Focusing on followers: The role of regulatory focus and possible selves in visionary leadership

Vision communication is considered to be essential for leaders to mobilize followers, but knowledge of how and why vision communication may influence followers is scarce. We argue that visions may invite followers to create an ideal self (a desired image of the self). Subsequent consideration of this ideal self may motivate followers to make the ideal self (and thus the vision) reality. Furthermore, we propose that visions that focus on followers (by addressing followers personally and involving them in the vision) are more likely to lead to the creation of an ideal self and hence to higher follower performance than visions that do not focus on followers. Moreover, we argue that this effect is particularly strong for followers with a promotion self-regulatory focus, a focus on reaching ideals and ideal selves, because promotion focus causes sensitivity to the presence or absence of ideals (Higgins, 1987, 1996, 1997). The results of two experiments support our predictions.     

Preceptorship: a shared journey between practice & education

Creative new approaches must be developed to attract new graduate and transitioning nurses to psychiatric-mental health nursing. In this article, we present a collaborative nurse preceptor program between a clinical practice agency and a university college of nursing faculty group. The preceptorship was designed to facilitate recruitment and retention of new graduate and transitioning nurses into a community-based, psychiatric-mental health agency. This process could be applied in any practice setting to address issues of recruitment and retention. Over the course of more than 2 years, the program has resulted in a 70% retention rate of new and transitioning nurses in the agency; of particular note is the 100% retention of new baccalaureate graduates. This program has positively affected the agency, the nurse preceptors, and the new graduate and transitioning nurse preceptees. We describe the collaborative development and implementation of the preceptor program designed to enhance recruitment and retention of new graduate nurses and nurses transitioning from other specialty areas into community-based psychiatric-mental health nursing practice.     

Stimulant medication use, misuse, and abuse in an undergraduate and graduate student sample

In this study, the authors investigated the characteristics of use, misuse, and abuse of stimulant medication (primarily methylphenidate and variants) among students at a northeastern US university. Researchers sent an invitation to take an Internet survey to student e-mail addresses and passed 150 paper surveys in undergraduate classes, analyzing 1,025 (975 electronically) returned surveys. Sixteen percent of respondents reported abusing or misusing stimulant medication. Ninety-six percent of respondents who specified a medication preferred to abuse or misuse Ritalin. Men and women reported similar use patterns. Most respondents who abused or misused stimulant medication swallowed pills; 40% used intranasally. Reasons for abusing or misusing stimulant medication included improving attention, partying, reducing hyperactivity, and improving grades. Consistent with previous studies, results suggest that abuse of stimulant medication is a concern on college campuses. The results point to various reasons for and methods of abusing and misusing stimulant medication that may direct future research, prevention, and intervention.     

2008 North American Serials Interest Group Conference: Taking the Sting out of Serials!

Abstract

The twelfth annual MOBIUS Conference was held June 7–9, 2011, at the Holiday Inn Executive Center in Columbia, Missouri. The MOBIUS consortium of Missouri is currently composed of fifty-nine academic libraries, two public libraries, and the Missouri State Library. The conference offered various opportunities, including a keynote address by Meredith Farkas and a networking dessert session on the first night. The second day featured six concurrent sessions, each having six different presentations, along with delicious food, generous door prizes, and the chance to meet with vendors. The third day consisted of four different four-hour post-conference training sessions. Presentations are available for download from the conference Web site.¹     

A Semiparametric Bayesian Model for Circular-Linear Regression

Circular data are observations that are represented as points on a unit circle. Times of day and directions of wind are two such examples. In this work, we present a Bayesian approach to regress a circular variable on a linear predictor. The regression coefficients are assumed to have a nonparametric distribution with a Dirichlet process prior. The semiparametric Bayesian approach gives added flexibility to the model and is useful especially when the likelihood surface is ill behaved. Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques are used to fit the proposed model and to generate predictions. The method is illustrated using an environmental data set.     

Serve or skip: the power of rejection in online bottleneck matching

We consider the online matching problem, where n server-vertices lie in a metric space and n request-vertices that arrive over time each must immediately be permanently assigned to a server-vertex. We focus on the egalitarian bottleneck objective, where the goal is to minimize the maximum distance between any request and its server. It has been shown that while there are effective algorithms for the utilitarian objective (minimizing total cost) in the resource augmentation setting where the offline adversary has half the resources, these are not effective for the egalitarian objective. Thus, we propose a new Serve-or-Skip (SoS) bicriteria analysis model, where the online algorithm may reject or skip up to a specified number of requests, and propose two greedy algorithms: GriNN(t) and \({{\textsc {Grin}}^*(t)}\). We show that the SoS model of resource augmentation analysis can essentially simulate the doubled-server-capacity model, and then examine the performance of GriNN(t) and \({\textsc {Grin}^*(t)}\).     

Using the End‐User Computing Satisfaction (EUCS) Instrument to Measure Satisfaction with a Web Site

The purpose of this study is to revise and revalidate the End‐User Computing Satisfaction (EUCS) instrument to measure satisfaction with a Web site from a usability perspective. This study is especially important given the increased significance of the Web and the uniqueness of the Web as a computing environment. A total of 176 students participated in a lab simulation that involved a usability evaluation of the Lands' End Web site ( http://www.landsend.com ). Students were asked to complete a set of tasks, record their answers, and then complete the EUCS instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis and invariance analyses were conducted to test the reliability, validity, and generalizability of the revised EUCS. The results show that the EUCS is a valid and robust instrument in the Web environment but that one of the subfactors, timeliness, will need further refinement in the future. Usability practitioners can use the EUCS to measure end‐user satisfaction with a Web site and use the feedback for improving Web‐site design. We describe a case study of an actual usability application that utilized the revised EUCS effectively to support the design of building supply Web sites involving two types of end users, homeowners and contractors. We also propose a typology that researchers can use as a starting point to judge when it is necessary to revalidate an instrument like the EUCS. Finally, we discuss the limitations of our study and present avenues for future research.     

Decision-Making and Evidence in Direct Practice

This article presents the results of research designed to explore decision-making by direct practitioners in selected non-profit human service settings. Forty interviews were conducted with workers at front-line, supervisory and higher-management levels. The research questions included; what sources of information are used in decision-making, what variables enhance or impede utilization of evidence-based knowledge in decision-making and what would be important resources for improving availability, access and utilization of evidence-based knowledge in decision-making? Our results indicate that respondents relied most heavily on experience; on their professional values and beliefs, and on an empathic understanding of their clients’ uniqueness. Compared to these sources of information use of research and the professional literature were less enthusiastically endorsed.