The wages of sweat: A social history perspective on the fight against sweatshops

The social history of the fight against sweatshops casts light on the current movement in favor of corporate social responsibility. But making the head of a chain of subcontractors responsible for seeing to the well-being of those at the end of the chain is not contemporaneous with present-day globalization and North/South relations. Since the 19th century, when the sweatshop system appeared, those who champion the workers have pointed a finger at those who, though they only exercise indirect control, profit from their exploitation. As our historical analysis emphasizes, though in other contexts the issue of poor working conditions sometimes found solutions that (partially) avoided holding the principal liable, what characterizes the anti-sweatshop movement in the context of globalization is its nearly exclusive focus on bringing pressure to bear on the contractor at the head of the chain.     

Engaging Professionals in Sustainable Workplace Innovation: Medical Doctors and Institutional Work

This paper investigates the role of medical professionals in the success and longevity of the implementation of workplace innovation and organizational change in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Departments of two large public hospitals, in Australia and Canada, during the introduction of process improvement using Lean Management (LM) methodologies. We ask why and how doctors resist, influence or enable LM initiatives in healthcare. Using a qualitative methodology, we contribute to institutional work theory by unpacking the complex forms of boundary and practice work undertaken by key actors who effectively use their professional status and power to enable practice changes to be embedded. Our findings lend support to the importance of the involvement and ownership of senior doctors in the design, introduction and implementation of successful workplace innovation and organizational change. Senior doctors use their professional expertise, positional and political power at the industry, organization and workplace levels to influence strategically the use of resources designated for workplace innovation to improve efficiencies, quality of patient care and maintain their dominance. The significant organizational change achieved reflected the ownership and leadership of the workplace innovation by senior doctors in ‘hybrid roles’ who captured the rhetoric and minimized adversarialism among key stakeholders.     

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS? BUSINESS OWNERSHIP GROWTH BY GENDER ACROSS THE AMERICAN URBAN LANDSCAPE

This study identifies the determinants of growth for male and female business ownership in a subset of U.S. counties. The results indicate that there are important characteristic and behavioral differences between the male and female populations in each county that affect regional changes in business ownership for each gender. In particular, the education level of males and females as well as the local family structure impact the propensity for firms owned by each gender differently. A Blinder‐Oaxaca type decomposition, a novel approach in the context of regional outcomes, demonstrates that although the effect of characteristic differences is larger, the behavioral differences are key to narrowing the gender disparity in business ownership. (JEL L26, R2, R3)     

Targeting lean process improvement projects for maximum financial impact

This empirical paper details a 12-month applied research project at a UK low-volume manufacturer of large vehicles. The industry problem from which this study originates was a concern over the subjective nature with which the firm’s existing lean intervention projects were being targeted (prioritised and selected). A structured literature review on this topic was unable to identify any objective decision support mechanism for doing so; one that encompassed financial as well as operational criteria. The resultant study was organised around an established seven-step action research framework. The main body of evidence was derived from extensive analysis of financial and operational data extracted from the firm’s enterprise resource planning system, along with two structured workshops that each involved multiple informants drawn from the firm’s production centres and its accountancy department. Supplementary primary research was provided in the guise of numerous unstructured interviews to validate data and from observation of shop floor practices. The main contribution of this article is identifying and addressing the gap highlighted above, by developing and testing a financially driven method for objectively targeting process improvement interventions within this large and geographically dispersed operation. This innovative method includes five new constituent techniques.     

Comparison of programs MULT, ESTIMATE and BROWNIE

I describe and compare programs ESTIMATE (one-age class band recovery), BROWNIE (two-age class band recovery) and MULT (one- and two-age class band recovery and extensions). All are easy to use and suited for the purposes for which they were designed. MULT offers considerable advantages over the other two programs, in providing a unified framework for both one- and two-age class band recovery problems, as well as extensions to allow inclusion of a covariate, banding twice per year, unequal intervals between banding periods, and analysis of reward-band data. MULT is menu-driven, and offers additional advantages in terms of ease of input and output and user-modified defaults (e.g. selection or suppression of some printed output). Users seeking additional flexibility are referred to program SURVIV but advised that both user sophistication and software (i.e. a FORTRAN compiler) beyond that required for MULT, ESTIMATE or BROWNIE would be required.     

Using an Objective Structured Clinical Examination for Bachelor of Midwifery students’ preparation for practice

BackgroundContemporary midwifery practice needs a rigorous and standardised assessment of practical skills, and knowledge to ensure that safety is maintained for both women and neonates before, during and after childbirth.AimTo evaluate the use of Best Practice Guidelines (BPG) for Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) as a standardised tool to develop clinical competence of Bachelor of Midwifery students.MethodA pragmatic mixed method approach with surveys, focus groups and interviews was used to evaluate the OSCEs for first year students. Quantitative and qualitative data were combined to understand student and academic perceptions of students’ confidence for clinical practice following the OSCE.FindingsThirty-four students responded to surveys (response rate 94%); and 13 participated in focus groups. Two academic lecturers participated in an interview (100%). Two main themes emerged (1) the OSCEs improved student confidence (2) the OSCEs were relevant and prepared students for practice. Most students indicated that they practised for the OSCE using an integrated approach (70%), and that this assisted them in their approach to the assessment of the neonate or post-partum mother.ConclusionThe use of BPGs to ensure that OSCEs focus on important aspects of knowledge and practice helped students to learn and to perform well. Students’ confidence in their ability for the imminent professional experience placement was high. OSCEs designed with the BPGs should be implemented broadly across midwifery education to enhance students’ competence and provide rigorous meaningful assessment.