Privacy legislation and research

To the Editor: The Victorian Health Records Act 2001 became operational on 1 July 2002. This legislation provides important protection for the individual against misuse of health information through the establishment of Health Privacy Principles. We support the spirit of this legislation, but would like to draw attention to its potential effects on multicentre research and disease surveillance...

The construction of social identity in new nuclear operators : a longitudinal study

Countless studies have stressed the importance of social identity, particularly its role in various organizational outcomes, yet questions remain as to how identities initially develop, shift and change based on the configuration of multiple, pluralistic relationships grounded in an organizational setting. The interactive model of social identity formation has been proposed recently to explain the internalization of shared norms and values – critical in identity formation – has not received empirical examination. We analyzed multiple sources of data from nine nuclear professionals over three years to understand the construction of social identity in new entrants entering an organization. Informed by our data analyses, we found support for the interactive model and that age and level of experience influenced whether they undertook an inductive or deductive route of the group norm and value internalization. This study represents an important contribution to the study of social identity and the process by which identities are formed, particularly under conditions of duress or significant organizational disruption.

Bioecological factors influencing women's alcohol consumption across the life span

Background Substantial changing trends in women’s alcohol consumption show increased proportions women drinking at risky/ high risk levels. Not confined to the younger female population, these increases are also occurring in older female age groups (aged 35 and over), posing a set of risks differing to those of their male counterparts. However, little research investigates the influences behind these changing trends. The current research examined multiple level influences (i.e. cultural, social and psychosocial on women’s drinking across a range of age groups. Methods Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with thirty-five women (aged 18-55) residing in Australia. Interview development was guided by an adaptation of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Development to assess multiple areas of influences from cultural through to psychosocial (i.e. intra-individual). Each interview took approximately 1 hour to complete. Findings Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model could account for multiple-level factors impacting women’s drinking with multidirectional influences interacting across each level. Cultural influences included gender roles and national identity. Exosystem influences (e.g. infrastructure, legislation, and media) and microsystem influences (e.g. drinking context, family, partner and peer influence) were clearly identified as impacting drinking behaviours. Finally, at the psychosocial level, attitudes and expectations around the disinhibiting effects of alcohol and social facilitation emerged as key influences. Discussion The outcomes indicated the importance of these influences as women’s alcohol-related attitudes and behaviours changed across a woman’s life span and across age cohorts. Future research will build on these initial findings in order to underpin targeted interventions of the key factors influencing women’s drinking.

Literacy, place-based pedagogies and social justice

Our long-term program of research has considered the relationships between teachers’ work and identities, literacy pedagogies and schooling, particularly in high-poverty communities. Over the past decade, we have worked with teachers to consciously explore with them the possible productive synergies between critical literacy and place-based pedagogies, and the affordances of multimodal and digital literacies for students’ engagement with the places where they live and learn. These studies have been undertaken with teachers working and living in various locales—from the urban fringe to inner suburban areas undergoing urban renewal, to rural and regional communities where poverty and the politics of place bring certain distinctive opportunities and constraints to bear on pedagogy for social justice. There is now wider recognition that “social justice” may need rethinking to foreground the nonhuman world and the relation between people and politics of places, people, and environments in terms of “eco-social justice” (Green 2010; Gruenewald 2003b) or spatial justice (Soja 2011). In this chapter, we explore place as a site of knowing and as an object of study as developed through the Special Forever project by teachers in schools located in the Murray-Darling Basin bioregion. Putting the environment at the center of the literacy curriculum inevitably draws teachers into the politics of place and raises questions concerning what is worth preserving and what should be transformed. We consider how the politics of place both constrains and opens up possibilities for pedagogy for eco-social justice and review the pedagogical work that one teacher, Hannah, undertook with her upper primary class.

Relational regulation theory and the role of social support and organisational fairness for nurses in a general acute context

Aims and objectives. To present a novel approach to nurse stress by exploring the demand–control–support model with organisational justice through the lens of relational regulation theory. Background. Nursing is often stressful due to high demands and dissatisfaction with pay, which impacts the mental well-being and productivity of nurses. Design. A cross-sectional design. Methods. A validated questionnaire was sent to the work addresses of all nursing and midwifery staff in a medium-sized general acute hospital in Australia. A total of 190 nurses and midwives returned completed questionnaires for the analyses. Results. The multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the model applies to the prototypical context of a general acute hospital and that job control, supervisor support and outside work support improve the job satisfaction and mental health of nurses. Conclusions. Most importantly, supervisor support was found to buffer the impact of excessive work demands. Fairness of procedures, distribution of resources and the quality and consistency of information are also beneficial. Relational regulation theory is applied to these findings as a novel way to conceptualise the mechanisms of support and fairness in nursing. Relevance to clinical practice. The importance of nurses’ well-being and job satisfaction is a priority for improving clinical outcomes. Practically, this means nurse managers should be encouraging nurses in the pursuit of diverse relational activities both at work and outside work.

Restorative justice and “Empowerment” : producing and governing active subjects through “Empowering” practices

During the last quarter-century, restorative justice has emerged as a widely utilised response to crime in Western nations. This article, which stems from a Foucauldian genealogy of restorative justice, argues that its embeddedness within the discourse of ‘‘empowerment’’ renders restorative justice a politically acceptable response to crime. ‘‘Empowerment’’, it is argued, is one of many conditions of emergence of restorative justice. The discourse of ‘‘empowerment’’ underpins restorative justice in tangible ways, and has informed legislation and policy in Western jurisdictions. This article seeks to problematise the taken-for-granted nature of this discourse. It argues that the discourse of ‘‘empowerment’’ produces restorative justice subjects who are increasingly governed and governable. As ‘‘empowering’’ restorative practices are targeted towards ‘‘disempowered’’ individuals and communities, concerns are raised about the potential of restorative justice to disproportionately impact upon socially marginalised populations and to increase social exclusion.

Digital storytelling as a social work tool : learning from ethnographic research with women from refugee backgrounds

This paper reflects on the wider potential of digital narratives as a useful tool for social work practitioners. Despite the multiple points of connection between narrative approaches and social work, the influence of narratives on practice remains limited. A case study of a digital storytelling (DST) process employed in a research project with a small group of lone mothers from refugee backgrounds is used to trigger discussion of broader applications of DST as part of everyday social work practice. The use of DST acknowledged women’s capacities for self-representation and agency, in line with participatory and strengths-based approaches inherent in contemporary social work. The benefits of using DST with lone mothers from refugee backgrounds illustrate how this method can act as a pathway to produce counter-narratives, both at the individual and broader community levels. Documenting life stories digitally provides the opportunity to construct narratives about experiences of relocation and settlement as tools for social advocacy, which can assist social workers to ensure meaningful outcomes for service-users. These propositions can serve to inform social work practices with people from refugee backgrounds and address some of the intricacies of working in diverse and challenging contexts.

Enterprise social networks : a business model perspective

Enterprise Social Networks continue to be adopted by organisations looking to increase collaboration between employees, customers and industry partners. Offering a varied range of features and functionality, this technology can be distinguished by the underlying business models that providers of this software deploy. This study identifies and describes the different business models through an analysis of leading Enterprise Social Networks: Yammer, Chatter, SharePoint, Connections, Jive, Facebook and Twitter. A key contribution of this research is the identification of consumer and corporate models as extreme approaches. These findings align well with research on the adoption of Enterprise Social Networks that has discussed bottom-up and top-down approaches. Of specific interest are hybrid models that wrap a corporate model within a consumer model and may, therefore, provide synergies on both models. From a broader perspective, this can be seen as the merging of the corporate and consumer markets for IT products and services.

Much ado about nothing? Tracing the progress of innovations borne on enterprise social network sites

Enterprise social networks are organizationally bounded online platforms for users to interact with another and maintain interpersonal relationships. The allure of these technologies is often seen in intra-organizational communication, collaboration and innovation. How these technologies actually support organizational innovation efforts remains unclear. A specific challenge is whether digital content on these platforms converts to actual innovation development efforts. In this study we set out to examine innovation-centric content flows on enterprise social networking platforms, and advance a conceptual model that seeks to explain which innovation conveyed in the digital content will traverse from the digital platform into regular processes. We describe important constructs of our model and offer strategies for the operationalization of the constructs. We conclude with an outlook to our ongoing empirical study that will explore and validate the key propositions of our model, and we sketch some potential implications for industry and academia.

Do positional concerns destroy social capital : evidence from 26 countries

Research on the effects of positional concerns on individuals' attitudes and behavior is sorely lacking. To address this deficiency, we use the International Social Survey Programme 1998 data on 25,000 individuals from 26 countries to investigate the impact of relative income position on three facets of social capital: horizontal and vertical trust as well as norm compliance. Testing relative deprivation theory, we identify a deleterious positional income effect for persons below the reference income, particularly for their social trust and confidence in secular institutions. Also often a social capital-lowering effect of relative income advantage occurs, while a rise in absolute income almost always contributes positively. These results indicate that a rise in income inequality in a society too large is rather detrimental to the formation of social capital. (JEL Z130, I300, D310)

Crime, justice and social democracy : proceedings of the second international conference, 2013, volume 1

The refereed papers contained in this set of conference proceedings were presented at the 2nd International Conference on Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, hosted by the Crime and Justice Research Centre, Faculty of Law, QUT. The conference attracted an impressive list of internationally distinguished keynote and panel speakers from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and this time Latin America, as well as high quality paper submissions.

Consequences of introducing mandatory reporting legislation for child sexual abuse

To improve detection of child sexual abuse, many jurisdictions have enacted mandatory reporting laws requiring selected persons to report known and suspected cases. In Ireland, the Child First approach previously incorporated only a policy-based approach to reporting. Due to a perceived lack of efficacy, the Children First Bill was drafted in 2012 to shift this policy guidance to a legislative approach. What effects will the new legislative reporting duties have on numbers of reports, and outcomes of reports, of suspected child sexual abuse? This paper will shed light on these important questions by presenting results of analyses of the introduction of legislative reporting obligations in two Australian States. Three questions will be explored: 1. Does introducing reporting legislation result in enhanced detection of child sexual abuse? 2. Do different reporter groups have different patterns of reporting? 3. What do the patterns of report numbers and outcomes indicate for child protection systems and communities?

Enhancing enterprise social network use : a control theory study

Organizations employ Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) (e.g., Yammer) expecting better intra-organizational communication, effective knowledge sharing and, in general, greater collaboration. Despite their similarities with Public Social Networks (PSNs) (e.g., Twitter), ESNs are struggling to gain credence with employees. This paper is part of a larger research project that investigates mechanisms to enhance employees’ engagement in the ESNs. Through the lens of Control Theory, this paper reports preliminary findings of a pilot case study aimed to propose formal and informal mechanisms that impact employees’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to encourage their use of ESNs. The study results highlight (i) the need to better understand employees’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to use Social Networks, and (ii) that unlike a PSN which acts as a hedonic system, an ESN acts as a utilitarian system, highlighting the importance of supporting intrinsic motivations in its implementation.