Strategic and Administrative Human Resource Management (HRM): A Study of HRM Reporting in Entrepreneurial Firms

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study examining firm characteristics associated with choosing an administrative or strategic approach to HRM. Strategic HRM is defined as having a senior HRM executive who reports to the CEO, while administrative HRM is defined as having the HRM function report to a Vice President of Administration. Data are gathered from a cohort of firms that went public in 1993. The results show that different sets of characteristics are associated with each HRM reporting form, and analysis of stock price growth after the IPO demonstrates that the strategic HRM companies enjoy increasing stock price, while the administrative HRM firms have decreasing stock price. Implications for new forms of HRM in entrepreneurial firms are discussed

Audit Quality Indicators: Perceptions of Junior-level Auditors

Purpose In an effort to develop an audit quality (AQ) framework specific to the US audit market, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently issued a concept release proposing 28 audit quality indicators (AQIs) along three dimensions: audit professionals, audit process and audit results. Using AQIs initially proposed by the PCAOB, as well as AQIs suggested by prior literature, the authors solicit perceptions from junior-level (senior and staff) auditors to investigate the current state of practice along many of the AQIs relating to audit professionals and audit process. Design/methodology/approach In the study, 78 junior-level auditors responded to the survey. Findings An analysis of the responses suggests auditors engage in activities and audit firms promote conditions that at times improve, and at other times, reduce audit quality. The authors find that individual auditors’ perceptions differ across experience level, gender and audit firm size for certain AQIs. Practical implications The study is useful to the PCAOB because it provides insights to help assess the value of potential AQIs in differentiating AQ. The study is also useful to other regulators because it describes audit staff and seniors’ perceptions of apparent firm and auditor compliance with accounting and auditing standards. Practitioners should find this information useful in helping to identify possible root causes of audit deficiencies, a challenge put forth to firms by the PCAOB. Originality/value This study provides academia with evidence on AQ from practicing auditors, which informs existing and future research along. The study complements existing work by showing how individual auditor characteristics (experience and gender) at the junior levels may impact AQ in practic

Implications of subcutaneous or intravenous delivery of trastuzumab: further insight from patient interviews in the PrefHer study

BACKGROUND: The 2 Cohort randomised PrefHer trial examined the preferences of HER2+ve primary breast cancer patients for intravenous (IV) or subcutaneous (SC) delivery of trastuzumab via a Single Injectable Device (SID) or hand-held syringe (HHS). The novel approach and design of the study permitted an in-depth exploration of patients' experiences, the impact that different modes of delivery had on patients' well-being and implications for future management. METHODS: The preferences, experiences and general comments of patients in the PrefHer study were collected via specific semi-structured interview schedules. Exploratory analyses of data were conducted using standard methodology. The final question invited patients to make further comments, which were divided into 9 thematic categories - future delivery, compliments, time/convenience, practical considerations, pain/discomfort, study design, side-effects, psychological impact, and perceived efficacy. RESULTS: 267/467 (57%) patients made 396 additional comments, 7 were neutral, 305 positive and 86 negative. The three top categories generating the largest number of comments were compliments and gratitude about staff and being part of PrefHer (75/396; 19%), the potential future delivery of SC trastuzumab (73/396; 18%), and practical considerations about SC administration (60/396; 15%). CONCLUSIONS: Eliciting patient preferences about routes of administration of drugs via comprehensive interviews within a randomised cross-over trial yielded rich and important information. The few negative comments made demonstrated a need for proper staff training in SC administration Patients were grateful to have been part of the trial, and would have liked to continue with SC delivery. The possibility of home administration in the future also seemed acceptable. EUDRACT NUMBER: 2010-024099-25

Identifying the challenges and facilitators of implementing a COPD care bundle.

BACKGROUND: Care bundles have been shown to improve outcomes, reduce hospital readmissions and reduce length of hospital stay; therefore increasing the speed of uptake and delivery of care bundles should be a priority in order to deliver more timely improvements and consistent high-quality care. Previous studies have detailed the difficulties of obtaining full compliance to bundle elements but few have described the underlying reasons for this. In order to improve future implementation this paper investigates the challenges encountered by clinical teams implementing a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) care bundle and describes actions taken to overcome these challenges. METHODS: An initial retrospective documentary analysis of data from seven clinical implementation teams was undertaken to review the challenges faced by the clinical teams. Three focus groups with healthcare professionals and managers explored solutions to these challenges developed during the project. RESULTS: Documentary analysis identified 28 challenges which directly impacted implementation of the COPD care bundle within five themes; staffing, infrastructure, process, use of improvement methodology and patient and public involvement. Focus groups revealed that the five most significant challenges for all groups were: staff too busy, staff shortages, lack of staff engagement, added workload of the bundle and patient coding issues. The participants shared facilitating factors used to overcome issues including: shifting perceptions to improve engagement, further education sessions to increase staff participation and gaining buy-in from managers through payment frameworks. CONCLUSIONS: Maximising the impact of a care bundle relies on its successful and timely implementation. Teams implementing the COPD care bundle encountered challenges that were common to all teams and sites. Understanding and learning from the challenges faced by previous endeavours and identifying the facilitators to overcoming these barriers provides an opportunity to mitigate issues that waste time and resources, and ensures that training can be tailored to the anticipated challenges

Representing young people's sexuality in the 'youth' media

This paper reports findings from a content analysis of the main messages about sexuality in media outlets consumed by young people. It examines how sexuality is represented and the level of sexual health information provided in some UK magazines and TV programmes targeted at young people. Our findings show that such outlets included a vast range of useful discussion including information about health concerns and in-depth exploration of issues such as consent and examples of couples exploring whether or not they were ‘ready’ for sex. In particular, the right of girls to ‘say no’ was vividly fore-grounded in several teen dramas and magazines. However, coverage was also characterized by certain limitations. A clear pattern was evident whereby contraception and managing ‘how far to go’ were depicted as women's responsibility. There was a limited range of representations for young men, a lack of positive images of lesbian and gay teenagers, and a failure to represent diversity. There were also no examples of how people might raise concerns such as safer sex. In this context, health educators need to be aware of both the richness and the limitations of current mainstream representations in order to work with and through the media to improve the quality and range of material for young people

Trends in American Newspaper Coverage of Autism

The public\u27s understanding of disabilities is cultivated via several media resources, including news media. Disability scholars often cite negative representations of disabilities in mass media, yet analyses of newspaper journalists\u27 coverage of autism remain scarce. The present study explores the frames, stereotypes, stigmatizing cues, and individuals cited in news coverage of autism through a content analysis of The New York Times and USA Today coverage of autism from 2013-2016. The findings revealed that episodic frames are consistently utilized to discuss autism. References to abnormal social tendencies and coupling autism with adverse circumstances were the most common stereotypes in newspaper coverage. The study’s results show that the presence of stigmatizing cues increased over time, with label references representing the most common stigmatizing cue. Episodic coverage was more stigmatizing than thematic news coverage. Medical professional and journalist sources were most present in news coverage. Theoretical and practical applications for media and disability scholars are discussed

Four Decades of the Journal \u3ci\u3eLaw and Human Behavior\u3c/i\u3e: A Content Analysis

Although still relatively young, the journal Law and Human Behavior (LHB) has amassed a publication history of more than 1300 full-length articles over four decades. Yet, no systematic analysis of the journal has been done until now. The current research coded all full-length articles to examine trends over time, predictors of the number of Google Scholar citations, and predictors of whether an article was cited by a court case. The predictors of interest included article organization, research topics, areas of law, areas of psychology, first-author gender, first-author country of institutional affiliation, and samples employed. Results revealed a vast and varied field that has shown marked diversification over the years. First authors have consistently become more diversified in both gender and country of institutional affiliation. Overall, the most common research topics were jury/judicial decision-making and eyewitness/memory, the most common legal connections were to criminal law and mental health law, and the most common psychology connection was to social-cognitive psychology. Research in psychology and law has the potential to impact both academic researchers and the legal system. Articles published in LHB appear to accomplish both

Rationale in Development Chat Messages: An Exploratory Study

Chat messages of development teams play an increasingly significant role in software development, having replaced emails in some cases. Chat messages contain information about discussed issues, considered alternatives and argumentation leading to the decisions made during software development. These elements, defined as rationale, are invaluable during software evolution for documenting and reusing development knowledge. Rationale is also essential for coping with changes and for effective maintenance of the software system. However, exploiting the rationale hidden in the chat messages is challenging due to the high volume of unstructured messages covering a wide range of topics. This work presents the results of an exploratory study examining the frequency of rationale in chat messages, the completeness of the available rationale and the potential of automatic techniques for rationale extraction. For this purpose, we apply content analysis and machine learning techniques on more than 8,700 chat messages from three software development projects. Our results show that chat messages are a rich source of rationale and that machine learning is a promising technique for detecting rationale and identifying different rationale elements.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. The 14th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR'17