Nutrition surveys or surveillance : one-night stands or a long-term commitment?

Many disparate groups in Australia now concur about the need for continuous food and nutrition monitoring.

Plagiarism – can preventative measures and a commitment to the value of learning by academics and students reduce plagiarism in classrooms?

Plagiarism is an interruptive act in the teaching and learning value chain. This paper analyses the impact of both plagiarism and effective assessment in the learning value chain. Effective assessment is the positive outcome. Plagiarism negates or breaks the chain. Anecdotal evidence suggests the incidences of plagiarism are increasing in faculties across the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and where every subject/unit outline includes a statement and warning to students of the penalties of this activity, deterrence tools do not overcome the harmful impact of plagiarism on the teacher/student learning relationship. A working party established in 2000 in the Faculty of Business at QUT, examined the literature, university policies, teaching and learning practices, and examples of plagiarism and penalties in order to identify the wider learning and assessment issues surrounding plagiarism and options for action and policy. A three-semester study of acts of plagiarism and wide consultation with staff presented the working party with an opportunity to develop a set of preventative measures, and also exposed the legal, cultural and accountability issues of diverse attitudes and values.

The paper presents the findings and recommendations from the investigation, and also proposes an interpretation of marketing theory of the impact of plagiarism on the teaching and learning value chain.

Gender differences in organizational justice predicting the key employee outcomes of organizational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intention

All four types of organizational justice – distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational – were included in this study of gender differences. Both male and female respondents perceived the distributive-procedural justice and interpersonal-informational justice pairings similarly and weakly. Females consistently discriminated more clearly across the pairings, however. The effect of the four justices was also found to be gender-dependent. Males’ perception of distributive justice directly predicted their turnover intentions and commitment to the organization, while females’ perception of distributive justice predicted only job satisfaction. Males’ perceptions of procedural and information justice both predicted job satisfaction. Females’ informational justice perceptions predicted job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. The paper contributes to the literature by presenting results from all four justice types and the simultaneous use of the three outcomes of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to quit. Overall, the males had a diffuse set of relationships between the justice types and the outcomes, whereas the relationships between the justice types and
the outcomes for females tended more to follow a limited number of pathways. The study was validated with data collected on two separate occasions.

A longitudinal study of the commitment to business ethics of corporate Australia

This paper compares the results of a longitudinal study of ten years, conducted at five yearly intervals, from 1995 to 2005. The aim of the study was to examine the commitment to business ethics of the top 500 Australian companies. Primary data was obtained via a self-administered mail questionnaire distributed to a census of the top 500 Australian companies. This paper examines those responses that indicated that their company possessed a code of ethics. The paper finds that business ethics has continued to evolve and that, in most cases, such evolution has been positive. It would seem that codes of ethics have moved beyond a regulatory requirement and are now considered an integral component of corporate culture and commercial practice in many of Australia's top companies.

Investigation of stakeholders commitment to information security awaremess programs

Organisations have become increasingly dependent on technology in order to compete in their respective markets. As IT technology advances at a rapid pace, so does its complexity, giving rise to new IT security vulnerabilities and methods of attack. Even though the human factors have been recognized to have a crucial role in information security management, the effects of weakness of will and lack of commitment on the stakeholders (i.e., employers and employees) parts has never been factored into the design and delivery of awareness programs. To this end, this paper investigates the impacts of the availability of awareness programs and end-user drive and lack of commitment to information security awareness program design, delivery and success.

The work conditions of allied health professionals : the impact on satisfaction, commitment and psychological distress

The present study investigated the extent to which the Demand-Control-Support (DCS) model, in combination with organizational justice variables, predicts the employee-level outcomes of allied health professionals'. Allied health professionals from an Australian healthcare organization were surveyed, with 113 participating (52,6%). Multiple regression analyses revealed that the DCS model predicted all the outcome variables of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and psychological distress. Conversely, significant contributions of the organizational justice variables were limited to organizational commitment and psychological distress. The results of the study provide practical implications for the job conditions of allied health professionals, in particular, the delivery of support and maintaining high levels of justice.

Officer wellbeing, satisfaction and commitment : job conditions of Australian law enforcement personnel

Excessive job stress caused by unreasonably high employer demands, low control over one's own work and limited support can have far-reaching effects for the individual, organisation and community. The present study sought to investigate the relationship between officer working conditions and their self-reported levels of wellbeing, satisfaction and commitment using a well-known job strss model, the demand-control-support (DCS) model. Using a large (N= 2085) sample of law enforcement personnel, findings indicated that social support from work sources was the best predictor, whilst job control and workload both had significant influences on levels of employee wellbeing, satisfaction and commitment. Additionally, non-linear relationships were found between workload and wellbeing and satisfaction, indicating that both high and low levels of workload can produce negative outcomes. The results have implications for job design and management training programs, particularly in reference to social support training and workload models.

Fear and loathing in public policy : ethical issues in laws for sex offenders

Laws intended to increase protection from sex offenders are often prompted by sensational crimes that provoke public outrage. As public policy, questions have been raised about the legality and effectiveness of these legislative initiatives as enacted in North America, Australasia and the UK since the early 1990s. Mental health professionals involved in the implementation of these laws are faced with ethical concerns that distinguish this area of forensic practice from other clinical roles. This article presents a brief description of the impetus for specific laws allowing for involuntary civil commitment, extended supervision and community notification of sex offenders in different jurisdictions. A model of human rights is then used to consider the ways in which these laws threaten the rights of offenders, and provides a framework for identifying ethical concerns inherent in professional practice in this area.

'The witness who saw, /He left little doubt' : a comparative consideration of expert testimony in mental disability law cases in common and civil law systems

The question of how courts assess expert evidence - especially when mental disability is an issue - raises the corollary question of whether courts adequately evaluate the content of the expert testimony or whether judicial decision making may be influenced by teleology (cherry picking evidence), pretextuality (accepting experts who distort evidence to achieve socially desirable aims), and/or sanism (allowing prejudicial and stereotyped evidence). Such threats occur despite professional standards in forensic psychology and other mental health disciplines that require ethical expert testimony. The result is expert testimony that, in many instances, is at best incompetent and at worst biased. The paper details threats to competent expert testimony in a comparative law context - in both the common law (involuntary civil commitment laws and risk assessment criminal laws) and, more briefly, civil law. We conclude that teleology, pretextuality, and sanism have an impact upon judicial decision making in both the common law and civil law. Finally, we speculate as to whether the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is likely to have any impact on practices in this area. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The impact of the work conditions of allied health professionals on satisfaction, commitment and psychological distress

BACKGROUND: Allied health professionals are integral to the effective delivery of hospital-based health care, yet little is known about the working conditions associated with the attitudinal and health outcomes of these employees.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the demand-control-support model, in combination with organizational justice variables, predicts the employee-level outcomes of allied health professionals.

METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Allied health professionals from an Australian health care organization were surveyed, with 113 (52.6%) participating. The survey included measures of job demands, job control, social support, organizational justice, satisfaction, commitment and psychological distress.

FINDINGS: Multiple regression analyses reveal that the additive demand-control-support model predicts the outcome variables of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and psychological distress, whereas the organizational justice variables predicted organizational commitment and psychological distress. Further, both work and nonwork sources of support, in addition to specific justice dimensions, were closely associated with employee-level outcomes.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: When coupled with previous research involving social support and organizational justice, the findings from this study suggest that initiatives aimed at strengthening supervisor and nonwork support, while enhancing perceptions of organizational fairness, may offer useful avenues for increasing the levels of satisfaction, commitment and well-being experienced by allied health professionals.