The effect of organisational culture perceptions on the relationship between budgetary participation and managerial job-related outcomes

The impact of managers' perceptions of their organizational culture (OC) on the relationship between budgetary participation (BP) and managerial job-related outcomes, operationalized as managerial performance and job-related tension (JRT) is examined. Data supported predictions that increasing BP would lower JRT for managers perceiving a high emphasis on innovation within their OC, regardless of their perceptions of an emphasis on attention to detail. When managers perceived low innovation, however, their perception of level of attention to detail had a significant effect on the relationship between BP and JRT.

Challenge or opportunity: can regional training hospitals capitalise on the impending influx of interns?

To the Editor: The increase in medical graduates expected over the next decade presents a huge challenge to the many stakeholders involved in providing their prevocational and vocational medical training. 1 Increased numbers will add significantly to the teaching and supervision workload for registrars and consultants, while specialist training and access to advanced training positions may be compromised. However, this predicament may also provide opportunities for innovation in the way internships are delivered. Although facing these same challenges, regional and rural hospitals could use this situation to enhance their workforce by creating opportunities for interns and junior doctors to acquire valuable experience in non-metropolitan settings. We surveyed a representative sample (n = 147; 52% of total cohort) of Year 3 Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery students at the University of Queensland about their perceptions and expectations of their impending internship and the importance of its location (ie, urban/metropolitan versus regional/rural teaching hospitals) to their future training and career plans. Most students (n = 127; 86%) reported a high degree of contemplation about their internship choice. Issues relating to career progression and support ranked highest in their expectations. Most perceived internships in urban/metropolitan hospitals as more beneficial to their future career prospects compared with regional/rural hospitals, but, interestingly, felt that they would have more patient responsibility and greater contact with and supervision by senior staff in a regional setting (Box). Regional and rural hospitals should try to harness these positive perceptions and act to address any real or perceived shortcomings in order to enhance their future workforce.2 They could look to establish partnerships with rural clinical schools3 to enhance recruitment of interns as early as Year 3. To maximise competitiveness with their urban counterparts, regional and rural hospitals need to offer innovative training and career progression pathways to junior doctors, to combat the perception that internships in urban hospitals are more beneficial to future career prospects. Partnerships between hospitals, medical schools and vocational colleges, with input from postgraduate medical councils, should provide vertical integration4 in the important period between student and doctor. Work is underway to more closely evaluate and compare the intern experience across regional/rural and urban/metropolitan hospitals, and track student experiences and career choices longitudinally. This information may benefit teaching hospitals and help identify the optimal combination of resources necessary to provide quality teaching and a clear career pathway for the expected influx of new interns.

The influence of financial participation and participation in decision-making on employee job attitudes

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of financial participation (FP) and participation in decision-making (PDM) on employee job attitudes. The central premise is that both financial participation and participation in decision-making have effects on job attitudes, such as integration, involvement and commitment, perceived pay equity, performance-reward contingencies, satisfaction and motivation. After reviewing the theoretical and empirical literature and testing two theoretical frameworks, developed by Long (1978a) and Florkowski ( 1989), a new model was constructed to consider a combined effects of both FP and PDM, herein referred to as employee participation (EP). The underpinning of the model is based on the assumption that both ( a) the combination of financial participation and participation in decision-making ('employee participation'), and (b) participation in decision-making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes. The test of the new model showed that employee participation does not produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes, than does participation in decision-making on its own. The data were gathered from a questionnaire study administered in a large British retail organization that operates two types of ownership schemes - profit-sharing and SAYE schemes.

The incidence and intensity of employer funded training: Australian evidence on the impact of flexible work

The interaction between the growth of flexible forms of employment and employer funded training is important for understanding labour market performance. In particular, the idea of a trade-off has been advanced to describe potential market failures in the employment of flexible workers. This study finds that evidence of a trade-off is apparent in both the incidence and intensity of employer funded training. Flexible workers receive training that is 50-80% less intense than the workforce average. Casual workers - especially males - suffer more acutely from the trade-off. This suggests that flexible production externalities may seriously reduce human capital formation in the workforce.

The relative benefits of endurance and strength training on the metabolic factors and muscle function of people with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Objective: To compare the effects of a 4-month strength training (ST) versus aerobic endurance training (ET) program on metabolic control, muscle strength, and cardiovascular endurance in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Large public tertiary hospital. Participants: Twenty-two T21) participants (I I men, I I women; mean age +/- standard error, 56.2 +/- 1.1 y; diabetes duration, 8.8 +/- 3.5y) were randomized into a 4-month ST program and 17 T2D participants (9 men, 8 women; mean age, 57.9 +/- 1.4y; diabetes duration, 9.2 +/- 1.7y) into a 4-month ET program. Interventions: ST (up to 6 sets per muscle group per week) and ET (with an intensity of maximal oxygen consumption of 60% and a volume beginning at 15min and advancing to a maximum of 30min 3X/wk) for 4 months. Main Outcome Measures: Laboratory tests included determinations of blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin (Hb A(1c)), insulin, and lipid assays. Results: A significant decline in Hb A, was only observed in the ST group (8.3% +/- 1.7% to 7.1% +/- 0.2%, P=.001). Blood glucose (204 +/- 16mg/dL to 147 +/- 8mg/dL, P <.001) and insulin resistance (9.11 +/- 1.51 to 7.15 +/- 1.15, P=.04) improved significantly in the ST group, whereas no significant changes were observed in the ET group. Baseline levels of total cholesterol (207 +/- 8mg/dL to 184 +/- 7mg/dL, P <.001), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (120 +/- 8mg/dL to 106 +/- 8mg/dL, P=.001), and triglyceride levels (229 +/- 25mg/dL to 150 +/- 15mg/dL, P=.001) were significantly reduced and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (43 +/- 3mg/dL to 48 +/- 2mg/dL, P=.004) was significantly increased in the ST group; in contrast, no such changes were seen in the ET group. Conclusions: ST was more effective than ET in improving glycemic control. With the added advantage of an improved lipid profile, we conclude that ST may play an important role in the treatment of T2D.

Effect of training on the response of plasma vascular endothelial growth factor to exercise in patients with peripheral arterial disease

Expansion of the capillary network, or angiogenesis, occurs following endurance training. This process, which is reliant on the presence of VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), is an adaptation to a chronic mismatch between oxygen demand and supply. Patients with IC (intermittent claudication) experience pain during exercise associated with an inadequate oxygen delivery to the muscles. Therefore the aims of the present study were to examine the plasma VEGF response to acute exercise, and to establish whether exercise training alters this response in patients with IC. In Part A, blood was collected from patients with IC (n = 18) before and after (+ 20 and + 60 min post-exercise) a maximal walking test to determine the plasma VEGF response to acute exercise. VEGF was present in the plasma of patients (45.11 +/- 29.96 pg/ml) and was unchanged in response to acute exercise. Part B was a training study to determine whether exercise training altered the VEGF response to acute exercise. Patients were randomly assigned to a treatment group (TMT; n = 7) that completed 6 weeks of high-intensity treadmill training, or to a control group (CON; n = 6). All patients completed a maximal walking test before and after the intervention, with blood samples drawn as for Part A. Training had no effect on plasma VEGF at rest or in response to acute exercise, despite a significant increase in maximal walking time in the TMT group (915 + 533 to 1206 + 500 s; P = 0.009) following the intervention. The absence of a change in plasma VEGF may reflect altered VEGF binding at the endothelium, although this cannot be confirmed by the present data.

Selection bias in gene extraction on the basis of microarray gene-expression data

In the context of cancer diagnosis and treatment, we consider the problem of constructing an accurate prediction rule on the basis of a relatively small number of tumor tissue samples of known type containing the expression data on very many (possibly thousands) genes. Recently, results have been presented in the literature suggesting that it is possible to construct a prediction rule from only a few genes such that it has a negligible prediction error rate. However, in these results the test error or the leave-one-out cross-validated error is calculated without allowance for the selection bias. There is no allowance because the rule is either tested on tissue samples that were used in the first instance to select the genes being used in the rule or because the cross-validation of the rule is not external to the selection process; that is, gene selection is not performed in training the rule at each stage of the cross-validation process. We describe how in practice the selection bias can be assessed and corrected for by either performing a cross-validation or applying the bootstrap external to the selection process. We recommend using 10-fold rather than leave-one-out cross-validation, and concerning the bootstrap, we suggest using the so-called. 632+ bootstrap error estimate designed to handle overfitted prediction rules. Using two published data sets, we demonstrate that when correction is made for the selection bias, the cross-validated error is no longer zero for a subset of only a few genes.

The effects of change in lead stimulus modality on the modulation of acoustic blink startle

In two experiments we investigated the effect of generalized orienting induced by changing the modality of the lead stimulus on the modulation of blink reflexes elicited by acoustic stimuli. In Experiment 1 (n = 32), participants were presented with acoustic or visual change stimuli after habituation training with tactile lead stimuli. In Experiment 2 (n = 64), modality of the lead stimulus (acoustic vs. visual) was crossed with experimental condition (change vs. no change). Lead stimulus change resulted in increased electrodermal orienting in both experiments. Blink latency shortening and blink magnitude facilitation increased from habituation to change trials regardless of whether the change stimulus was presented in the same or in a different modality as the reflex-eliciting stimulus. These results are not consistent with modality-specific accounts of attentional startle modulation.

Neural influences on sprint running - Training adaptations and acute responses

Performance in sprint exercise is determined by the ability to accelerate, the magnitude of maximal velocity and the ability to maintain velocity against the onset of fatigue. These factors are strongly influenced by metabolic and anthropometric components. Improved temporal sequencing of muscle activation and/or improved fast twitch fibre recruitment may contribute to superior sprint performance. Speed of impulse transmission along the motor axon may also have implications on sprint performance. Nerve conduction velocity (NCV) has been shown to increase in response to a period of sprint training. However, it is difficult to determine if increased NCV is likely to contribute to improved sprint performance. An increase in motoneuron excitability, as measured by the Hoffman reflex (H-reflex), has been reported to produce a more powerful muscular contraction, hence maximising motoneuron excitability would be expected to benefit sprint performance. Motoneuron excitability can be raised acutely by an appropriate stimulus with obvious implications for sprint performance. However, at rest reflex has been reported to be lower in athletes trained for explosive events compared with endurance-trained athletes. This may be caused by the relatively high, fast twitch fibre percentage and the consequent high activation thresholds of such motor units in power-trained populations. In contrast, stretch reflexes appear to be enhanced in sprint athletes possibly because of increased muscle spindle sensitivity as a result of sprint training. With muscle in a contracted state, however, there is evidence to suggest greater reflex potentiation among both sprint and resistance-trained populations compared with controls. Again this may be indicative of the predominant types of motor units in these populations, but may also mean an enhanced reflex contribution to force production during running in sprint-trained athletes. Fatigue of neural origin both during and following sprint exercise has implications with respect to optimising training frequency and volume. Research suggests athletes are unable to maintain maximal firing frequencies for the full duration of, for example, a 100m sprint. Fatigue after a single training session may also have a neural manifestation with some athletes unable to voluntarily fully activate muscle or experiencing stretch reflex inhibition after heavy training. This may occur in conjunction with muscle damage. Research investigating the neural influences on sprint performance is limited. Further longitudinal research is necessary to improve our understanding of neural factors that contribute to training-induced improvements in sprint performance.

Risk technology in Australia: The role of the job seeker classification instrument in employment services

Promoted as the key policy response to unemployment, the Job Network constitutes an array of interlocking processes that position unemployed people as `problems' in need of remediation. Unemployment is presented as a primary risk threatening society, and unemployed people are presented as displaying various degrees of riskiness. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) is a `technology' employed by Centrelink to assess `risk' and to determine the type of interaction that unemployed people have with the job Network. In the first instance, we critically examine the development of the JSCI and expose issues that erode its credibility and legitimacy. Second, employing the analytical tools of discourse analysis, we show how the JSCI both assumes and imposes particular subject identities on unemployed people. The purpose of this latter analysis is to illustrate the consequences of the sorts of technologies and interventions used within the job Network.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning

Amongst the opportunities for cross-cultural contact created by the burgeoning use of the Internet are those provided by electronic discussion lists. This study looks at what happens when language students venture out of the classroom (virtual or otherwise) to participate in on-line discussion groups with native speakers. Responses to messages and commentary by moderators and other participants on the (in) appropriateness of contributions allow us to determine what constitutes successful participation and to make suggestions regarding effective teaching strategies for this medium. A case study examines the threads started by four anglophone students of French when they post messages to a forum on the Web site of the French newspaper Le Monde. Investigation of these examples points to the ways in which electronic discussion inflects and is inflected by cultural and generic expectations. We suggest that successful participation on Internet fora depends on awareness of such cultural and generic mores and an ability to work within and/or with them. Teachers therefore need to find ways in which students can be sensitized to such issues so that their participation in such electronic discussion is no longer seen as linguistic training, but as engagement with a cultural practice.