Hiring Manager Training for Strategically Selecting the Best Human Capital

The selection process is arguably the most important part of the employee life cycle in an organization, but a process often underdeveloped in many organizations. Successful selection processes can put the right people into critical positions, whereas failure to focus on selection can result in poor performance, turnover, and loss of productivity critical to the continuing success of organizations. This paper creates a model for a hiring manager training that focuses on a strategic selection process to maximize chances for successful hires. Utilizing leadership and selection models, human resources can engage hiring managers in a strategic applicant selection process as well as give tools for screening, interviewing, and selecting the best candidates for employment throughout all levels of their organization.

Evaluation report of the training course on disaster assessment methodology

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has been a pioneer in the field of disaster assessment and in the development and dissemination of the Disaster Assessment Methodology. The organization’s history in assessing disasters started in 1972 with the earthquake that struck Managua, Nicaragua. Since then, ECLAC has led more than 90 assessments of the social, environmental and economic effects and impacts of disasters in 28 countries in the region. The Sustainable Development and Disaster Unit provides expert assistance in disaster assessment and disaster risk reduction to Caribbean states and to all countries across Latin America. Considering that assessing the effects and impacts of disasters is critical to the Latin American and Caribbean countries, the Unit has started a new cycle of training courses. The training is designed for policymakers and professionals involved directly with disaster risk management and risk reduction. Additionally, and since the methodology is comprehensive in approach, it is also designed for sector specialists, providing a multisectoral overview of the situation after a disaster, as well as an economic estimate of the damages, losses and additional costs. In an attempt to strengthen disaster risk reduction through its financial instruments, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES for its acronym in Portuguese) of Brazil requested that ECLAC undertake a four-day training programme on the Disaster Assessment Methodology.

Is modern medicine at risk of losing the plot?

Contemporary medicine has much to its credit, but has created an insatiable demand for new technologies and more health services, fed by commercial promotion, professional advocacy and sociopolitical pressure. Total health expenditure at the national level is now almost 10% of gross domestic product and is expected to top 16% by 2020. After recent inquiries into the failings of its public health system, the Queensland Government has committed itself to a 25% increase in expenditure on health over the next 5 years. But will it lead to better population health, and is it sustainable? The return-on-investment curve for modern health care may be flattening out, in an environment of growing numbers of older patients with chronic illnesses, maldistribution of services and hospital overcrowding. A change in thinking is required if current medical practice is to avoid imploding when confronted with the next major economic downturn. Health policy, service funding and clinical training must focus on critical appraisal of the effectiveness of health care technologies and the structure and financing of health care systems. Practising clinicians will be obliged to provide leadership in determining value for money in the choice of health care for specific patient populations and how that care is delivered.

A CONCEPÇÃO SOBRE SER HUMANO PARA O DISCENTE DO CURSO DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO: APROXIMAÇÕES COM A FENOMENOLOGIA DE EDITH STEIN

As grandes Revoluções que a história oficial relata apresentam um aspecto comum: a evolução do processo de comunicação aliada à evolução tecnológica. A partir do Século XX, as informações passaram a circular em número e em velocidade escalares. A interdependência e a interligação dos países, nações e pessoas estreitaram-se, pois a mobilidade no espaço virtual, progressivamente, relativiza as distâncias e os espaços geofísicos. Todavia, a avalanche de conhecimento, de aprimoramento científico e de desenvolvimento econômico parece não ser suficiente para responder, concretamente, as questões que ainda assolam a humanidade. Neste cenário, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo aproximar a concepção de ser humano para discentes do curso de administração com as categorias existenciais presentes no pensamento de Edith Stein, por meio dos objetivos específicos: Compreender o que é ser humano para o discente do curso de administração em uma IES Confessional do ABC Paulista; descrever o que é ser humano a partir do pensamento fenomenológico de Edith Stein; buscar convergências, divergências e/ou idiossincrasias entre os relatos de discentes do curso de administração em uma IES Confessional do ABC Paulista e o pensamento de Edith Stein. Para tal, foram colhidos cinco relatos de discentes de administração, por meio dos quais foram feitas aproximações, convergências-divergências com as categorias analíticas da concepção de ser humano no pensamento de Edith Stein para cada sujeito, tendo como questão norteadora: o que é ser humano para você ? Após a coleta, as entrevistas foram analisadas tendo como referência os trabalhos de Edith Stein (fenomenologia eidética), Castro (2003), Flauzino (2012) e Estanislau (2010), cumprindo as seguintes etapas: literalização dos relatos ingênuos, levantamento das unidades de sentido, levantamento e análise fenomenológica das categorias, as quais possibilitaram o diálogo intersubjetivo e objetivo com os pressupostos teóricos sobre o tema em pauta. Categorias estas denominadas de: 1. Corpo Físico e Corpo Vivente; 2. Espírito; Sujeito Psicofísico; 3. Comunidade. A partir da análise das categorias, observou-se que a concepção de ser humano conflui para a unidade do ser, ser este que é composto por corpo vivente, psique e espírito, de forma a possibilitar relações com o outro e com o ambiente. Não é possível ser humano sem um encontro com o outro, sem o respeito mútuo, sem a liberdade de ser o que se é. Emerge a dos relatos a dimensão comunitária, somente na qual se é possível realizar a humanidade, por meio de atos de liberdade, respeito e de compaixão. Desvelou-se também dentro destes relatos, que quando se é humano, a vida em seu todo é realizada de forma harmoniosa. Poder-se-á, então, por meio do revelar-se do fenômeno, obter uma nova forma de olhar, de pensar e questionar as práticas vivenciadas na Administração, contribuindo com a formação de uma massa crítica para as ciências sociais aplicadas da administração, ao refletir sobre o que há de mais estruturante e nuclear no discente de administração.

Thinking and acting strategically:new challenges for interrogating strategy

This paper takes a critical and evaluative stance toward micro-activity-based approaches to understanding strategy. It argues that such approaches bring with them important theoretical and empirical challenges. The paper argues against a tendency to reductionism without equal emphasis to the contextual influences that bound micro-strategising. Finally, the paper argues for a more international and comparative approach to micro-strategy studies than has currently been the case.

Intercultural training for international placements

Despite its increasing popularity, much intercultural training is not developed with the same level of rigour as training in other areas. Further, research on intercultural training has brought inconsistent results about the effectiveness of such training. This PhD thesis develops a rigorous model of intercultural training and applies it to the preparation of British students going on work/study placements in France and Germany. It investigates the reasons for inconsistent training success by looking at the cognitive learning processes in intercultural training, relating them to training goals, and by examining the short- and long-term transfer of intercultural training into real-life encounters with people from other cultures. Two cognitive trainings based on critical incidents were designed for online delivery. The training content relied on cultural practice dimensions from the GWBE study (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman & Gupta, 2004). Of the two trainings, the 'singlemode training' aimed to develop declarative knowledge, which is necessary to analyse and understand other cultures. The 'concurrent training' aimed to develop declarative and procedural knowledge, which is needed to develop skills for dealing with difficult situations in a culturally appropriate way. Participants (N-48) were randomly assigned to one of the two training conditions. Declarative learning appeared as a process of steady knowledge increase, while procedural learning involved cognitive re-categorisation rather than knowledge increase. In a negotiation role play with host-country nationals directly after the online training, participants of the concurrent training exhibited a more initiative negotiation style than participants of the single-mode training. Comparing cultural adjustment and performance of training participants during their time abroad with an untrained control group, participants of the concurrent training showed the qualitatively best development in adjustment and performance. Besides intercultural training, multicultural personality traits were assessed and proved to be a powerful predictor of adjustment and, indirectly, of performance abroad.

Police interviews with women reporting rape: a critical discourse analysis

This study investigates the discursive patterns of interactions between police interviewers and women reporting rape in significant witness interviews. Data in the form of video recorded interviews were obtained from a UK police force for the purposes of this study. The data are analysed using a multi-method approach, incorporating tools from micro-sociology, Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology, to reveal patterns of interactional control, negotiation, and interpretation. The study adopts a critical approach, which is to say that as well as describing discursive patterns, it explains them in light of the discourse processes involved in the production and consumption of police interview talk, and comments on the relationship between these discourse processes and the social context in which they occur. A central focus of the study is how interviewers draw on particular interactional resources to shape interviewees? accounts in particular ways, and this is discussed in relation to the institutional role of the significant witness interview. The discussion is also extended to the ways in which mainstream rape ideology is both reflected in, and maintained by, the discursive choices of participants. The findings of this study indicate that there are a number of issues to be addressed in terms of the training currently offered to officers at Level 2 of the Professionalising Investigation Programme (PIP) (NPIA, 2009) who intend to conduct significant witness interviews. Furthermore, a need is identified to bring the linguistic and discursive processes of negotiation and transformation identified by the study to the attention of the justice system as a whole. This is a particularly pressing need in light of judicial reluctance to replace written witness statements, the current „end product? of significant witness interviews, with the video recorded interview in place of direct examination in cases of rape.