Regulatory regime change in Turkish banks:Reactive or proactive?

This paper examines the positive contributions made toward restructuring the regulatory framework of Turkey's banking and financial sectors prior to and post the 2000–2001 financial crisis. Drawing on a framework initially developed by Onis and Senses, 2007 and Onis and Senses, 2009 and further referred to by Onis, 2009 and Onis, 2010 it argues that financial reforms undertaken by the Turkish government would not have been successful without the strong support of domestic coalitions. While the external pressures put on the Turkish government from the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank and the European Union for financial reforms were necessary to kick start the reforms as a reactive process, these pressures on their own may have served only the interests of financial business elites at the expense of the broader stakeholders. Empirical data for the study was collected from documentary analysis of key financial institutions and interviews with twenty major Turkish regulatory agents and other stakeholders. The paper then discusses how the perceptions of these stakeholders are embodied into, and have influenced, regulatory regime change in Turkey from a reactive state to a more proactive one.

Infection systems biology:from reactive to proactive (P4) medicine

This short review establishes the conceptual bases and discusses the principal aspects of P4-shorthand for predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine-medicine, in the framework of infectious diseases. P4 medicine is a new way to approach medical care; instead of acting when the patient is sick, physicians will be able to detect early warnings of disease to take early action. Furthermore, people might even be able to adjust their lifestyles to prevent disease. P4 medicine is fuelled by systems approaches to disease, including methods for personalized genome sequencing and new computational techniques for building dynamic disease predictive networks from massive amounts of data from a variety of OMICs. An excellent example of the effectiveness of the P4 medicine approach is the change in cancer treatments. Emphasis is placed on early detection, followed by genotyping of the patient to use the most adequate treatment according to the genetic background. Cardiovascular diseases and perhaps even neurodegenerative disorders will be the next targets for P4 medicine. The application of P4 medicine to infectious diseases is still in its infancy, but is a promising field that will provide much benefit to both the patients and the health-care system.

Proactive Relay Selection with Joint Impact of Hardware Impairment and Co-channel Interference

In this paper, we investigate the end-to-end performance of dual-hop proactive decode-and-forward relaying networks with Nth best relay selection in the presence of two practical deleterious effects: i) hardware impairment and ii) cochannel interference. In particular, we derive new exact and asymptotic closed-form expressions for the outage probability and average channel capacity of Nth best partial and opportunistic relay selection schemes over Rayleigh fading channels. Insightful discussions are provided. It is shown that, when the system cannot select the best relay for cooperation, the partial relay selection scheme outperforms the opportunistic method under the impact of the same co-channel interference (CCI). In addition, without CCI but under the effect of hardware impairment, it is shown that both selection strategies have the same asymptotic channel capacity. Monte Carlo simulations are presented to corroborate our analysis.

Does a proactive environmental orientation automatically lead to a ‘win-win’ situation?

A debate on the effect of environmental practices on performance has been taking place in the academic literature over the last two decades. In recent years this has involved researchers looking beyond the direct relationship between practices and performance to consider other potential contributing factors. This paper considers the extent to which environmental proactivity influences the practices that firms adopt and the associated performance outcomes. Data were collected from sample of UK food manufacturers and analysed using multiple regression analysis. Findings suggest that proactivity is an important antecedent to practices but these practices may not lead to improvements beyond environmental performance.

The Financial Accountability of Irish Credit Unions: an initial empirical study

Credit unions are member-owned, voluntary, self-help, democratic, not-for-profit institutions that provide financial services to their members. They have both economic and social goals. Over this last decade they have achieved remarkable growth levels and currently there are 600 such organisations in Ireland, with approximately 50 per cent of the adult population of Ireland belonging to a credit union. Accounting for credit unions is a much-neglected area and relatively little is known about the sector's accountability. This paper presents the results of an initial empirical study of the financial accountability of Irish credit unions. A series of interviews and a basic content analysis of 178 recent financial statements were used to identify the views of key stakeholders with respect to the discharge of financial accountability by credit unions and the current quality of financial reporting. Overall, the research points to a sector where financial accountability through the medium of the annual report is weak and possible adverse consequences of this are explored. On the basis of the interviews it is suggested that if changes in financial accountability are to be achieved then some more proactive engagement of parties external to the management of individual credit unions is needed.

An empirical study of green supply chain management practices amongst UK manufacturers

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent and nature of greening the supply chain (SC) in the UK manufacturing sector; and the factors that influence the breadth and depth of this activity.

Design/methodology/approach: Based on the findings from a sample of manufacturing organisations drawn from the membership of The Chartered Institute for Purchasing and Supply. Data are collected using a questionnaire, piloted and pre-tested before distribution with responses from 60 manufacturing companies.

Findings: On average manufacturers perceive the greatest pressure to improve environmental performance through legislation and internal drivers (IDs). The least influential pressures are related to societal drivers and SC pressures from individual customers. Green supply chain management (GSCM) practices amongst this “average” group of UK manufacturing organisations are focusing on internal, higher risk, descriptive activities, rather than proactive, external engagement processes. Environmental attitude (EA) is a key predictor of GSCM activity and those organisations that have a progressive attitude are also operationally very active. EA shows some relationship to legislative drivers but other factors are also influential. Operational activity may also be moderated by organisational contingencies such as risk, size, and nationality.

Research limitations/implications: The main limitation to this paper is the relatively small manufacturing sample.

Practical implications: This paper presents a series of constructs that identify GSCM operational activities companies to benchmark themselves against. It suggests which factors are driving these operational changes and how industry contingencies may be influential.

Originality/value: This paper explores what is driving environmental behaviour amongst an “average” sample of manufacturers, what specific management practices take place and the relationships between them.

Keywords: Manufacturing industries, Environmental management, Supply chain management, Sustainable development, United Kingdom
Paper type: Research paper

Restorative Justice as a Response to Sexual Offending – Addressing the Failings of Current Punitive Approaches

This article explores the use of restorative justice as a response to sexual crime. The management of high risk sex offenders, particularly in the community post-release, has been a key focus of contemporary popular and political debates on sexual offending. Many offenders fail to come to the attention of the criminal justice system. For those that do, there is the almost blanket application of recent control in the community measures such as sex offender registries and community notification which have failed to prevent reoffending. The response by the media and the public to the presence of sex offenders in the community may also impede offender rehabilitation. The use of punishment alone via formal criminal justice is, therefore, an inadequate deterrent for sexual crimes. Although controversial, this article advocates the use of restorative practices with sexual crime as a proactive, holistic response to the problem and ultimately as a more effective means of reducing the incidence of sexual offences and sex offender recidivism.

The effect of patient characteristics upon uptake of the influenza vaccination: a study comparing community based older adults in two healthcare systems

Background: Uptake of influenza vaccination represents a simple marker of proactive care of older people. However, many still do not receive the vaccine. To understand this challenge better, we investigated the relationship between patient characteristics (demographic, physical and psychological health, and health service use) and vaccination uptake in a sample of community-dwelling older people in two adjacent but differently structured healthcare systems (Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI)). Methods: 2,033 randomly selected community-dwelling older adults (65 years and older) were interviewed in their homes. Results: Rates of uptake were 78% in NI and 72% in RoI. Uptake was greater with older age (odds ratio (OR) 1.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.3-2.1, p

Community Cohesion and Social Inclusion: Unravelling a Complex Relationship

In a global context of an emphasis on identity politics and a ‘cultural turn’ in social analysis, deep concern has been expressed about multiethnic Britain becoming a broken society with many ‘sleepwalking’ into segregation and separatism. Given the close correspondence between areas of acute ethnic segregation and those of multiple deprivation, intercommunal tensions have included disputes about the equitable allocation of scarce urban resources across ethnicity. This creates the possibility that urban programmes may inadvertently accentuate intercommunal tension and confound efforts to synchronise cohesion and inclusion agendas. Following recent debates about the implications of increased diversity, influenced by arguments that multiculturalism has encouraged ‘parallel lives’, an emergent policy framework emphasises more proactive integration to promote ‘common belonging’. Criticism of this agenda includes its confusion between community and social cohesion, and its disproportionate focus on cultural aspects such as identity formation and recognition, relative to structural issues of income and class. In exploring this contested terrain in Britain, the article suggests that the longer-term debate about segregation, deprivation and community differentials in Northern Ireland can offer useful insight for Britain’s policy discourse.

Confined Site Construction: A qualitative investigation of critical issues affecting management of Health and Safety

The construction industry is inherently risky, with a significant number of accidents and disasters occurring, particularly on confined construction sites. This research investigates and identifies the various issues affecting successful management of health and safety in confined construction sites. The rationale is that identifying the issues would assist the management of health and safety particularly in inner city centres which are mostly confined sites. Using empiricism epistemology, the methodology was based on qualitative research approach by means of multiple case studies in three different geographical locations of Ireland, UK and USA. Data on each case study were collected through individual interviews and focus group discussion with project participants. The findings suggest that three core issues are the underlying factors affecting management of health and safety on confined construction sites. It include, (i) lack of space, (ii) problem of co-ordination and management of site personnel, and (iii) overcrowding of workplace. The implication of this is that project teams and their organisations should see project processes from a holistic point of view, as a unified single system, where quick intervention in solving a particular issue should be the norm, so as not to adversely affect interrelated sequence of events in project operations. Proactive strategies should be devised to mitigate these issues and may include detail project programming, space management, effective constructability review and efficient co-ordination of personnel, plant and materials among others. The value of this research is to aid management and operation of brownfield sites by identifying issues impacting on health and safety management in project process.

Do conflict management systems matter?

The most influential current idea in the theory of conflict management concerns the design features and supposed superior outcomes of conflict management systems combining interest-based and rights-based practices for resolving conflict in organizations. Yet much of the literature in the area is highly prescriptive and draws heavily either on exemplary case studies or descriptive data. Using focus groups of HR practitioners and experts in conflict resolution to develop a questionnaire covering the main conflict management practices associated with the theory of conflict management systems, the study analyzes data from a survey of firms in the Republic of Ireland to examine quantitatively the effects of conflict management systems on organizational outcomes. While proactive line management and supervisory engagement in conflict resolution as a key dimension of conflict management systems is found to be positively associated with a range of organizational outcomes, no evidence is found for the kind of system effects proposed in the theoretical and prescriptive literature. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Management of long-term sickness absence: a systematic realist review

Purpose
The increasing impact and costs of long term sickness absence have been well documented. However, the diversity and complexity of interventions and of the contexts in which these take place makes a traditional review problematic. Therefore, we undertook a systematic realist review to identify the dominant programme theories underlying best practice, to assess the evidence for these theories, and to throw light on important enabling or disabling contextual factors.

Method
A search of the scholarly literature from 1950 to 2011 identified 5,576 articles, of which 269 formed the basis of the review.

Results
We found that the dominant programme theories in relation to effective management related to: early intervention or referral by employers; having proactive organisational procedures; good communication and cooperation between stakeholders; and workplace-based occupational rehabilitation. Significant contextual factors were identified as the level of support for interventions from top management, the size and structure of the organisation, the level of financial and organisational investment in the management of long-term sickness absence, and the quality of relationships between managers and staff.

Conclusions
Consequently, those with responsibility for managing absence should bear in mind the contextual factors that are likely to have an impact on interventions, and do what they can to ensure stakeholders have at least a mutual understanding (if not a common purpose) in relation to their perceptions of interventions, goals, culture and practice in the management of long term sickness absence.

Claiming and displaying national identity: Irish Travellers' and students' strategic use of 'banal' and 'hot' national identity in talk

Two complementary explanations have been offered by social psychologists to account for the universal hold of national identity, first that national identity is ideologically assumed, as it forms the ‘banal’ background of everyday life, and second that national identity is ‘hotly’ constructed and contested in political and everyday settings to great effect. However, ‘banal’ and ‘hot’ aspects of national identity have been found to be distributed unevenly across national and subnational groups and banality itself can be strategically used to distinguish between different groups. The present paper develops these ideas by examining possible reasons for these different modes and strategies of identity expression. Drawing upon intergroup theories of minority and majority relations, we examine how a group who see themselves unequivocally as a minority, Irish Travellers, talk about their national identity in comparison to an age and gender-matched sample of Irish students. We find that Travellers proactively display and claim ‘hot’ national identity in order to establish their Irishness. Irish students ‘do banality’, police the boundaries and reputation of Irishness, and actively reject and disparage proactive displays of Irishness. The implications for discursive understandings of identity, the study of intra-national group relations and policies of minority inclusion are discussed.

Socio-political context and accounts of national identity in adolescence

Psychological research into national identity has considered both the banal quality of nationalism alongside the active, strategic construction of national categories and boundaries. Less attention has been paid to the conflict between these processes for those whose claims to national identity may be problematic. In the present study, focus groups were conducted with 36 Roman Catholic adolescents living in border regions of Ireland, in which participants were asked to talk about their own and others’ Irish national identity. Discursive analysis of the data revealed that those in the Republic of Ireland strategically displayed their national identity as obvious and ‘banal’, while those in Northern Ireland proactively claimed their Irishness. Moreover, those in Northern Ireland displayed an assumption that their fellow Irish in the Republic shared their imperative to assert national identity, while those in the Republic actively distanced themselves from this version of Irishness. These results suggest that for dominant ethnic groups, ‘banality’ may itself provide a marker of national identity while paradoxically the proactive display of national identity undermines minority groups claims to national identity.