How can Research Programme Consortia contribute to capacity development in Low and Middle Income Countries?

Capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to conduct and apply evidence from health systems research is limited due to historically low investment in the field, fragmented funding with a predominance of very small scale grants, a lack of systematic approaches to capacity development, and limited direct investment in capacity development for health systems research. In light of this, and broader concerns about inequities in global health research capacities, the research strategy of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has an explicit results area focussed on strengthening capacity to conduct and use research. Accordingly, DFID requires all of the RPCs that it supports to dedicate a proportion of their funding to research capacity development. This brief reflects upon the experience of FHS, a DFID funded RPC, with research capacity development. While FHS espoused a strong commitment to capacity development and put together a package of related strategies to support research capacity development among its partner organizations, these strategies met with varying degrees of success. We consider which types of capacity development strategies may work best for RPCs and under what circumstances.UK Ai

A Study of How Young Adults Leverage Multiple Profile Management Functionality in Managing their Online Reputation on Social Networking Sites

With privacy settings on social networking sites (SNS) perceived as complex and difficult to use and maintain, young adults can be left vulnerable to others accessing and using their personal information. Consequences of not regulating the boundaries their information on SNS include the ability for current and future employers to make career-impacting decisions based upon their online reputation that may include disqualifying them as job candidates. On SNS, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, young adults must decide on how to manage their online reputation by regulating boundaries to their own personal and professional information and identities. One known practice for the regulation of boundaries is the use of multiple profile management (MPM), where users of SNS create and use multiple accounts on a SNS and separate the social and professional identities that they disclose publicly and privately. The purpose of the study was to understand the lived experiences of young adults in how they regulate boundaries on SNS, through the use of MPM, as they manage their online reputation to different audiences. The practice was studied by applying interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) through interviewing young adults of 18-23 years of age, who use MPM on a SNS. Semi-structured interviews permitted participants to provide in-depth descriptions of their lived experiences. Eight themes were identified and described based on the analysis of the interviews that include: SNS use with online audiences, motivations for using MPM, the processes for the presentation of self, online search results, privacy settings, untagging SNS posts, self-editing and censorship, and new features. The themes describe the complexity and challenges that young adults face with regulating boundaries with their professional and social identities online through the use of MPM. Findings from this study have implications for a variety of audiences. Through the findings of this study, SNS developers can introduce new features, improve usability related to privacy management, and further encourage use of their networks. Users of SNS can use this study to understand risks of using SNS and for learning of practices for how to manage their online reputation on SNS

Sustainability Standards and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons From Carbon Markets

Stakeholders play an increasingly active role in private governance, including development of standards for measuring sustainability. Building on prior studies focused on standards and stakeholder engagement, we use an innovation management theoretical lens to compare stakeholder engagement and standards developed in two carbon markets: the Climate Action Reserve and the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism. We develop and test hypotheses regarding how different processes of stakeholder engagement in standard development affect the number, identity, and age of stakeholders involved, as well as the variation and quality of the resulting standards. In doing so, we contribute to the growing literature on stakeholder engagement in developing sustainability standards

A Review on Optimistic Impact of Cleaner Production on Manufacturing Sustainability

As a continuous application of an integrated environmental strategy, Cleaner Production (CP) is seen to have a substantial impact in establishing a sustainable manufacturing system. Thus, this paper explores and discusses intensively the impacts and benefits gains from the CP implementation that influences the sustainability development. The findings show that CP have optimistic impact on manufacturing competency, environment and economics performance which considered most significant influence on sustainability. Besides, economic performance was identified as an ultimate goal in manufacturing sustainability that can be enhanced significantly by competency and environmental performance. This paper provides the correct translational process of CP in order to achieve high level of sustainable manufacturing practice included the specific characteristics of performances. It can be referred as a guideline for manufacturing firms to define and measure performance based on CP implementation

Organisational reputation in the wake of service delivery related stakeholder activism : a local government perspective

Abstract: Municipalities face community activists because of poor service delivery, poor communication and accountability, which results in weak relationships with these communities. In turn, this poses a reputation risk for municipalities. Therefore, this research explores how community activism affects the reputation of municipalities by investigating how community activism is enacted in response to failures in municipal service delivery; exploring how activist communities affected by service delivery issues pose municipal reputation risk and studying how municipalities can mitigate this risk. To explore the impact of community activism on reputation; the conceptual framework composing of community activism, reputation risk and reputation risk mitigation, as well as the theoretical framework consisting of stakeholder and situational crisis communication theories and the impressional approach to reputation, were studied through a literature review. Data was gathered using semi-structured interviews with communicators from selected Northern Cape municipalities and thematically analysed using Braun’s six-phase framework. The study revealed that the use of complaints shared through letters, or memorandums, complaints or suggestion boxes or media; protests, marches, denial of access to public facilities, vandalism and rates withholding comprised some of the ordinary means of community activism within selected municipalities. Visual activism is rare in the province, while communities having private meetings with municipal leaders seems unique to the Northern Cape. The reputation risk posed by these forms of activism enactment includes loss of integrity for the municipality and its leadership as perceived by local communities and other stakeholders and further perceptions that the municipality is failing to deliver services. Municipalities could mitigate this reputation risk through several tactics that this study suggests, and it further recommends that future researchers test these tactics.M.A. (Strategic Communication

Peer Reputation Among Affluent Middle School Youth: Ramifications for Maladjustment Versus Competence by Age 18

abstract: Given the major investment young people make in earning and maintaining a peer reputation, our goal in this study was to explore the association between dimensions of negative and positive peer reputation in middle school and adjustment several years later, by the end of high school, among upper middle class youth. Prior research has shown negative reputations such as aggressive-disruptive and sensitive-isolated to be associated with maladjustment later in life, whereas reputations like popular and prosocial-leader have been related to positive future outcomes. However, there are contrary findings that reveal a more complex relationship between peer reputation and adjustment, showing certain “negative” reputations to be tied with better outcomes in some domains and the converse in others. Using a sample of middle school students, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to test a four-factor model of the Revised Class Play, a peer report measure on peer reputations. CFA findings supported the four-factor model with the following reputations: popular, prosocial, aggressive, and isolated. Structural equation models were used to predict 12th grade adjustment outcomes (academic achievement, psychopathology, substance use) from middle school peer reputation. Prosocial reputation in middle school was connected to higher academic achievement and fewer externalizing symptoms in 12th grade. Both prosocial and isolated peer reputation were negatively associated with alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use, whereas a popular reputation was related to higher levels of alcohol use. Middle school reputation did not predict internalizing symptoms in 12th grade. Findings are discussed in terms of adaptive and maladaptive adjustment outcomes associated with each peer reputation and implications for future research.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Psychology 201

Identifying and Prioritizing the Research Needs Related to Mental Health in Gaza Strip-Palestine

Background: An important function of research is to identify community needs in certain fields. As mental health is a vital issue to us, identifying and prioritizing mental health needs is important to policy makers to help them in setting goals for different programs that meet the needs of a specific community in a certain health area. Purpose: To identify the health research needs in the field of mental health in Gaza Strip, Palestine. Design and Methods: The design was a qualitative design using focus group, need assessment and non-structured interview for data collection. Participants: Participants included three focus groups. First group consisted of students enrolled in a master program of community mental health nursing; second group included seven faculty members who were specialists in mental health; and third group included six key persons from the ministry of health and the chair of community mental health program in WHO at Gaza Strip. Results: Results of this qualitative study revealed several themes that emerged from the thematic analysis. Many health research needs were identified by participants. These needs included the following topics: stigma, family integration, aggression of children born to substance-abuse fathers, post-partum depression, counseling, talking therapy in clinical practice, behavioral problems, tramadole abuse, risk factors leading to drug dependence, autism, exploring the role of religion in mental health, and Wellness Recovery Action Plan. Implication for Practice: Well designed studies will help to identify and prioritize the health needs for a specific community. Identifying the needs related to community mental health is one of the first steps to help in pushing these needs into the agenda of health policy makers, who then will work to set goals and design policies and programs that aiming to meet the needs of the community, which hopefully will produce a community with less mental health problems.Background: An important function of research is to identify community needs in certain fields. As mental health is a vital issue to us, identifying and prioritizing mental health needs is important to policy makers to help them in setting goals for different programs that meet the needs of a specific community in a certain health area. Purpose: To identify the health research needs in the field of mental health in Gaza Strip, Palestine. Design and Methods: The design was a qualitative design using focus group, need assessment and non-structured interview for data collection. Participants: Participants included three focus groups. First group consisted of students enrolled in a master program of community mental health nursing; second group included seven faculty members who were specialists in mental health; and third group included six key persons from the ministry of health and the chair of community mental health program in WHO at Gaza Strip. Results: Results of this qualitative study revealed several themes that emerged from the thematic analysis. Many health research needs were identified by participants. These needs included the following topics: stigma, family integration, aggression of children born to substance-abuse fathers, post-partum depression, counseling, talking therapy in clinical practice, behavioral problems, tramadole abuse, risk factors leading to drug dependence, autism, exploring the role of religion in mental health, and Wellness Recovery Action Plan. Implication for Practice: Well designed studies will help to identify and prioritize the health needs for a specific community. Identifying the needs related to community mental health is one of the first steps to help in pushing these needs into the agenda of health policy makers, who then will work to set goals and design policies and programs that aiming to meet the needs of the community, which hopefully will produce a community with less mental health problems