A welcome to the “Creativity in Work-Applied Management” special issue, Journal of Work-Applied Management. ISSN 2205-2062

Welcome to the “Creativity in Work-Applied Management” special issue of the Journal of Work Applied Management. When we created the call for papers, we characterised creativity as both a process and an outcome within business and as essential for societal and economic growth (Shalley, 2013; Wall et al., 2017a). We thought such characterisation was likely to remain appropriate as technological development, globalisation and urbanisation trigger significant change in everyday life and employment, making it essential to recognise the skills and capabilities needed for continued participation and influence in the workplace, and that these will include “originality abilities” (Bakhshi et al., 2017). We also thought creativity could be considered through the use of creative problem-solving (Osborn, 1953), organisational aesthetics (Taylor and Hansen, 2005; Wall et al., 2017b), flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), future skills (Ehlers and Kellermann, 2019) or development of the workforce through learning (Helyer, 2015). [...

A Computerized Mapping System for Forest Resource Management Planning

Large volumes of inventory data are collected and analyzed with the idea of developing resource management schemes for the future. Unless this inventory information is easily accessible, is of the type needed to make management decisions in accordance with current policy, and has a readily available updating system, the entire management plan often becomes a seldom, if ever, used document. This study deals with the application of several inventory collection and display techniques to assist in making rapid and accurate resource management decisions on a continuing basis. The objective of the study is to develop a comprehensive forest resource management plan for the U.S. Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers Philpott Reservoir Complex located on the Piedmont geomorphic province near Bassett, Virginia. Specifically the management plan is focused on increasing the value of the lands primarily for recreation and wildlife with the inclusion of other compatible uses where appropriate. A healthy and vigorous forest system is required in order to withstand the stresses imposed by man and nature. Therefore, a forest complex capable of supporting the planned recreation, wildlife, scenic attractiveness and other project uses must be maintained so as to yield the maximum social benefit and insure the ecologic integrity of the system

The pivotal role of student assessment in work-integrated learning

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is proliferating in university courses across many countries. Like many educational practices, students’ experience of it is shaped by the assessment processes adopted. Does assessment support or inhibit what WIL seeks to foster? To explore how students experience assessment in WIL, a small-scale investigation was undertaken across faculties in a UK university. Students who had recently undertaken WIL in contexts where it was either tightly coupled or loosely coupled to their programme of study undertook a drawing-stimulated interview about their placement and the role of assessment within it. A thematic analysis was used to discern key themes in student responses. Key issues identified were the importance of assessment in scaffolding learning, the multiple roles of university and workplace staff in assessment, the extent to which assessment practices promote students seeing themselves as becoming practitioners and the reflexive effects of assessment on learning. The paper discusses the implications of these issues for the design of WIL activities

Adolescents care but don't feel responsible for farm animal welfare

Adolescents are the next generation of consumers with the potential to raise standards of farm animal welfare—to theirsatisfaction—if their preferences and concerns are translated into accurate market drivers and signals. There are no published data about adolescent views of farm animal welfare to allow meaningful design, implementation, and evaluation of educational strategies to improve consideration of—and behavior toward—farm animals. Knowledge of farm animal welfare, as well as beliefs and attitudes about farm animal welfare and behavioral intention relevant to it were determined in a sample of ukadolescents, using a survey incorporating an extended version of the theory of planned behavior and novel assessment tools. Our results indicate that adolescents have only a limited knowledge of welfare problems for farm animals and welfare-relevant product labels. Intentions to identify welfare standards for the animals from whom their food was derived were weak. Although they cared about farm animal welfare and agreed with fundamental principles—for example, the provision of space and the absence of pain and suffering—like adults they held limited belief in the power and responsibility that they possess through their choices as consumers; responsibility was often shifted to others, such as the government and farmers

Microbial carbon mineralization in tropical lowland and montane forest soils of Peru

Climate change is affecting the amount and complexity of plant inputs to tropical forest soils. This is likely to influence the carbon (C) balance of these ecosystems by altering decomposition processes e.g., "positive priming effects" that accelerate soil organic matter mineralization. However, the mechanisms determining the magnitude of priming effects are poorly understood. We investigated potential mechanisms by adding (13)C labeled substrates, as surrogates of plant inputs, to soils from an elevation gradient of tropical lowland and montane forests. We hypothesized that priming effects would increase with elevation due to increasing microbial nitrogen limitation, and that microbial community composition would strongly influence the magnitude of priming effects. Quantifying the sources of respired C (substrate or soil organic matter) in response to substrate addition revealed no consistent patterns in priming effects with elevation. Instead we found that substrate quality (complexity and nitrogen content) was the dominant factor controlling priming effects. For example a nitrogenous substrate induced a large increase in soil organic matter mineralization whilst a complex C substrate caused negligible change. Differences in the functional capacity of specific microbial groups, rather than microbial community composition per se, were responsible for these substrate-driven differences in priming effects. Our findings suggest that the microbial pathways by which plant inputs and soil organic matter are mineralized are determined primarily by the quality of plant inputs and the functional capacity of microbial taxa, rather than the abiotic properties of the soil. Changes in the complexity and stoichiometry of plant inputs to soil in response to climate change may therefore be important in regulating soil C dynamics in tropical forest soils.This study was financed by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant NE/G018278/1 and is a product of the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group consortium (www.andesconservation.org); Patrick Meir was also supported by ARC FT110100457

Physical Electronics

Contains reports on four research projects

Physical Electronics

Contains research objectives and reports on two research projects

Physical Electronics

Contains reports on three research projects