Hold Senior Research Articles

Qualitative study on the core competencies of nursing personnel in emergency medical rescue teams at comprehensive hospitals in Chongqing, China

ObjectiveAs an integral part of emergency medical rescue teams during public health events, understanding the core competencies that nursing personnel should possess—including theoretical knowledge, practical skills, comprehensive abilities and personal...

Managerial foreign experience and outward foreign direct investment: Evidence from China

We examine whether managerial foreign experience facilitates corporate outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) decision. Using hand-collected manager biography data from Chinese public companies, we find that there is a positive association between managerial foreign experience and OFDI. Mechanism analysis shows that returnee managers can improve corporate willingness of risk-taking, and thus promote the probability of OFDI. Moreover, the facilitation effect is greater when firms have managers with foreign experience obtained in the OFDI destination countries. While both foreign work and study experience promote OFDI, the effect is more significant when returnee managers hold senior positions. Lastly, managerial foreign experience is associated with improved performance of outward investments. This study enriches the emerging literature on cross-country knowledge transfer in international business by providing evidence on the economic consequences of managerial experience.

Sticky steps and the gender gap: how thoughtful practices could help keep caregivers in science.

Many fewer women than men hold senior academic positions, a widely recognized and increasing problem. Our goal is to identify effective and feasible solutions. We begin by providing an in-depth assessment of the drivers of this gender inequity. In our synthesis of existing data, we provide many lines of evidence highlighting caregiving as a primary main factor. This is not a 'new' insight per se, but a point worth repeating that we back up by a strong and synthetic body of recent data. We also believe that our analysis provides a step forward in tackling a complex issue. We then develop a more detailed understanding of the challenges academic caregivers face and discuss whether and why it is important to keep caregivers in science. We find that the attrition due to caregiving should not be seen as a factor but rather as a process with multiple 'sticky steps' that eventually drive caregivers out of science-which, as we argue, is partly also good news. Indeed, it is here that we believe actions could be taken that would have a real impact: for example, one could effectively increase and expand upon current funding practices that focus on caregiver career advancement.

An exploratory empirical study of whistleblowing and whistleblowers

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a profile of whistleblowers and to determine whether whistleblowing legislation would encourage those individuals to bring to light some illegal or unethical behaviour that otherwise would remain in the shadows.Design/methodology/approachHaving identified whistleblowing correlation, a survey was carried out in Cyprus of actual whistleblowers and could-have-been whistleblowers.FindingsMales between 46 and55 years of age, regardless of whether they have dependents or hold senior positions in organizations are significantly more likely to blow the whistle. However, could-have-been whistleblowers did not go ahead because they felt that the authorities would not act on their information.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the sensitive nature of the research topic and the fact that only whistleblowers or intended whistleblowers could participate in the study, the sample size is limited as a result. This, in turn, limits both the number of respondents in each category (actual and intended) as well as constrains the statistical analysis that could be carried out on the data.Practical implicationsIt remains to be seen whether EU Member States shall implement the European Directive 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union Law, in its entirety by the due date, namely December 2021.Originality/valueThis study provides a literature review of whistleblowing and reports an original survey against the backdrop of the European Directive.

A lone ranger: My journey towards becoming a feminist geographer in Nairobi, Kenya

Very few Kenyan universities offer modules on Gender or Feminism in their courses. Women are largely under-represented and very few hold senior positions. Due to the few numbers of female faculty, mentorship for young female scholars is lacking. Feminist writing by Female Kenyan geographers in professional geography journals is limited. Collective action among female geography faculty is also largely absent. This is largely due to the lack of feminist advocacy and policies in the universities. My journey to becoming a feminist geographer has received little or no support from the university. I have taken personal initiatives to link up with local and transnational gender associations in order to get insights on current feminist scholarship issues. My lived feminist experience and observations of the struggles of ordinary women in everyday livelihood negotiation have been my main motivation for continuing to do feminist work. Thus, my feminist work has concentrated on women in marginal economic informality. This paper presents my journey as a feminist geographer. It begins with a discussion on the state of feminist geography in three universities in Kenya namely, University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University and Egerton University. This is followed by a presentation of my journey toward becoming a feminist geographer in the absence of a supportive infrastructure. My journey has been inspired by my lived experience. The paper concludes with a call for a concerted effort for feminist advocacy in Kenyan Geography departments.

Developing medical education capacity in Russia: twenty years of experience

BackgroundThe partnership between Yale University (USA) and Kazan State Medical University (KSMU, Russia) was established in 1996 and transitioned to Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN)/University of Vermont Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine (USA) in 2012 with the goal of modernizing medical education at KSMU primarily through introduction of the American medical education structure, role modeling, and educational capacity building. It was centered on the formation of a select group of Russian junior faculty members familiar with American medical education who would then initiate a gradual change in medical education at KSMU. Here we describe the 20 year partnership, rooted in local capacity building, through which a sustainable, mutually rewarding international collaboration was established. In addition, we evaluate the program’s outcomes and impact on medical education at Kazan State Medical University, and assess its influence on Russian program participants.MethodsSenior residents and faculty were sent to KSMU to conduct teaching sessions with local faculty and trainees. Their responsibilities included familiarizing Russian colleagues with specific topics in clinical medicine, importing knowledge about the basics of teaching, clinical epidemiology and evidence based medicine, and creating, in consistency with the American model, a “Clinical Teaching Team Structure” that integrates patient care with clinical education. Furthermore, 44 of selected KSMU members, including 13 junior faculty (29.5%), 14 clinical PhD students (31.8%), 12 interns/residents (27.3%), and five medical students (11.4%), were trained at Yale/WCHN or one of their major affiliated community hospitals for a period of 1 to 12 months for a total of 844 participant-weeks of training.ResultsThirty (68.2%) individuals who were trained in the U.S. are currently working in Kazan primarily as faculty at KSMU. Among them, three trainees (10%) have become heads of their department, eight (26.7%) hold senior faculty positions, and two (6.7%) have clinical and educational administrative leadership positions. Two major clinical departments have adopted the “Clinical Teaching Team Structure.” As a result of the collaboration, three teaching courses – Evidence-Based Medicine, Tropical Medicine, and HIV/AIDS Medicine – have been designed and incorporated into the curriculum.ConclusionThis partnership has been instrumental in introducing the American medical education model and expanding the medical knowledge of faculty, residents, and students of KSMU on infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, tropical medicine, renal diseases, and global health topics. Capacity building through the Yale/WCHN-KSMU exchange program has greatly contributed to the quality of medical education at Kazan State Medical University.

The Irish parliament and the scrutiny of departmental performance reports

The public service reform agenda across the OECD has seen the roll-out of performance-reporting initiatives, which emphasise the results of public spending and enable parliaments to hold senior officials and ministers to account for performance. But do parliaments actually engage with this information? This paper examines the extent to which the Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann) engaged with departmental performance reports and finds that reports were largely ignored in Dáil Éireann's discussions on the annual budget. The paper concludes with a discussion on barriers to parliamentary engagement with performance information.

Noncommunicable diseases: stepping up the fight.

The prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases is now a top priority in many countries. Sergey Boytsov tells Fiona Fleck how the Russian Federation is collaborating with other Commonwealth of Independent States' countries. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sergey Boytsov is the Russian cardiologist coordinating the response to the biggest health threat facing his country: noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In 2011, he was appointed director of the National Research Center for Preventive Medicine of the Russian Ministry of Health. Boytsov started his career as a naval doctor in the former Soviet Union, after graduating in 1980 from the Kirov Military Medical Academy in St Petersburg, where he went on to hold senior posts in naval and Internal medicine from 1984 to 2002. From 2002 to 2003, he joined the State Medical Center of the Ministry of Health as a senior physician and from 2003 to 2006, he was the executive director of the Pirogov Central Clinic in Moscow followed by five years as deputy director in charge of the scientific research at the Russian Cardiology Research and Production Complex. He has published many scientific papers on NCDs and is editor-in-chief of the Russian journal Preventive Medicine. Q: Health officials gathered last month to launch a project for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases in WHO's European Region that will lead to the opening of a WHO [geographically-dispersed office] in Moscow. What will the project do? A: This project is very important for the European Region. The Russian Federation has provided a grant of US$ 22 million to the WHO Regional Office for Europe over the next five years to build capacity in the European region to address the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases--cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease--that are the main killers in these countries. That means, among other things, providing technical support and training so that countries are able to draw up their own national plans to prevent and control these diseases. Q: How are Russian centres collaborating with other Commonwealth of Independent States' (CIS) countries, which were once part of the Soviet Union, on this challenge? A: The goal of our collaboration is to reduce smoking, to make peoples' diets healthier, to stop alcohol abuse and make people more physically active in our countries by exchanging information and sharing experiences on NCDs, building international networks and through data collection and analysis of cardiovascular and other diseases. Our centre--the National Research Centre for Preventive Medicine--is organizing collaborative international epidemiological projects with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and will soon do so with Armenia and Georgia. We are running international seminars on oncological or cardiovascular screening with Belarus and Kazakhstan. In addition, we are providing technical support to other countries. For example, we are translating WHO documents into the Russian language, such as resolutions and conference declarations, as Russian is spoken not only here in the Russian Federation but in other CIS countries. This collaboration is guided by the Global Action Plan for the prevention and control of NCDs 2013-2020 which is a great document--not just a text book--as it provides practical advice along with a timetable, indicators and goals. In addition, Moscow State Medical University is providing training on the prevention and control of these diseases and the first course was held in February last year for 25 health officials from Central Asian and east European countries. The university also provides continuing medical education for physicians from CIS countries. On the international level, our country has proposed a second global ministerial conference on healthy lifestyles and NCDs, to be held in Moscow in 2016. Q: When did noncommunicable diseases start to become a major health problem in the Russian Federation? …

Australian and New Zealand Nurses’ Perceptions of Procedural Sedation and Analgesia in the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory: A Qualitative Study

Background: Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists’ guidelines for procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) are intended to apply across all clinical settings. As nurses are frequently responsible for patient care during PSA in the cardiac catheterisation laboratory (CCL), their perspectives can provide insight into the effectiveness of these guidelines within this particular setting. Methods: A cross-sectional sampling design was used to recruit nurses from urban, regional, public and private CCLs across Australia and New Zealand. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, digitally recorded and transcribed. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings: Twenty-three nurses from 16 CCLs across four states in Australia and New Zealand participated. Most held senior positions (managers=14; educators=5) and CCL experience ranged from 4 to 26 years (mean 11). Participants were concerned about the legitimacy of their practice as they administered PSA outside of guideline recommendations and deemed present education and training as deficient. Participants noted also that guideline recommendations were sometimes not adhered to as it was difficult to balance the increasingly complex PSA requirements of their case-mix with limited access to anaesthetists while trying not to delay procedures. Conclusion: Findings suggest that application of current PSA guidelines may be impractical for CCL nurses and, as a consequence, they are often not followed. Participants were concerned about risks to patient safety as they felt education and training was not commensurable with practice requirements. The findings suggest existing guidelines should be reviewed or new guidelines developed which address nursing practice, education and competency standards for PSA in the CCL

Inviting Public Conversations about Policing: Experiences from New Zealand

Hamish McCardle and Mike Webb hold senior management roles with the New Zealand Police. This paper highlights how in-depth public research helped inform the development of new policing legislation in New Zealand. As part of a two-and-a-half year review of the country’s 1950s era Police Act, the authors describe efforts that went into identifying law reform proposals that chime with what New Zealanders want and expect of their police. The paper concludes that, despite risks some perceived at the outset, the decision to invite wide-ranging public conversations about policing has resulted in a statute—the Policing Act 2008—which potentially sets a solid platform for ongoing trust and confidence in New Zealand’s police.

Patterns and Structures of Intra-organizational Learning Networks within a Knowledge-Intensive Organization

This paper employs the network perspective to study patterns and structures of intra- organizational learning networks. The theoretical background draws from cognitive theories, theories of homophily and proximity, theories of social exchange, the theory of generalized exchange, small-worlds theory, and social process theory. The levels of analysis applied are actor, dyadic, triadic, and global. Confirmatory social network analysis (exponential random graph modeling) was employed for data analysis. Findings suggest: (1) central actors in the learning network are experienced and hold senior positions in the organizational hierarchy; (2) evidence of homophlly (In terms of gender, tenure, and hierarchical level relations) and proximity (In terms of geographical and departmental distances) in learning relationships; (3) learning relationships are non-reciprocal; and (4) transitivity and high local clustering with sparse inter-cluster ties are significant for intra-organizational learning networks.

Surviving secondments

In the current climate of organisational and financial change in the NHS, new job opportunities along traditional pathways for senior staff are becoming fewer. Increasing competition for posts requires that senior staff acquire new professional expertise, and one of the best ways of doing so is to undertake secondments. The two authors of this case study have both held senior substantive positions in nursing management and clinical leadership: Eiri Jones at the former Bio Morgannwg NHS Trust and Alison Kedward at the former Swansea NHS Trust. These trusts have now merged to form Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University NHS Trust. After completing a national executive development programme for aspiring nurse directors run by the National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare (NLIAH), they both obtained secondments to interim nurse director posts. Ms Kedward was seconded to Pembrokeshire Local Health Board, a commissioning organisation, for nine months and Ms Jones was seconded to Ceredigion and Mid Wales NHS Trust, an integrated NHS service provider, for 14 months. This article provides a case study of the authors' experiences on secondment, and recommendations for nurse managers who are considering whether to undertake this form of career development.

Mapping Africa's advances public health education capacity: the AfriHealth project

Literature on human resources for health in Africa has focused on personal health services. Little is known about graduate public health education. This paper maps "advanced" public health education in Africa. Public health includes all professionals needed to manage and optimize health systems and the public's health. Data were collected through questionnaires and personal visits to departments, institutes and schools of community medicine or public health. Simple descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. For more than 900 million people, there are fewer than 500 full-time staff, around two-thirds of whom are male. More men (89%) than women (72%) hold senior degrees. Over half (55%) of countries do not have any postgraduate public health programme. This shortage is most severe in lusophone and francophone Africa. The units offering public health programmes are small: 81% have less than 20 staff, and 62% less than 10. On the other hand, over 80% of Africans live in countries where at least one programme is available, and there are six larger schools with over 25 staff. Programmes are often narrowly focused on medical professionals, but "open" programmes are increasing in number. Public health education and research are not linked. Africa urgently needs a plan for developing its public health education capacity. Lack of critical mass seems a key gap to be addressed by strengthening subregional centres, each of which should provide programmes to surrounding countries. Research linked to public health education and to educational institutions needs to increase.

Minority faculty and academic rank in medicine.

Previous studies have found that fewer minority medical school faculty hold senior professorial ranks than do majority faculty and may not be promoted as rapidly. To determine whether minority faculty were as likely as majority faculty to have attained senior rank (associate professor or full professor) after adjusting for other factors that typically influence promotion. A self-administered mailed survey of US medical school faculty using the Association of American Medical Colleges database. The sample was stratified by department, graduation cohort, and sex. A stratified random sample of 3013 full-time faculty at 24 representative US medical schools. All underrepresented minority faculty at these schools were sampled. Attainment of senior academic rank (associate professor or full professor). Of 3013 faculty surveyed, 1807 (60.0%) responded, including 1463 white (81.0%), 154 black (8.5%), 136 Asian (7.5%), and 54 Hispanic (3.0%). Overall, 980 faculty (54%) had attained senior academic rank, including 47 (30.5%) of 154 black faculty, 59 (43.4%) of 136 Asian faculty, 22 (40.8%) of 54 Hispanic faculty, and 852 (58.3%) of 1463 white faculty. White faculty had significantly more first-authored and total peer-reviewed publications than the other groups. After adjusting for the medical school, department, years as medical school faculty, number of peer-reviewed publications, receipt of research grant funding, proportion of time in clinical activities, sex, and tenure status, we found that the odds ratios of holding senior rank relative to white faculty were 0.33 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.17-0.63) for black faculty, 0.36 (95% CI, 0.12-1.08) for Hispanic faculty, and 0.58 (95% CI, 0.30-1.12) for Asian faculty. Minority faculty were less likely than white faculty to hold senior academic rank. This finding was not explained by potential confounders such as years as a faculty member or measures of academic productivity.

LAND INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The paper describes land records in developing countries and examines their land-information needs, both for day-to-day administration and for development purposes. The conclusion is that Land Information Systems are needed, but that financial, manpower, administrative and technological support constraints are significant. A cautious stage-by-stage approach to the adoption of fully integrated computerised Land Information Systems is recommended.The authors, both formerly with the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, hold senior posts in the Overseas Surveys Directorate of the Ordnance Survey. They have drawn from the extensive experience of DOS and OSD in dealing with surveying, mapping and land tenure records in many developing countries over the last 30 years.This paper is a shortened version of a paper presented at the XVIIIth FIG Congress in Toronto in June 1986.

Profile: Women in Canadian public relations

The author of this article has taken a close look at trends that show sharp increases in the number of women choosing public relations as a career, and has zeroed in on Canadian practitioners for analysis. While this study did not examine bias in the workplace per se, a number of significant patterns stood out which strongly indicate that female practitioners in Canada mirror the same handicaps documented in studies of U.S. practitioners: They have less authority and lower salaries than men in the profession. Few hold senior management positions; only a third feel they exert influence on policy-making in their organizations. The author poses a question: Will young men moving into the field, with higher education levels than the women studied here have attained, advance any faster or further? Judith Scrimger is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Relations, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.