A descriptive model of the offence chain for imprisoned adult male firesetters (descriptive model of adult male firesetting)

Purpose: Firesetting has devastating consequences. Although some theoretical efforts have been made to explain firesetting (i.e., a small number of multi- and single-factor theories), little effort has been devoted to understand how deliberate firesetting unfolds across time (i.e., micro or offence chain theories). This research aimed to produce the first descriptive offence chain theory for incarcerated adult male firesetters.Methods: Thirty-eight adult male firesetters—recruited from prison establishments in England and Wales—were interviewed about the events, thoughts and feelings leading up to, surrounding, and immediately following a deliberate incident of firesetting. Results: Using Grounded Theory analysis, the Descriptive Model of Adult male Firesetting (DMAF) was developed documenting the cognitive, behavioural, affective and contextual factors leading to a single incident of deliberate firesetting. Conclusions: New information generated from the DMAF is presented and its contributions to the current evidence base are highlighted. Clinical implications, limitations and future research directions are also discussed

Putting the Horse Before the Cart: The Influence of Trigger Events on Justice Perceptions and Work Attitudes

To date very little research on organizational justice and work attitudes has focused on what starts the process that leads to these perceptions. A considerable amount of organizational research is focused on the end result (e.g., employees’ perceptions, attitudes, or behaviors), which can become difficult to effectively manage or change after-the-fact in a timely or productive manner (Tekleab et al., 2005). In this paper, two studies are conducted that explore a variety of events employees might notice and how they influence workplace outcomes. Study One explores 16 trigger events from prior research and surveys employees in a manufacturing organization about the events, and identifying 24 additional events. Study Two examines relationships between the trigger events and outcomes of pay and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to leave, using organizational justice as a mechanism for sensemaking. Results from Study Two show that trigger events significantly predicted all four workplace attitudes. Procedural justice was significantly related to all dependent variables, interactional justice was significantly related only to job satisfaction and intention to leave, marginally unrelated to pay satisfaction, and unrelated to organizational commitment. Distributive justice was significantly related to job satisfaction, intention to leave, and pay satisfaction, but not organizational commitment. Seven of the 48 interaction terms examined were significant. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed

Using grounded theory to understand software process improvement: A study of Irish software product companies

Software Process Improvement (SPI) aims to understand the software process as it is used within an organisation and thus drive the implementation of changes to that process to achieve specific goals such as increasing development speed, achieving higher product quality or reducing costs. Accordingly, SPI researchers must be equipped with the methodologies and tools to enable them to look within organisations and understand the state of practice with respect to software process and process improvement initiatives, in addition to investigating the relevant literature. Having examined a number of potentially suitable research methodologies, we have chosen Grounded Theory as a suitable approach to determine what was happening in actual practice in relation to software process and SPI, using the indigenous Irish software product industry as a test-bed. The outcome of this study is a theory, grounded in the field data, that explains when and why SPI is undertaken by the software industry. The objective of this paper is to describe both the selection and usage of grounded theory in this study and evaluate its effectiveness as a research methodology for software process researchers. Accordingly, this paper will focus on the selection and usage of grounded theory, rather than results of the SPI study itself

An exploratory study of enterprise architecture practices in Malaysia

This study was an exploratory investigation of the practice of the enterprise architecture (EA) in private and public enterprises in Malaysia. The Zachman Framework was used to evaluate the practice of EA in these enterprises. Ten enterprises from public and private sector participated in the study. Multiple sources including interviews, documents and survey were used as the data sources of the study. The findings presented in this paper were exploratory in our attempt to gain an insight of the EA practices in Malaysia. The paper would give the general outlook of the current practices of EA in Malaysian enterprises