Exploring the importance of reflection in the control room

While currently difficult to measure or explicitly design for, evidence suggests that providing people with opportunities to reflect on experience must be recognized and valued during safety-critical work. We provide an insight into reflection as a mechanism that can help to maintain both individual and team goals. In the control room, reflection can be task-based, critical for the 'smooth' day-to-day operational performance of a socio-technical system, or can foster learning and organisational change by enabling new understandings gained from experience. In this position paper we argue that technology should be designed to support the reflective capacity of people. There are many interaction designs and artefacts that aim to support problem-solving, but very few that support self-reflection and group reflection. Traditional paradigms for safety-critical systems have focussed on ensuring the functional correctness of designs, minimising the time to complete tasks, etc. Work in the area of user experience design may be of increasing relevance when generating artefacts that aim to encourage reflection

Multiple paradigms and organisational research: an analysis of work behaviour in the fire service

The thesis examines Kuhn's (1962, 1970) concept of paradigm, assesses how it is employed for mapping intellectual terrain in the social sciences, and evaluates it's use in research based on multiple theory positions. In so doing it rejects both the theses of total paradigm 'incommensurability' (Kuhn, 1962), and also of liberal 'translation' (Popper, 1970), in favour of a middle ground through the 'language-game of everyday life' (Wittgenstein, 1953). The thesis ultimately argues for the possibility of being 'trained-into' new paradigms, given the premise that 'unorganised experience cannot order perception' (Phillips, 1977). In conducting multiple paradigm research the analysis uses the Burrell and Morgan (1979) model for examining the work organisation of a large provincial fire Service. This analysis accounts for firstly, a 'functionalist' assessment of work design, demonstrating inter alia the decrease in reported motivation with length of service; secondly, an 'interpretive' portrayal of the daily accomplishment of task routines, highlighting the discretionary and negotiated nature of the day's events; thirdly, a 'radical humanist' analysis of workplace ideology, demonstrating the hegemonic role of officer training practices; and finally, a 'radical structuralist' description of the labour process, focusing on the establishment of a 'normal working day'. Although the argument is made for the possibility of conducting multiple paradigm research, the conclusion stresses the many institutional pressures serving to offset development

The persistence of analogies in design decision-making

Previous theories of design decision-making have discussed how designers use analogical reasoning to quickly scope the solution space down to one viable solution. This initial analogy forms the template of a possible action plan that is then modified to suit the unique properties of that particular problem. This use of analogical reasoning allows designers to quickly engage with the problem and generate a workable solution. Our findings indicate that this initial analogy actually persists across all stages of decision-making, and does not play a role solely during the first stage of scoping. This analogical persistence leads to poorer design decisions. This thesis presents a series of studies that adopt a mixed method approach to investigating the influence of analogies on the decision-making of Interaction Designers. We employed qualitative methods such as the Critical Decision Method for Eliciting Knowledge (Klein, 1989), which aided in identifying analogical persistence as a problem that leads to poorer quality decisions. We also employed quantitative methods such as the Design Fixation paradigm (Jansson & Smith, 1991) to investigate how different types of analogies (self-generated & provided Priming Analogies) can influence the expression of analogical persistence. Finally in an attempt to mitigate the potential pitfalls of analogical persistence, this thesis attempts to control it using principles from Design Rationale (Lee & Lai, 1991) and Reflection (Schon, 1983). Rather than seeing a decrease in analogical persistence, our manipulation actually increased fixation. A follow-up study identified that designers tend to poorly appraise the weaknesses in the initial analogy, which may have led to the aforementioned unexpected result. These findings challenge the notion that greater understanding of the design space will lead to higher quality design decisions

Rethinking history and memory in organization studies: The case for historiographical reflexivity

This is the final version. Available on open access from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordThe historic turn in organization studies has led to greater appreciation of the potential contribution from historical research. However, there is increasing emphasis on integrating history into organization studies, rather than on recognizing how accommodating history might require a reorientation. As a result, key conceptual and methodological insights from historiography have been overlooked or at times misrepresented. We identify four modes of enquiry that highlight distinctions from history about ‘how to conceptualize’ and ‘how to research’ the past. First, historical organization studies research the past primarily through reference to archival sources. Second, retrospective organizational history reconstructs the past principally from retrospective accounts, such as those generated in oral history. Third, retrospective organizational memory uses ethnography and interviews to explore the role of memory in the present. Fourth, historical organizational memory traces the institutionalization of organizational memory through archival research. From the analysis, we argue that historical organization studies are increasingly established, and interest in ‘uses of the past’ has contributed to the rise of retrospective organizational memory. However, historiographical reflexivity – a new concept for organization studies – focuses attention on engaging with both history and collective memory, and on the distinct methodological choices between archival and retrospective methods

Noise induced oscillations in non-equilibrium steady state systems

We consider effect of stochastic sources upon self-organization process being initiated with creation of the limit cycle. General expressions obtained are applied to the stochastic Lorenz system to show that departure from equilibrium steady state can destroy the limit cycle at certain relation between characteristic scales of temporal variation of principle variables. Noise induced resonance related to the limit cycle is found to appear if the fastest variations displays a principle variable, which is coupled with two different degrees of freedom or more.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Physica Script

Hopf Bifurcations in a Watt Governor With a Spring

This paper pursues the study carried out by the authors in "Stability and Hopf bifurcation in a hexagonal governor system", focusing on the codimension one Hopf bifurcations in the hexagonal Watt governor differential system. Here are studied the codimension two, three and four Hopf bifurcations and the pertinent Lyapunov stability coefficients and bifurcation diagrams, ilustrating the number, types and positions of bifurcating small amplitude periodic orbits, are determined. As a consequence it is found an open region in the parameter space where two attracting periodic orbits coexist with an attracting equilibrium point.Comment: 30 pages and 7 figure

Psychosocial work characteristics, burnout, psychological morbidity symptoms and early retirement intentions: a cross-sectional study of NHS consultants in the UK

Objectives: The objectives of this study are twofold. First, to examine the direct effect of psychosocial work characteristics (as measured by job autonomy and work-related pressure) in relation to self-reported psychological morbidity symptoms and early retirement intentions among a sample of hospital consultants in the National Health Service (NHS). Second, to investigate burnout as mediating variable (ie, indirect effect) of these postulated associations. Design: A cross-sectional observational study. Participants: 593 NHS consultants (male=63.1%) from hospitals in England, Scotland and Wales. Measures: Self-reported online questionnaires on work-related pressure and job autonomy (Job Demands-Resources Questionnaire); emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation (Maslach Burnout Inventory); depressive and anxiety symptoms (State Trait Personality Inventory) and a single-item on early retirement intention. Results: This study observed high prevalence rates across all adverse health measures: emotional exhaustion (38.7%), depersonalisation (20.7%), anxiety symptoms (43.1%) and depressive symptoms (36.1%). Multiple linear regressions examined the postulated direct and indirect effects. Job autonomy had significant negative direct effects on the frequency of NHS consultants’ anxiety and depressive symptoms, and their intention to retire early. Both emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation mediated the relationships that work-related pressure (full mediation) and job autonomy (partial mediation) had with self-reported symptoms of psychological morbidities. Only emotional exhaustion mediated the relationships where early retirement intention was the outcome. In terms of sociodemographic factors, age and years’ experience predicted both burnout dimensions and psychological morbidity. Conclusions: This is the first study to observe job autonomy to be associated with the number of self-reported psychological morbidity symptoms and early retirement intentions in a sample of NHS consultants. Burnout dimensions mediated these relationships, indicating that interventions need to focus on enhancing working conditions and addressing burnout among NHS consultants before more severe symptoms of psychological morbidity are reported. This study has implications for NHS policy makers and senior leadership

Mental health promotion in the workplace – a good practice report

Promotion of mental health at work is one of the Community OSH Strategy’s priorities13. In 2009, a case study collection on mental health at work was conducted for the EU-OSHA. The present report is based on this collection of good practice examples. The aim of the report was to review the collatedcase studies for equipping practitioners, policy makers and employers to draw conclusions from these studies and take these into account when implementing programmes that target mental health in the workplace. Organisations involved were situated in Europe and varied across occupational sectors. Specific aspects of each organisation’s MHP programme were examined to determine and identify commonly observed success factors and practical approaches and strategies to overcome challenges across the thirteen case studies. Additionally approaches and strategies used in the case studies that were particularly innovative or original were highlighted and discussed

The changing nature of managerial work: The effects of corporate restructuring on management jobs and careers

This article analyses contemporary issues relevant to understanding the changing nature of management and managerial work. The argument is developed in four parts. First, to provide context, we offer an overview of the literature on the organization and control of managerial work, tracing contributions mainly from the early 1950s onwards. Second, we discuss the first of two related concerns relevant to understanding the contemporary nature of managerial work – strategies of organizational restructuring: an analysis highlighting the role of downsizing and delayering within corporate campaigns promoting ‘post-bureaucratic’ systems. Third, we extend this discussion by addressing how such corporate restructuring affects managers in their everyday work – notably in relation to the perceptions and realities of growing job insecurity and career uncertainty: an analysis that frequently draws upon our own investigations to establish an agenda for future research. The article concludes by summarizing the content of four research articles whose arguments relate to issues discussed in this analysis of managerial work. Keyword