Learning in manufacturing organizations: what factors predict effectiveness?

This paper argues that it is possible to identify factors which pre-dispose organizations to adopt effective learning strategies and processes. It is hypothesized that effective OL is associated with: profitability, environmental uncertainty, structure, approach to HRM and quality orientation. The study focuses on forty-four manufacturing organizations, and draws on longitudinal data gathered through interviews. The findings suggest that two of these variables - approach to HRM and quality orientation - are particularly strongly correlated with measures of OL. It is concluded that effective learning mechanisms, with the potential to improve the quality of OL processes, are more likely to be established in businesses where HRM and quality initiatives are well established.     

St Christopher's and the future

The founding vision of St Christopher's Hospice was based on a recognition that permeating mainstream health care services would be essential and an emphasis on an adaptable philosophy rather than a building. Today, demographic and disease related changes mean that need and demand for end-of-life care will inevitably outstrip professional and financial resource. Hospices must engage with the development of cost-effective models of service delivery and rational planning. Only partnership working with the National Health Service, care homes, and others will ensure that appropriate care is available to everyone wherever the bed in which they die, regardless of diagnosis. Only collaboration and active engagement will ensure that future strategy in end-of-life care retains the original insight that its focus rightly includes not only patients but also the social context that will be affected by their death. Cost and patient choice dictate an emphasis on care at home. Health-promoting, public education and family-focused strategies will be essential. At a pivotal moment for the delivery of health care generally, hospices can play a vital part by marrying the role of "insistent conscience" of the health care service with continued cost-effective clinical innovation.     

Understanding the relative influence of attitudes and societal norms on dietary intentions among African-Caribbean women

This study applies the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to understand the relative influence of personal attitude (AT) toward three chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension), and social normative (SN) groups (family, friends, and church), toward intention to engage in dietary behaviors associated with obesity and chronic disease risk. The sample consists of N = 183 women, aged 18–55 years, in Barbados, West Indies, selected through a stratified cluster sample technique. The instrument includes demographic and anthropometric variables and components of the TRA. Analyses using structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that the TRA explains 22%, 35% and 19% of the variances in intention to consume high-fat foods, alcohol, and fruits, nuts and vegetables, respectively. SN is a predictor of all three dietary intentions, while AT predicts only intention to eat fruit, nuts, and vegetables. In the models, social pressure from family is relatively more important than friends and church in influencing dietary intentions. It can be concluded that social normative influences have a stronger effect on intentions to consume fatty foods, alcohol, and fruit, nuts and vegetables than do personal attitudes.     

The curious case of case study: a viewpoint

Abstract

This paper focuses on microethical issues concerning interactions in which the process of informed consent occurs. It draws on research analysing the biographies and future hopes of 15- to 17-year-old girls and boys participating in targeted youth/educational programmes in the Helsinki area. The ethical challenge explored here is how to negotiate with the young interviewees on expanding the research setting towards a longitudinal and cross-generational approach, which also means expanding the data produced on their already well-reported lives. The paper highlights the power relations between adult researcher and young research participant, the contextual nature of gaining informed consent, and the conflict involved in trying to avoid hounding an over-surveilled group while still tracking their whereabouts and revisiting them for a follow-up interview.     

Selection works both ways: BMI and marital formation among young women

The literature on entry into marriages has almost universally regarded a high body mass index (BMI) to be a disadvantage for women in the marriage market. But the theoretical effect of BMI on marital entry is actually uncertain because women who anticipate poor outcomes in the marriage market are more likely to accept early offers, while women with more desirable characteristics can afford to wait for a better match. Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we show that female entry into marriage does decline as BMI rises, but that early marriage is nonlinear in BMI. Women with an extremely high BMI or with a BMI in the most attractive range are less likely to marry early.     

The Discourse of Legitimacy in Early Modern England

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Steven Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and the ‘Lower Sort’ during the American Revolution (1988), xv + 373 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, $40.00).

Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1700–1820 (1987), xxiii + 378 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, £20.95).

Malcolm Chase, The People's Farm: English Radical Agrarianism 1775–1840 (1988), vi + 221 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £25.00).

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? [Youth Protest and Generational Conflict in Twentieth‐Century Europe: Germany, England, France and Italy in Comparison.]

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Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (1987), xiv + 482 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £27.50, $34.50).

Peter Weiler, British Labour and the Cold War (1988), xiv+ 431 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, $42.50).

Charles Webster, The Health Services Since the War. Vol. 1: Problems of Health Care. The National Health Service Before 1957 (1988), x + 479 (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, £27.50).