Information practices of disaster preparedness professionals in multidisciplinary groups

OBJECTIVE: This article summarizes the results of a descriptive qualitative study addressing the question, what are the information practices of the various professionals involved in disaster preparedness? We present key results, but focus on issues of choice and adaptation of models and theories for the study. METHODS: Primary and secondary literature on theory and models of information behavior were consulted. Taylor's Information Use Environments (IUE) model, Institutional Theory, and Dervin's Sense-Making metatheory were used in the design of an open-ended interview schedule. Twelve individual face-to-face interviews were conducted with disaster professionals drawn from the Pennsylvania Preparedness Leadership Institute (PPLI) scholars. Taylor's Information Use Environments (IUE) model served as a preliminary coding framework for the transcribed interviews. RESULTS: Disaster professionals varied in their use of libraries, peer-reviewed literature, and information management techniques, but many practices were similar across professions, including heavy Internet and email use, satisficing, and preference for sources that are socially and physically accessible. CONCLUSIONS: The IUE model provided an excellent foundation for the coding scheme, but required modification to place the workplace in the larger social context of the current information society. It is not possible to confidently attribute all work-related information practices to professional culture. Differences in information practice observed may arise from professional training and organizational environment, while many similarities observed seem to arise from everyday information practices common to non-work settings

Organizational structure as a determinant of performance: Evidence from mutual funds

This article develops and tests a model of how organizational structure influences organizational performance. Organizational structure, conceptualized as the decision‐making structure among a group of individuals, is shown to affect the number of initiatives pursued by organizations and the omission and commission errors (Type I and II errors, respectively) made by organizations. The empirical setting is more than 150,000 stock‐picking decisions made by 609 mutual funds. Mutual funds offer an ideal and rare setting to test the theory, since there are detailed records on the projects they face, the decisions they make, and the outcomes of these decisions. The study's independent variable, organizational structure, is coded based on fund management descriptions made by Morningstar, and estimates of the omission and commission errors are computed by a novel technique that uses bootstrapping to create measures that are comparable across funds. The findings suggest that organizational structure has relevant and predictable effects on a wide range of organizations. In particular, the article shows empirically that increasing the consensus threshold required by a committee in charge of selecting projects leads to more omission errors, fewer commission errors, and fewer approved projects. Applications include designing organizations that achieve a given mix of exploration and exploitation, as well as predicting the consequences of centralization and decentralization. This work constitutes the first large‐sample empirical test of the model by Sah and Stiglitz ( 1986 ). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91096/1/1969_ftp.pd

Regulation of the Immune Balance During Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation by Vitamin D

One of the most promising therapeutic approaches for numerous hematological malignancies represents the allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). One major complication is the development of the life-threatening graft-vs.-host disease (GvHD) which limits beneficial effects of graft-vs.-leukemia (GvL) responses during allo-HSCT. Strengthening GvL effects without induction of severe GvHD is essential to decrease the relapse rate after allo-HSCT. An interesting player in this context is vitamin D3 since it has modulatory capacity in both preventing GvHD and boosting GvL responses. Current studies claim that vitamin D3 induces an immunosuppressive environment by dendritic cell (DC)-dependent generation of regulatory T cells (Tregs). Since vitamin D3 is known to support the antimicrobial defense by re-establishing the physical barrier as well as releasing defensins and antimicrobial peptides, it might also improve graft-vs.-infection (GvI) effects in patients. Beyond that, alloreactive T cells might be attenuated by vitamin D3-mediated inhibition of proliferation and activation. Despite the inhibitory effects of vitamin D3 on T cells, anti-tumor responses of GvL might be reinforced by vitamin D3-triggered phagocytic activity and antibody-based immunotherapy. Therefore, vitamin D3 treatment does not only lead to a shift from a pro-inflammatory toward a tolerogenic state but also promotes tumoricidal activity of immune cells. In this review we focus on vitamin D3 and its immunomodulatory effects by enhancing anti-tumor activity while alleviating harmful allogeneic responses in order to restore the immune balance

Research strategies for organizational history:a dialogue between historical theory and organization theory

If history matters for organization theory, then we need greater reflexivity regarding the epistemological problem of representing the past; otherwise, history might be seen as merely a repository of ready-made data. To facilitate this reflexivity, we set out three epistemological dualisms derived from historical theory to explain the relationship between history and organization theory: (1) in the dualism of explanation, historians are preoccupied with narrative construction, whereas organization theorists subordinate narrative to analysis; (2) in the dualism of evidence, historians use verifiable documentary sources, whereas organization theorists prefer constructed data; and (3) in the dualism of temporality, historians construct their own periodization, whereas organization theorists treat time as constant for chronology. These three dualisms underpin our explication of four alternative research strategies for organizational history: corporate history, consisting of a holistic, objectivist narrative of a corporate entity; analytically structured history, narrating theoretically conceptualized structures and events; serial history, using replicable techniques to analyze repeatable facts; and ethnographic history, reading documentary sources "against the grain." Ultimately, we argue that our epistemological dualisms will enable organization theorists to justify their theoretical stance in relation to a range of strategies in organizational history, including narratives constructed from documentary sources found in organizational archives. Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved