Exploring inter-departmental barriers between production and quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of adopting an organizational ecological perspective to explore behavioural barriers in a UK operations & production management (OPM) setting. Design/methodology/approach – An ethnographic case study approach was adopted with a narrative ecological stance to deconstruct the perceived realities and the origins of the inter‐departmental barriers applying Scott‐Morgan's unwritten rules methodology. Findings – Despite an improvement in the physical proximity of the production and quality control departments, the qualitative approach revealed that latent, socially constructed drivers around management, interaction and communication reinforced inter‐departmental barriers. Conflicting enablers were ultimately responsible derived from the organizational structure, which impacted the firm's production resources. Research limitations/implications – As a case study approach, the specificity of the findings to this OPM setting should be explored further. Practical implications – The paper demonstrates the use of theoretical frameworks in a production and manufacturing organization to provide insights for maximising process effectiveness. Using the organizational ecological perspective to uncover the socially constructed unwritten rules of the OPM setting beneficially impacted on operational effectiveness. Originality/value – The paper contributes to organization ethnography literature by providing a detailed empirical analysis of manufacturing and services behaviour using an organizational ecology perspective. The example demonstrates that “qualitative” research can have real world impact in an advanced operational context. It also contributes to an ecological or complex adaptive systems view of organizations and, inter alia, their supply chains

Re-engineering unwritten rules: an ethnographic study of an intra-organizational ecology

We discuss a behavioural study into the departmental barriers uncovered by qualitative research in ‘Medico’, the UK subsidiary of a market-leading, global supplier of products and services for medical devices for whom sophisticated operations and supply chain management is paramount. An ethnographic investigation of Medico’s production operations, informed by an ontologically realist, narrative ecology, perspective, revealed, and appeared to explain, socially constructed, and emergent rather than intended, inter-departmental barriers. The research revealed latent drivers for production improvement that Medico’s vice-president was able to act on significantly increasing the company’s key measure of operational effectiveness. The example demonstrates that ‘qualitative’ research can have real world impact in an advanced operational context. It also contributes to an ecological or complex adaptive systems, view of organizations and, inter alia, their supply chains. Keywords: unwritten rules, memes, applied ethnography, organizational ecology, silos, throughput improvement

The effect of threat on cognitive biases and pain outcomes: an eye-tracking study

Background: Theoretical accounts of attentional and interpretation biases in pain suggest that these biases are interrelated and are both influenced by perceived threat. A laboratory-based study was conducted to test whether these biases are influenced by threat, their interrelationship, and whether attention or interpretation biases predict pain outcomes. Methods: Healthy participants (n=87) received either threatening or reassuring pain information, and then completed questionnaires, interpretation and attentional bias tasks (with eye-tracking), and a pain task (the cold pressor). Results: There was an interaction effect for threat group and stimuli type on mean dwell time for face stimuli, such that there was an attentional bias towards happy faces in the low but not high threat group. Further, high threat was also associated with shorter pain tolerance, increased pain, and distress. In correlational analyses, avoidance of affective pain words was associated with increased pain. However, no relationship was found between attention and interpretation biases, and interpretation biases were not influenced by threat or associated with pain. Conclusions: These findings provide partial support for the threat interpretation model and the importance of threat and affective pain biases, yet no relationship between cognitive processing biases was found, which may only occur in clinical pain samples

Attentional bias modification and pain: The role of sensory and affective stimuli

There is growing evidence to support attentional bias modification (ABM) techniques such as the modified dot-probe task within the pain literature. Such techniques can help to inform theoretical models of pain by identifying the causal role of attentional bias constructs. The aim of this research was to explore the effects of dot-probe ABM that trains individuals towards (+) or away from (-) sensory (S) and affective (A) pain words, on attentional biases, interpretation biases, and pain outcomes. Healthy undergraduate students (N= 106) completed questionnaires, an attentional bias dot-probe task, and an interpretation bias task before and after ABM, one of four ABM versions that differed in training direction (S+A+, S-A+, S+A-, S-A-), and pain outcomes using the cold pressor task. Those trained towards affective pain words were found to have a greater pain threshold but also greater distress at tolerance. However, mechanisms of change could not be established, as ABM did not affect attentional or interpretation bias, even though changes in attentional bias were associated with pain outcomes. These findings provide partial support for the threat interpretation model and highlight the utility of affective pain ABM, although further investigation of causal mechanisms is warranted

Towards a new model of attentional biases in the development, maintenance, and management of pain

Individuals with chronic pain demonstrate attentional biases towards pain-related stimuli. However, the clinical importance of these biases is yet to be determined and a sound theoretical model for explaining the role of attentional biases in the development and maintenance of pain is lacking. Within this article, we (1) systematically review prospective and experimental research exploring attentional biases and pain outcomes in light of current theoretical models and (2) propose a theoretical framework for understanding attention bias in pain. Across prospective research, an attentional pattern of vigilance-avoidance was observed. Interventions targeting attentional biases were less consistent; however, there were promising findings amongst studies that found attentional training effects, particularly for laboratory research. The proposed Threat Interpretation Model suggests a relationship between threat, interpretation and stimuli in determining attentional processes, which whilst tentative generates important testable predictions regarding the role of attention in pain, and builds upon previous theoretical and empirical work in this area

Attentional bias to pain-related information: A meta-analysis of dot-probe studies

Studies investigating attentional biases towards pain information vary widely in both design and results. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the degree to which attentional biases towards pain occur when measured with the dot-probe task. A total of 2168 references were screened, resulting in a final sample of 4466 participants from 52 articles. Participants were grouped according to pain experience: chronic pain, acute pain, anticipating experimental/procedural pain, social concern for pain, or healthy people. In general, results revealed a significant, but small bias towards pain words (d= 0.136), and pain pictures (d= 0.110) in chronic pain patients, but not in those with acute pain, those anticipating pain, or healthy people. Follow-up analyses revealed an attentional bias towards sensory pain words in the chronic pain group (d= 0.198), and the acute pain group (d= 0.303), but not other groups. In contrast, attentional biases towards affective pain stimuli were not significant for any pain groups. This meta-analysis found support for attentional biases towards sensory pain stimuli in patients with chronic pain in comparison to healthy individuals across a range of common parameters. Future researchers need to consider task design when seeking to optimally measure pain-relevant attentional biase