Thor v Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust 2012

Case law report - online

Piper v Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS Trust 2012

Case law report - online

Sandford and Parkin v Newcastely upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust 2012

Case law report - online

Estimating the scope for savings in referrals and drug prescription costs in the general Practice units of a UK primary care trust

This paper explores the potential for cost savings in the general Practice units of a Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the UK. We have used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to identify benchmark Practices, which offer the lowest aggregate referral and drugs costs controlling for the number, age, gender, and deprivation level of the patients registered with each Practice. For the remaining, non-benchmark Practices, estimates of the potential for savings on referral and drug costs were obtained. Such savings could be delivered through a combination of the following actions: (i) reducing the levels of referrals and prescriptions without affecting their mix (£15.74 m savings were identified, representing 6.4% of total expenditure); (ii) switching between inpatient and outpatient referrals and/or drug treatment to exploit differences in their unit costs (£10.61 m savings were identified, representing 4.3% of total expenditure); (iii) seeking a different profile of referral and drug unit costs (£11.81 m savings were identified, representing 4.8% of total expenditure). © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Trust in leader-follower relationships:how and when trust building enhances dyadic and organisational outcomes

Guided by theory in both the trust and leadership domains, the overarching aim of this thesis was to answer a fundamental question. Namely, how and when does trust-building between leaders and followers enhance leader-member exchange (LMX) development and organisational trust? Although trust is considered to be at the crux of the leader-follower relationship, surprisingly little theoretical or empirical attention has been devoted to understanding the precise nature of this relationship. By integrating both a typology of trustworthy behaviour and a process model of trust development with LMX theory, study one developed and tested a new model of LMX development with leader-follower trust-building as the primary mechanism. In a three wave cross-lagged design, 294 student dyads in a business simulation completed measures of trust perceptions and LMX across the first 6 months of the LMX relationship. Trust-building was found to account for unexplained variance in the LMX construct over time, while controlling for initial relationship quality, thus confirming the critical role of the trust-building process in LMX development. The strongest evidence was found for the role of integrity-based trust-building behaviour, albeit only when such behaviour was not attributed to insincere motives. The results for ability and benevolence-based trustworthy behaviour revealed valued insights into the developmental nature of trustworthiness perceptions within LMX relationships. Thus, the pattern of results in study one provided a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the dynamic interplay between trust and LMX. In study two, leader trust-building was investigated cross-sectionally within an organisational sample of 201 employees. The central aim of this study was to investigate whether leader trust-building within leader-follower relationships could be leveraged for organisational trust. As expected, the trust-building process instigated by members in study one was replicated for leaders in study two. In addition, the results were most consistent for benevolence-based trust building, whereas both integrity- and ability-based trust-building were moderated by the position of the leader within the organisation’s hierarchy. Overall, the findings of this thesis shed considerable light on the richness of trusting perceptions in organisations, and the critical role of trust-building in LMX development and organisational trust.

The role of interpersonal functioning in the maintenance of eating psychopathology:a systematic review and testable model

This review aims to systematically evaluate the empirical literature relating to the interpersonal functioning of those with eating disorder psychopathology and presents a preliminary model to help the formulation of patients' problems. Following a thorough literature search, 35 papers were included in this systematic review. The vast majority of studies indicate a strong association between eating psychopathology and certain maladaptive personality traits. The origins of social anxiety and poor social support that have been described as maintaining eating disorders appear to differ according to diagnostic groups. Interpersonal difficulties in people with restrictive behaviors such as anorexia appear to be related to the avoidance of expressing feelings to others and to giving priority to other people's feeling over their own. While interpersonal difficulties in patients with bulimia nervosa appear to be more related to interpersonal distrust and negative interaction and conflict with others. These concepts are presented in a preliminary model of interpersonal functioning in the eating disorders. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Interpersonal attachment predicts identification with groups

We propose a model documenting the relationship between interpersonal attachment style and identification with groups. We hypothesized that following threat to a romantic interpersonal relationship higher attachment anxiety would be associated with lowered tendencies to identify with groups. In two studies using varied social groups we observed support for this hypothesis. In Experiment 1 we found that participants higher in attachment anxiety identified less with a salient ingroup after imagining a distressing argument with their romantic partner. In Experiment 2 we replicated these findings using an implicit measure of social identification and additionally observed a moderating role for attachment avoidance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theoretical models of interpersonal attachment and social identification. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Triggering trust:to what extent does the question influence the answer when evaluating the perceived importance of trust triggers?

Trust is a critical component of business to consumer (B2C) e-Commerce success. In the absence of typical environmental cues that consumers use to assess vendor trustworthiness in the offline retail context, online consumers often rely on trust triggers embedded within e-Commerce websites to contribute to the establishment of sufficient trust to make an online purchase. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study which took an initial look at the extent to which the context or manner in which trust triggers are evaluated may exert influence on the importance attributed to individual triggers.

Earlier trust and later trust in Sino-joint ventures (a study of seven IJVs in the Pearl River Delta economic zone)

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Exploring trust in E-B2B relationships

The Internet’s unbounded opportunity for inter-firm exchanges is limited by concerns about trust, however, little is known about the development and formation of trust in the area of electronic business-to-business relationships. Drawing on existing research the aim of paper is to explore differences arising between trust in the traditional and in the electronic business to business relationship. In addition, an overall research framework is developed which links trust formation to three dimensions: the type of interaction, the stage of the relationship lifecycle and the type of transacting organizations. These dimensions are further examined in different relationship scenarios. Finally, implications for the agri-food industry are examined.

How does personality affect trust in B2C e-commerce?

Trust is a critical component of successful e-Commerce. Given the impersonality, anonymity, and automation of transactions, online vendor trustworthiness cannot be assessed by means of body language and other environmental cues that consumers typically use when deciding to trust offline retailers. It is therefore essential that the design of e-Commerce websites compensate by incorporating circumstantial cues in the form of appropriate trust triggers. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study which took an initial look at whether consumers with different personality types (a) are generally more trusting and (b) rely on different trust cues during their assessment of first impression vendor trustworthiness in B2C e-Commerce.

A question of fit:cultural and individual differences in interpersonal justice perceptions

This study examined the link between employees’ adult attachment orientations and perceptions of line managers’ interpersonal justice behaviors, and the moderating effect of national culture (collectivism). Participants from countries categorized as low collectivistic (N = 205) and high collectivistic (N = 136) completed an online survey. Attachment anxiety and avoidance were negatively related to interpersonal justice perceptions. Cultural differences did not moderate the effects of avoidance. However, the relationship between attachment anxiety and interpersonal justice was non-significant in the Southern Asia (more collectivistic) cultural cluster. Our findings indicate the importance of ‘fit’ between cultural relational values and individual attachment orientations in shaping interpersonal justice perceptions, and highlight the need for more non-western organizational justice research.

Social Recommendation Based on Content and Trust

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2014