Employee Involvement Climate and Climate Strength: A study of employee attitudes and organizational effectiveness in UK hospitals

Purpose – Addressing the continuing productivity challenge the purpose of this paper is to analyze data from the National Health Service (NHS) on employee involvement (EI) in order to gain critical insights into how employees’ shared perception of employee involvement in organizational decision-making (labelled EI climate) might address two persistent issues: how to enhance positive staff attitudes and improve organizational performance. In doing so we respond to recent calls for more multilevel research and extend previous research on EI climate by attending to both EI climate level and EI climate strength. Design/methodology/approach – Data from 4702 employees nested in 33 UK hospitals was used to test the moderating role of EI climate strength in the (a) crosslevel EI climate level-employee attitudes relationship and in the (b) organizationallevel EI climate-organizational effectiveness relationship. Findings – The results of the multilevel analyses showed that EI climate level was positively associated with individual-level employee attitudes (i.e. job satisfaction, affective commitment). Further the results of the hierarchical regression analysis and the ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that EI climate level was also related to organizational effectiveness (i.e. lower outpatient waiting times; higher performance quality). In addition, both analyses demonstrated the moderating role of EI climate strength, in that the positive impact of EI climate level on employee attitudes and organizational effectiveness was more marked in the presence of a strong compared to a weak EI climate. Practical implications – By creating and maintaining a positive and strong climate for involvement hospital managers can tackle the productivity challenge that UK hospitals and health care institutions more generally are currently facing while improving the attitudes of their employees who are critical in the transformative process and ultimately underpin organizational success. Originality/value – This is the first study which provides evidence that favorable and consistent collective recognition of EI opportunities by staff contributes to enhance both employee attitudes and hospital performance. Results highlight the role of EI climate strength and underscore its importance in future research and practice

Changing energy accelerated turbulent fluid flow in the pipeline according to spectral analysis

За результатами теоретичних і експериментальних досліджень пришвидшеної течії рідини в циліндричному напірному трубопроводі проведено якісну оцінку спектрального складу енергії турбулентного потоку. Отримані густини спектрів нарізних відстанях від стінки труби. Згідно оцінок, передача енергії між низькими і високими частотами в нестаціонарному потоці суттєво відрізняються від передачі енергії в стаціонарному потоці.According to the results of theoretical and experimental studies of accelerated fluid flow in a cylindrical pressure pipe made a qualitative assessment of the spectral composition of the energy of turbulent flow. Density spectra obtained at different distances from the pipe wall. According to estimates, the transfer of energy between the low and high frequencies in unsteady flow significantly different from the energy transfer in a steady stream. In the transition to the low-frequency components of turbulent currents of the spectra in the near-wall local rate of flow with a relatively large part of the total energy than in the core flow. In steady flow relative share of low-energy component decreases with the increase of average flow velocity (number Re). Transient currents reverse process occurs after the turbulence of flow turbulence is a small-scale and large-scale development of the current portion of the increase.По результатам теоретических и экспериментальных исследований ускоренного течения жидкости в цилиндрическом напорном трубопроводе проведена качественная оценка спектрального состава энергии турбулентного потока. Полученные плотности спектров на разных расстояниях от стенки трубы. По оценкам, передача энергии между низкими и высокими частотами в нестационарном потоке существенно отличаются от передачи энергии в стационарном потоке

Metal-insulator transition induced by 16O -18O oxygen isotope exchange in colossal negative magnetoresistance manganites

The effect of 16O-18O isotope exchange on the electric resistivity was studied for (La(1-y)Pr(y))0.7Ca0.3MnO3 ceramic samples. Depending on y, this mixed perovskite exhibited different types of low-temperature behavior ranging from ferromagnetic metal (FM) to charge ordered (CO) antiferromagnetic insulator. It was found that at y=0.75, the substitution of 16O by 18O results in the reversible transition from a FM to a CO insulator at zero magnetic field. The applied magnetic field (H >= 2 T) transformed the sample with 18O again to the metallic state and caused the increase in the FM transition temperature Tc of the 16O sample. As a result, the isotope shift of Tc at H = 2 T was as high as 63 K. Such unique sensitivity of the system to oxygen isotope exchange, giving rise even to the metal-insulator transition, is discussed in terms of the isotope dependence of the effective electron bandwidth which shifts the balance between the CO and FM phases.Comment: 5 pages (RevTeX), 2 eps figures included, to appear in J. Appl. Phys. 83, (1998

Assessing the Impact of a Governed Focal Point on Broad Jump Performance in Collegiate Females

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An Assessment of a 15 vs. 30 Second Recovery Period on Vertical Jump Performance

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Assessing The Impact of Body Fat Percentage And Lean Mass, on Wingate Performance

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The Impact of a 30 vs. 60 Second Passive Recovery Period on Vertical Jump Performance

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Novel Biomarkers of Physical Activity Maintenance in Midlife Women: Preliminary Investigation

The precision health initiative is leading the discovery of novel biomarkers as important indicators of biological processes or responses to behavior, such as physical activity. Neural biomarkers identified by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) hold promise to inform future research, and ultimately, for transfer to the clinical setting to optimize health outcomes. This study investigated resting-state and functional brain biomarkers between midlife women who were maintaining physical activity in accordance with the current national guidelines and previously acquired age-matched sedentary controls. Approval was obtained from the Human Subjects Committee. Participants included nondiabetic, healthy weight to overweight (body mass index 19–29.9 kg/m2) women (n = 12) aged 40–64 years. Control group data were used from participants enrolled in our previous functional MRI study and baseline resting-state MRI data from a subset of sedentary (week) midlife women who were enrolled in a 9-month exercise intervention conducted in our imaging center. Differential activation of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and greater connectivity with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) was identified between physically active women and sedentary controls. After correcting for multiple comparisons, these differences in biomarkers of physical activity maintenance did not reach statistical significance. Preliminary evidence in this small sample suggests that neural biomarkers of physical activity maintenance involve activations in the brain region associated with areas involved in implementing goal-directed behavior. Specifically, activation of the IFG and connectivity with the dlPFC is identified as a neural biomarker to explain and predict long-term physical activity maintenance for healthy aging. Future studies should evaluate these biomarker links with relevant clinical correlations

Conformity of spin fluctuations in alkali-metal iron selenide superconductors inferred from the observation of a magnetic resonant mode in K(x)Fe(2-y)Se(2)

Spin excitations stemming from the metallic phase of the ferrochalcogenide superconductor K(0.77)Fe(1.85)Se(2) (T_c=32 K) were mapped out in the ab plane by means of the time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy. We observed a magnetic resonant mode at Q_res=(1/2 1/4), whose energy and in-plane shape are almost identical to those in the related compound Rb(0.8)Fe(1.6)Se(2). This lets us infer that there is a unique underlying electronic structure of the bulk superconducting phase K(x)Fe(2)Se(2), which is universal for all alkali-metal iron selenide superconductors and stands in contrast to the doping-tunable phase diagrams of the related iron pnictides. Furthermore, the spectral weight of the resonance on the absolute scale, normalized to the volume fraction of the superconducting phase, is several times larger than in optimally doped BaFe(2-x)Co(x)As(2). We also found no evidence for any additional low-energy branches of spin excitations away from Q_res. Our results provide new input for theoretical models of the spin dynamics in iron based superconductors