Working with industry: Matching the work and worker

The benefits of matching the work to the worker include injury prevention, decreased re-injury rates, decreased turnover, and improved production. This article will discuss three components of an employer safety and health program that allows employers to realize these goals. The program involves partnering with trained health professionals who provide Functional Capacity Evaluation, Functional Job Analysis, and Prework Screening services onsite as means to achieving appropriate matches of the workers to the work.     

Mental health need, awareness, and use of counseling services among international graduate students

OBJECTIVE AND PARTICIPANTS: The authors examined the prevalence of mental health needs in international graduate students, their knowledge of mental health services, and their use of on-campus and off-campus counseling services. METHODS: All registered graduate students in the Spring 2004 semester received an e-mail invitation to participate in a Web survey. Of the 3,121 completed surveys, 551 completed surveys were from international graduate students. RESULTS: Approximately 44% of international graduate students responded that they had had an emotional or stress-related problem that significantly affected their well-being or academic performance within the past year. International students who reported a more functional relationship with their advisors were less likely to report having an emotional or stress-related problem in the past year and using counseling services. International students who reported higher financial confidence were also less likely to use counseling services. CONCLUSIONS: There is an unmet mental health need among international graduate students. Special mental health outreach efforts should be directed at international graduate students, with particular attention on the relationship between students and their advisors and on adequate financial support for students.     

Something Old,Something New?: Competing Logics and the Hybrid Nature of New Corporate Professions

The professionalization of certain management occupations, such as project management and human resource management, has been neglected in recent debates on professions, which instead focus upon the deregulation of collegial professions or the failure or unwillingness of new expert occupations to professionalize. Project management represents one of a handful of ‘management professions’ which confound this interpretation, explicitly pursuing a ‘corporate professionalization’ project with some degree of success. This paper focuses on the strategic activities of the principal British professional association in this field, the Association for Project Management (APM), as it negotiates a path between exploiting established sources of legitimacy and exploring a novel conception of professionalism. In the process, the association manipulates collegial and corporate logics of professionalism, in terms of its relationships with key stakeholders, its global orientation, its knowledge base and strategies of occupational closure. Drawing on interviews with APM officials and broader documentary analysis, we analyse the conditions which have produced this hybrid model of professionalism, highlighting the pragmatic management of tensions through the combination of distinct, even contradictory, professionalization logics.     

Substitute addiction: a concern for researchers and practitioners

An understanding of the role of substitute addictions remains unclear. This article examines the range and possible reward functions of substitute addictions. We suggest that prevention education and treatment need to take into account substitute addictions as an influential aspect ofrecovery. Research is needed to better understand the prevalence and functions of, and solutions to substitute addictions.     

The Desire to Gamble: The Influence of Outcomes on the Priming Effects of a Gambling Episode

The influence of gambling outcomes on the efficacy of a short gambling episode to prime motivation to continue gambling was determined in two experiments in which desire to gamble was evaluated while participants played a slot machine located in a virtual reality casino. In experiment 1, 38 high-risk [>3 Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI)] [Ferris and Wynne (The Canadian problem gambling index: final report, 2001)] and 36 non-problem gamblers (0 PGSI) either won or lost a modest amount. Among high-risk gamblers, winning resulted in a greater increase in the desire to continue gambling than did losing. In experiment 2, 39 high-risk, 33 low-risk (0 < PGSI < 3), and 31 non-problem gamblers experienced either a single large win or a series of small wins (equivalent monetary gain). Participants were permitted to continue playing as long as they wanted (all subsequent spins being losses) thus permitting evaluation of persistence (resistance to extinction). Throughout, desire to gamble was assessed using a single item measure. High-risk gamblers who experienced a large win reported significantly greater desire to gamble upon voluntary cessation than those who experienced a series of small wins. It seems that the priming effects of a short gambling episode are contingent on the pattern of outcomes experienced by the gambler. The data were related to motivational factors associated with gambling, gambling persistence, and chasing losses.     

A concise history of school-based smoking prevention research: a pendulum effect case study

School-based cigarette smoking prevention was initiated shortly after the first Surgeon General's Report in 1964. This article highlights a sequence of events by which school-based tobacco use prevention research developed as a science, and illustrates a pendulum effect, with confidence in tobacco use prevention increasing and decreasing at/different points in time. Suggestions are offered to advance school-based smoking prevention research.     

All roads leading to Rome? The medium term outcomes of Australian youth’s transition pathways from education

Young people’s transition from education into the labour market are diverse: sometimes direct from school to work or inactivity, sometimes characterised by stop-starts and combinations of different activities. This paper explores the association between transition pathways of Australian youth and their outcomes, in terms of earnings, perceptions of employment opportunities and debt. It builds on analysis by Fry and Boulton [2013. Prevalence of Transition Pathways in Australia. Canberra: Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper] who identified five pathways most typically taken by 15–24 year old Australians over a 10 year period, including quasi linear transitions from education to work with and without study, combinations of work and study, multiple churning between labour market statuses, and transitions into prolonged periods of inactivity. The present study adds four more years of panel data that have since become available, and compares the labour market outcomes of the different pathways at age 29–38. Earnings and employment perception converged over time, but debt did not. Socio-demographics were most strongly associated with outcomes, but earnings were also greater for churners and for young people in extended education increasingly combined with work. Transitions that combined learning and work seemingly strategically or ‘flexibly’ appeared most rewarding in the medium term, although neither compensated for socio-economic difference.     

Lean implementation in a service factory: views from the front-line

The deployment of Lean methods in service work is increasingly viewed as a legitimate response more efficient front-line service delivery. However, there are mixed results with process efficiency gains frequently marginalised by losses in employee satisfaction and customer focus. It is suggested that these sub-optimal outcomes result from partial adoptions of Lean with emphasis on process efficiency neglecting employee and customer outcomes. Utilising Action Research this paper investigates a Lean implementation within a UK call centre. This research finds that Lean when implemented properly can lead to improved process efficiency, a better customer experience and increased employee satisfaction. It suggests that to achieve these optimum outcomes Lean implementations must as a priority be focused on creating customer satisfaction and be customised to fit with particular contingencies in the organisational context such as the nature of the interface between the front-line worker and the customer.