Mentoring Early-Career Scientists for HIV Research Careers

Mentoring is important for early-career HIV researchers; it is key for work satisfaction, productivity, workforce diversity, and retention of investigators in a variety of research settings. Establishment of multidisciplinary research projects often is accomplished through mentoring

Review: Use of Qualitative Methods in Published Health Services and Management Research: A 10-Year Review

Over the past 10 years, the field of health services and management research has seen renewed interest in the use of qualitative research methods. This article examines the volume and characteristics of qualitative research articles published in nine major health services and management journals between 1998 and 2008. Qualitative research articles comprise 9% of research articles published in these journals. Although the publication rate of qualitative research articles has not kept pace with that of quantitative research articles, citation analysis suggests that qualitative research articles contribute comparably to the field’s knowledge base. A wide range of policy and management topics has been examined using qualitative methods. Case study designs, interviews, and documentary sources were the most frequently used methods. Half of qualitative research articles provided little or no detail about key aspects the study’s methods. Implications are discussed and recommendations are offered for promoting the publication of qualitative research

Diversity in demographic characteristics, abilities and personality trits: Do faultlines affect team functioning?

This study examines the impact of faultlines within teams on cohesion and conflicts. Faultlines concern the attributes of several team members simultaneously and mirror the structure of diversity within a team. The strength of a faultline indicates the level of similarity within potential subgroups and its width the extent of dissimilarity between them. The faultlines addressed in this study are based upon the demographic characteristics, abilities and personality traits of team members. We also address the interaction of team autonomy on the effects of faultlines. Data for this study were collected by means of questionnaires administered to 99 teams of undergraduate students. The results indicate that demographic faultlines directly impair the functioning of a team. Team autonomy conditioned both the relationship between the strength of the ability faultline and team cohesion and the relationship between the depth of the personality faultline and intra-team conflict. In other words, these faultlines are more detrimental to team functioning when team autonomy is high. Ability faultlines seem to emphasize similarities within subgroups, while personality faultlines accentuate dissimilarities between subgroups