Consolidation and fragmentation in environmental scanning: A review and research agenda

Environmental scanning is a broadly defined concept, having first received attention from scholars in the late 1960s. Over the years a number of similar and overlapping constructs have emerged in management literature. The aim of this study, via a systematic review and thematic analysis of relevant empirical research, is to consolidate foundation environmental scanning knowledge, demonstrate how scanning research has developed and fragmented over time, and propose an agenda for future research. The first contribution of our review is a new typology of environmental scanning research made up of five discrete research views, which provides a more comprehensive and contemporary overview of the field than previous studies. The second is a proposed agenda for future research that explicitly acknowledges the role of technology, an area that is presently underdeveloped in foundation scanning literature. The third contribution is to signpost future directions for research on scanning and organisational performance using a number of theoretical perspectives. The overall outcome of our review is to move scanning research on from increasingly incremental contributions concerned with context to a place where the changing role of technology and the mechanisms through which environmental scanning contributes to competitive advantage can be more thoroughly understood.     

Enhancing practitioner-led education in social work: developing a secondment project

ABSTRACT

This paper illustrates the development of a secondment project designed to enhance practitioner-led social work education in a Higher Education Institution. The project was developed as part of a Teaching Partnership initiative to establish joint working and standardized approaches to social work education between Higher Education Institutes and Local Authorities across a UK region. Highlighted is how the project utilized a six-stage strategy designed to gather information to produce an evidence-base to support the implementation of a pilot practitioner secondment arrangement. The paper discusses strategies used to gather information from a range of stakeholders to inform the project, the project outcome and some considerations for future secondment arrangements. Contributing to a limited source of literature, challenges and limitations of developing formal secondment arrangements and delivering practitioner-led education in Higher Education Institutes are highlighted. This paper will assist Higher Education Institutes and Local Authorities in the design and implementation of formal secondment arrangements where these are identified as in need of development.     

Child labour measurement: Whom should we ask?

Funding decisions to support vulnerable children are tied to child labour statistics, hence the importance of an accurate measurement. The author analyses whether the type of respondent plays an important role in explaining variations in child labour statistics. Using data from two sites in Tanzania, the analysis shows that “whom we ask” matters considerably when estimating the prevalence of child labour. The results suggest that prevalence increases by approximately 35 to 65 per cent when using child self‐reports rather than proxy reports. This bias affects 14 to 31 per cent of the sample, depending on the indicator. Discrepancies decrease as the child ages and increase if proxy attitudes demonstrate opposition to child labour.     

基于OBE教育理念的土木工程专业英语教学改革实践

为提高土木工程专业学生的英语应用能力和《土木工程专业英语》课程的教学效果，本次教改实践以OBE（成果导向教育）教育理念为教改指导思想，以土木工程专业英语教学为教改对象，设计了土木工程专业英语教学的教学内容、教学组织和教学评价等教学环节，在河北工程大学土木工程专业学生中进行了教改实践。教改实践结果表明，基于OBE的土木工程专业英语教学模式在提升土木工程专业学生英语应用能力方面具有很好的效果。本次教改实践的成果值得本校其他工科专业和其他兄弟院校借鉴。     

Validation of the Australian Midwifery Standards Assessment Tool (AMSAT): A tool to assess midwifery competence

Background

There is no current validated clinical assessment tool to measure the attainment of midwifery student competence in the midwifery practice setting. The lack of a valid assessment tool has led to a proliferation of tools and inconsistency in assessment of, and feedback on student learning.

Public relations and artificial intelligence: It’s not (just) about robots

Organizations of all kinds, as well as their in-house or agency public relations teams, increasingly co-opt Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance their capabilities. This paper examines a relatively new topic that has received little scholarly attention: the growing relationship between AI and public relations. It outlines several key roles that AI may play in future, based on trends in other industries, and considers the implications for public relations practitioners, their clients and employers. It therefore launches a dialogue about the diversity and extent of AI’s uses in public relations practice. The paper argues that, to date, commentators have placed too much emphasis on AI’s potential for task automation; AI’s broader technological, economic and societal implications for public relations warrant greater critical attention. This does not imply that practitioners need become expert technologists; rather, they should develop a sufficient understanding of AI’s present and potential uses to be able to offer informed counsel.     

Toward an Application Guide for Safety Integrity Level Allocation in Railway Systems

The work in the article presents the development of an application guide based on feedback and comments stemming from various railway actors on their practices of SIL allocation to railway safety‐related functions. The initial generic methodology for SIL allocation has been updated to be applied to railway rolling stock safety‐related functions in order to solve the SIL concept application issues. Various actors dealing with railway SIL allocation problems are the intended target of the methodology; its principles will be summarized in this article with a focus on modifications and precisions made in order to establish a practical guide for railway safety authorities. The methodology is based on the flowchart formalism used in CSM (common safety method) European regulation. It starts with the use of quantitative safety requirements, particularly tolerable hazard rates (THR). THR apportioning rules are applied. On the one hand, the rules are related to classical logical combinations of safety‐related functions preventing hazard occurrence. On the other hand, to take into account technical conditions (last safety weak link, functional dependencies, technological complexity, etc.), specific rules implicitly used in existing practices are defined for readjusting some THR values. SIL allocation process based on apportioned and validated THR values is finally illustrated through the example of “emergency brake” subsystems. Some specific SIL allocation rules are also defined and illustrated.     

Are labour inspections effective when labour regulations vary according to the size of the firm? Evidence from Peru

This article analyses the impact of enforcement of four labour standards (pension system enrolment, minimum wage, maximum weekly working hours and written employment contract) on compliance in Peru, where labour regulations and penalties vary according to firm size. The author uses household survey data to analyse a factor not previously studied – adjustment by firms through downsizing to benefit from lower fines and less stringent regulations. The empirical findings indicate that enforcement efforts have little effect on either the degree of compliance or the size of firms.     

Interview schedule development for a Sequential explanatory mixed method design: complementary-alternative medicine (CAM) study among Indonesian psychologists

Sequential explanatory mixed method design is the most frequently applied in both health and social sciences literature. It is denoted by ‘QUAN → qual’ which represents the quantitative study occurs first and has greater weight in addressing the study’s aims, and the qualitative study follows to explain quantitative results. Despite the extensive use of sequential explanatory design, there are limited references to this design. Therefore, this methodological paper attempts to fill the gap by providing an illustration in developing a sequential explanatory interview schedule based on complementary-alternative medicine (CAM) study among clinical psychologists in Indonesia. The most important step to develop sequential explanatory interview schedule was the construction of aspects and questions that were immensely grounded on the most notable quantitative results. In this study, eight aspects of interview schedule were constructed after analyses of the nationwide survey. The interview schedule then piloted among participants with fairly similar characteristics to the participants in the main interviews. This process enhanced the quality of questions through feedback from participants and improved the interviewer’s skills through familiarization with questions. It is expected that this reflection report could be adopted as a practical guideline in developing interview schedule for sequential explanatory mixed method design, particularly in the field of psychology.     

Mapuche education and situated learning in a community school in Chile

The article analyses the Mapuche language and culture teaching practices of a rural school in the Chilean Araucanía region run by Mapuche teachers, aimed at reinforcing the language, culture and identity of children. Based on a comparative study of two school ethnographies, the article shows and discusses the ways children learn to be Mapuche by participating of social and communitarian practices reproduced in school. While teaching of traditional core subjects is conducted in standard ways, Mapuche language and culture are taught through the recreation of modes of living, producing and reproducing indigenous traditional knowledge that normally occur in family and community. The maintenance of this ‘bicultural pedagogy’ is grounded on an epistemological claim on the indivisibility of contents from its forms of transmission.