Human and organizational factors in offshore safety

The role of human and organizational factors in predicting accidents and incidents has become of major interest to the UK offshore oil and gas industry. Some of these factors had been measured in an earlier study focusing on the role of risk perception in determining accident involvement. The current study sought to extend the methodology by focusing on perceptions of organizational factors that could have an impact on safety. A self-report questionnaire was developed and distributed to 11 installations operating on the UK Continental Shelf. A total of 722 were returned (33% response rate) from a representative sample of the offshore workforce on these installations. The study investigated the underlying structure and content of offshore employees' attitudes to safety, feelings of safety and satisfaction with safety measures. Correlations and step-wise regression analysis were used to test the relationships between measures. The results suggest that 'unsafe' behaviour is the 'best' predictor of accidents/near misses as measured by self-report data and that unsafe behaviour is, in turn, driven by perceptions of pressure for production.     

Emotions,Trust, and Perceived Risk: Affective and Cognitive Routes to Flood Preparedness Behavior

Despite the prognoses of the effects of global warming (e.g., rising sea levels, increasing river discharges), few international studies have addressed how flood preparedness should be stimulated among private citizens. This article aims to predict Dutch citizens’ flood preparedness intentions by testing a path model, including previous flood hazard experiences, trust in public flood protection, and flood risk perceptions (both affective and cognitive components). Data were collected through questionnaire surveys in two coastal communities (n= 169, n= 244) and in one river area community (n= 658). Causal relations were tested by means of structural equation modeling (SEM). Overall, the results indicate that both cognitive and affective mechanisms influence citizens’ preparedness intentions. First, a higher level of trust reduces citizens’ perceptions of flood likelihood, which in turn hampers their flood preparedness intentions (cognitive route). Second, trust also lessens the amount of dread evoked by flood risk, which in turn impedes flood preparedness intentions (affective route). Moreover, the affective route showed that levels of dread were especially influenced by citizens’ negative and positive emotions related to their previous flood hazard experiences. Negative emotions most often reflected fear and powerlessness, while positive emotions most frequently reflected feelings of solidarity. The results are consistent with the affect heuristic and the historical context of Dutch flood risk management. The great challenge for flood risk management is the accommodation of both cognitive and affective mechanisms in risk communications, especially when most people lack an emotional basis stemming from previous flood hazard events.     

对网络交际的思考

网络交际现今已经成为很多人生活的一部分,通过网络空间人们交流更加便捷,更加丰富。网络交际对我们的现实社会文化和人际交流有着深刻的影响和冲击。网络交际弱化了文化因素对交际主体角色的制约和影响;网络交际的开放性使不同文化的人更容易交流和相互认同,弱化了本土文化对人际交往的影响;网络交际形成的特殊文化,引起了文化的碰撞和交融;网络交际的不真实性加剧了人与人的信任危机;网络交际信息与真实信息的差异,及网络上对他人隐私的侵害给日常生活交际带来了不利的影响。     

我国企业开展电子商务的障碍分析

本文运用辨证唯物主义的观点对我国企业开展电子商务的障碍从内因和外因两个方面进行阐述 ,作为电子商务主体的企业 ,其内在动因不足才是我国企业电子商务发展缓慢的根本原因所在 ,即内部障碍 ,主要表现为组织结构转型的困难及企业目标与个人目标的冲突等方面 ;企业的外部环境因素如安全认证 ,支付系统等的缺乏和不完善又构成企业电子商务发展的外部障碍     

Fairness and commitment to change in M&As: The mediating role of organizational identification

This paper examines the determinants of employees' affective commitment to change in the context of M&As. Based on the group engagement model (Tyler & Blader, 2000, 2003), we predicted that organizational identification with the newly formed organization mediates the positive impact of employees’ overall justice judgments and perceived change favorableness on affective commitment to change. We tested our predictions using data collected during an international merger. After controlling for country effects, results support our hypotheses. Implications for research and practice alike are discussed.     

对我国证券投资基金发展问题的探讨

从证券投资基金的现状出发 ,针对基金发展中的典型问题 ,进行了多角度的思考 ,提出了一些前瞻性的建议     

The social construction of the meaning of acute stressors: a qualitative study of the personal accounts of police officers using a stress counselling service

The police profession is one in which acute stressors are encountered more frequently than in other occupations. Using the personal accounts of 35 police officers attending an in-house stress counselling clinic, the aim of the present study was to provide a qualitative examination of how the institutional context of policing influenced the ways in which acute stressors signified to individual police officers experiencing felt distress. Using the framework of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy as an analytical tool, it is argued that beliefs contributing to the experience of felt distress are related to the way in which policing as both an identity and an activity is constructed through the police organizational culture. Not only do these constructions influence the ways in which officers perceive themselves and their environments, but they also operate at the collective level to 'normalize' some emotional responses and to 'pathologize' others which, it is argued, could impact upon the outcomes of interventions such as stress counselling.     

Little naked pangs of the self: the real performance of the self and the function of trust in Goffman's action theory

The aim of this article is to discuss some of the leading features of Erving Goffman's action theory as an alternative to the ‘orthodox’ paradigms of sociology, viewed as a structuralist and functionalist science that defines social constructs by their shared rules and values, and as a drifting of action, in the sense of intention, toward an individualistic version. The author examines Goffman's shift of the focus of attention from the boundaries of a social sense of action to the social dialectic of ‘defining a situation’ (W. Thomas) as conducted by the social actors in a renewal of Simmel's ‘empowering covenants’ (wechselwirkung) in the multiple casual social connections that make up the ‘social buzz’ in a society. The author moreover discusses Goffman's action as a kind of playacting regulating cognitive and expressive face-to-face ‘traffic’ between the social actors. This relational dynamic creates an interactive play based on encounters – in which one's opening to another is fraught with risks of deception – regulated by trust as a central resource for social interactions. Trust, in its interpersonal and systemic variants, constitutes a universal social datum and an elementary precondition for social exchanges and the cooperation between individuals. Trust, thus, functions as comparer between reciprocal expectations and a regulator of freedom tending to the stability of the social system.     

Neighborhood Quality, Environmental Hazards, Personality Traits, and Resident Actions

A survey of 798 New Jersey residents examined relationships among residents' neighborhood activities, perceptions of neighborhood quality, trust of experts, support for rebuilding cities and equal rights, and degree of optimism. Neighborhood activities increased with lack of trust and optimism. These personality characteristic measures were folded into multidimensional constructs that included local environmental hazards, respondents' ratings of their previous neighborhoods, and some demographic variables. Pessimism and values that support equal rights and rebuilding cities were weakly associated with poor quality neighborhood ratings.     

小股东表决权信托实现机制研究

小股东和大股东在公司地位及控制公司程度上的差异,导致小股东权益在公司治理中极易受到损害,小股东对行使表决权方式的需求上也与大股东有所差异,股东表决权的行使方式设计应对他们的利益做出平衡,小股东若想得到有效保护,只有联合起来,集合足够的表决权,从而达到与大股东抗衡的目的,表决权信托便是一种有效方式。针对表决权含义与法律特征、表决权信托法律关系,同时从小股东权益的视角研究表决权信托于小股东表决权行使的意义