Models of social media adoption in emergency management organisations

Recent natural disasters such as the Haitian earthquake 2011, the South East Queensland floods 2011, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in the United States of America in 2012, have seen social media platforms changing the face of emergency management communications, not only in times of crisis and also during business-as-usual operations. With social media being such an important and powerful communication tool, especially for emergency management organisations, the question arises as to whether the use of social media in these organisations emerged by considered strategic design or more as a reactive response to a new and popular communication channel. This paper provides insight into how the social media function has been positioned, staffed and managed in organisations throughout the world, with a particular focus on how these factors influence the style of communication used on social media platforms. This study has identified that the social media function falls on a continuum between two polarised models, namely the authoritative one-way communication approach and the more interactive approach that seeks to network and engage with the community through multi-way communication. Factors such the size of the organisation; dedicated resourcing of the social media function; organisational culture and mission statement; the presence of a social media champion within the organisation; management style and knowledge about social media play a key role in determining where on the continuum organisations sit in relation to their social media capability. This review, together with a forthcoming survey of Australian emergency management organisations and local governments, will fill a gap in the current body of knowledge about the evolution, positioning and usage of social media in organisations working in the emergency management field in Australia. These findings will be fed back to Industry for potential inclusion in future strategies and practices.

Understanding the value of social media in organisations : a taxonomic approach

While organizations strive to leverage the vast information generated daily from social media platforms and both decision makers and consultants are keen to identify and exploit this information’s value, there has been little research into social media in the business context. Social media are diverse, varying in scope and functionality, this diversity entailing a complex of attributes and characteristics, resulting in confusion for both researchers and organizations. Taxonomies are important precursors in emerging fields and are foundational for rigorous theory building. Though aspects of social media have been studied from various discipline perspectives, this work has been largely descriptive. Thus, while the need for a rigorous taxonomy of social media is strong, previous efforts to classify social media suffer limitations – e.g. lack of a systematic taxonomic method, overreliance on intuition, disregard for the users’ perspective, and inadequate consideration of purpose. Thus, this study was mainly initiated by the overarching question “How can social media in the business context be usefully classified?” In order to address this gap, the current paper proposes a systematic method for developing a taxonomy appropriate to study social media in organizations context, combining Nickerson et al,’s (2012) IS taxonomy building guidelines and a Repertory grid (RepGrid) approach.

Q-RARA : a rapid and rigorous method for researching small, primary health care organisations

Understanding the organisational processes driving quality primary care is crucial to the maintaining and improving practice. Qualitative methods are increasingly popular in health services research, but this area is dominated by interview studies. Multiple qualitative methods are rarely used in a systematically integrated fashion. We developed a method to study small primary health care organizations using rapid appraisal and qualitative mixed methods: Q-RARA – Qualitative Rapid Appraisal, Rigorous Analysis

Factors affecting new project delays in Saudi Arabian manufacturing organisations

Delay in the delivery of manufacturing projects is a major problem in manufacturing industries. This research investigates the factors that influence the lead time of new projects in manufacturing organisations. Employing a questionnaire survey and interview methodologies, this study collected data from five leading manufacturing organisations as well as their suppliers and contractors in Saudi Arabia to examine what, how and why the new project implementation delay occurs. Results show that the main factors contributing to manufacturing delays are related to people and material. On the other hand, social, political and cultural factors were the least significant factors as per the outcome of this study. Views of manufacturers, suppliers and contractors regarding causes of delays have also been analysed.

Molecular characterization of Escherichia coli strains that cause symptomatic and asymptomatic urinary tract infections

The differences between Escherichia coli strains associated with symptomatic and asymptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs) remain to be properly determined. Here we examined the prevalence of plasmid types and bacteriocins, as well as genetic relatedness, in a defined collection of E. coli strains that cause UTIs. Comparative analysis identified a subgroup of strains with a high number of virulence genes (VGs) and microcins M/H47. We also identified associations between microcin genes, VGs, and specific plasmid types.

The role of university research centres in building road safety capacity : implications for China

In recent decades, highly motorised countries, such as Australia, have witnessed significant improvements in population health through reductions in fatalities and injuries from road traffic crashes. In Australia, concerted efforts have been made to reduce the road trauma burden since road fatalities reached their highest level in in the early 1970s. Since that time, many improvements have been made drawing on various disciplines to reduce the trauma burden (e.g., road and vehicle design, road user education, traffic law enforcement practices and enforcement technologies). While road fatalities have declined significantly since the mid-1970s, road trauma remains a serious public health concern in Australia. China has recently become the largest car market in the world (Ma, Li, Zhou, Duan, & Bishai, 2012). This rapid motorisation has been accompanied by substantial expansion of the road network as well as a large road trauma burden. Road traffic injuries are a major cause of death in China, reported as accounting for one third of all injury-deaths between 2002 and 2006 (Ma et al., 2012). In common with Australia, China has experienced a reported decline in fatalities since 2002 (see Hu, Wen & Baker, 2008). However, there remains a strong need for action in this area as rates of motorisation continue to climb in China. In Australia, a wide range of organisations have contributed to the improvements in road safety including government agencies, professional organisations, advocacy groups and research centres. In particular, Australia has several highly regarded and multi-disciplinary, university-based research centres that work across a range of road safety fields, including engineering, intelligent transportation systems, the psychology of road user behaviour, and traffic law enforcement. Besides conducting high-quality research, these centres fulfil an important advocacy role in promoting safer road use and facilitating collaborations with government and other agencies, at both the national and international level. To illustrate the role of these centres, an overview will be provided of the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety-Queensland (CARRS-Q), which was established in 1996 and has gone on to become a recognised world-leader in road safety and injury prevention research. The Centre’s research findings are used to provide evidence-based recommendations to government and have directly contributed to promoting safer road use in Australia. Since 2006, CARRS-Q has also developed strong collaborative links with various universities and organisations in China to assist in building understanding, connections and capacity to assist in reducing the road trauma burden. References Hu, G., Wen, M., Baker, T. D., & Baker, S. P. (2008). Road-traffic deaths in China, 1985–2005: threat and opportunity. Injury Prevention, 14, 149-153. Ma, S., Li, Q., Zhou, M., Duan, L., & Bishai, D. (2012). Road Traffic Injury in China: A Review of National Data Sources. Traffic Injury Prevention, 13(S1), 57-63.

The influence of injury cause, contact-sport participation, and personal knowledge on expectation of outcome from mild traumatic brain injury

Objective: This study investigated the influence of injury cause, contact-sport participation, and prior knowledge of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) on injury beliefs and chronic symptom expectations of mTBI. Method: A total of 185 non-contact-sport players (non-CSPs) and 59 contact-sport players (CSPs) with no history of mTBI were randomly allocated to one of two conditions in which they read either a vignette depicting a sport-related mTBI (mTBIsport) or a motor-vehicle-accident-related mTBI (mTBIMVA). The vignettes were otherwise standardized to convey the same injury parameters (e.g., duration of loss of consciousness). After reading a vignette, participants reported their injury beliefs (i.e., perceptions of injury undesirability, chronicity, and consequences) and their expectations of chronic postconcussion syndrome (PCS) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Results: Non-CSPs held significantly more negative beliefs and expected greater PTSD symptomatology and greater PCS affective symptomatology from an mTBIMVA vignette thann mTBIsport vignette, but this difference was not found for CSPs. Unlike CSPs, non-CSPs who personally knew someone who had sustained an mTBI expected significantly less PCS symptomatology than those who did not. Despite these different results for non-CSPs and CSPs, overall, contact-sport participation did not significantly affect injury beliefs and symptom expectations from an mTBIsport. Conclusions: Expectations of persistent problems after an mTBI are influenced by factors such as injury cause even when injury parameters are held constant. Personal knowledge of mTBI, but not contact sport participation, may account for some variability in mTBI beliefs and expectations. These factors require consideration when assessing mTBI outcome.

Global, regional, and national age–sex specifi c all-cause and cause-specifi c mortality for 240 causes of death, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

Background Up-to-date evidence on levels and trends for age-sex-specific all-cause and cause-specific mortality is essential for the formation of global, regional, and national health policies. In the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013) we estimated yearly deaths for 188 countries between 1990, and 2013. We used the results to assess whether there is epidemiological convergence across countries. Methods We estimated age-sex-specific all-cause mortality using the GBD 2010 methods with some refinements to improve accuracy applied to an updated database of vital registration, survey, and census data. We generally estimated cause of death as in the GBD 2010. Key improvements included the addition of more recent vital registration data for 72 countries, an updated verbal autopsy literature review, two new and detailed data systems for China, and more detail for Mexico, UK, Turkey, and Russia. We improved statistical models for garbage code redistribution. We used six different modelling strategies across the 240 causes; cause of death ensemble modelling (CODEm) was the dominant strategy for causes with sufficient information. Trends for Alzheimer's disease and other dementias were informed by meta-regression of prevalence studies. For pathogen-specific causes of diarrhoea and lower respiratory infections we used a counterfactual approach. We computed two measures of convergence (inequality) across countries: the average relative difference across all pairs of countries (Gini coefficient) and the average absolute difference across countries. To summarise broad findings, we used multiple decrement life-tables to decompose probabilities of death from birth to exact age 15 years, from exact age 15 years to exact age 50 years, and from exact age 50 years to exact age 75 years, and life expectancy at birth into major causes. For all quantities reported, we computed 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs). We constrained cause-specific fractions within each age-sex-country-year group to sum to all-cause mortality based on draws from the uncertainty distributions. Findings Global life expectancy for both sexes increased from 65·3 years (UI 65·0–65·6) in 1990, to 71·5 years (UI 71·0–71·9) in 2013, while the number of deaths increased from 47·5 million (UI 46·8–48·2) to 54·9 million (UI 53·6–56·3) over the same interval. Global progress masked variation by age and sex: for children, average absolute differences between countries decreased but relative differences increased. For women aged 25–39 years and older than 75 years and for men aged 20–49 years and 65 years and older, both absolute and relative differences increased. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the prominent role of reductions in age-standardised death rates for cardiovascular diseases and cancers in high-income regions, and reductions in child deaths from diarrhoea, lower respiratory infections, and neonatal causes in low-income regions. HIV/AIDS reduced life expectancy in southern sub-Saharan Africa. For most communicable causes of death both numbers of deaths and age-standardised death rates fell whereas for most non-communicable causes, demographic shifts have increased numbers of deaths but decreased age-standardised death rates. Global deaths from injury increased by 10·7%, from 4·3 million deaths in 1990 to 4·8 million in 2013; but age-standardised rates declined over the same period by 21%. For some causes of more than 100 000 deaths per year in 2013, age-standardised death rates increased between 1990 and 2013, including HIV/AIDS, pancreatic cancer, atrial fibrillation and flutter, drug use disorders, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and sickle-cell anaemias. Diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, neonatal causes, and malaria are still in the top five causes of death in children younger than 5 years. The most important pathogens are rotavirus for diarrhoea and pneumococcus for lower respiratory infections. Country-specific probabilities of death over three phases of life were substantially varied between and within regions. Interpretation For most countries, the general pattern of reductions in age-sex specific mortality has been associated with a progressive shift towards a larger share of the remaining deaths caused by non-communicable disease and injuries. Assessing epidemiological convergence across countries depends on whether an absolute or relative measure of inequality is used. Nevertheless, age-standardised death rates for seven substantial causes are increasing, suggesting the potential for reversals in some countries. Important gaps exist in the empirical data for cause of death estimates for some countries; for example, no national data for India are available for the past decade.

The learning capability of construction organisations engaged in collaborative contracting - Literature Review [industry report]

Background Value for money (VfM) on collaborative construction projects is dependent on the learning capabilities of the organisations and people involved. Within the context of infrastructure delivery, there is little research about the impact of organisational learning capability on project value. The literature contains a multiplicity of often un-testable definitions about organisational learning abilities. This paper defines learning capability as a dynamic capability that participant organisations purposely develop to add value to collaborative projects. The paper reports on a literature review that proposes a framework that conceptualises learning capability to explore the topic. This work is the first phase of a large-scale national survey funded by the Alliancing Association of Australasia and the Australian Research Council. Methodology Desk-top review of leading journals in the areas of strategic management, strategic alliances and construction management, as well as recent government documents and industry guidelines, was undertaken to synthesise, conceptualise and operationalise the concept of learning capability. The study primarily draws on the theoretical perspectives of the resource-based view of the firm (e.g. Barney 1991; Wernerfelt 1984), absorptive capacity (e.g. Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Zahra and George 2002); and dynamic capabilities (e.g. Helfat et al. 2007; Teece et al. 1997; Winter 2003). Content analysis of the literature was undertaken to identify key learning routines. Content analysis is a commonly used methodology in the social sciences area. It provides rich data through the systematic and objective review of literature (Krippendorff 2004). NVivo 9, a qualitative data analysis software package, was used to assist in this process. Findings and Future Research The review process resulted in a framework for the conceptualisation of learning capability that shows three phases of learning: (1) exploratory learning, (2) transformative learning and (3) exploitative learning. These phases combine both internal and external learning routines to influence project performance outcomes and thus VfM delivered under collaborative contracts. Sitting within these phases are eight categories of learning capability comprising knowledge articulation, identification, acquisition, dissemination, codification, internationalisation, transformation and application. The learning routines sitting within each category will be disaggregated in future research as the basis for measureable items in a large-scale survey study. The survey will examine the extent to which various learning routines influence project outcomes, as well as the relationships between them. This will involve identifying the routines that exist within organisations in the construction industry, their resourcing and rate of renewal, together with the extent of use and perceived value within the organisation. The target population is currently estimated to be around 1,000 professionals with experience in relational contracting in Australia. This future research will build on the learning capability framework to provide data that will assist construction organisations seeking to maximise VfM on construction projects.

The Interview: Schnarking, Knob Jokes and the right to cause gross offence

Discussion of censorship and media freedom in the context of The Interview. A few weeks before the murderous attack by Islamic extremists on the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, the Hollywood dream factory had its own encounter with would-be censors. The Interview (Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, 2014), as everyone with an interest in culture and current affairs cannot fail to be aware of by now, is a comedy in the “grossout” tradition exemplified by commercially successful movies such as Ted (Seth MacFarlane, 2012) and Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, 2011). Their humour is a combination of slapstick, physical comedy, and scatological jokes involving body fluids and the like— hence the “gross”. The best of them have been very funny, as well as bordering on the offensive (see Ted’s scene involving prostitutes, a foul-mouthed teddy bear and the entertainment value of someone taking a dump on the living room floor). They have often been controversial, as in the Farrelly brothers’ Me, Myself and Irene (2000), starring Jim Carrey as a schizophrenic police officer. At their most outrageous they have pushed the boundaries of political correctness to the limit.

Co-creating stories in social learning systems : The role of community media and cultural organisations in disseminating knowledge

This paper investigates how community based media organisations are co-creative storytelling institutions, and how they learn to disseminate knowledge in a social learning system. Organisations involved in story co-creation are learning to create in fluid environments.They are project based, with a constant turnover of volunteers or staff. These organisations have to meet the needs of their funding bodies and their communities to remain sustainable. Learning is seen as dialogical, and this is also reflected in the nature of storytelling itself. These organisations must learn to meet the needs of their communities, who in turn learn from the organisation’s expertise in a facilitated setting. This learning is participatory and collaborative, and is often a mix of virtual and offline interaction. Such community-based organisations sit in the realm of a hybrid-learning environment; they are neither a formal educational institution like a college, nor do their volunteers produce outcomes in a professional capacity. Yet, they must maintain a certain level of quality outcomes from their contributors to be of continued value in their communities. Drawing from a larger research study, one particular example is that of the CitizenJ project. CitizenJ is hosted by a state cultural centre, and partnered with publishing partners in the community broadcasting sector. This paper explores how this project is a Community of Practice, and how it promotes ethical and best practice, meets contributors’ needs, emphasises the importance of facilitation in achieving quality outcomes, and the creation of projects for wider community and public interest.

The favelas through the lenses of photographers: Photojournalism from community and mainstream media organisations

Photographers from community and mainstream media organisations bring the everyday of favela communities to the attention of Rio de Janeiro’s society from different perspectives. While mainstream photojournalists mainly report on favelas from outside to inside, denouncing wrongdoings and human rights abuses, community photographers do it from the opposite direction, from inside to outside, presenting images of the everyday life of favela communities. This paper takes an ethnographic and discursive approach to comparing these two categories of photographers to ask how their different practices can yield benefits for the people living in marginalised communities. Furthermore, by adapting Foucault and Bourdieu’s theories, this study examines photographers’ habitus so as to determine how cultural capital and economic capital that they possess shape their subjectivity and, as such, the fields of community and mainstream photojournalism. This study has no intention of creating polarised distinctions between community and mainstream photojournalism. Instead, the research aims, through the investigation of the working practices, identities, and discourses of photographers from community and mainstream media organisations, to identify the activities and limitations of both community and mainstream in order to build an understanding about how the media ecology works best within both.

What are the contributors to job satisfaction, stress and burnout for haemodialysis nurses?

Aim To review recent studies which identify the factors that contribute to stress, burnout and job satisfaction for nurses who are working in haemodialysis units. Background Regardless of where nurses work, stress, job burnout and dissatisfaction are known to cause high rates of nurse resignations and for many of those to leave the profession entirely. Understanding factors that contribute to job satisfaction, stress and burnout could increase haemodialysis nurse retention and improve health outcomes for people receiving haemodialysis. Evaluation Studies of job stress, burnout and satisfaction for nurses working in haemodialysis units published in English from January 2000 to December 2009 were identified. Specific inclusion criteria were developed resulting in eleven articles selected for this review. Key issues Specifically for haemodialysis nurses’ job stress and burnout was found to originate from two factors related to either patient care or organisations. Patient care factors included unrealistic patient expectations, progressive decline of a patient’s health, and violence and verbal abuse from patients. Organisational factors included shortage of time to complete tasks, lack of resources and unsupportive work environments. Increased job satisfaction for haemodialysis nurses was due to having job security, freedom to use one’s judgement and the quality of nurse/physician interactions. Conclusion Job stress and burnout are problematic for haemodialysis nurses. Instituting strategies which prevent and/or ameliorate stress or burnout could result in improved job satisfaction and also the retention of highly skilled haemodialysis nurses.