A multilevel approach to building and leading learning organizations

A multilevel model is offered proposing that organizational learning is an interdependent system where effective leaders enact intervention strategies at the individual (micro), network (meso), and systems (macro) levels. We suggest that leaders approach organizational learning by setting the conditions and structure for learning to occur, while limiting direct interference in the actual creative processes. First, leaders may increase the level of developmental readiness of individual followers, thereby increasing their motivation and ability to approach learning experiences and adapt their mental models. These individuals then serve as catalysts of learning within and between social networks. Second, leaders may promote the diffusion of knowledge between these knowledge catalysts within and across social networks through influencing both the structure and functioning of knowledge networks. Finally, leaders may target actions at the systems level to improve the diffusion to, and institutionalization of, knowledge to the larger organization.     

The behavioural wedge

When nations fail to agree, can individual citizens make a difference? The third of our post-Copenhagen features is by Jonathan Gilligan, Thomas Dietz, Gerald T. Gardner, Paul C. Stern , and Michael P. Vandenbergh . They look at the effects that voluntary actions by individuals can have, and at the policies that can best encourage such actions.     

An Empirical Model of Perceived Mortality Risks for Selected U.S. Arsenic Hot Spots

Researchers have long recognized that subjective perceptions of risk are better predictors of choices over risky outcomes than science‐based or experts’ assessments of risk. More recent work suggests that uncertainty about risks also plays a role in predicting choices and behavior. In this article, we develop and estimate a formal model for an individual's perceived health risks associated with arsenic contamination of his or her drinking water. The modeling approach treats risk as a random variable, with an estimable probability distribution whose variance reflects uncertainty. The model we estimate uses data collected from a survey given to a sample of people living in arsenic‐prone areas in the United States. The findings from this article support the fact that scientific information is essential to explaining the mortality rate perceived by the individuals, but uncertainty about the probability remains significant.     

Editorial

Drawing on texts written by young people aged 14–17 years in a school context in response to an invitation to write a page describing themselves and their vision of Ireland and to use the reverse side creatively for drawings, poems or songs, this article illustrates the methodological difficulties of exploring globalization and individualization in such texts. The indicators of globalization were global entertainment and consumer culture, global technology, references to international travel, and global concerns. The indicators of individualization were the absence of references to structural location, or the presence of references to choices, hopes or plans and related images. There were insurmountable methodological difficulties in differentiating between individualization in these terms and stereotypical ways of ‘doing boy/girl’. Hence, the typology that was created focussed on the global content of the main texts and back pages and their gendered content.     

Competence and consent to research: A critique of the recommendations of the national bioethics advisory commission*

Concern about the participation of incompetent subjects in psychiatric research has grown in the last several years. In response, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) recommended in its recent report that all investigations involving persons with mental disorders that may be associated with cognitive impairment that may pose greater than minimal risk to subjects utilize independent assessors to verify the capacities of subjects prior to entry into the study. This recommendation poses several problems for the conduct of research and the protection of research subjects. First, it fails to target that group of subjects most likely to be at risk for incapacity. Second, it focuses on too broad a range of research projects, many of which pose little risk to participants. The substantial costs of this approach are therefore not likely to be outweighed by concomitant benefits. In place of the NBAC recommendation, the author proposes a more flexible system of capacity assessment, designed to balance the costs with a greater likelihood of achieving meaningful protection for research subjects with mental disorders.     

Recent changes in FDA's good laboratory practice regulations

In the Federal Register of December 22, 1978, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published regulations which described Good Laboratory Practice for safety tests conducted on regulated products (Anonymous, 1978). The regulations, popularly known as GLPs, have become universally recognized as the basic criteria for the conduct of a valid safety test and for assuring the quality and integrity of the collected data. Along with the publication of the GLPs, FDA instituted a vigorous program of inspection of toxicology laboratories to determine the degree of adherence to the regulations. In 1984, based on inspectional findings which revealed that a large majority of toxicology laboratories were adhering to the GLPs, FDA published a proposal intended to reduce the burden of compliance with the regulations (Anonymous, 1984). The proposal outlined major changes in the provisions on quality assurance, protocol preparation, test and control article characterization, and retention of specimens and samples. The final order based on the proposal was published in the federal register of September 4, 1987 (Anonymous). The purpose of this communication is to describe the procedures used by FDA to develop the final order, to discuss certain major issues that arose during its development, and to answer several questions that have arisen subsequently.     

Learning Strategies of Highly Educated Refugees in the Netherlands: Habitus or Calculation?

In an analysis of 25 semi‐structured interviews with highly educated asylum seekers and refugees in The Netherlands, we have traced their learning strategies, the stability of their educational and professional career patterns between home and host country, the calculative nature of the choices made in this context and the influence of family ties. In the analysis, we explored the fit of two competitive theoretical perspectives: Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and the biographical approach. The respondents showed a surprising degree of stability with regard to their career patterns, calculation with regard to educational choices was weak and there was a strong influence of family ties. From these results, it would seem that the field theory shows a better fit than the biographical approach. Longitudinal research is needed to test this hypothesis in more rigorous ways. Moreover, the research has pointed at omissions and ambivalences with regard to the relationship of changes in field structures and habitus change, the relative relevance of mental and material conditions for human agency in the work of Bourdieu. In the analysis, several variables specifically related to the situation of refugees and asylum seekers could be traced that additionally explain the findings.