Inside the hybrid organization: An organizational level view of responses to conflicting institutional demands

This paper explores organizational responses to conflicting institutional demands. An inductive comparative case study of four social enterprises that scaled their organization while embedded in competing social welfare and commercial logics suggests that, when facing competing organizational templates imposed by their institutional environment, organizations attempt to strike a balance at the organizational level by adopting a combination of intact practices from both logics instead of balancing at the practice level by resorting to strategies such as decoupling. In addition, we find an important legitimating effect of founding origins: in a sector where the social welfare logic is ultimately predominant, organizations originating from the social sector benefited from an a priori legitimacy capital, which allowed them to borrow freely from both social and commercial practices. In contrast, organizations emanating from the commercial sector, suffering from an a priori legitimacy deficit, had to display their conformity with social templates in order to secure their acceptance in the field and therefore adopted predominantly social practices. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of hybrid organizations and point to the founding origins of organizations as an important determinant of the pattern of hybridization strategies.

Employee Training and Wage Compression in Britain

We use linked data for 1,460 workplaces and 19,853 employees from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998 to analyse the incidence and duration of employee training in Britain. We find training to be positively associated with having a recognised vocational qualification and current union membership. Whilst being non-white, shorter current job tenure, and part-time or fixed-term employment statuses are all associated with less training. Furthermore, in line with recent non-competitive training models, higher levels of wage compression (measured in absolute or relative terms) are positively related to training.training; wage compression; performance

Employee Training, Wage Dispersion and Equality in Britain

We use British household panel data to explore the wage returns to training incidence and intensity (duration) for 6924 employees. We find these returns differ greatly depending on the nature of the training (general or specific); who funds the training (employee or employer); and the skill levels of the recipient (white or blue collar). Using decomposition analysis, we further conclude that training is positively associated with wage dispersion in Britain and a virtuous circle of wage gains but only for white-collar employees.Training, wage compression, performance

Data mining predictive models for pervasive intelligent decision support in intensive care medicine

The introduction of an Intelligent Decision Support System (IDSS) in a critical area like the Intensive Medicine is a complex and difficult process. In this area, their professionals don’t have much time to document the cases, because the patient direct care is always first. With the objective to reduce significantly the manual records and, enabling, at the same time, the possibility of developing an IDSS which can help in the decision making process, all data acquisition process and knowledge discovery in database phases were automated. From the data acquisition to the knowledge discovering, the entire process is autonomous and executed in real-time. On-line induced data mining models were used to predict organ failure and outcome. Preliminary results obtained with a limited population of patients showed that this approach can be applied successfully.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

The transnational exchange of DNA data: Global standards and local practices

The creation of systems for the transnational exchange of information raises multiple issues related to the establishment of common infrastructures, protocols and regulation. The development and adaptation of standards is paramount in reaching operational levels of harmonization. This paper focuses on the case of a system for the improvement of crossborder cooperation in the European Union through the exchange information among databases of Member States. The Prüm Treaty and the subsequent Prüm Decisions have established a framework for the exchange of DNA profiles, dactyloscopic data, and vehicle registration data, for the purpose of combating cross-border crime and terrorism. The historical specificity of DNA profiling data in terms of the development of international standards and the sensitivity it represents for data protection regulation constitutes it as a relevant object in order to analyze the challenges raised in the context of transnational cooperation. First, this paper provides an overview of the trajectory and characteristics of DNA as an object of standardization. Second, through interviews with local actors involved in the implementation and operationalization of the network for the exchange of DNA data, the global standards are compared with practices at the local level. The adoption of minimal standards allows flexibility and autonomy at a local level, thus allowing interoperability to exist in a scenario of national differentiation. However, a relatively wide margin of discretion in terms of the routine local operation of the system can create frictions and lead to isolated solutions that can be seen as sub-optimal

Making sense of the story - the dialogues between the police and forensic laboratories in the construction of DNA evidence

The use of DNA technologies for criminal investigation purposes illuminates an interplay of knowledge and expertise where meaning and relevance of biological traces are negotiated. Through the analysis of five criminal cases that took place in Portugal between 1995 and 2010, and where DNA technologies were used, this article will focus on the dialogues established between the police and the forensic laboratories. I will argue that, on the one hand, the police investigators uses of DNA technologies seek to legitimate and provide an external source of neutrality and objectivity to the constructed narratives surrounding the commission of a crime. On the other hand, laboratories and forensic experts engage in the delimitation and preservation of their professional autonomy by developing boundary work around their scientific expertise through the translation and conversion of criminal traces into scientific artifacts.This work was supported by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia under Grant [SFRH/BD/72253/2010], and through the project "Forensic DNA databasing in Portugal: Contemporary issues in ethics, practices and policy" [FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-009231], hosted at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal

The transnational exchange of DNA data: Global standards and local practices

The creation of systems for the transnational exchange of information raises multiple issues related to the establishment of common infrastructures, protocols and regulation. The development and adaptation of standards is paramount in reaching operational levels of harmonization. This paper focuses on the case of a system for the improvement of crossborder cooperation in the European Union through the exchange information among databases of Member States. The Prüm Treaty and the subsequent Prüm Decisions have established a framework for the exchange of DNA profiles, dactyloscopic data, and vehicle registration data, for the purpose of combating cross-border crime and terrorism. The historical specificity of DNA profiling data in terms of the development of international standards and the sensitivity it represents for data protection regulation constitutes it as a relevant object in order to analyze the challenges raised in the context of transnational cooperation. First, this paper provides an overview of the trajectory and characteristics of DNA as an object of standardization. Second, through interviews with local actors involved in the implementation and operationalization of the network for the exchange of DNA data, the global standards are compared with practices at the local level. The adoption of minimal standards allows flexibility and autonomy at a local level, thus allowing interoperability to exist in a scenario of national differentiation. However, a relatively wide margin of discretion in terms of the routine local operation of the system can create frictions and lead to isolated solutions that can be seen as sub-optimal

The dissemination and popularisation of surveillance technologies : five case studies of criminal cases

Mediatised criminal cases generate privileged opportunities for the public to analyse the criminal justice system. However, these cases are seldom representative of routine criminal investigations or judicial proceedings. The inquisitorial characteristics of some justice systems often clash with the adversarial narratives of the media. The media contribute to the collective production of symbols and exercise influence on the representations of individuals, particularly on subjects that are more distant from their daily experiences and knowledge. Previous studies about the social construction of representations about forensic science indicate that some of the media’s discourses about criminal cases reveal exaggerated beliefs and expectations that science and technology will provide rapid and definitive answers that will lead to their solution. Through the discussion of the selection of five mediatised criminal cases in the context of a doctoral project to be developed in Portugal, I will address some of the impacts that the use of forensic science had in their resolution, while reflecting on the media’s cultural framework of reference in their coverage. I argue that the media’s construction of glorified images of some surveillance technologies as crime fighting technologies might facilitate the introduction and deepening of surveillance

The Levi-Civita spacetime as a limiting case of the Gamma spacetime

It is shown that the Levi-Civita metric can be obtained from a family of the Weyl metric, the Gamma metric, by taking the limit when the length of its Newtonian image source tends to infinity. In this process a relationship appears between two fundamental parameters of both metrics.Comment: LaTeX2e 17 page

Higher education institutions and international students’ hindrances: a case of students from the African Portuguese-speaking countries at two European Portuguese universities

We present a study to comprehend if the support given by higher education institution (HEI) to international students coming from the PortugueseSpeaking African Countries meets their academic and social hindrances. Our starting point was a set of semi-structured interviews focused on the perspectives of these students, their Professors and Course Directors as well as on the perspectives of HEI’ staff. Despite findings indicate a positive institutional support, it seems there is still much to do in order to do it properly with these students. These different perspectives will allow us to reflect on the impact that those actions/resources have on the path of students from Portuguese-Speaking African Countries and to systematize suggestions to enhance their experiences in HE.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio