Ethical issues in the recruitment and retention of graduate nurses : a national concern

Australia like other countries is facing a crisis in the recruitment and retention of nurses. Adding to this crisis is the insufficient supply of new graduate nurses to meet current and future workforce demands. Unless changes are implemented that will bring likely demand and supply into balance, it is predicted that by the year 2010 (just seven year away) there will be a shortage of 40,000 nurses in Australia. Significantly, the current shortage of nurses is seeing hospitals, regions, States and countries compete fiercely with each other as they strive to recruit and retain sufficient numbers of nurses to meet their work force needs. The recruitment and retention strategies used by some prospective employers, however, have been highly questionable and raise serious questions about the ethics of nurse recruitment. In response to the issues raised, it is a key recommendation of this paper that mechanisms, including a national code of practice, need urgently to be put in place to ensure the effective, equitable and ethical regulation and monitoring of nurse recruitment and retention in Australia.

Attributed publication and selection for web service-based distributed systems

With the emergence of cloud computing, the need for flexible and detailed publication and selection of services that expose cloud resources is greatly stressed. While dynamic attributes have improved the publication and selection of resources in distributed systems, the use of dynamic attributes is yet to be tried in Web services: a key element that makes cloud computing possible. We propose a new approach to Web service publication and selection using dynamic attributes shown in Web service WSDL documents, the most commonly accessed and used elements of Web services.

Recruitment and retention of ICT skills among MNCs in Taiwan

Purpose – The existing research on multinational companies (MNCs) tends to emphasise the diffusion of knowledge and skills in information, communication and technology (ICT) from the more advanced industrialised nations to less-developed or latecomer countries. Few studies have examined the ICT work force supply and development of local ICT skills among MNCs' overseas subsidiaries. This paper aims to fill the gap by evaluating the issues relating to the host country's ICT work force planning and supply and the recruitment and retention of ICT skills among MNCs at their local subsidiary.

Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 100 MNCs in Taiwan, Republic of China was used for analysis. The self-administered questionnaire was designed to examine the extent of difficulty experienced by MNCs in recruiting high, medium and low levels of ICT skills in the manufacturing and service sector. Attrition rate of the ICT skilled workers in Taiwan was also examined.

Findings – The results suggest some degree of ICT skill deficiency at the firm level, despite many efforts attempted by the Taiwanese government to develop and supply ICT skills at the national level. A gap between national advancement in technology and firm level of skills deficiency exists. These findings lead to consideration of a better alignment in providing local government support programs to meet MNCs specific skill requirements.

Originality/value – The study provides some insights especially for the emerging economy of China, which tends to heavily impose government intervention in developing strategic industries.

Person - organisation fit : value congruence in attraction and selection decisions

ASA theory is one of the most important explanations of behaviour in organisations. Developed by Professor Ben Schneider, it is the idea that organisations contain similar types of people because they attract, select and retain people similar to those already employed by the organisation. This homogeneity explains why organisations are different to each other. Although a lot is known about attrition, little is known about the attraction and selection phases. This book contains a series of empirical studies that explore whether organisations attract and select people who hold the values of the people already employed by the organisation. The results of these studies cast doubt on how universal ASA theory might be and suggest that the initial employment decisions that people make are more about choosing their vocation than their employer.

Life during wartime : sexuality, recruitment and reality television

In 2010, Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) Navy Marketing entered into a media sponsorship package with the Australian version of the reality TV show So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD): Footage of the day aired on national television on SYTYCD and weekly ‘dancer bootcamp’ sessions training the dancers in Navy values featured on a dedicated and branded Navy section of the official SYTYCD website. This article analyses the Navy’s SYTYCD ‘integration opportunities’ to consider the role of reality television in the redefinition of the defence forces as a training and vocational pathway for young people. Underpinning such considerations is the conceptualization of the work of reality television through the prism of public and popular pedagogies. Taking sexuality as a focal point, the article will reflect on efforts to lift recruitment through an emphasis on the incorporation of diversity. Reading the work of Jasbir Puar against the Australian ‘archive’ of integration opportunities, this article contributes to queer critiques of homonormative and homonationalist tendencies in contemporary politics.

Effective recruitment and retention strategies in community health programs

Issue addressed: 

The effect of peer influence and selection processes on adolescent alcohol use : a systematic review of longitudinal studies.

Adolescent alcohol use remains an important public health concern. One of the most salient and consistent predictors for drinking behaviour among young people is peer influence. A systematic review of longitudinal studies that examined the effect of peer influence on adolescent alcohol use between January 1997 and February 2011 is presented. Twenty-two studies fulfilled inclusion criteria and were reviewed. All but one study confirmed affiliation with alcohol-using or deviant peers as prospective predictors for the development of adolescent alcohol use. Findings revealed that existing longitudinal studies that have used multivariate analytic techniques to segregate peer influence (whereby adolescents start drinking after exposure to alcohol-using friends) and peer selection (whereby adolescents that start drinking without alcohol-using friends subsequently seek out drinking peers) effects consistently report significant peer influence effects. However, studies are unable to elucidate the relative contribution and developmental sequence of peer influence and selection. Existing research is synthesised to model the developmental influence of peer processes on adolescent alcohol use. Future research directions are recommended to inform better designed investigations that can lead to more effective endeavours to address peer processes in prevention efforts.

The effect of transition to specialty practice programs on Australian emergency nurses' professional development, recruitment and retention

BACKGROUND: To date, emergency nursing Transition to Specialty Practice Program (TSPP) evaluations have been single-site observational studies. The aim of this paper was to examine the professional development, recruitment and retention outcomes of Australian emergency nursing TSPPs. METHODS: An explanatory sequential design was used. Data were collected via online surveys and interviews of emergency Nurse Unit Managers and Nurse Educators. Survey data from EDs with TSPPs and EDs without TSPPs were compared. Qualitative data were analysed using content analysis. RESULTS: Data were collected from 118 EDs, and 13 interviews. TSPPs were offered in 72.1% of EDs. EDs with TSPPs had higher proportions of nurses with postgraduate qualifications (Mdn 28.3% vs. 22.1%, p=0.45) and Clinical Specialists (Mdn 16.4% vs. 6.3%, p=0.04). The median proportion of currently rostered nurses with TSPP completion was 34.2% in EDs with TSPPs introduced in 2000-2005 indicating ED high levels of retention. CONCLUSION: Emergency nursing TSPPs have had a positive effect on nursing professional development, recruitment and retention. To ensure consistency in outcomes and optimise reliability of emergency nursing skills and knowledge, a national emergency nursing TSPP framework is needed.

Are the preference and selection patterns of hermit crabs for gastropod shells species- or site-specific?

Experimental analyses of hermit crabs and their preferences for shells are essential to understand the intrinsic relationship of the crabs' dependence on shells, and may be useful to explain their shell use pattern in nature. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of crab species and site on the pattern of shell use, selection, and preference in the south-western Atlantic hermit crabs Pagurus brevidactylus and Pagurus criniticornis, comparing sympatric and allopatric populations. Differently from the traditional approach to evaluate shell preference by simply determining the shell selection pattern (i.e., the number of shells of each type selected), preference was defined (according to [Liszka, D., Underwood, AJ., 1990. An experimental design to determine preferences for gastropod shells by a hermit-crab. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol., 137(1), 47-62]) by the comparison of the number of crabs changing for a particular shell type when three options were given (Cerithium atratum, Morula nodulosa, and Tegula viridula) with the number of crabs changing for this same type when only this type was offered. The effect of crab species was tested at Cabelo Gordo Beach, where P. brevidacrylus was found occupying shells of C. atratum, M. nodulosa, and T viridula in similar frequencies, whereas P. criniticornis occupied predominantly shells of C atratum. In laboratory experiments the selection patterns of the two hermit-crab species for these three gastropods were different, with P criniticornis selecting mainly shells of C atratum, and R brevidactylus selecting more shells of M. nodulosa. The shell preference was also dependent on crab species, with P. criniticornis showing a clear preference for shells of C atratum, whereas P. brevidactylus did not show a preference for any of the tested shells. The effect of site was tested for the two species comparing data from Cabelo Gordo to Preta (P brevidactylus) and Araca beaches (P. criniticornis). The pattern of shell use, selection, and preference was demonstrated to be dependent on site only for P. brevidactylus. The results also showed that the shell use pattern of P criniticornis can be explained by its preference at both sites, whereas for P. brevidactylus it occurred only at Cabelo Gordo, where the absence of preference was correlated with the similar use of the three gastropod species studied. Finally, the results showed that the shell selection pattern cannot be considered as a measure of shell preference, since it overestimates crab selectivity. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.