Foundation's “Western Pacific Program”—a series of coastal and marine‐related investments made from 1998 to 2020. We describe and analyze six governance roles that the Packard Foundation contributed to: funding, influencing agendas, capacity‐building, convening and coordinating, facilitating knowledge, and rule‐making and regulation. In documenting the Packard Foundation's governance roles, we provide scholars and practitioners a conceptual framework to more systematically and strategically think about foundations as more than funders. This research helps move the conversation around conservation philanthropy beyond binary conceptions of “good” versus “bad,” and, instead, toward deeper considerations about what foundations currently do within governance systems, how they engage with diverse practitioners, as well as what they can and should do to advance conservation goals.

Creating a Vision for a Healthier Workforce Using a Systems-Based Approach.

The public health system faces unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic, racism, health inequity, and the politicization of public health. At all levels of the system, the workforce is experiencing distress, burnout, safety issues, and attrition. Public health is being challenged to demonstrate and justify its impact and value, while also leveraging opportunities for learning and system strengthening. To explore the current state and identify opportunities to strengthen the public health system, the Region 7 Midwestern Public Health Training Center (MPHTC), with support from Engaging Inquiry, embarked on a distinctive type of systems analysis, called "dynamic systems mapping." This approach brought together diverse sectors of public health partners in the region to develop a rich contextual narrative and system-level understanding to highlight and align existing and emergent strengths, areas for growth, and tangible goals for the immediate- and long-term sustainability of local and regional health. Focus groups and workshops were conducted with diverse practitioners to identify upstream causes and downstream effects of 11 key forces driving system behavior. These focus groups resulted in the development of a visual map that MPHTC is utilizing to identify opportunities for leverage, develop strategies to maximize the potential impact of these leverage points, as well as facilitate continuous learning. Public health utilization of systems mapping is a valuable approach to strengthening local and national system responses to current and future public health needs. Outcomes and lessons learned from the systems mapping process are discussed.

Searching for Novel Sustainability Initiatives in Amazonia

Amazonia is facing growing environmental pressures and deep social injustices that prompt questions about how sustainable development may emerge. This study sought novel sustainability initiatives in the Brazilian Amazon based on interviews conducted with diverse practitioners in 2021 using a horizon-scanning approach and snowball sampling for selecting interviewees, who then described the initiative most familiar to them. The interviews resulted in 50 described initiatives and 101 similar initiatives that were listed but not described. The results reveal the emergence of a range of sustainability initiatives, which we classify into seven types of new seeds of change ranging from eco-business opportunities, territorial protection by grassroots movements, and novel coalitions promoting sustainability. However, most of these new seeds are still being established and have a limited or uncertain potential for replication, and most offer only incremental rather than transformative development. Therefore, although these initiatives provide weak yet real signals for alternative futures, they also suggest that much more needs to be done to support the needed transformation toward sustainable and equitable development.

Attending to the Ethical Orientation of Health and Care Regulators: The Pursuit of Coherence Between Care Quality, Professionalism and Regulation in the UK

This paper offers an empirically informed ethical analysis of the recent history of health and social care regulation in the UK focused especially on the contributions made by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care. The paper is largely organised around two broad questions: First, in what respects can regulation support, mobilise and model professionalism and professional identity? Second, nested within this, given that regulation can support the professional identities of diverse practitioners can it, at the same time, help enable coordination across, and integration of, health and social care activities? These concerns, we suggest, highlight the value of viewing professional regulation in the context of the broader collaborative zeitgeist in health and care and as shaping the ethical landscape for professionals. We thereby make a case for the value of attending to the ethical orientation of professional regulation.

Imagining the Future Possibilities While Managing the ‘Performative’: Exploring the Nested Paradoxes

Paradoxes form the essence of the diversity practice. However, most research has overlooked their significance and positioned inter-related diversity concepts in isolation or opposition. The diversity paradoxes become particularly salient when we focus on diversity practitioners and their efforts to address divergent demands. This study employs the paradox perspective to understand and explain these tensions and overcome a dualistic understanding of diversity. Interviews with 81 diversity practitioners, conducted over two years- amidst the global pandemic and before and after the racial awakening of summer 2020, shed light on diversity practice within a charged diversity context. The findings indicate three nested paradoxes in diversity work, including paradoxes of intent, structure, and performance. These paradoxes were interwoven and impacted the participants daily. At the most fundamental level, the paradoxes represented the tensions practitioners experienced between agency-structure and self-other. The study describes how participants navigated and resolved various paradoxes and fueled the virtuous circle of resilience. A paradox perspective provides a critical lens to examine diversity management within organizations and rejuvenates the diversity literature.