The motivations for the adoption of management innovation by local governments and its performance effects

This article analyses the economic, political and institutional antecedents and performance effects of the adoption of shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs) – a management innovation (MI) that occurs when a team of senior managers oversees two or more public organizations. Findings from statistical analysis of 201 English local governments and interviews with organizational leaders reveal that shared SMTs are adopted to develop organisational capacity in resource‐challenged, politically risk‐averse governments, and in response to coercive and mimetic institutional pressures. Importantly, sharing SMTs may reduce rather than enhance efficiency and effectiveness due to redundancy costs and the political transaction costs associated with diverting resources away from a high‐performing partner to support their lower‐performing counterpart

Consistency and credibility of intimate partner abuse reports: An examination of pathological or generalisable phenomena

Despite mixed research findings, there remains a pervasive belief in the legal community that testimonial inconsistencies are detrimental to eyewitness, complainant, and defendant credibility generally, and to domestic violence complainants in particular. Studied extensively in other contexts, little research has examined consistency of reports of intimate partner abuse (IPA) victimization over time and its role in perceived credibility. The first study of this dissertation compared consistency of reports of IPA victimization with consistency of everyday autobiographical memory event prevalence. Study 1 participants (n = 276) completed two calendar-based online surveys approximately six weeks apart. Participants who self-identified as experiencing psychological, physical, or sexual abuse in a romantic relationship (n = 138) completed questions assessing IPA victimization and participation in leisure activities (LA). A matched sample of 138 comparison participants completed only the LA questions. Few differences between report consistency of abusive experiences and everyday memory events were found. When significant effects were observed, results demonstrated differences between categories of autobiographical memory events within but not between IPA and LA reports. The second study investigated whether IPA allegations are received with scepticism, and if so, why. Study 2 participants (n = 374) evaluated the effectiveness of a ‘complainant’ reporting on IPA victimization or LA participation during two interviews. Complainant gender and consistency of reports across repeated interviews were manipulated. Results demonstrated that consistent complainants were evaluated more favourably than were inconsistent complainants, as were LA compared with IPA complainants. Further analyses supported the role of social categorization in evaluations of complainant effectiveness, demonstrating that when a complainant is seen as a member of one\u27s own group, credibility is enhanced: Compared to complainants reporting on IPA victimization, LA ‘complainants’ were judged to be more similar and more likely to belong to the same group as participants which was associated with more positive evaluations of LA than IPA complainant effectiveness. Overall, findings suggest that although actual differences in consistency of event prevalence are few, reports of IPA victimization are received with greater scepticism than reports of everyday events. Such prejudice may contribute to disbelief of IPA allegations, potentially precluding appropriate legal intervention

The effects of cognitive busyness and question wording: Responses to an intimate partner abuse vignette

This study examined the effects of question wording and cognitive busyness on participant decisions to leave or stay in a hypothetical abusive relationship. Participants asked whether they would leave were expected to make decisions closer to \u27definitely leave\u27 than participants asked whether they would stay, with the effect being more pronounced for cognitively busy participants. Participants read an abuse vignette and then half were instructed to memorize numbers to manipulate busyness. All participants imagined they were in the victim\u27s position, tried to recall reasons from the vignette that were relevant to the decision, and indicated their decisions on a scale from \u27definitely stay\u27 to \u27definitely leave\u27. As predicted, male decisions were closer to \u27definitely leave\u27 when asked whether they would leave than when asked whether they would stay. The opposite pattern, however, was found for female participants, with decisions being closest to \u27definitely leave\u27 when asked whether they would stay

Home iv antibiotic therapy through a medical day care unit

An out-patient parenteral antibiotic therapy program provided through a medical day care unit was evaluated in a tertiary care hospital. From July 11, 1988 to December 31, 1990, 122 patients were treated either on site at the unit or at home with self-administered intravenous antibiotics. In all, 142 courses of parenteral antibiotics (mostly cephalosporins and clindamycin) were given for a total of 124 infections, mostly bone and soft tissue infections (67 of 124, 54%). The duration of out-patient therapy ranged from two to 62 days with a mean duration of 9.4 days if treated at the unit, or 13.2 days in the home care model (1476 patient-days). Vein access was peripheral and catheters remained functional for an average of 4.9 days (range 0.5 to 22 days). Only two patients experienced adverse drug reactions that necessitated modification of treatment. One other case was readmitted to the hospital for surgical debridement. The average cost per patient-day was $66 compared with$375 for in-hospital therapy. This program proved to be safe, efficient, and cost-effective

Coffre à outils sur le transfert de connaissances appliqué au secteur de l’environnement : une approche proactive

Ce coffre s’adresse aux personnes concernées par le transfert des connaissances, et la performance de leur entreprise que ce soit les superviseurs, les cadres intermédiaires, les relayeurs, les membres de la direction dont le service des ressources humaines ou tout autre intervenant au sein de l’entreprise. Le langage utilisé se veut accessible à tous et des exemples y sont proposés. Vous retrouverez dans le coffre : une présentation des nouveaux enjeux de survie des entreprises, dont le transfert de connaissances; une explication des principales notions retenues sur le TC; une démarche en trois étapes pour faire, du transfert de connaissances, un succès; des énoncés évaluant les pratiques de TC selon les trois étapes privilégiées; une sélection d’outils en fonction de la démarche de transfert de connaissances

Knowledge transfer practical tools booklet

Practical booklet attached to the Environmental Knowledge Transfer Toolki

Info-FNEEQ

Publ. comme: Info-FNEEQ, vol. 3, no 4, avril 85Bibligr.: p. 7

Prospective evaluation of health-related quality of life in patients with deep venous thrombosis.

BACKGROUND: To our knowledge, the burden of deep venous thrombosis from the patient's perspective has not been quantified. We evaluated health-related quality of life (QOL) after deep vein thrombosis and compared results with general population norms. METHODS: This was a multicenter prospective cohort study of 359 consecutive eligible patients with deep vein thrombosis recruited at 7 Canadian hospital centers. Quality of life was assessed at baseline and at 1 and 4 months after diagnosis using generic (36-Item Short-Form Health Survey) and disease-specific (Venous Insufficiency Epidemiological and Economic Study [VEINES]-QOL and VEINES symptom [VEINES-Sym] questionnaires) measures. Changes in QOL scores during the 4-month period were calculated, and determinants of lack of improvement in QOL were evaluated. RESULTS: During the 4 months, mean 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey physical and mental component summary scores improved by 5.1 and 4.6 points, respectively, and VEINES-QOL and VEINES-Sym scores improved by 3.1 and 2.2 points, respectively (P < .001 for time trend for all measures). However, about one third of patients had worsening of QOL during follow-up. Multivariate analyses showed that worsening of the postthrombotic syndrome score was an independent predictor of worsening of 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey physical component summary (P = .04), VEINES-QOL (P < .001), and VEINES-Sym (P < .001) scores. The 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey physical component summary scores were lower than population norms at all points assessed. CONCLUSIONS: On average, QOL improves during the 4 months following deep vein thrombosis. However, in about one third of patients, QOL deteriorates, and at 4 months, average QOL remains poorer than population norms. Worsening of the postthrombotic syndrome score is associated with worsening of QOL