Female Leaders - It’s Not Just About Gender: A Case Study

From the passing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, females have competed for previously all male-held jobs. Suddenly finding themselves on unfamiliar ground, women needed workplace survival guides more than workplace success guides. Over the years, numerous studies have tracked women on their way to the top of organizations. These studies noted while there are more women in the workplace today, overall women are still struggling with career advancement and, in particular, with role models for successful managerial leadership. As of 2014, nearly 52% of all professional-level positions in the United States were held by women; yet they held only 14.6% of senior management positions and only 4.6% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. Though the authors found a plethora of articles offering career advice and tips for working women, there was a paucity addressing best practices for female executives. Thus, to fill this gap in the literature, the authors approached the subject from a practical angle and offer lessons learned for women managers from one of the authors who was the first female director of manufacturing at a Fortune 500 company

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Abusive Supervision and Work Alienation: An Exploratory Study

Recent research on “dark” leadership reveals that subordinates who work for abusive supervisors report a number of negative outcomes. We explored whether employees who experience abuse from their supervisors reported more work alienation. We predicted that abusive supervision would “trickle down,” decreasing subordinates’ psychological links with their work. Regression analysis revealed no significant relationship between abusive supervisory behavior and subordinates’ work alienation. However, the results provide a basis for future research. The findings, though unexpected, paint a brighter picture for those enduring work with a “dark” leader

References and Bibliography: Citing the Internet

Over the past six years scholars have found the Internet to be a source of quick information. While the quality of information on the Internet may be questionable, nonetheless, sources of online studies are beginning to merge with library-based research. This article discusses the history of the Internet; concerns of using the Internet as a source, the importance of citing sources and how to cite electronic sources