Green human resource management: An organisational strategy for Greening employees

Global warming is a reality. Organisations realise their corporate responsibility to conduct their business with the 'future' in mind. Further, organisations realise that going green is a smart organisational strategy (Mandip, 2012). Sustainability is having a green conscience and ensuring the steps you take today do not have a negative impact on the future. Green Human Resources Management is to promote the sustainable use of resources within business organisations (Mandip, 2012). The aim of this research is to provide an organisation, with a green human resource management strategy (GHRM). A qualitative research approach was followed and five participants interviewed. The researcher followed this approach to gain an in-depth understanding of business eco-friendly practices, and to ascertain if the organisation utilises human resources to drive “green” in the organisation to engage employees. The study found that most organisations have implemented some eco-friendly practice and know the value of becoming a 'green' employer. However, the researcher identified a significant gap in that organisations are not aware of through a lack of knowledge how to utilise human resource practices to obtain staff engagement in green policies and procedure. The researcher has developed various ideas and recommendations to business on how human resource practices can be utilised to go green and engage staff. An example of a key recommendation would be to ensure the employer make themselves known to the public and future employees as a green employer. This is a strategic move and can be accomplished by taking part in green initiatives in the community, hosting green workshops, confirming green involvement on the company website and recruiting employees that are already environmental conscience

Mobility is the Message: Experiments with Mobile Media Sharing

This thesis explores new mobile media sharing applications by building, deploying, and studying their use. While we share media in many different ways both on the web and on mobile phones, there are few ways of sharing media with people physically near us. Studied were three designed and built systems: Push!Music, Columbus, and Portrait Catalog, as well as a fourth commercially available system – Foursquare. This thesis offers four contributions: First, it explores the design space of co-present media sharing of four test systems. Second, through user studies of these systems it reports on how these come to be used. Third, it explores new ways of conducting trials as the technical mobile landscape has changed. Last, we look at how the technical solutions demonstrate different lines of thinking from how similar solutions might look today. Through a Human-Computer Interaction methodology of design, build, and study, we look at systems through the eyes of embodied interaction and examine how the systems come to be in use. Using Goffman’s understanding of social order, we see how these mobile media sharing systems allow people to actively present themselves through these media. In turn, using McLuhan’s way of understanding media, we reflect on how these new systems enable a new type of medium distinct from the web centric media, and how this relates directly to mobility. While media sharing is something that takes place everywhere in western society, it is still tied to the way media is shared through computers. Although often mobile, they do not consider the mobile settings. The systems in this thesis treat mobility as an opportunity for design. It is still left to see how this mobile media sharing will come to present itself in people’s everyday life, and when it does, how we will come to understand it and how it will transform society as a medium distinct from those before. This thesis gives a glimpse at what this future will look like

Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct. Recommendations for Good Scientific Practice and the Consumers of VR-Technology

The goal of this article is to present a first list of ethical concerns that may arise from research and personal use of virtual reality (VR) and related technology, and to offer concrete recommendations for minimizing those risks. Many of the recommendations call for focused research initiatives. In the first part of the article, we discuss the relevant evidence from psychology that motivates our concerns. In Section “Plasticity in the Human Mind,” we cover some of the main results suggesting that one’s environment can influence one’s psychological states, as well as recent work on inducing illusions of embodiment. Then, in Section “Illusions of Embodiment and Their Lasting Effect,” we go on to discuss recent evidence indicating that immersion in VR can have psychological effects that last after leaving the virtual environment. In the second part of the article, we turn to the risks and recommendations. We begin, in Section “The Research Ethics of VR,” with the research ethics of VR, covering six main topics: the limits of experimental environments, informed consent, clinical risks, dual-use, online research, and a general point about the limitations of a code of conduct for research. Then, in Section “Risks for Individuals and Society,” we turn to the risks of VR for the general public, covering four main topics: long-term immersion, neglect of the social and physical environment, risky content, and privacy. We offer concrete recommendations for each of these 10 topics, summarized in Table 1