The emotional manipulation-psychopathy nexus : relationships with emotional intelligence, alexithymia, and ethical position

This research examined for the first time the relationship between emotional manipulation, emotional intelligence, and primary and secondary psychopathy. As predicted, in Study 1 (N = 73), emotional manipulation was related to both primary and secondary psychopathy. Only secondary psychopathy was related to perceived poor emotional skills. Secondary psychopathy was also related to emotional concealment. Emotional intelligence was negatively related to perceived poor emotional skills, emotional concealment, and primary and secondary psychopathy. In Study 2 (N = 275), two additional variables were included: alexithymia and ethical position. It was found that for males, primary psychopathy and emotional intelligence predicted emotional manipulation, while for females emotional intelligence acted as a suppressor, and ethical idealism and secondary psychopathy were additional predictors. For males, emotional intelligence and alexithymia were related to perceived poor emotional skills, while for females emotional intelligence, but not alexithymia, predicted perceived poor emotional skills, with ethical idealism acting as a suppressor. For both males and females, alexithymia predicted emotional concealment. These findings suggest that the mechanisms behind the emotional manipulation–psychopathy relationship differ as a function of gender. Examining the different aspects of emotional manipulation as separate but related constructs may enhance understanding of the construct of emotional manipulation.

Structure–property relationships of silk-modified mesoporous bioglass scaffolds

Porous mesopore-bioglass (MBG) scaffolds have been proposed as a new class of bone regeneration materials due to their apatite-formation and drug-delivery properties; however, the material’s inherent brittleness and high degradation and surface instability are major disadvantages, which compromise its mechanical strength and cytocompatibility as a biological scaffold. Silk, on the other hand, is a native biomaterial and is well characterized with respect to biocompatibility and tensile strength. In this study we set out to investigate what effects blending silk with MBG had on the physiochemical, drug-delivery and biological properties of MBG scaffolds with a view to bone tissue engineering applications. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were the methods used to analyze the inner microstructure, pore size and morphology, and composition of MBG scaffolds, before and after addition of silk. The effect of silk modification on the mechanical property of MBG scaffolds was determined by testing the compressive strength of the scaffolds and also compressive strength after degradation over time. The drug-delivery potential was evaluated by the release of dexamethasone (DEX) from the scaffolds. Finally, the cytocompatibility of silk-modified scaffolds was investigated by the attachment, morphology, proliferation, differentiation and bone-relative gene expression of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs). The results showed that silk modification improved the uniformity and continuity of pore network of MBG scaffolds, and maintained high porosity (94%) and large-pore size (200–400 mm). There was a significant improvement in mechanical strength, mechanical stability, and control of burst release of DEX in silkmodified MBG scaffolds. Silk modification also appeared to provide a better environment for BMSC attachment, spreading, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation on MBG scaffolds.

Managing knowledge transfer as a strategic approach to competitive advantage

Knowledge has been recognised as a source of competitive advantage. Knowledge-based resources allow organisations to adapt products and services to the marketplace and deal with competitive challenges that enable them to compete more effectively. One factor critical to using knowledge-based resources is the ability to transfer knowledge as a dimension of the learning organisation. There are many elements that may influence whether knowledge transfer can be effectively achieved in an organisation such as leadership, problem-solving behaviours, support structures, change management capabilities, absorptive capacity and the nature of the knowledge. An existing framework was applied in a case study to explain how knowledge transfer can be managed effectively and to identify emerging issues or additional factors involved in the process. As a result, a refined framework is proposed that provides a better understanding for the effective management of knowledge transfer processes that can provide a competitive advantage.

A framework for managing wandering and preventing elopement

Purpose of the Study: A framework aids choice of interventions to manage wandering and prevent elopement in consideration of associated risks and mobility needs of wanderers. ---------- Design and Methods: A literature review, together with research results, published wandering tools, clinical reports, author clinical experience, and consensus-based judgments was used to build a decision-making framework. Results: Referencing a published definition of wandering and originating a clinical description of problematic wandering, authors introduce a framework comprising (1) wandering and related behaviors; (2) goals of wandering-specific care, (3) interpersonally, technologically, and policy-mediated wandering interventions, and (4) estimates of relative frequencies of wandering behaviors, magnitudes of elopement risk, and restrictiveness of strategies. ---------- Implications: Safeguarding wanderers from elopement risk is rendered person-centered and humane when goals of care guide intervention choice. Despite limitations, a reasoned, systematized approach to wandering management provides a basis for tailoring a specialized program of care. The need for framework refinement and related research is emphasized.

Managing a portfolio of corporate venture units : challenges in achieving within-unit focus and between-unit coordination

Principal Topic: There is increasing recognition that the organizational configurations of corporate venture units should depend on the types of ventures the unit seeks to develop (Burgelman, 1984; Hill and Birkinshaw, 2008). Distinction have been made between internal and external as well as exploitative versus explorative ventures (Hill and Birkinshaw, 2008; Narayan et al., 2009; Schildt et al., 2005). Assuming that firms do not want to limit themselves to a single type of venture, but rather employ a portfolio of ventures, the logical consequence is that firms should employ multiple corporate venture units. Each venture unit tailor-made for the type of venture it seeks to develop. Surprisingly, there is limited attention in the literature for the challenges of managing multiple corporate venture units in a single firm. Maintaining multiple venture units within one firm provides easier access to funding for new ideas (Hamel, 1999). It allows for freedom and flexibility to tie the organizational systems (Rice et al., 2000), autonomy (Hill and Rothaermel, 2003), and involvement of management (Day, 1994; Wadwha and Kotha, 2006) to the requirements of the individual ventures. Yet, the strategic objectives of a venture may change when uncertainty around the venture is resolved (Burgelman, 1984). For example, firms may decide to spin-in external ventures (Chesbrough, 2002) or spun-out ventures that prove strategically unimportant (Burgelman, 1984). This suggests that ventures might need to be transferred between venture units, e.g. from a more internally-driven corporate venture division to a corporate venture capital unit. Several studies suggested that ventures require different managerial skills across their phase of development (Desouza et al., 2007; O'Connor and Ayers, 2005; Kazanjian and Drazin, 1990; Westerman et al., 2006). To facilitate effective transfer between venture units and manage the overall venturing process, it is important that firms set up and manage integrative linkages. Integrative linkages provide synergies and coordination between differentiated units (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). Prior findings pointed to the important role of senior management (Westerman et al., 2006; Gilbert, 2006) and a shared organizational vision (Burgers et al., 2009) to coordinate venture units with mainstream businesses. We will draw on these literatures to investigate the key question of how to integratively manage multiple venture units. ---------- Methodology/Key Propositions: In order to seek an answer to the research question, we employ a case study approach that provides unique insights into how firms can break up their venturing process. We selected three Fortune 500 companies that employ multiple venturing units, IBM, Royal Dutch/ Shell and Nokia, and investigated and compared their approaches. It was important that the case companies somewhat differed in the type of venture units they employed as well as the way they integrate and coordinate their venture units. The data are based on extensive interviews and a variety of internal and external company documents to triangulate our findings (Eisenhardt, 1989). The key proposition of the article is that firms can best manage their multiple venture units through an ambidextrous design of loosely coupled units. This provides venture units with sufficient flexibility to employ organizational configurations that best support the type of venture they seek to develop, as well as provides sufficient integration to facilitate smooth transfer of ventures between venture units. Based on the case findings, we develop a generic framework for a new way of managing the venturing process through multiple corporate venture units. ---------- Results and Implications: One of our main findings is that these firms tend to organize their venture units according to phases in the venture development process. That is, they tend to have venture units aimed at incubation of venture ideas as well as units aimed more at the commercialization of ventures into a new business unit for the firm or a start-up. The companies in our case studies tended to coordinate venture units through integrative management skills or a coordinative venture unit that spanned multiple phases. We believe this paper makes two significant contributions. First, we extend prior venturing literature by addressing how firms manage a portfolio of venture units, each achieving different strategic objectives. Second, our framework provides recommendations on how firms should manage such an approach towards venturing. This helps to increase the likelihood of success of their venturing programs.

The impact of spin on Australian real estate journalism : a Queensland study

Regardless of ‘bear’ or ‘bull’ markets, the great Australian dream remains to own your own home. Central to this dream of home ownership is unflagging interest in the property market, reflected in bulging real estate news sections of newspapers in South East Queensland, the focus area for this thesis research. While there has been much scholarly research into other areas of public relations spin and its impact on news-gathering processes, there appears to be next to no research on real estate spin, how it is prepared and by whom, and journalism’s attitude to and the managing of the spin. Real estate spin remains an under-researched topic requiring further investigation not only in South East Queensland but Australia-wide given the ‘big bucks’ allotted to the promotion of real estate and the income it generates for news media outlets, particularly newspapers. This thesis examines the influence of public relations practitioners and journalists specialising in real estate spin through interviews, content analysis, and how real estate spin envelopes itself in today’s society. From content analyses and observations of journalism in the real estate rounds of the two major newspapers in South East Queensland, I found that journalists were using massive quantities of real estate spin supplied by PR practitioners and other associated industry sources. This spin is supplanting investigative newsroom journalism, thus allowing newspapers to operate with minimal staffing levels yet still able to publish large weekly real estate news sections. My research also revealed growing commercialisation of real estate news through increasing outsourcing of journalistic work to a writing bureau, which could jeopardise both the professions of journalism and public relations in the future.

Interventions for preventing and managing radiation-induced skin reactions in cancer patients (Protocol)

To assess the effects of any interventions which aim to prevent or manage radiation-induced skin reactions in people with cancer.

Corporate governance and compliance : preventative measure or just another fad?

In the wake of recent corporate collapses, 'corporate governance' has received unprecedented levels of attention. It can be narrowly defined as how a company is directed and steered. The responsibility of steering a company is entrusted with the board of directors, who become the focus of governance mechanisms.Yet this is not as straightforward as it appears - Australia has experienced massive shifts in business regulations over the past two decades. One innovation in Australian business regulation is 'enforced self-regulation' which combines the benefits of voluntary self-regulation with the coercive power of the State, implemented via a compliance program. A possible hazard of compliance system is that management might treat this responsibility as a 'box ticking' exercise. Therefore effective governance and compliance entails more than setting up internal and regulatory mechanisms; the willingness of various stakeholders to collaborate is crucial. This suggests that managing relationships between stakeholders of an organization is the key to averting corporate collapses.

Empirical Evidence Showing The Relationships Between Three Approaches for Pollution Control

Willingness to pay models have shown the theoretical relationships between the contingent valuation, cost of illness and the avertive behaviour approaches. In this paper, field survey data are used to compare the relationships between these three approaches and to demonstrate that contingent valuation bids exceed the sum of cost of illness and the avertive behaviour approach estimates. The estimates provide a validity check for CV bids and further support the claim that contingent valuation studies are theoretically consistent.

Managing process model complexity via abstract syntax modifications

As a result of the growing adoption of Business Process Management (BPM) technology different stakeholders need to understand and agree upon the process models that are used to configure BPM systems. However, BPM users have problems dealing with the complexity of such models. Therefore, the challenge is to improve the comprehension of process models. While a substantial amount of literature is devoted to this topic, there is no overview of the various mechanisms that exist to deal with managing complexity in (large) process models. It is thus hard to obtain comparative insight into the degree of support offered for various complexity reducing mechanisms by state-of-the-art languages and tools. This paper focuses on complexity reduction mechanisms that affect the abstract syntax of a process model, i.e. the structure of a process model. These mechanisms are captured as patterns, so that they can be described in their most general form and in a language- and tool-independent manner. The paper concludes with a comparative overview of the degree of support for these patterns offered by state-of-the-art languages and language implementations.

Conceptual framework for managing knowledge of police deviance

This is a conceptual article on police deviance and its multi-faceted forms. It seeks to address the lack of an adequately formulated framework in the literature of the breadth and depth of police misconduct and corruption. The article argues for the use of a proposed ‘sliding scale’ of police deviance by examining the nature, extent and progression of police deviance and crime using research in Australia and Canada as illustrative case studies. This sliding scale is designed to research, capture and store, and hence extend the knowledge base of what constitutes police deviance at the level of the individual, the group and the organisational contexts of policing. As such, the conceptual framework is a robust yet flexible research tool and its utility as a sliding scale constitutes a step forward in advancing the knowledge on police deviance and criminality through adopting an integrated and holistic approach to managing such knowledge.

Managing the winds of change

Environmental impacts caused during Australia's comparatively recent settlement by Europeans are evident. Governments (both Commonwealth and States) have been largely responsible for requiring landholders – through leasehold development conditions and taxation concessions – to conduct clearing that is now perceived as damage. Most governments are now demanding resource protection. There is a measure of bewilderment (if not resentment) among landholders because of this change. The more populous States, where most overall damage has been done (i.e. Victoria and New South Wales), provide most support for attempts to stop development in other regions where there has been less damage. Queensland, i.e. the north-eastern quarter of the continent, has been relatively slow to develop. It also holds the largest and most diverse natural environments. Tree clearing is an unavoidable element of land development, whether to access and enhance native grasses for livestock or to allow for urban developments (with exotic tree plantings). The consequences in terms of regulations are particularly complex because of the dynamic nature of vegetation. The regulatory terms used in current legislation – such as 'Endangered' and 'Of concern' – depend on legally-defined, static baselines. Regrowth and fire damage are two obvious causes of change. A less obvious aspect is succession, where ecosystems change naturally over long timeframes. In the recent past, the Queensland Government encouraged extensive tree-clearing e.g. through the State Brigalow Development Scheme (mostly 1962 to 1975) which resulted in the removal of some 97% of the wide-ranging mature forests of Acacia harpophylla. At the same time, this government controls National Parks and other reservations (occupying some 4% of the State's 1.7 million km2 area) and also holds major World Heritage Areas (such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforest) promulgated under Commonwealth legislation. This is a highly prescriptive approach, where the community is directed on the one hand to develop (largely through lease conditions) and on the other to avoid development (largely by unusable reserves). Another approach to development and conservation is still possible in Queensland. For this to occur, however, a more workable and equitable solution than has been employed to date is needed, especially for the remote lands of this State. This must involve resident landholders, who have the capacity (through local knowledge, infrastructure and daily presence) to undertake most costeffectively sustainable land-use management (with suitable attention to ecosystems requiring special conservation effort), that is, provided they have the necessary direction, encouragement and incentive to do so.

Relational factors that explain supply chain relationships

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the types of relationships that exist along the supply chain and the capabilities that are needed to manage them effectively. ---------- Design/methodology/approach: This is exploratory research as there has been little empirical research into this area. Quantitative data were gathered by using a self-administered questionnaire, using the Australian road freight industry as the context. There were 132 usable responses. Inferential and descriptive analysis, including factor analysis, confirmatory factor and regression analysis was used to examine the predictive power of relational factors in inter-firm relationships. ---------- Findings: Three factors were identified as having significant influence on relationships: sharing, power and interdependency. “Sharing” is the willingness of the organisation to share resources with other members of the supply chain. “Power” relates to exercising control based on experience, knowledge and position in the supply chain. “Interdependency” is the relative levels of dependency along the supply chain. ---------- Research limitations/implications: The research only looks at the Australian road freight industry; a wider sample including other industries would help to strengthen the generalisability of the findings. ---------- Practical implications: When these factors are correlated to the types of relationship, arm's length, cooperation, collaboration and alliances, managerial implications can be identified. The more road freight businesses place importance on power, the less they will cooperate. The greater the importance of sharing and interdependency, the greater is the likelihood of arm's length relationships. ---------- Originality/value: This paper makes a contribution by describing empirical work conducted in an under-researched but important area – supply chain relationships in the Australian road freight industry.