Industrial Supervisors Research Articles

Influenza in Bristol Bay, 1919

The 1918 influenza pandemic has been blamed for as many as 50 million deaths worldwide. Like all major disasters, the full story of the pandemic includes smaller, less noted episodes that have not attracted historical attention. The story of the 1919 wave of the influenza pandemic in Bristol Bay Alaska is one such lost episode. It is an important story because the most accessible accounts—the Congressional Record and the Coast Guard Report—are inconsistent with reports made by employees, health care workers, and volunteers at the site of the disaster. Salmon fishing industry supervisors and medical officers recorded their efforts to save the region’s Native Alaskans in private company reports. The federal Bureau of Education physician retained wireless transmission, reports, and letters of events. The Coast Guard summarized its work in its Annual Report of 1920. The independent Bureau of Fisheries report to the Department of Commerce reveals the Coast Guard report at striking odds with others and reconciles only one account. This article explores the historical oversight, and attempts to tell the story of the 1919 wave of the pandemic which devastated the Native Alaskan population in this very remote place.

From Training Institution to Workplace: Towards a Training Model in the Industrial Training Institutes

The Malaysian Education Development Blueprint’s (2013-2025) emphasis on the holistic formation of students in line with quality human capital formation is based on the national philosophy of education. This blueprint is in line with the Government Transformation Program (GTP), which propels Malaysia towards becoming a developed and high-income country. Quality students are able to learn through formal, non-formal, and informal education as well as through meaningful experience. However, what are the factors that support the creation of awareness that knowledge is essential to life? We explored these factors through the use of grounded theory methods. A total of 32 respondents comprising of trainees, employers and industry supervisors were interviewed. In order to obtain a deeper understanding, we only focused on one public skills training institute which implements best practices. The results showed that there are six main factors that contribute to an environment, which is conducive to effective learning. These factors can serve as a guide to policy makers in the implementation of a comprehensive education system, which supports the holistic formation of students.

Special Issue to mark the career and the retirement of Professor Michael Cox as the Chemical Technology Editor of the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology

Special Issue to mark the career and the retirement of Professor Michael Cox as the Chemical Technology Editor of the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology

The Joint Effects of Perspective Taking and Proactive Personality on Customer Service Performance

The effect of perspective taking on performance is well documented in extant literature, yet a lack of theoretical discussion explicates how employees’ adoption of the customer’s perspective results in satisfactory customer service performance. The current study fills this void. Drawing from both motivated information processing and proactivity perspectives, we establish a theoretical model that delineates the process of how customer-oriented perspective taking contributes to proactive customer service performance. We conducted a three-wave time-lagged study, involving 145 frontline employees and their immediate supervisors in the Chinese hospitality industry, to test the research model. The results of multilevel structural equation modeling show that a high level of role-breadth self-efficacy (RBSE) (Time 2) results when employees take the customer’s perspective (Time 1). This relationship becomes stronger if employees are also high in proactive personality (Time 1). Furthermore, a high level of RBSE (Ti...

Preparing a Future Graduate Workforce for Work

This paper reports on a study that examined factors which had a direct impact on the quality of graduates from the Public Authority of Applied Education and Training (PAAE&T) in Kuwait. The study also examined the extent to which the graduates met the requirements of local employers. It consisted of a review of the literature; a questionnaire given to a sample of students in selected departments; interviews with department heads at the PAAE&T; Deans of related colleges and institutions; Deans of industrial liaison offices in the selected sample of the PAAE&T; supervisors in industry who had direct contact with prospective PAAE&T graduates; and employed graduates. The findings indicate that there is a need to develop a proper labour strategy to ensure that graduates from PAAE&T are equipped with the required knowledge, skills and attitudes to meet industry and business requirements.

Work Stress Among Casino Industry Supervisors in Macao Casinos

This study explores mid-level supervisors' perceptions of their sources of work stress and ways of coping with it. It reports the results of in-depth interviews with 40 pit supervisors and managers in Macao casinos. The results reveal that role ambiguity, work overload, and a high level of customer demands and unreasonable complaints are the work stressors that are commonly experienced by casino supervisors and employees in other hospitality sectors alike. Additional work stressors experienced by the casino supervisors are also identified, such as the inability or unwillingness of subordinates to perform, surveillance by senior management, overly harsh company policies, and a punitive atmosphere. Like employees in other hospitality settings, casino supervisors are found often to use their personal resources and social networks to cope with stress. This article recommends active managerial actions as a more long-term and effective means of coping with employees' work stress. Suggestions for managerial measures to prevent and reduce stress problems are offered.

Development of an engineering identity in the engineering curriculum in Dutch higher education: an exploratory study from the teaching staff perspective

How do engineering students develop a professional identity during the course of the curriculum? What are the development mechanisms and important conditions? In an exploratory study among teachers the authors tried to find out whether the development of engineering identity can be understood by using the theoretical models of Ibarra and Sullivan. The results showed that the development of engineering identity is boosted during the internship in industry in the third year. Furthermore, the theoretical models could be recognised in the findings and four interaction types in internships, with significant differences in effect on identity development, could be identified if two dimensions were used: (1) industry supervisors’ perception of students; (2) the professional responsibility awarded. Some recommendations for curriculum improvement could be made; for example, introducing projects into the curriculum to stimulate identity development from the start. Further research is required on students’ preparation for internships.

Kemahiran Insaniah Pelajar Prasiswazah: Analisis Perbezaan Jantina

Soft skills are important in virtually every profession in the workplace. Therefore, when evaluating employees, organizations will look for graduates with soft skills in addition to technical skills. However, in-depth studies on the extent these skills have been acquired by students in local higher education institutions have not been fully explored. Thus, this paper discusses this issue based on a study on 165 students’ soft skills assessment forms completed by industry supervisors during 2011 industrial training. Data was analyzed descriptively and inferentially using t-test. Findings of this study found that generally, teamwork skills, professionalism, social responsibility, and ICT skills were generally at high level. However, communication and problem solving skills were found to be at a moderate level. The study also found that skills in using ICT hardware, accept criticism, respect for others' views, and time management skills were effective differentiators in explaining genders differences. The research has brought meaningful implications for undergraduate students, employers and policy makers.

Proactivity Is Not Enough: The Role of Perspective Taking In Enhancing the Beneficial Outcomes

The paradox of proactivity suggests that a proactive personality might be destructive for employees and organizations. However, the boundary conditions that allow proactivity to result in positive outcomes remain unclear. In line with proactivity research and emotional dissonance theory, the authors investigate whether and how a proactive personality influences employees’ emotional labor strategies, job performance, and career satisfaction. They also note the potential moderating role of perspective taking, along with the benefits of perspective taking on perspective takers. A three-wave study involving 145 frontline employees and their immediate supervisors in the Chinese hospitality industry tests the research model and reveals that employees’ deep acting mediates the interactive effects of a proactive personality and perspective taking on job performance and career satisfaction. In addition, surface acting mediates the influence of this interaction on career satisfaction but not job performance. These findings have theoretical and managerial implications for proactivity, perspective taking, and emotional labor theory and practice.

Relationship between Budget Participation, Budget Procedural Fairness, Organisational Commitment and Managerial Performance

This study examines the role of budgetary participation, procedural fairness and organizational commitment on managerial performance. It presents the results from a sample of supervisors in Nigerian manufacturing industries using the questionnaire method and the ordinary least squares analysis as the analytical tool. The results show that there is a three way interaction between budget participation, budget procedural fairness and organizational commitment that influence managerial performance. The study recommends, that in order to increase managerial performance, managers should be allowed full participation in budget preparation and that the budget procedures should be fair.

Students’ experiences of supervision in academic and industry settings: results of an Australian study

The joint supervision of Research Higher Degree (RHD) students by an industry and university supervisor is likely to increase in forthcoming years with a rise in the number of university–industry collaborations. Research students may become involved in these collaborative arrangements for a variety of reasons and may launch into their RHD without considering how they will serve two masters, and how this complex relationship will affect their RHD experience. Moreover, little research has been conducted to assess the impact of these arrangements on current RHD students’ experiences. The experiences of students with academic and industry supervisors were, therefore, explored in a survey of confirmed RHD students at an Australian research‐intensive university. This paper investigates whether RHD students conducting research in traditional academic settings have a different experience to students working on industry‐related projects in industry settings, specifically in regards to supervision and institutional access and engagement.

Comparative analysis of creative and classic training methods in health, safety and environment (HSE) participation improvement

The increasing trend of deaths and injuries in industries has led their authorities to develop accident investigation plans. One of the underlying aspects of such plans is hazard identification and incidents reporting which can be met by an appropriate employees’ participation. So far, several studies have confirmed the effect of training in participation improvement. So the main objective of the present study was to compare two training approaches, classic and creative, in improving health, safety and environment (HSE) supervisors’ participation.The study was carried out in an Iranian petrochemical complex where the safety supervisors had been encouraged to report incidents through the Green Card system. Classic and creative training approaches were applied to increase supervisors’ participation. To do so, the supervisors were divided into Case and Control groups. In order to determine the level of supervisors’ participation, the mean of completed green cards by each person at six month intervals was used. In this way, the level of participation in the two groups was measured before, during and after the intervention. To analyze the results, Student’s t-test, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Mixed Model were employed.The results showed that both during and after the intervention, the effect of the creative approach was more than that of the classic approach. After twelve months of intervention stop, the participation trend in both groups was downward. However, this decrease was only significant in the control group.To conclude, the creative approach emphasizing on the participatory training could be an effective approach in improving the safety and consequently the health of supervisors in industries.

Academic freedom and grading: the role of placement providers

Placement providers can be successfully involved in assessing students. This is demonstrated in the Monash University Faculty of Information Technology Cooperative Education Program. Students are thoroughly prepared for their placements and industry supervisors receive written assessment guidelines. Not one student has been awarded a pass grade by the programme director, when the host supervisor thought the student would not make it in the profession and should not pass the placement.

Past, present, and future of applications of electroanalytical techniques in analytical and physical organic chemistry

After a brief introduction describing the main milestones in the development of DC polarography (DCP) as well as linear sweep (LSV) and cyclic voltammetry (CV), attention is paid to first applications of DCP in the reduction of organic compounds. In aqueous solutions the electron transfer (ET) is often accompanied by a proton transfer. Limiting currents in DCP enable investigation of kinetics of chemical reactions preceding ET. Dependence of the limiting current on concentration of a reagent, like H+ or OH− ions, enables determination of rate constants (k) of very fast reactions, with k values between 104 and 1010 L mol−1 s−1, comparable with those studied by relaxation methods. Application of CV is most advantageous for investigation of rates of chemical reactions following the ET. Comparison of analytical applications of DCP (reductions) with those of LSV (oxidations) is given. Apart from fast reactions taking place before the ET in the solution in the vicinity of the electrode surface, DCP can also be used for investigation of slower reactions, taking place in the bulk of the solution. Data obtained by DCP for determination of equilibrium (K) and rate (k) constants of reactions of organic compounds. Hence, DCP can be used in physical organic chemistry of solutions, in some cases complementing data obtained by UV–vis spectrophotometry. Some examples of determinations of K and k are given. Uncertain future of practical analytical applications of DCP and LSV is discussed as is the brighter future of applications in physical organic chemistry. As the main factor limiting successful applications is considered the limited opportunity for education of future research advisors in academia and group supervisors in industry.

Organizational Concern, Prosocial Values, or Impression Management? How Supervisors Attribute Motives to Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Although prior studies have indicated that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) tend to be positively related to supervisory ratings of employee performance, only a few studies have investigated how the motives attributed to OCB (e.g., impression management, prosocial motives, organizational concern) might influence such evaluations. Based on Weiner's (1995) attribution model and a study of supervisors in varied industries, we found that attributions regarding employees' motives for engaging in OCB are related to supervisors' emotional reactions to such behavior, which are, in turn, related to ratings of employee performance. Implications of the study for management research and practice are discussed.

Job stress, coping strategies, and burnout among hotel industry supervisors in Taiwan

The complex and changing environment of the hospitality industry presents a never ending array of stimuli, pressures and demands which can become sources of stress for hotel supervisors. A focus on the identification of current and potential stressors in organizations, and the development of strategies which individuals and management may use to manage and reduce stress effectively, is imperative. This study is to investigate the perceived level of stress of hotel supervisors, to establish frequency of the use of various coping strategies, and to determine the burnout rate. This study also empirically examines the relationships among stress, coping strategies, and job burnout. A convenient sample of hotel supervisors of large hotels in Taiwan was selected. The return of 298 questionnaires represented 74.5% of the total supervisors surveyed. The study findings suggest that the major job stress of hotel supervisors originates from task characteristic and workload. Moreover, a direct action coping strategy may allow one to perceive the situations as opportunities and may, in turn, contribute to reduce job stress. Furthermore, hotel supervisors experience a lower level of burnout if they apply more direct action strategies in coping with the pressures of their job. The results of this study can be used as part of guidelines including what should be considered to reduce job stress and burnout in the work environment.

The mediating role of trust between expatriate procedural justice and employee outcomes in Chinese hotel industry

This study draws from social exchange theory to examine the roles cognitive and affective trust play in mediating the relationship between expatriate supervisors and their local employees. We differentiate the two forms of trust by proposing, on the one hand, that cognitive trust mediates the relationship between the procedural justice displayed by expatriate supervisors and job satisfaction and organizational commitment of their employees and, on the other hand, that affective trust mediates the relationship between the procedural justice displayed by expatriates and the level of employee satisfaction with and altruism toward their supervision. We then support the hypotheses by using structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data collected from 286 employees working with expatriate supervisors in China's hotel industry. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Formalising Industry Feeedback in Assessment Practice for Work Integrated Learning

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programs, such as co-operative education programs, offer students a learning environment which exists outside the traditional classroom and specific discipline boundaries. This necessitates assessment practices that go beyond traditional practices and relationships. Work placement supervisors are best located to observe the students' learning and development and offer feedback on performance and improvement. An investigation was carried out in order to articulate the role of supervisors and work colleagues in facilitating learning in the workplace environment and their involvement in assessment practices. Interviews were conducted with academics and industry representatives on their perceptions of assessment task validity in terms of professional and generic skill development. A synthesis of the findings formed the basis of the research described in this paper. Key findings highlighted the need for better preparation of industry supervisors as to their role in providing feedback and assessment; better preparation of students for transition from the classroom to the workplace; and the importance of ongoing involvement of the three stakeholders (academic, supervisor and student) to maximise learning and professional development. Recommendations for assessment practices include suggestions on how to involve employers in appraising workplace performance; how to measure the real life application of learning; and the development of generic employability skills. © Common Ground, Kathy Henschke, Joan Richardson.

Repositioning Secretarial Curriculum In Polytechnics In Nigeria To Meet The Challenges Of Information And Communication Technology

Around the world secretarial education is going through serious metamorphosis resulting to a number of challenges. These challenges include the need to respond to the impact of globalization, needs of a new knowledge society, to high social demand and to the rising expectations of stakeholders including government, industry, labour and society. Nigeria has since the 1969 sought to respond positively to these challenges. The major purpose of this study was to examine the current status of secretarial curriculum with a view to repositioning secretarial curriculum in polytechnics in Nigeria to meet the challenges of information and communication technology. The population included Industry-based supervisors, recent graduates and Institution-based supervisors. Results indicated that current secretarial curriculum was out tune with current realities. Instructors lag behind current technological development in the industry and a wide margin exist between theory and practice in secretarial education. This study recommended that secretarial curriculum should be evaluated on a more regular basis to update it in line with student and industry needs. Opportunities should be provided whereby instructors in polytechnics and supervisors in industries interact and compare notes on training needs and industry expectations.

Trends in Industry Supervisors’ Feedback On Business Communication Internships

The purpose of this empirical study is to explore expectations of industry insiders and identify how student interns are performing in relation to those expectations as defined by 11 performance areas. The results of a survey of 238 industry supervisors were collected over a 5-year period in the departments of English and communication at a private university in the Northeast. While the results suggest that student interns tend to meet their supervisors’ expectations in many areas, performance categories such as initiative, writing skills, and oral communication skills require increased attention in the ways we prepare students for their internships and post-graduation employment and, perhaps, the ways we help onsite supervisors develop expectations for and evaluate our interns.