86,144 research outputs found
Putting context into organizational intervention design:Using tailored questionnaires to measure initiatives for worker well-being
Realistic evaluation emphasizes the importance of exploring the mechanisms through which organizational interventions are effected. A well-known mechanism in organizational interventions is the screening process. Standardized questionnaires, in popular use, neither consider individuals’ appraisals of working conditions nor the specific context of the workplace. Screening with items tailored to intervention contexts may overcome the limitations of standardized questionnaires. In the present study, we evaluate an approach to develop a tailored questionnaire to measure employees’ appraisals of their specific working conditions. First, we interviewed 56 employees and 17 managers and, later, developed tailored items focused on the working conditions in a postal service. In follow-up interviews, we explore participants’ experiences with the tailored questionnaire, including the development of initiatives, compared to their previous experiences with the company´s annual attitude survey that used standardized scales. Results indicated that participants felt the tailored questionnaire highlighted issues that had previously been ignored, that initiatives were easier to develop due to its specificity, and that the feedback strategy was useful in prioritizing questionnaires. Overall, it can be concluded that tailored questionnaires may be appropriate for use in organizational intervention research and more broadly that evaluations of organizational interventions need to be contextually grounded
Commercial and Regulatory Aspects of Reverse Hybrid Mail
Driven by market opening and increased competition from electronic communication, postal operators have started extending their scope of business by offering hybrid mail services in addition to physical mail conveyance. This paper discusses commercial and regulatory aspects of reverse hybrid mail, i.e. the electronic delivery and archiving of physical mail messages. It argues that postal operators are well positioned to offer hybrid services due to their established brands and their reputation. The introduction of reverse hybrid mail is able to significantly reduce the cost of postal operations while at the same time fitting customers' needs better than traditional postal services. However, these effects rely on the assumption that a postal operator is actually allowed to introduce an electronic delivery system of letters to entire regions and to thereby partially substitute the physical delivery to the doorstep.Reverse hybrid mail, Regulation, Postal market, Substitution, Intermodal competition
Persistent pain after caesarean section and its association with maternal anxiety and socioeconomic background
Background:
Pain, both from the surgical site, and from other sources such as musculoskeletal backache, can persist after caesarean section. In this study of a predominantly socially deprived population we have sought to prospectively examine the association between antenatal maternal anxiety and socioeconomic background and the development of persistent pain of all sources after caesarean section.
Methods:
Demographic details and an anxiety questionnaire were completed by 205 women before elective caesarean section. On the first postoperative day, pain scores were recorded, and at four months patients were asked to complete a Brief Pain Inventory and an Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Score.
Results:
Of 205 parturients recruited, 186 records were complete at the hospital admission phase and 98 (52.7%) were complete at the four-month follow-up phase. At recruitment, 15.1% reported pain. At four months 41.8% (95% CI 32.1 to 51.6%) reported pain, of whom pain was a new finding in 35.7% (95% CI 26.2 to 45.2%). Antenatal anxiety was not a significant predictor of severity of new pain at four months (P=0.43 for state anxiety, P=0.52 for trait anxiety). However, four-month pain severity did correlate with social deprivation (P=0.011), postnatal depression (P<0.001) and pain at 24 h (P=0.018).
Conclusion:
Persistent pain from a variety of sources after caesarean section is common. Our findings do not support the use of antenatal anxiety scoring to predict persistent pain in this setting, but suggest that persistent pain is influenced by acute pain, postnatal depression and socioeconomic deprivation
Use of strategies to improve retention in primary care randomised trials: a qualitative study with in-depth interviews
Objective To explore the strategies used to improve retention in primary care randomised trials.<p></p>
Design Qualitative in-depth interviews and thematic analysis.<p></p>
Participants 29 UK primary care chief and principal investigators, trial managers and research nurses.<p></p>
Methods In-depth face-to-face interviews.<p></p>
Results Primary care researchers use incentive and communication strategies to improve retention in trials, but were unsure of their effect. Small monetary incentives were used to increase response to postal questionnaires. Non-monetary incentives were used although there was scepticism about the impact of these on retention. Nurses routinely used telephone communication to encourage participants to return for trial follow-up. Trial managers used first class post, shorter questionnaires and improved questionnaire designs with the aim of improving questionnaire response. Interviewees thought an open trial design could lead to biased results and were negative about using behavioural strategies to improve retention. There was consensus among the interviewees that effective communication and rapport with participants, participant altruism, respect for participant's time, flexibility of trial personnel and appointment schedules and trial information improve retention. Interviewees noted particular challenges with retention in mental health trials and those involving teenagers.<p></p>
Conclusions The findings of this qualitative study have allowed us to reflect on research practice around retention and highlight a gap between such practice and current evidence. Interviewees describe acting from experience without evidence from the literature, which supports the use of small monetary incentives to improve the questionnaire response. No such evidence exists for non-monetary incentives or first class post, use of which may need reconsideration. An exploration of barriers and facilitators to retention in other research contexts may be justified.<p></p>
The unanticipated challenges associated with implementing an observational study protocol in a large scale physical activity and GPS data collection
Background: Large-scale primary data collections are complex, costly, and time-consuming. Study protocols for trial-based research are now commonplace, with a growing number of similar pieces of work being published on observational research. However, useful additions to the literature base are publications that describe the issues and challenges faced while conducting observational studies. These can provide researchers with insightful knowledge that can inform funding proposals or project development work.
Objectives: In this study, we identify and reflectively discuss the unforeseen or often unpublished issues associated with organizing and implementing a large-scale objectively measured physical activity and global positioning system (GPS) data collection.
Methods: The SPACES (Studying Physical Activity in Children’s Environments across Scotland) study was designed to collect objectively measured physical activity and GPS data from 10- to 11-year-old children across Scotland, using a postal delivery method. The 3 main phases of the project (recruitment, delivery of project materials, and data collection and processing) are described within a 2-stage framework: (1) intended design and (2) implementation of the intended design.
Results: Unanticipated challenges arose, which influenced the data collection process; these encompass four main impact categories: (1) cost, budget, and funding; (2) project timeline; (3) participation and engagement; and (4) data challenges. The main unforeseen issues that impacted our timeline included the informed consent process for children under the age of 18 years; the use of, and coordination with, the postal service to deliver study information and equipment; and the variability associated with when participants began data collection and the time taken to send devices and consent forms back (1-12 months). Unanticipated budgetary issues included the identification of some study materials (AC power adapter) not fitting through letterboxes, as well as the employment of fieldworkers to increase recruitment and the return of consent forms. Finally, we encountered data issues when processing physical activity and GPS data that had been initiated across daylight saving time.
Conclusions: We present learning points and recommendations that may benefit future studies of similar methodology in their early stages of development
Reforming the posts : abandoning the monopoly-supported postal universal service obligation in developing countries
The monopoly-supported universal service obligation (USO) is usually defended on the grounds that the monopoly allows for cross-subsidy in letter services that in turn allows universal access to a service of great importance to all. The author argues that letter delivery (as opposed to other services that may be provided by post offices) is not in universal demand in poor countries, that the size of the market in developing countries is such that USOs could not be met under the monopoly model, and that the monopoly carries heavy costs for sector development and consumer welfare. He proposes in the place of the postal USO a competitive approach involving universal access to a range of services that poor people have a need to access. Regarding reform of the incumbent, the author takes a preliminary first cut at examining the statistical relationship between postal performance (as measured by letters per capita allowing for income per capita), trust in the postal service, and postal efficiency, and finds a significant link between the three. The results suggest that reforms that improve postal efficiency and trust in the postal network will improve the performance of the postal network. The author suggests that there may be better uses of cross-subsidy from within the sector and government subsidy from without than supporting the inefficient delivery of a service rarely used by poor people.Economic Theory&Research,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Governance Indicators,Environmental Economics&Policies,Postal Services
Economies of scale, density and scope in Swiss Post’s Mail Delivery
Based on a cross-section data set of 2004 reflecting Swiss Post’s delivery cost we estimate its cost function and derive measures of economies of scale, density and scope.Economies of scale, economies of scope, economies of density
Subadditivity and Contestability in the Postal Sector: Theory and Evidence
Several studies have been conducted to analyze whether a regulation of the postal sector as a monopoly is actually efficient by examining its cost structure. The authors detected significant scale economies only in the delivery function and hence demonstrated a necessity for competition in the upstream operations. The primary purpose of this paper is to summarize the basic conditions of natural monopoly theory and to review the approaches and results of the studies dealing with this topic. Despite the importance of contestability in this context, previous literature concentrates only on the subadditivity aspect. The existence of economies of scale does not inevitably justify a governmental maintenance of the monopoly if the market is contestable. In this respect, further research is needed in order to account for contestability.Postal Sector, Scale Economies, Subadditivity, Contestability
Regulatory Governance Costs in Network Industries: Implicatins for postal Regulation
The various actors in regulated industries relate to each other within a broader institutional framework, i.e. by way of formal and informal rules. An important role in the implementation of liberalization processes is given to the regulation and thus to regulatory institutions. Regulation should have positive effect on social welfare. But state intervention also causes costs which we call costs of regulatory governance. These costs result from negative consequences caused by unnecessary regulatory requirements or from the implementation of inappropriate regulatory instruments. According to new institutional economics, these costs will depend upon the formal and informal rules among the involved actors, upon the allocation of property rights among these actors, as well as upon the various principal-agent or more generally contractual relationships among these actors. In this article we define an analytical framework of costs of regulatory governance. We distinguish between direct and indirect costs of regulation: Direct costs occur in relation with the institutional design of the regulatory framework and the behavior of actors. Whereas the indirect costs arise because of false incentives and finally turn out in an inefficient supply of goods and services. Using the example of the Swiss postal market we give an outline of a possible application of the framework.Regulation; Postal Sector; Regulatory Governance Costs; New Institutional Economics
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