Toward ‘mental accessibility’: changing the mental obstacles that future Human Resource Management practitioners have about the employment of people with disabilities

This paper presents the results of a participatory research project undertaken with Hungarian MSc students specializing in Human Resource Management and Development about the employment of people with disabilities. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is very high in Hungary and HR practitioners have a key role in maintaining or reducing barriers to their employment. Following the tradition of critical pedagogy, the aim of the research project was twofold. Firstly, we aimed to reveal the mental patterns, attitudes and beliefs of future HR practitioners to the employment of people with disabilities (which might be root causes of domination, discrimination or exploitation). Secondly, through using a radical methodological approach – cooperative inquiry – the researchers wished to emancipate students and challenge their frozen beliefs about disability as well as the positivist value system which usually dominates business education. The main result of the research project was to challenge the medical approach to disability which formerly dominated the belief systems of our student co-researchers, thereby engendering a more critical worldview.     

Job Seekers with Musculoskeletal or Sensory Disabilities: Barriers and Facilitators of Job Search

Drawing on interviews with job seekers and expert informants, we outline a model of the job search experience of people with disabilities. This model specifies the sequence of events involved in the pursuit of paid work and the contextual features that inhibit or facilitate job search attitudes, behaviours, intermediate search outcomes and employment outcomes. By contrasting the experiences of job seekers with musculoskeletal and sensory disabilities, and outlining the influence of major stakeholders in the form of employment agencies and family members, our model provides the basis for a more nuanced understanding of the job search process. Finally, we recommend points of intervention that are grounded in data for improving job search outcomes for people with disabilities in general, and for job seekers with musculoskeletal or sensory disabilities specifically.     

The Differential Earnings and Income Effects of Involuntary Job Loss on Workers with Disabilities — Evidence from Sweden

People with disabilities are consistently found to face considerable difficulties in the labour market. In this study we investigated whether their earnings and income trajectories are more adversely affected in case of involuntary job loss. Earnings of those with and without disabilities began to diverge already several years prior to job loss because of larger incidence of sickness. Following job loss much more job losers with disabilities became disability retirees resulting in a considerable and seemingly permanent earnings differential. However, larger uptake of public social insurances among job losers with disabilities resulted in a much smaller income differential.     

Health economic modeling to support surgery management at a Swedish hospital

Elective surgery management typically deals with a queue of patients that have to be scheduled for surgery within a certain time frame, considering both medical and economic constraints. In order to prevent the patient queue and waiting times from growing, surgery management has to decide whether to temporarily increase patient throughput at the regional hospital or have some patients scheduled for surgery at another hospital. In Sweden, a newly passed law states that patients who decide to receive surgery should not have to wait more than 90 days before this surgery is carried out. Therefore, if a patient decides to apply the new law by requesting surgery within 90 days, the regional hospital is obliged to arrange and pay for either in-house surgery or surgery at another hospital. In this paper, we suggest an approach using simulation including optimization for modeling surgery management decisions. We study a case based on data from a General Surgery Department at a Swedish hospital and present our results as a health economic evaluation. The results indicate an increase in the mean waiting times for medium prioritized patients when the new law is applied.     

A Review of Procedural Acceptability in Organizational Behavior Management

ABSTRACT

Despite the documented benefits Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) applications can have on service provision for people with developmental disabilities, OBM is not widely practiced in service systems. One variable that may impact the utilization of OBM is how acceptable the associated procedures are to staff. The research on procedural acceptability in OBM is summarized in terms of two primary methods for determining consumer satisfaction with management procedures-rating scales and discrete choices. Results of acceptability assessments utilizing ratings scales have repeatedly indicated high degrees of staff acceptance for virtually all OBM procedures. However, when staff have been asked to choose among management procedures, clear and consistent differences in acceptability have been apparent. Suggested directions for future research focus on improving acceptability assessment methodology, developing guidelines for implementing effective OBM procedures in a manner that is most acceptable to staff, and involving supervisory and professional staff in acceptability evaluations.     

Organizational Behavior Management in Large Residential Organizations

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests larger residential organizations have a unique contribution to offer people with developmental disabilities who require managed environments or research solutions to their living needs. It claims no organization should be managed to be “institutional” regardless of its size, but that size alone is not the sole determinant of self-motivated service delivery. A move toward adoption of short-term goals geared to the immediate benefit of people with developmental disabilities and away from more traditional yearly developmental goals is cited as the key to keeping residential organizations focused on the consumers of their service. However, in order to utilize the unique advantages of larger organizations, these organizations will need to solve the problems created by having large groups of people living in close proximity and managed by multiple managers. A brief review of six general steps to organizational management is offered as the outline for effective management. An emphasis is placed on a need for immediate supervisors to have upper level administrator support to carry out these six managerial steps and to receive continuous feedback from consumers and staff on the acceptability of this service. In addition, because of their large size, history of abuses, and/or lack of consumer self-advocacy, larger residential organizations appear to have a special responsibility to show how they emphasize the concerns of their consumers over the institutional concerns of organizational survival.     

Lessons Learned from Community Organizations: Inclusion of People with Disabilities and Others

Workforce diversity requires broader vision and scope in managing diversity so that there is greater inclusion inside and outside organizations. This paper provides this vision by extending the stream of workforce diversity research to community‐oriented inclusion and its processes. The authors interviewed 34 people with disabilities and 40 people without disabilities who were stakeholders of community arts and sports organizations. The participants with disabilities were mainly arts audiences, artists and sports athletes, and the participants without disabilities were mainly managers and government officials. The key findings report the importance of inclusion through common interest groups being facilitated by (1) non‐minority specific communal activities, (2) listening to minority voices, (3) multidimensional accessibility, (4) availability of organizational and natural champions and (5) cross‐boundary networks and collaborations. In order to create more inclusive organizations, the authors suggest that private organizations need more community‐oriented values, goals and strategies that foster boundaryless inclusion of people with disabilities and other minority groups in organizations and society.     

组织学习的过程模型研究

组织学习是当今企业最重要的核心能力之一 .本文对现有的组织学习过程模型进行分析 ,指出其不足并加以改进 ,建立了修正的组织学习模型 .基于此模型 ,本文分阶段讨论了影响组织学习的各种障碍 ,并提出了相应的解决措施 .最后 ,应用该模型对国内外两个实际案例进行了分析 ,以加深读者对组织学习过程模型的理解     

Evacuating People with Mobility‐Challenges in a Short‐Notice Disaster

In past disasters, arrangements have been made to evacuate people without their own transportation, requiring them to gather at select locations to be evacuated. Unfortunately, this type of plan does not help those people who are unable to move themselves to the designated meeting locations. In the United States, according to the Post‐Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, state or local governments have the responsibility to coordinate evacuation plans for all populations. These include those with disabilities. However, few, if any, have plans in place for those who are mobility‐challenged. The problem of evacuating mobility‐challenged people from their individual locations in a short‐notice disaster is a challenging combinatorial optimization problem. In order to develop the model and select a solution approach, we surveyed related literature. Based on our review, we formulate the problem and develop an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to solve it. We then test two different versions of the ACO algorithm on five stylized datasets with several different parameter settings.     

On the Compatibility of Organizational Behavior Management and BACB Certification

The number of practicing behavior analysts who hold Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) certification has substantially increased in the past decade. Some have mistakenly interpreted the BACB’s certification requirements as being specific to the autism and intellectual disabilities practice area. We present key BACB requirements, describe how they are practice-area neutral, and provide specific examples of their relevance to organizational behavior management.     

Applying Decision Analysis to Determine the Effect of Smoke Detector Laws on Fire Loss in the United States

Decision analysis is used to examine whether residential smoke detectors should be required by law. Statistics pertaining to fire incidence, fire death, smoke detector efficacy, and the consequences of fire are examined for accuracy and availability and combined in a decision model. A sensitivity analysis is performed on the model inputs. Included in the analysis is the idea that homes with detectors may have lower death rates due to the characteristics of those who purchase detectors rather than the detectors themselves. Results from the base case estimate show an expected cost of $65,000 per life saved when a law is enacted. This value lies well below the value implied by spending on other public safety programs.     

DOJ/FTC provide new guidance for providers

Antitrust guidelines released September 27 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have produced new guidance for providers in three areas and refined six areas that were the subject of last year's statement. Although the agencies have characterized the 1994 Statement as a "landmark," it is more evolutionary than revolutionary in nature--providing clarifications, adjustments, and additions to the 1993 Statement, including an expansion of the safety zone for certain physician joint ventures and a significant discussion of the agencies' framework of review of multi-provider networks. The 1994 Statement is also significant because it appears that it will be the agencies' last formal statement on this issue for some time. Since its release, both DOJ and FTC have stated that no clarifications or expansions to the 1994 Statement are currently planned. This article provides highlights of the new statement. "Health Law" is a regular feature of Physician Executive from the Washington, D.C., law firm Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. Mark Lutes of that law firm serves as editor for the column.     

The Role of Social Infrastructure in Achieving Inclusive Liveable Communities: Voices from Regional Australia

What makes liveable communities inclusive is an important question for planning research, policy and practice, yet one that has not received significant attention. This article explores this question through the lived experiences of two spatially marginalised groups – people with disabilities and seniors. Using the photovoice technique, the findings visually and textually demonstrate the importance of universally accessible social infrastructure in enabling inclusion and active participation in a community in regional Australia. The findings suggest that inclusion should be a central focus of liveability, along with co-design processes with people experiencing spatial marginalisation to achieve inclusive liveable communities.     

不同回收法律下的再制造供应链决策与合作研究

研究制造商责任制和分销商责任制两种回收法律体系对制造商和分销商的影响.针对不同法律体系下的供应链决策建立制造商作为斯塔伯格领先者的模型,研究这些回收法律下供应链成员的决策和收益.结果表明,不同的回收法律对供应链的总绩效不会产生影响,但是会通过回收可变费用影响收益在供应链成员之间的分配.此外,针对分散决策效率的不足,设计了在分销商责任制法律下基于回收品价格的价格折扣与回收补偿相结合的合作机制,促使供应链成员合作以使供应链总收益达到集中决策时的收益.     

Individual Feedback:

Gainsharing programs have been implemented at an increasing rate in the last decade by American firms. This article examines several definitionsyand types of gainsharing, traces its history from Scanlon Plans in the 1930s to Improshare in the 1980s, and describes the results of thirteen surveys and twenty-nine case studies of gainsharing programs. In conclusion, an operant theory based on the matching law is suggested to provide a theoretical framework for future research on the effectiveness of gainsharing interventions.     

(Un)Verst?ndlichkeit des Steuerrechts und Nachfrage nach Steuerberatungsdienstleistungen: Ein Experiment

Although increasing the understandability of tax law is a popular postulation, the consequences for individual decisions and the distribution of the tax burdens are far from clear. For this reason, the effects on the demand for tax advice are analyzed in an experimental setting: the participants had to rank pension plans while the understandability of the tax system was modified. We show that an increasing understandability of tax law significantly decreases the willingness to pay for tax advice and that this relationship is moderated by the individuals?? level of education. In fact, in our experiment only individuals with a high education level benefit from the improved understandability of tax law.     

Forschungsziele der Betriebswirtschaftlichen Steuerlehre in der Kritik

In this article the understanding of the scientific functions of business taxation represented by Jochen Hundsdoerfer, Dirk Kiesewetter and Caren Sureth is critically analyzed. It is argued that hypotheses on the influence of taxes on decisions, as far as they are based on neoclassical models, are not applicable to explain the actions of tax payers. These arguments at the same time object the realization of a neutral tax system. They further contradict the realization of a tax system, which is supposed to have an impact or which avoids taxes to have an effect on decisions, provided that the criticized hypotheses are used as a basis. Fiscal law standards should rather fulfil the principle of equability of taxation. It is supposed that such fiscal law standards have an effect on decisions of tax payers, which are contradictory to the aim of an equable taxation. Therefore hypotheses from scientific experience of the actual effect of taxes on decisions must be taken into account. Hence the object of this analysis is to investigate the real influence of taxes on decisions detached from neo-classical models.     

Mentoring relationships: implications for practitioners and suggestions for future research

This review of the literature is intended to help HRD practitioners facilitate healthy mentoring relationships and better address potentially negative functions or outcomes of the mentoring process within their own organizations. This work provides a review of the social learning processes that play a role in mentoring relationships. In addition, it reviews the functions and outcomes of mentoring for individuals and organizations, as well as the characteristics of good mentors and the influence mentors have upon career choice. Finally, the implications for mentoring relationships among individuals with disabilities, minorities and women are briefly reviewed in order to provide practitioners with a sense of the breadth of individuals who may benefit from well-planned or well-implemented mentoring. This article concludes with critical comments on the current state of mentoring research. Suggestions are made for future research in order to stimulate greater study into certain aspects of mentoring.