Handling Of Conflicts Research Articles

WHO Handling of Conflicts of Interest

WHO Handling of Conflicts of Interest

EASD Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations

The European Association of Securities Dealers (EASD) is an international not-for-profit association of securities-related professionals (bankers, brokers, lawyers, accountants, PR and IR consultants, etc.) intent on creating favourable conditions for an efficient and competitive pan-European equity market, in the first place for growth companies. One of EASD's specialised committees is the Corporate Governance Committee. In May 2000, it issued its pan-European Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations as part of a drive to confront the legal, social and cultural differences which confuse investors in Europe's fragmented marketplace and deter investment in companies lacking transparency in this area. EASD's corporate governance guidelines intend to provide a benchmark. They are founded on a comparative study of national and international best practice. Ten core principles are identified which can be found at the base of any successful corporate system. They address six main issues: the protection of rights and the fair treatment of shareholders; the designation and working of responsible and accountable boards; the duties and prerogatives of management; the provision of adequate and verified information; the appropriate handling of conflicts of interest; the existence of a proper market for corporate control. The recommendations that follow from the principles are more generally applicable than current national codes essentially geared to their home environment. They can normally be applied anywhere in Europe, while fully respecting national regulatory and social standards. The recommendations are also more specific and market-oriented that other international guidelines. They have a distinctly practical bent designed to facilitate understanding, application and assessment.

Russia, NATO and the handling of conflicts at Russia's southern periphery: At a crossroads?

The institutional arrangements and mechanisms for preventing and managing conflicts will determine the future of European security and the balance of power in a wider Europe. Russian policy and Russia‐NATO relations are anaylsed within the context of the ongoing changes at Russia's southern periphery. The embryos of three distinct security systems are developing ‐ a Russia‐led, a NATO‐led and one led by the international community. The article suggests that instability in the southern periphery in the future will require security cooperation and a joint approach by Russia and NATO countries.

‘Chinese Walls’

The handling of conflicts of interest has become an increasingly important concern for modern professional advisers, in particular lawyers, accountants, brokers and financial advisors. This concern has become exacerbated because of the convergence of a number of factors, namely the bureaucratisation of many areas of professional advisory work, the emergence of megafirms and large national and multi‐national partnerships dealing with this work, coupled with a customer base dominated by large corporations and governments. Indeed, it is the demand of these customers that partly accounts for the emergence of larger advisory firms. However, the outcome of this process has inevitably created severe conflicts of interest problems for such conglomerate professional practices and large advisory firms, problems that they have attempted to contain through the use of what has become commonly known as Chinese walls.

Social Development of Young Children in Different Cultural Systems

Ninety‐six 5‐year‐old girls and boys and their mothers (n ‐‐ 87) participated in a cross‐cultural study on prosocial behaviour in Germany and the former USSR. Each child was observed interacting with a playmate who appeared to be sad. The mothers’ educational belief systems were examined on the basis of: (i) a semi‐projective instrument (So‐Sit) depicting everyday conflicts between mother and child; (ii) an interview on a recent conflict. The intensity of prosocial behaviour was higher in German girls than in German boys or Russian girls. More Russian boys than girls showed at least some kind of prosocial behaviour. Russian mothers described their handling of conflicts as more harmonious than German mothers, whereas sex differences occurred within each culture. The results are discussed with regard to the impact of different child‐rearing belief systems in individualistic versus collectivist cultures on the social behaviour of children.

Handling of Mutual Conflicts in Distributed Databases using Timestamps

In distributed database systems, it is desirable to allow read and write accesses to occur independently on replicated copies of database files in case of network partitions to increase availability. However, the system should detect mutual conflicts among the copies of the database files when sites from different partitions merge to form one partition. We present a timestampbased algorithm for the detection of both write-write and read-write conflicts for a single file in distributed databases when sites from different partitions merge. Our algorithm allows read and write operations to occur in different network partitions simultaneously. When the sites from two different partitions merge, the algorithm detects and resolves both read-write and write-write conflicts with the help of stored timestamps using some additional information. Once the conflicts have been detected, we propose some reconciliation steps for the resolution of conflicts to bring the file into some consistent state. Our algorithm does not take into account the semantics of the transactions while detecting and resolving conflicts. Our algorithm will be useful in real-time systems where timeliness of operations is more important than response time (delayed commit).

Budget in a cold climate

This paper attempts to trace connections between budget processes taking place in concrete organizations and the cultural context in which the organizations are located. The examples are taken mainly from studies of the Swedish public sector. The research perspective adopted depicts budgeting as a symbolic performance rather than a decision-making process; a means of conversion rather than a means of control; and an expression of values rather than an instrument for action. From this point of view, linking budgeting to a cultural context means looking at which symbols, what language and which values are represented in particular budget processes. Budget processes are seen as a ritual of reason, reflecting the high value which is attached to rationality in Sweden in general and in the public sector in particular. We also claim that budgeting — a language of numbers — is also a language of consensus, which permits the handling of potential conflicts without confrontation. Finally, we analyze the recurrent changes of dominant budget forms as being congruent with the culture of “reformism” which seems to typify the area in which we are interested.

Job strains and job satisfaction of dialysis nurses.

Results are reported from an investigation on job strains in dialysis nurses and needs for psychosocial staff training. 174 dialysis nurses in the Federal Republic of Germany answered the clinical questionnaire, which was distributed in cooperation with the German section of the EDTNA. Although the majority emphasized positive aspects of the job (particularly responsible work, contact to patients, and teamwork), more than one-fourth of the nurses reported marked psychosocial strains. Main sources of stress were doubts about the principle of maximum therapy, the consumerism of some patients, and intrateam tensions. Almost two-thirds confirmed the necessity of psychosocial staff training, favoring training units of 1-2 h once a month. In the staff's opinion psychosocial staff training should mainly include casework and cognitive as well as behavioral training for a better handling of patients and conflicts. Main topics suggested by the nurses for discussion were depression, coping with illness as well as handling of aggressive and pretentious patients. Finally, implications of the findings with respect to the goals and performance of psychosocial staff training are discussed.

Stealing Conflicts in Juvenile Justice: Contrasting France and Canada.

In 1976 Nils Christie gave a lecture at the University of Sheffield and suggested that conflicts in society performed certain positive functions. Conflicts are “property,” he argued, and belong to the people involved. The participants in conflict may wish to see them resolved in ways that satisfy them, but sometimes those conflicts are taken away and become the property of courts, judges, lawyers or social workers. Christie contends that conflicts make an important contribution to society, and that highly industrialized societies have too little rather than too much internal conflict. He feels that we must organize social systems so that conflicts are nurtured and made visible. In particular we must see to it that professionals do not monopolize the handling of conflicts. In our criminal justice systems, the victims of crime have in particular lost their rights to participate in conflict resolution.In this paper we use Christie's concept of “stealing conflicts” as a tool for analysing the consequences of the increased use of lawyers in the juvenile justice system as a result of theYoung Offenders Act. TheActpurports to enhance juveniles' responsibility and accountability for their actions, but this end is undermined to the extent that lawyers steal the conflicts. Furthermore, we argue that this trend toward legalism, which characterizes North America today, is different from patterns in some European countries such as France.

Insertion and Compaction Algorithms in Sequentially Allocated Storage

Among the more difficult combinatorial problems in computer science are those occurring in dynamic storage allocation. We investigate the handling of memory conflicts occurring when a request for a block of storage is received, but no one region of available space is large enough due to fragmentation of storage. For arbitrary block sizes, we show that it is NP-hard to find a minimal cost reallocation of memory that will allow insertion of a new block. Therefore, we focus on the “bay restaurant” model studied by Robson, in which requests are for only one or two units of memory. We give a polynomial time algorithm for minimal cost insertions of batches of blocks and for minimal cost memory compaction. We show that the cost of inserting p blocks one at a time, i.e. on-line, is no worse than \[ \left\lfloor 2\left( \frac{3}{2} \right)^{\lceil \log p \rceil } - 1 \right\rfloor \] times the minimal cost of inserting the blocks in one batch, i.e. off-line. For p a power of two, this bound is tight.

Conflict resolution within the supervisory relationship.

The present article examines conflicts in the supervisory relationship from the supervisee's perspective. One hundred and fifty-eight graduate students in clinical psychology were surveyed concerning the occurrence, handling, and outcome of conflicts in their supervisory experiences. Thirty-eight percent of the students with supervised experience reported a major conflict with a supervisor, which made it difficult to learn from supervision. Trainees described three areas of conflict—theoretical orientation or therapeutic approach, style of supervision, or personality issues. The degree to which conflicts were discussed and successfully resolved seemed to depend partly on the type of conflict; it was easier to resolve conflicts that centered on style of supervision than on personality issues. When conflicts were not resolved, students often sought support from others, altered their behavior to conceal difficulties, or appeared to comply with the supervisor. The implications of these findings for the process in supervision are discussed. One of the most important elements in the training of a psychotherapist is the direct supervision of his or her clinical work. The knowledge acquired through books and classes provides the basis for therapeutic work, but the critical element is the more intensive, personal training provided by experienced supervisors. Supervision is more than simply a didactic experience in which the supervisor teaches the trainee. It is a complex interpersonal interaction subject to the vicissitudes of all human relationships. The importance of these interpersonal or relationship aspects of supervision to the quality of the experience has repeatedly been emphasized throughout the supervision literature. For example, Cohen and DeBetz (1977) stated that success in supervision depends on the quality of the relationship between supervisor and trainee, and Fleming and Benedek (1966) stressed the importance of establishing a learning alliance with the trainee, which they view as analogous to the therapeutic alliance. Indeed, one study found that trainees' perceptions of the quality of supervision were more strongly related to the interpersonal aspects of the relationship than to the content emphasized by the supervisor (Nash, 1975). A positive supervisory relationship characterized by good rapport, empathy, and respect appears to facilitate the trainee's receptivity to from the supervisor. Sources of tension in the, supervisory relationship have been discussed by numerous authors. For the most part, these discussions have highlighted problems that relate to personality dynamics and role definition, for example, personal issues or anxieties of the therapist in training (Fleming & Benedek, 1966; Langs, 1980; Mueller & Kell, 1972), need for dominance on the part of the supervisor (Robiner, 1982), and the dual role of supervisor as teacher and evaluator (Cohen & DeBetz, 1977; Hassenfeld & Sarris, 1978;,Kadushin, 1968; Robiner, 1982; Wolberg, 1977). Wolberg (1977) has also noted th^t conflicts may center around differences in orientation; that is, supervisor and supervisee may differ in theoretical orientation used in case conceptualization and treatment planning, in clinical methods and techniques, in use of terminology, and in the setting of psychotherapeutic goals. Numerous authors have stressed the importance of discussing conflicts in the su

Worker conflicts in the health field: an overview.

The author, guest editor of this section of the Journal, in this overview of worker conflicts in the health field, briefly discusses the six papers that follow, and attempts to place into perspective the handling of conflicts with highly professionalized workers such as physicians, as contrasted with the handling of conflicts with health workers who are not professionalized, the semiskilled and unskilled.

A Day in the Life of Three Clinical Professors

Clinical professors come in an assortment of makes, models, and tyles. A br ef description of Project Turn-About is necessary. Project Turn-About is a field-centered approach to training teachers. The project is located in Garfield Elementary School, Everett, Washington, which is an inner-city low-income area. The school has an enrollment of 538 children, kindergarten through grade five. It is divided into four instructional areas, with each area containing from 90 to 165 children. Five clinical professors were hired. Two were paid by the local school district. Three were staff members of Western Washington State College. Four of the cinical professors are each assigned to an instructional area; the fifth is responsible for special education and program evaluation. The school is also staffed by three administrators, two reading specialists, one school counselor, one li brarian, one Physical Education specialist, and fourteen certified teachers. Psychologist and speech therapist services are available through the school district. Six ad ditional certified teachers are graduate students of West ern Washington State College. Five of these serve as half-time teachers and spend one-half of their time pur suing master's programs. Twenty-five student teachers are present, working in a traditional student teacher role. The school also hosts thirty-three laboratory students. These students are completing two quarters of their junior year in the Education Department of Western Washington State College. Their role is to spend ap proximately one-half of their time in contact with chil dren as para-professionals and one-half of their time in completing academic work. Within this elementary school framework, the clinical professors pursue a num ber of roles, which are herein outlined: A) The clinical professor has a classroom of about 26 children. He keeps records, conducts parent confer ences, and is expected to be present in the classroom at least one-half of the school day. B) The clinical professor is the team leader for an in structional area. In this role, he has the responsibil ity of building an effective team for instruction of pupils and training of student teachers and laboratory students. The responsibility includes supervision, scheduling, handling of inter-staff conflicts, leader ship in area meetings, and communication of adminis trative desires and decisions to the area staff.

Toward an international program of research on the handling of conflicts: introduction

ganized during 1957-58 through a joint arrangement between the Institute for Social Research and the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. This seminar grew out of an established tradition of co-operation between United States and Norwegian social scientists. For a decade now, United States social psychologists and sociologists have taken an active part in the planning and conducting of empirical and experimental research in Oslo.