Proposed Research Agenda Research Articles

Progress in Natural Resource Based Emission Reduction Activities in the Tropics

In this introduction to the Annals of Tropical Research special issue on natural resource based carbon offsets a framework is provided for describing the architecture of global climate policy instruments and market mechanisms, and the relationships between these components of the international climate change mitigation and adaptation landscape is discussed. The principal constraints and enabling factors for natural resource based offset projects are identified as issues of capacity, finance, governance and regulation. These concerns provide the rationale for a proposed research agenda, comprising conceptual research and capacity building, both of which can be enacted through the implementation of pilot project activities.

Forensic Case Formulation

Formulation is the process or product of gathering and integrating diverse information to develop a concise account of the nature and etiology of the problems affecting a person's mental health to guide idiographic treatment design and other decision-making. Formulation is a core competency in mental health practice, including forensic mental health; however, there is no agreement concerning the details of how it should be done or how to evaluate it, either generally or more specifically with respect to forensic mental health. The purpose of this paper is to raise specific issues in the practice and evaluation of forensic case formulation, and so enhance the profile of this important area of work. In this paper, we (1) define case formulation and describe its key features, (2) specify criteria for evaluating case formulation, and (3) address challenges in forensic practice, with suggestions for advancing practice through research. We conclude with a proposed research agenda that we hope will encourage and promote activity in this important area.

Stakeholder theory: issues to resolve

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to collate and debate the main issues driving the stakeholder theory academic debate.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a discussion of the stakeholder concept is set out before moving on to the history and nature of stakeholder theory. The work proceeds with an attempt to bring together systematically the points of divergence among researchers interested in stakeholder theory, and, finally, there is a brief discussion of these theoretical loopholes in conjunction with a proposed research agenda for the field.FindingsBased on the unification of the theoretically problematic issues, research agenda are put forward with the objective of clarifying doubts and resolving the controversies ongoing among academics. As regards the formulation of stakeholder theory, one question requiring resolution is that of the stakeholder concept itself. Additionally, further research should focus on the boundaries as to what constitutes a stakeholder group as well as defining the criteria for attributing individual membership of one or another group. In practical theoretical application, it is correspondingly necessary to target research on aspects such as conflicts of interest between stakeholders and management difficulties in coping with multiple objectives. Finally, there is a need for research that systematizes the knowledge produced with the objective of attaining the theoretical convergence necessary for the development of stakeholder theory.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper derives from the systematization of the various shortcomings that need overcoming within the framework of stakeholder theory and the identification of research agendas.

A Research Agenda for the Comparative Law and Economics of Patent Remedies

Over the past two decades, a small but growing number of law-and-economics scholars have begun to apply the standard tools of economic analysis to a field that long had evaded scrutiny by the law-and-economics community, namely the field of comparative law. To date, however, comparative law and economics scholars have devoted relatively little attention to the law of intellectual property - a gap that is in some ways surprising, given the professedly instrumental character of (much of) intellectual property law and policy. This essay, which will appear as a chapter in a forthcoming edited volume titled Global Perspectives on Patent Law (Ruth Okediji & Margo Bagley eds., Oxford Univ. Press), presents a modest effort at remedying this state of affairs, by presenting a proposed research agenda for a comparative law and economics analysis of one specific set of issues within the law of intellectual property: the law of patent remedies. Part I lays out a proposed protocol for the use of economic analysis to better understand, evaluate, and critique the law of patent remedies as it exists both in the United States and abroad. Part II focuses on the two principal remedies for patent infringement, permanent injunctions and monetary damages. In particular, Part II outlines the similarities and differences among various nations’ approaches to injunctions and damages for patent infringement; suggests some possible explanations for, and consequences of, the perceived differences; and proposes some areas which I plan to explore in greater depth in connection with my own pending book project on the topic.

Mental Illness, Law, and a Public Health Law Research Agenda

Mental illness is a significant global public health issue. Disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression put an enormous strain on afflicted individuals, their caregivers and communities. Yet, in some respects, acceptance of mental illness as a key part of the broader field of public health has developed only recently. Legal and policy responses to mental illness have shifted gradually over the last half century, away from the axis of involuntary institutional care and protection of individual rights, and towards an emphasis on ensuring access to community-based treatment and services – promoting autonomy and social inclusion within an ethos of recovery. A confluence of forces – deinstitutionalization, changing constitutional norms, advances in pharmacotherapies and community-based psychosocial treatments, and reform in the organization and financing of mental health services – has dramatically altered the landscape in which individuals today experience serious mental disorders and seek to recover from them. At the same time, public misperceptions, negative attitudes, and discriminatory behavior toward people with mental illness largely remain. And in fact, people with serious mental illnesses often do not receive the treatment they need and many become involved with the criminal justice system. What is the emerging role of law and policy in addressing the complex problems around mental illness from a public health perspective, and what is the agenda for research to inform those efforts? As part of a series of Theory, Practice and Evidence papers commissioned by the National Program Office for Public Health Law Research, this paper reviews the current evidence base on the relationship between law and mental health and offers a research agenda that situates mental health within an explicit public health framework. The paper begins by placing mental health law in its historical context, discussing the events and assumptions that in some measure continue to shape public policy and law. The review is organized according to a typology of public health law which encompasses the use of law in deliberate interventions designed to reduce mental illness and its associated harms as well as the incidental and infrastructural effects of law on mental health. The proposed research agenda identifies gaps in the evidence bases across the three types of public health law and suggests potential research designs which have the potential to illuminate them. In a time when our understanding of the burden of mental illness on population health is growing and continued economic pressures threaten individual and community resources for adequate treatment, this timely paper aims to catalyze new lines of research essential to determining how law and legal reform can best respond to mental illness as a public health problem of the highest order.

Prehospital Care and New Models of Regionalization

This article summarizes the discussions of the emergency medical services (EMS) breakout session at the June 2010 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference "Beyond Regionalization: Integrated Networks of Emergency Care." The group focused on prehospital issues such as the identification of patients by EMS personnel, protocol-driven destination selection, bypassing closer nondesignated centers to transport patients directly to more distant designated specialty centers, and the modes of transport to be used as they relate to the regionalization of emergency care. It is our hope that the proposed research agenda will be advanced in a way that begins to rigorously approach the unanswered research questions and that these answers, in turn, will lead to an evidence-based, cohesive, comprehensive, and more uniform set of guidelines that govern the delivery and practice of prehospital emergency care.

Building Expeditionary Economics: Understanding the Field and Setting Forth a Research Agenda

Building Expeditionary Economics: Understanding the Field and Setting Forth a Research Agenda

Too Much Bar and Not Enough Mitzvah? A Proposed Research Agenda on Bar/Bat Mitzvah

Jewish educators are understandably interested in research on how bar/bat mitzvah affect Jewish education or research on what Jewish schools have done to avoid the distortions of a focus on bar/bat mitzvah. Research might also focus on the somewhat different and more ambitious topic of the role that bar/bat mitzvah play in contemporary Jewish identity. Three examples—the meaning of bar/bat mitzvah in intermarried families, bar/bat mitzvah as a ritual entry into early adolescence, and how bar/bat mitzvah perform values—indicate how this larger research agenda might be useful to those rethinking the role of bar/bat mitzvah in Jewish supplementary school education.

Providing a Sound Educational Framework for Foster Youth: A Proposed Research Agenda

Youth living in out-of-home care often have multiple risk factors for school failure. Family disruption and frequent moves between schools compromise a student's ability to succeed in school. When mental health and behavioral issues compound these risk factors, students are at even greater risk. Despite the poor academic outcomes for foster youth, few programs aim to reduce risk and promote school success for this population. Few researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of existing programs, and there is little evidence of the effectiveness of the strategies designed to prevent school failure for foster youth. This article identifies gaps in services to youth in out-of-home care and proposes a research agenda to build our knowledge and understanding of what is needed, and how to increase the use of effective practices.

Developing environmental supply chain performance measures

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review extant literature and present a proposed research agenda to examine whether environmental, i.e. green performance measures, can be integrated within an existing supply chain performance framework, explore what a meaningful industry‐recognised environmental measure should look like, and understand the direct benefits of incorporating environmental measures within a supply chain performance framework.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an extensive literature review in four key areas: performance management, supply chain performance management, environmental management and benchmarking.FindingsThe literature suggests there is an opportunity to explore the relationship between the environment and logistics and that environmental supply chain performance measurement (SCPM) should enable organisations to more effectively benchmark their supply chain environmental performance. A framework incorporating these notions and a research agenda for empirical study are also presented.Practical implicationsThe paper provides direction for practitioners on measuring the environmental impact of their supply chains in the context of their overall business performance. The proposed research agenda integrates an environmental measure into an extant supply chain performance framework to provide practitioners with a more holistic view of their supply chain performance in relation to competitors.Originality/valueThere has been limited research conducted in this area. This paper provides insights into developing a green SCPM framework.

THE PERSISTENT DILEMMAS OF DEVELOPMENT: THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS

Among the most significant of Michael Trebilcock's many exceptional scholarly contributions has been the impact of his work on the field of law and development. At the core of the development enterprise lies a central conundrum—Why do obviously desirable institutional outcomes not transpire in the developing world?—and Trebilcock has provided invaluable insights into how various historic, economic, social, and political forces may promote, shape, or inhibit such salutary change. Taking Trebilcock's existing corpus of work as a starting point, we outline a proposed research agenda for the next fifty years of law and development scholarship, highlighting outstanding questions that surround the sequencing of reforms; the role of path dependence; the interaction of law, culture, and institutions; and, finally, the role of international institutions in addressing the dilemmas of development.

Decline and turnaround: a literature review and proposed research agenda for the hotel sector

Tourism systems are composed of an inter-related and inter-dependent set of individual businesses, organisations and servicescapes. The hospitality industry, and more specifically the hotel sector, comprises many businesses that contribute significantly to the tourism system. Yet, the industry is renowned for business failures and poor financial returns. Increasing competition, globalisation, technology, social change and internal weaknesses are some of the reasons why tourism and hospitality businesses fail or perform significantly below expectations. When in a state of decline or poor performance, many businesses attempt a ‘turnaround’. Declining performance can have wide-ranging impacts not only on hotel businesses directly, but also upon those communities where local economies rely on tourism for jobs and economic prosperity. Consequently, an improved understanding of the processes of declining performance and turnarounds is particularly important to both researchers and practitioners. However, there has been limited research focused on turnarounds in the tourism industry, in general, and in the hotel industry, in particular. In this study we assess the literature on decline and turnarounds and propose an agenda for future research that will enhance our knowledge and inform ongoing debate on the process and impact of turnarounds in the hotel industry.

Policy Implications of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America's Research Plan for Reducing Healthcare-Associated Infections

From the Division of Infectious Diseases, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus (K.B.S.), and the Department of Infectious Diseases, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland (S.G.), Ohio. Received December 11, 2009; accepted December 13, 2009; electronically published December 29, 2009. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2010; 31:124-126 2009 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved. 0899-823X/2010/3102-0003$15.00. DOI: 10.1086/650583 The country is currently in the midst of a healthcare debate about all aspects of healthcare spending; $2.4 trillion is spent annually on health care, representing 16% of the gross national product. The focus has been on value-based competition (paying for performance and not quantity of care) and on patient safety and the quality of medical care. Two seminal publications from the Institute of Medicine were early catalysts for the creation of this movement to reform healthcare spending: To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, published in 2000, and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, published in 2001. Infectious diseases physicians and healthcare epidemiologists were the first to point out that healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) were major contributors to adverse events associated with the delivery of health care. The focus on HAIs is in part because many of these infections are preventable and can be measured using standard and well-validated surveillance systems and definitions. Public health officials, government officials, and consumer advocates have recognized the impact of HAIs, as witnessed by the increased emphasis on legislation for the public reporting of HAIs. Furthermore, many HAIs are increasingly difficult to treat because of their consistent association with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). The Centers for Disease and Prevention and the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee have provided guidance on infection control and prevention. Among national leaders in this arena, SHEA has been an advocate for active surveillance and prevention programs. A Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute Care Hospitals, published by SHEA, represents a compilation of evidence-based practices and expert consensus opinion on strategies to address the prevention of HAIs and the transmission of MDROs. Despite this exhaustive review of the current evidence, it has been increasingly clear that there are significant gaps in knowledge that require a broad and multifaceted research agenda to bridge. One timely example is the current debate on respiratory protection for healthcare workers against novel H1N1 influenza A virus in the workplace. The Institute of Medicine Committee, which is charged with studying this issue, reported on a recommendation for supporting the use of fittested N95 respirators and also increasing research on influenza transmission and personal respiratory protection. The article by the Research Committee of SHEA published in this issue of the journal outlines a comprehensive national research agenda on HAIs, addressing 3 major areas of research: pathogenesis, epidemiology, and infection prevention strategies. A fourth area of proposed research is in improving the design of healthcare epidemiology studies. Pathogenesis and host defense mechanisms have been the subject of much funding, provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Funding for the other areas of the proposed research agenda has been extremely limited, with clinical investigators in healthcare epidemiology and prevention implementation research receiving relatively less funding than colleagues in basic science disciplines. From a policy perspective, enhancing the funding for HAI research is at the core of the SHEA research agenda. The recent emphasis by the NIH on translational research is promising, because it recognizes the need to effectively implement, diffuse, and disseminate medical discoveries into clinical practice. The later phases of translational research (ie, phase 3 translation research and phase 4 translation research) focus on moving evidence-based practices into health

First Nations gaming in Saskatchewan: fostering entrepreneurship, economic diversification, cultural preservation and awareness: a proposed research agenda

While gaming operations are on the rise in Canada, the actual impact of gaming revenues on the economic development of Canadian First Nations is an area of research that is currently lacking. The primary objective of this paper is to develop a research agenda for the investigation of the impact of the gaming industry on the economic development of Saskatchewan's First Nations. A secondary objective of this paper is to explore the maintenance and strengthening of Indigenous cultures through the strategic investment of revenues obtained from gaming activities. If culture and tradition do indeed play a 'critical role' in the pursuit of economic wealth by Indigenous populations, our paper examines the importance of cultural development, as indicated by the investments made to specific sectors by Saskatchewan bands through the money distributed by First Nations Trust, as First Nations pursue development through economic diversification and entrepreneurship.

The persistent dilemmas of development: The next fifty years

Among the most significant of Michael Trebilcock's many exceptional scholarly contributions has been the impact of his work on the field of law and development. At the core of the development enterprise lies a central conundrum—Why do obviously desirable institutional outcomes not transpire in the developing world?—and Trebilcock has provided invaluable insights into how various historic, economic, social, and political forces may promote, shape, or inhibit such salutary change. Taking Trebilcock's existing corpus of work as a starting point, we outline a proposed research agenda for the next fifty years of law and development scholarship, highlighting outstanding questions that surround the sequencing of reforms; the role of path dependence; the interaction of law, culture, and institutions; and, finally, the role of international institutions in addressing the dilemmas of development.

Developing environmental supply chain performance measures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review extant literature and present a proposed research agenda to examine whether environmental, i.e. green performance measures, can be integrated within an existing supply chain performance framework, explore what a meaningful industry‐recognised environmental measure should look like, and understand the direct benefits of incorporating environmental measures within a supply chain performance framework.

Public Health and Emergency Medicine

Public Health and Emergency Medicine

Health care waste management: a neglected and growing public health problem worldwide

The objective of this Short Communication is to promulgate an inventory of 87 papers pertaining to health care waste management practices and challenges in 40 low and middle income countries worldwide amassed through a multi-language systematic review. Herein, we discuss the major gaps, failures, and frequently reported themes by geographic region. Following this we outline a proposed research agenda moving forward, and conclude that greater research and attention towards these unintended consequences of technologic progress in medical care delivery is needed to address and understand this growing public health threat around the world.

What are the consequences of the ‘spatial turn’ for how we understand politics today? A proposed research agenda

What are the consequences of the ‘spatial turn’ for how we understand politics today? A proposed research agenda

Assembling Fragments Into a Lens: A Review, Critique, and Proposed Research Agenda for the Organizational Work Climate Literature

Work climates exert an important influence on organizations and the people who work in them. For more than half a century, scholars have sought to understand their antecedents and consequences. However, in recent years, this literature has become fragmented and somewhat adrift. This article attempts to remedy this by reviewing existing research related to organizational work climates and providing a review and critique of the current state of knowledge. Furthermore, the authors seek to assemble the individual pieces into a unified lens capable of identifying overarching themes and challenges facing researchers. Finally, the authors turn this lens to the future, so as to provide a clearer view of some promising avenues for research opportunities and potential for reintegrating the field.