Can models of organizational change help to understand ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in community sentences? Applying Kotter’s model of organizational change to an Integrated Offender Management case study

A number of nationally driven initiatives have led to significant changes in the framework of community sentences, with various agencies being required to work in ‘joined-up’ multi-agency arrangements. Most notable, perhaps, has been the increased working relationship between police and probation, most recently within Integrated Offender Management (IOM). Although these have produced some positive outcomes in relation to crime reduction, success is sporadic and often quite modest. Research has identified a number of barriers to successful implementation, and this article builds on this by drawing upon fresh empirical evidence to argue that the success of such schemes relies on the management of organizational change that will inevitably and necessarily occur. Applying Kotter’s model of organizational change to data generated from an evaluation of two IOM schemes in England, the article offers an explanatory account of the implementation of the schemes and the possible effect this had on efforts to reduce crime

Effect of grazing on ship rat density in forest fragments of lowland Waikato, New Zealand

Ship rat (Rattus rattus) density was assessed by snap-trapping during summer and autumn in eight indigenous forest fragments (mean 5 ha) in rural landscapes of Waikato, a lowland pastoral farming district of the North Island, New Zealand. Four of the eight were fenced and four grazed. In each set of four, half were connected with hedgerows, gullies or some other vegetative corridor to nearby forest and half were completely isolated. Summer rat density based on the number trapped in the first six nights was higher in fenced (mean 6.5 rats ha–1) than in grazed fragments (mean 0.5 rats ha–1; P = 0.02). Rats were eradicated (no rats caught and no rat footprints recorded for three consecutive nights) from all eight fragments in January–April 2008, but reinvaded within a month; time to eradication averaged 47 nights in fenced and 19 nights in grazed fragments. A second six-night trapping operation in autumn, 1–3 months after eradication, found no effect of fencing (P = 0.73). Connectedness to an adjacent source of immigrants did not influence rat density within a fragment in either season (summer P = 0.25, autumn P = 0.67). An uncalibrated, rapid (one-night) index of ship rat density, using baited tracking tunnels set in a 50 × 50 m grid, showed a promising relationship with the number of rats killed per hectare over the first six nights, up to tracking index values of c. 30% (corresponding to c. 3–5 rats ha–1). The index will enable managers to determine if rat abundance is low enough to achieve conservation benefits. Our results confirm a dilemma for conservation in forest fragments. Fencing protects vegetation, litter and associated ecological processes, but also increases number of ship rats, which destroy seeds, invertebrates and nesting birds. Maximising the biodiversity values of forest fragments therefore requires both fencing and control of ship rats

Beneficial effects of exercise: shifting the focus from body weight to other markers of health

Background: Exercise is widely promoted as a method of weight management, while the other health benefits are often ignored. The purpose of this study was to examine whether exercise-induced improvements in health are influenced by changes in body weight. Methods: Fifty-eight sedentary overweight/obese men and women (BMI 31.8 (SD 4.5) kg/m2) participated in a 12-week supervised aerobic exercise intervention (70% heart rate max, five times a week, 500 kcal per session). Body composition, anthropometric parameters, aerobic capacity, blood pressure and acute psychological response to exercise were measured at weeks 0 and 12. Results: The mean reduction in body weight was −3.3 (3.63) kg (p<0.01). However, 26 of the 58 participants failed to attain the predicted weight loss estimated from individuals’ exercise-induced energy expenditure. Their mean weight loss was only −0.9 (1.8) kg (p<0.01). Despite attaining a lower-than-predicted weight reduction, these individuals experienced significant increases in aerobic capacity (6.3 (6.0) ml/kg/min; p<0.01), and a decreased systolic (−6.00 (11.5) mm Hg; p<0.05) and diastolic blood pressure (−3.9 (5.8) mm Hg; p<0.01), waist circumference (−3.7 (2.7) cm; p<0.01) and resting heart rate (−4.8 (8.9) bpm, p<0.001). In addition, these individuals experienced an acute exercise-induced increase in positive mood. Conclusions: These data demonstrate that significant and meaningful health benefits can be achieved even in the presence of lower-than-expected exercise-induced weight loss. A less successful reduction in body weight does not undermine the beneficial effects of aerobic exercise. From a public health perspective, exercise should be encouraged and the emphasis on weight loss reduced

Sport policy in an English city: interests, influence and change

The aim of this study is to examine the influence of local sport interests in one English city in mediating national sport policy initiatives in education, land-use planning and health. This is attempted through an analysis of relationships between key policy actors and the strategies adopted to pursue and defend policy priorities, set within an historical, institutional, political and socio-economic context. Given the increasing political salience of sport, the rationale for the study is to understand the consequences for local sport interests of the re-structuring of the policy area over the last decade. The study is grounded in the ontological and epistemological assumptions of critical realism and its attendant understanding of the dialectical relationship between structure and agency. A neo-pluralist theory of the state and power is adopted in order to provide a macro-level context to the three meso-level theoretical approaches utilised in this study for analysing policy processes, namely: policy networks, the multiple streams framework (MSF) and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF). This approach to examining sport policy processes is complemented by insights from the literature on local government and governance, given that the primary empirical focus is on Liverpool City Council. The empirical work consists of an investigation of first, city council sport policy from the 1970s to date and particularly the period 1995–2006, and second, three aspects of local sport policy that relate to national sport policy, namely: school sport, the playing fields issue, and sport's role in health policy. In terms of research methods, the study utilises a case study approach that included undertaking forty semi-structured interviews with personnel within the sport policy area at the local, county, regional and national levels; an analysis of policy-related documentation produced by central and local government; and observation in council meetings and forums. A discussion of the findings examines the utility of the theoretical frameworks drawn upon in explaining the findings of the study

Establishing the boundaries: the hippocampal contribution to imagining scenes

When we visualize scenes, either from our own past or invented, we impose a viewpoint for our “mind's eye” and we experience the resulting image as spatially coherent from that viewpoint. The hippocampus has been implicated in this process, but its precise contribution is unknown. We tested a specific hypothesis based on the spatial firing properties of neurons in the hippocampal formation of rats, that this region supports the construction of spatially coherent mental images by representing the locations of the environmental boundaries surrounding our viewpoint. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that hippocampal activation increases parametrically with the number of enclosing boundaries in the imagined scene. In contrast, hippocampal activity is not modulated by a nonspatial manipulation of scene complexity nor to increasing difficulty of imagining the scenes in general. Our findings identify a specific computational role for the hippocampus in mental imagery and episodic recollection

The consideration of organizational issues during the systems development process: an empirical analysis

The lack of consideration of organizational issues in systems development can lead to project failure. A review of the literature and a pre-test survey suggested classifying organizational issues into five categories and examining how these are considered by IT managers. A postal survey with responses from 64 senior IT specialists over a cross section of industry and commerce showed that there is a general awareness of the importance of organizational issues but there was little consensus on how they should be addressed in the development process. These IT managers were consistent in spending most effort on the issues perceived as most important from the list of 14 issue provided, but there was considerable variation in which specific issues they rated most important. In general those organizational issues with a `technical’ aspect were given more prominence than those which are less tangible, but which may be more critical to a system’s success

The importance of organisational issues in systems development

Abstract: A survey of senior and influential IT managers explored the related questions of why some senior IT professionals perceive organisational issues to be more important than technical issues, and whether this has a concomitant impact on the treatment of organisational issues. An overall response rate of 63% was achieved from a combined survey of two distinct groups. The results show that there are significant differences in managers’ perceptions about the importance of organisational issues which can, to some extent, be explained in terms of organisational size, and to a lesser extent by the favoured development approach. However, these differences in perception appear to have no identifiable relation to the significant differences in the approaches adopted for treating organisational issues. It is suggested that this is due to the difficulties in treating such issues and further research to resolve these difficulties is proposed