Information systems research tends to ignore individual differences in users. This laboratory experiment sought to illuminate contributions of decision-makers' cognitive processes to decision outcome as reflected in four hypothesis sets: the impact of imagery preference and presentation format upon (HI) recall accuracy and upon hemispheric activation during (H2) encoding and (H3) recall, and (H4) to examine the relationship between hemispheric activation differences and accuracy differences. Point-value (specific values) and intraset-pattern (relationships between values) recall were considered. Thirty MBA students, grouped by imagery preference (cognitive style) as favoring verbal (textual) or visual (graphical) information presentation, performed computer-based recall tasks using tabular and graphical formats in a repeated measures design. Hemispheric activation (cognitive process) was assessed using ratios of EEG activity in six frequency bands captured from six pairs of homologous electrode sites during encoding and recall.

This screenplay dramatizes the controversial career of German film maker Leni Riefenstahl during ten years of her association with the Nazi Party. Beginning with the premiere of her first film in 1932, this account chronicles her rise as a film director of such films as Triumph of the Will and Olympia to her arrest after World War II on charges that she had been a Nazi sympathizer. Besides delineating the character and talents of Leni Riefenstahl, this screenplay addresses the difficult question of the relationship between politics and art.

Background: Long-term care nurses are in a pivotal position to be augmenting the quality of life for residents and improving the death and dying experience for residents, their family members and surrogate decision makers. Currently there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the experiences of long-term care nurses and their involvement with end-of-life decision making and care. Purpose: To describe long-term care nurses’ perceptions of factors that influence their communication with end-of-life surrogate decision makers and the kind of support they need to support this discussion. Method: A descriptive study using mixed-methods convergent design was used to obtain responses from a sample of 30 long-term care nurses. An online survey included questions to obtain quantitative data and open-ended questions for short responses. Results from both sets of data were brought together and compared during the analysis phase. Results: The findings of this study highlight the personal factors of the nurse, the characteristics of the surrogate decision maker, contextual factors, situational related inputs, and the support desired by long-term care nurses. Participants rated factors according to importance in their experiences of communicating with surrogate decision makers. Seven themes were inductively derived from the analysis: 1) selected or appointed as surrogate makes a difference, 2) strong trusting bond between nurse-resident and nurse-family, 3) being too close to see resident’s wishes, 4) interdisciplinary team agreement, 5) living will as a communication roadmap, 6) peaceful environment, and 7) the need to create emotional distance. Long-term care nurses also identified the types of support they seek or need to be effective in communicating with end-of-life care surrogate decision makers. Conclusion: As the numbers of the older population continue to increase, the demand for nurses to develop expertise in caring for dying residents and communicating with them, their family members, and surrogate decision makers will increase. Understanding their experiences and providing support to long-term care nurses may strengthen their capacity to communicate about death and dying and their delivery of quality end-of-life care to residents.

There is limited engagement with research based evidence among senior managers within the NHS, and a failure to consistently integrate research findings into the decision making process. While much is known about the decision making and information behaviour of clinical staff and policy makers, there is little knowledge of this for senior non-clinical managers within the NHS. There is also a lack of clarity on how best to facilitate and integrate research evidence into the decision making process and a lack of research regarding the context of non-clinical healthcare managers working in the NHS. This study addresses these shortcomings through in-depth analysis in a case study approach. Data was collected through semi-structured interview, questionnaire and observed scenario work. This data was analysed to increase knowledge and understanding of the current information behaviour and decision making practices of non-medical senior management staff working within the NHS in England. Several key barriers to research utilisation were identified in the analysis of the data. These barriers included insufficient information literacy skills in the cohort, shortcomings with the published research papers, a culture which was focused on achieving politically set targets, and a lack of defined processes to decision making. To address these barriers an embedded librarian and a SharePoint based knowledge management system were implemented and evaluated. Evaluation of these interventions concluded that an embedded librarian was effective in increasing and supporting evidence informed decision making. This provides a practical example of an effective service development which should be considered for implementation across the NHS and wider healthcare community. The study also recommends that, to increase use of their output, researchers need to include more explicit information on the implementation and financial elements of their findings rather than a narrow focus on the intervention outcome. In addition, findings showed the target driven culture of the NHS create an environment that stifles evidence informed decision making. To address this barrier the study recommends that the NHS adopts methods of quality assurance and metrics which place an emphasis on measures of process. This study contributes to theory by exploring the information behaviour of a specific group which have been overlooked in previous research, and contributes new understanding of mechanisms for knowledge translation and interactions between the research based evidence and decision making processes in the context of NHS non-clinical management.

This study provides a view of the decision-making process of Dutch company pension funds. The success of this research was the exceptional granting of access to four cases. Lack of such access could very well be the reason why research of this nature has not been previously achieved. The financial health of pension funds, expressed by the coverage ratio, showed a decline in 2008. Research has shown that there is a relationship between decision-making processes and outcome. Were the processes appropriate to set up and maintain a sufficient coverage ratio? A tailor-made conceptual research model has been developed and used as an analysis aid to research the TO BE situation based on legal requirements and factional documents and the AS IS situation based on empirical data. The model made it feasible to shed light on the implementation of good pension fund governance principles and decision-making process, which is a contribution to the current gap in research. The research showed that there is a relationship between the implementation of pension fund governance principles and appropriate decision-making processes. It also showed that there is a relationship between an appropriate decision-making process and coverage ratio. Both conclusions are not statistically proven due to the lack of the statistical significance, but are qualitative analysed and confirmed in the conducted case studies. It is suggested to use the research model by supervisor or pension funds to establish the mismatch between the implementation of pension fund governance principles and decision-making processes to enhance the quality of decision-making processes and outcome.

This study examines how institutional actors interpret, influence and respond to skills availability in the labour market for graduates. It researches and draws lessons from the Maltese experience of managing graduate employability over three decades, focusing on the three fastest-growing economic sectors, namely, Accountancy, Pharmachem and ICT, each of which is the subject of a case study. The study investigates the interaction of governments, firms, higher education institutions and professional associations in identifying skills shortages and gaps, as well as in devising policy frameworks and skills regimes at national, sectoral and corporate levels. Drawing upon theories of employability and employee skills, first, there is development of an analytical framework to examine how these institutional actors affect the labour market, which informs the analysis of the three case studies. The qualitative research involved an interpretative analysis of key policy documents related to graduate employability and seventy in-depth interviews with interlocutors positioned in strategic policy making, senior management, academic, expert and professional leadership roles within government, regulators, major corporations, higher education institutions, training providers and professional associations. The data was thematically analysed. Twelve key themes emerged from the in-depth interviews, which included the following: use of different language; the meaning of employability; the value of credentials; the role of the University; perceptions; expectations; competitiveness; modes of training provision; labour mobility; placements and incentives; collaboration and skills gap. The institutional actors across the three focal sectors, namely, accountancy, pharmachem and ICT tended to emphasise some themes more than others, these having previously been identified in scholarly literature (Appendix 1). Both patterns and inconsistencies emerged from a comparison of the accountancy, pharmachem and ICT sectors. In so far as the labour market is concerned, the study revealed a lack of technical skills and major non-technical graduate skills gaps, specifically, in the aspects of communication, teamwork and problem-solving. A number of professional characteristics or behaviours were also identified as lacking with Accountancy, Pharmachem and ICT graduates, namely, attitude, confidence, drive, professional outlook, independent working, personality fit and a ‘can do’ approach. The study revealed the absence of permanent systemic connections between the formulation of national and sectoral economic strategies on the one hand, and higher education and training policies on the other. Consequently, state higher education institutions have been responding reactively to labour market needs, which could explain the endemic skills gap which the study found. The study concludes by discussing limitations and limits to this research as well as recommending policy initiatives and further research that could contribute to the science and practice of public policy in this field.

The purpose of our study was to shad a light on case makers possibilities to apply the remain living principle based on its origin purpose and what they experience this lead to. We performed our study through qualitative approach and conducted six semi structured interviews with case makers who worked at least five years as case makers for older people according to Socialtjänstlagen. The result shows that the remain living principle is applied in a different way today than before, because of the organisations and the municipality´s guidelines and directives based on the municipality´s economy and resources are increasingly restricting the case makers discretion. Which according to the case makers leads to their professional judgment being disregarded and that the elderly does not always have a choice if they want to stay at home or not. / Syftet med vår studie var att belysa om biståndshandläggarnas förutsättningar att tillämpa kvarboendeprincipen utifrån dess ursprungssyfte har förändrats samt vad de upplever att det leder till. Vi genomförde vår studie genom en kvalitativ ansats och genomförde sex stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer med biståndshandläggare som arbetat minst fem år med biståndshandläggning för äldre inom Socialtjänstlagen. Resultatet visar på att kvarboendeprincipen tillämpas på ett annat sätt idag än tidigare eftersom organisationens och kommunens riktlinjer samt direktiv med utgångspunkt i kommunens ekonomi och resurser allt mer inskränker på biståndshandläggarnas handlingsutrymme. Enligt biståndshandläggarna leder detta till att deras professionella bedömning åsidosätts samt att de äldre inte alltid har ett val om de ska bo kvar hemma eller inte.

Interaction with their students during classroom instruction is often a source of stress among many teachers. The academic setting of Disciplinary Alternative Educational Programs (DAEP) poses a risk factor for teachers to experience stress, given that student disruptive behavior has been associated with higher stress levels among teachers. The problem underlying this study was that most studies on DAEP have focused on the experiences of students, with limited information available about the experiences of teachers in this type of academic setting. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the role of job-related stress and coping on the job performance of DAEP teachers, from a transactional theory of stress and coping approach. This exploration was grounded in the theoretical lens of the transactional theory of stress and coping, which served as the link between the importance of the psychological health of teachers and the successful administration of public programs. The geographical setting of the study was a single DAEP campus. Data were collected using 20 individual, face-to-face semi structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the modified van Kaam method of phenomenological analysis, which involves the systematic analysis of data through the process of dividing large quantities of qualitative data into smaller units of meaning. The results produced significant thematic themes. The findings from this study could help scholars and practitioners gain important insight about job-related stressors in DAEP, which could facilitate the improvement of administration and development policies in order to promote a positive work environment in DAEP settings.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-216).