Little empirical work has been conducted on workplace practices in university settings. Meanwhile, the impact of feedback on changing consumption patterns has been mainly studied through individualistic approaches. The academic workplace with its variety of users offers a setting that could provide a range of insights as to how practices form and change under the impact of efficiency interventions and, in turn, how relevant policies could be formed. This research looks at workplace practices related to the regulation of indoor temperature and the use of office equipment. It examines the potential of reducing energy usage in the workplace through a case study on the understanding of and interventions in practices using consumption feedback. A framework based on social practice theory is applied where daily practices are configured by routines, technologies, knowledge and meanings. The research takes place in a UK university building, where the provision of real-time consumption feedback through a display is employed to raise energy awareness. It follows a case study approach featuring three different office typologies and associated user groups: the shared, enclosed administrative office; the PhD open-plan office, and the post-doctoral cellular office. The study begins with an examination of the thermal characteristics and comfort preferences in the case study offices. It then examines how users shape their practices in the workplace. Finally, it observes the impact of feedback through real-time displays on the reduction of energy consumption. A mixed methods approach is employed combining qualitative and quantitative data. Semi- structured interviews and on-site observations are cross-related to environmental conditions monitoring, electricity audits and thermal comfort diaries. Data collection takes place in two phases— (February 2014 and July 2014) —to capture differences in practices between the winter and summer as well as before and after the installation of real-time displays. By exploring the empirical evidence through a practice theory framework, this research shows how social dynamics, the difference between the notion of comfort at home and work, and striving for productivity can prefigure ‘passive’ thermal comfort practices in the workplace. The real-time displays did not trigger change despite the fact electricity audits revealed a savings potential related to high standby use. The inadequacy of building maintenance structures, significant installation delays and the type of projected information were the main factors restricting change. The use of a practice approach advanced the understanding as to why it is so difficult to save energy at work and use feedback as a successful intervention. The combination of qualitative enquiry and energy audits meanwhile indicated the potential source of savings.

The aim of this thesis was to explore salutogenic resources in the everyday lives of teachers, and toinvestigate how an intervention of collegial reflection influences their work-related learning and their being.The thesis includes two parts, a needs assessment and an intervention, performed between 2009 and2016. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used in the process of the thesis. Methods used for data generation have been multistage focus groups interviews, individual interviews, questionnaire, open mail questions, and digital recordings of the reflection meetings. Four different methods have been used For the analyses: content analysis, hermeneutic analysis, multiple linear regression, and thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the caring relationships with pupils, but also colleagues, were important for the teachers’ finding meaning in their work. The caring relationships and the sense of meaningfulness were important resources for the teachers well-being. Collegial reflection was a health promoting resource in that it contributed with social support from colleagues, a sense of belonging, a consensus regarding shool issues, and recovery. This recovery occurred while the teachers were having their collegial reflection, indicating that they still felt recovered even though they were reflecting on work-related issues. The thesis also indicates that teachers’ experiences of time pressure at work was the variable with the strongest associaton to their experience of work-life balance. The integration of work and private lives is an important part of being a teacher. Certain aspects of work was considered as positive and salutogenic when integrated with their private lives, such as the creative aspect of teaching. However, other aspects, such as ruminating over abused pupils, were affecting their well-being in a detrimental way when integrated in their private lives. In a time when much focus is put on teachers’ increasing workload, documentation and psychosocial risks, it is important to pay more attention to the salutogenic and the enhancing aspects of  teacher's work. By doing that, teachers’ well-being may be enhanced, as well as supporting teacher retention.

Workplace deviance behaviour has resulted in 20% of business failure and annual loss of $6-$200 billion in US organizations and it was found that 33% to 75% of employees engage in deviant activities like withdrawal, theft, production deviance, abuse of co-workers etc., (Coffin, 2003; Diefendorff & Mehta, 2007). In addition, several researchers have concentrated on constructive deviance that would benefit the organizations. Thus, deviance has been a topic of interest for many researchers. However, previous research on deviance behaviour has concentrated predominantly in the USA despite proof that Indian organizations are indeed affected by workplace deviance (Pradhan & Pradhan, 2014) and on destructive or constructive deviance. In addition, from the deviance perspective, surprisingly no study so far has examined the presence and effects of individualism and collectivism within the same culture at the individual level. To contribute towards the extant deviance literature and to fill in the aforementioned gaps, this PhD thesis develops and tests a model using social cognitive theory as a lens to determine the relationship between environment, personality and behavioural outcomes of an individual. It incorporates workplace destructive and constructive deviance in the same study with individualistic and collectivistic orientation of individuals as moderators in India and the USA. What is the relationship of organizational and individual determinants with workplace destructive and constructive deviance when individual cultural orientation acts as a moderator? For this purpose, this research first determines the various factors that will be considered in the model by reviewing previous research done on workplace deviance. It was found that organizational climate, though it contributes to deviance behaviour in the workplace, has not yet been extensively researched so, climate was one of the factors examined in the research. In addition and despite its importance, an individual witness perspective towards deviance is still in its infancy. What are the behavioural responses of an individual while being a witness to supervisor, organizational, co-worker involvement in workplace destructive deviance? Therefore, the present study extended, developed and validated a construct to define and measure the witness behaviour towards workplace deviance behaviour using the theory of planned behaviour as its theoretical lens. This construct formed the second factor to be included in the model. This research makes use of the multi-strategy research paradigm that consists of two main studies: Study 2, 3 and 4 involves the development and validation of the witness behaviour towards workplace deviance scale; Study 5 involves the development and testing of a theoretical framework. Study 2 to 4 made use of a mixed methods strategy and inductive approach where the results from analysing the qualitative one-to-one interviews conducted in India and the USA formed the basis of scale construction. The scale, after undergoing rigorous analysis by using the quantitative data collected from India and the USA, resulted in a two-dimensional self-serving and intervening behaviour 9-item measure that proved to be a universal construct. It was then validated for construct, discriminant and predictive validity to classify it within the nomological network. It was found to sit closer to the phenomenon of voluntary behaviours, thus contributing to deviance and scale development literature. Study 5 involved the development of a conceptual framework that was tested with the quantitative data collected from India and the USA. The results provided support that when an individual has high organizational climate experience as well as more self-serving and less intervening behaviour, he/she would be involved in more constructive and destructive deviance behaviour providing support that organizations should focus on these factors and a clear distinction should be made between negative and positive deviance accepted within the organization. The results also provided support that individualistic and collectivistic orientation of an individual did moderate the effect of organizational climate, self-serving and intervening behaviour with destructive and constructive deviance. Therefore, an individual's orientation to individualism and collectivism would influence the relationship of organizational climate and witness behaviour towards workplace deviance so that organizations may benefit from implementing the study findings and suggestions. This would then prevent individuals from becoming involved in destructive deviance and enhance their involvement in constructive deviance.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:55:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nanci Souto de Assis.pdf: 648903 bytes, checksum: 06d25b5c77a830aa77449e1b11609ef8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-04-25 / This thesis handles how the banking workforce transformation affected the ways of working from professionals who belong to the top ten largest Brazilian banking and financial institutions which implemented Professionalization and Voluntary Dismissal programs. We analyzed five hundred people between industry professionals and students. Data collection exercise occurred through the use of forms and semi-structured interviews. As an outcome, we concluded that, among other aspects, such transformation have not only generated instability and insecurity, but also triggered the need of professionals in this sector with competencies quite distinct to fulfill and resolve different types of problems throughout the years / Esta tese aborda como a reestruturação do trabalho bancário afetou a forma de entrega desses profissionais advindos de dez das maiores instituições financeiras brasileiras que desenvolveram Programas de Profissionalização e Demissão Voluntaria. Pesquisamos quinhentas pessoas entre profissionais do ramo e estudantes. A coleta de dados ocorreu por meio de formulários e entrevistas semi-estruturadas. Como resultado, concluímos que, dentre outros aspectos, tal reestruturação gerou instabilidade e insegurança, ao passo que também despertou a necessidade de profissionais desse setor com competências bem distintas para atender e resolver diferentes problemas ao longo dos anos

The present thesis was carried out in part fulfilment of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. It is presented in portfolio format, comprising of two individual papers although a total thesis abstract provides an overview of the entire thesis. The first paper is a systematic review of existing empirical research. It explores the predictive validity of risk assessment tools for imminent (short-term) violence and aggression in forensic psychiatric settings. The second paper is an empirical study exploring how frontline nursing staff both predict and emotionally cope with experiencing violence and aggression in a high-security setting. Paper one was prepared for Aggression and Violent Behavior and paper two for The International Journal of Forensic Mental Health; so, follow their respective author guidelines. Mental health, and forensic mental health nurses have been identified as being at particular risk of experiencing patient perpetrated violence and aggression (PPVA). There is relatively little research investigating how nursing staff predict and cope with more immediate, imminent inpatient violence and aggression, specifically within secure (forensic) settings. Negative outcomes of PPVA are widely accepted and demonstrated within empirical literature, including increased anxiety and stress for staff, fractures to the therapeutic relationship between patients and staff, and difficulties with staff retention and absenteeism for the organization. Due to the extensive negative outcomes associated with PPVA, a wealth of research has focused on developing the area of violence risk assessment. Despite this, there remains limited understanding regarding the utility of existing risk assessment tools for predicting and assessing violence risk over brief time frames (i.e. days to weeks). Therefore, a systematic review was conducted to explore the predictive validity of violence risk assessment tools for imminent, short-term risk in inpatient forensic psychiatric settings. Findings demonstrated that multiple tools had decent predictive validity, however quality scores were impacted by small sample sizes. The Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression- Inpatient Version was the most effective tool with the highest mean quality score. The main limitations were the small number of studies assessing some of the included tools and the level of ambiguity between studies regarding the definition of imminent, short-term violence. Developing a shared understanding of what constitutes short-term risk and improving the number and quality of studies on the largely neglected tools, should therefore be research priorities. How nurses actually recognize and predict inpatient violence and aggression in forensic psychiatric settings, and how they emotionally cope with the aftermath, are poorly explored and understood processes. A social constructivist grounded theory approach was used to analyze the transcripts from 12 interviews with frontline nursing staff from an inpatient high-security setting. A model was constructed integrating nurses' beliefs and assumptions about subtypes of violence, their efforts to use observation skills in order to aid risk prediction, and their resultant emotional experiences following PPVA. Nurses emotional coping seemed to be affected by several factors relating to the culture of the organization and the accessibility of support. Seemingly, knowing the patient helped nurses to better identify underlying needs leading to violent behavior. This understanding helped nurses to implement targeted, needs-led interventions to address these unmet needs, and so reduce recurrent and cyclical violence. Recommendations are made to build upon, and utilize nursing skills in risk prediction and management, and to help better support the emotional impact of experiencing PPVA within forensic psychiatric settings.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the operation and impact of teacher study groups at one school site throughout a school year. The study was exploratory in nature. The research questions focused on the major factors in the school's external and internal context that impacted the study groups, the typical behaviors and interactions of the study group participants, and the impact of the study groups on the participants, the curriculum, and instruction.

No description available.

This project is a case study of writing assessment practices in a particular workplace called "High Hits," a local search engine optimization (SEO) company. The writing tests given to new hires serve a parallel purpose to academic placement exams, in that they are a high-stress, high-risk situation that aims to evaluate writer ability rather than the quality of the completed task (Haswell 242, Elbow 83, Moss 110). However, while academic assessment measures ability with the aim to improve the students' learning, workplace assessment is driven by market forces and is seen in terms of return on investment. This case study used qualitative and quantitative measurements to examine the writing tests of employees; this examination was followed by analyzing a random sampling of subsequent writing tasks of copywriters to determine whether the assessment methods being used by the company to assess the writing tests adequately predicted the writing ability of the copywriters.

Thesis (MPH.) -- University of Limpopo, 2005 / Refer to document

During recent years the stigmatised phenomenon of menstruation has received increased attention, revealing various challenges faced by menstruating women and girls. The prevalence of these have shown to be particularly profound in low- and middle-income countries. Despite an enhanced understanding of how menstruators may be affected by having their periods the focus within the growing body of literature on Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) remains narrow, often focusing solely on the practical aspects of MHM, whilst failing to acknowledge the social dimensions of menstruating. Women who work have been notably overlooked within the existing research, which almost exclusively has targeted schoolgirls. This study aims to widen the understanding of MHM, entailing both social and practical aspects. It also seeks to shed light on the experiences of working women, as a previously neglected group. To investigate how menstruation may affect women within their working environment, a field study with respondent interviews was conducted in Accra, Ghana. The narratives of the respondents, consisting of women working within the informal sector at markets, disclosed challenges that relate both to the social and practical aspects of MHM. The results point to the continued need for including working women in the research on MHM. It also demonstrates how practical and social aspects overlap and thus needs to be linked to gain a full understanding of menstruation and how it affects the menstruator.