Current UK public health policy and research identifies potential health risks of physical inactivity and high levels of sitting. This is a particularly pertinent issue for office workers, who spend, on average, over two-thirds of the work day sitting. This thesis reports on the design and evaluation of a multicomponent sit-stand desk intervention, delivered within two not-for-profit office-based organisations in London, England. A mixed method study design was employed. A pilot randomised controlled trial examined the efficacy of the intervention on reducing sitting and increasing standing and physical activity, using wearable monitors to measure outcome variables at baseline, and at four additional timepoints up to 12-months following the onset of the intervention. A process evaluation, including in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation, investigated the processes that influenced the feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of the intervention. Mixed-model ANOVA indicated that the intervention reduced workplace sitting, on average, by 38 minutes, however there was no significant influence on workplace physical activity, or any of the outcome variables across the whole day. The process evaluation revealed that discourses surrounding employee health and organisational effectiveness, and employees' health-focused occupational identities increased the acceptability of sit-stand desk provision, whereas monetary concerns, a centralised organisational structure and incompatibility of the sit-stand desks with the workplace environment negatively influenced implementation feasibility. The sit-stand desk design, expectations and outcomes related to health and productivity, and the organisational culture and interpersonal relationships positively and negatively influenced sit-stand desk experience to differing degrees between participants. Mixed method analyses of outcome and process data illustrated the potential for integrating findings to enhance understanding of 'what works' within behavioural intervention research. Sit-stand desks are not a one-size-fits-all solution to reducing sitting and increasing physical activity, however, they should be available to office-based employees as part of a wider workplace health strategy.

Despite the fact that oil and gas companies invest heavily in training, there are considerable evidences to show that evaluation of the training is seldom undertaken, which leads to failure in determining the effectiveness of training. Kirkpatrick's four levels model (1959) sets out to be the key evaluation criteria to measure the effectiveness of training which has been used for more than 50 years to assess training effectiveness. This study focuses on the evaluation and improvement of Kirkpatrick's four levels model. It argues that Kirkpatrick's four levels model (1959) fails to account for factors such as work environment, individual factors, training characteristics, and their impact on training effectiveness. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the moderating variables of training characteristics and evaluate their subsequent impacts on Kirkpatrick's four training outcomes (reaction, learning, behaviour and results) and on intention to transfer learning. The objective of this study is to identify those training variables (pre-training interventions and activities, trainee readiness, training environment, training methods, trainer performance and behaviour, training content and objectives) and their effect on improving employee performance. In this study, training characteristics are referred to as pre-training interventions and activities, trainee readiness, training environment, training methods, trainer performance and behaviour, training content and objectives. To achieve the aim of this study, quantitative research was adopted. The study was conducted at three separate times (pre-training, immediately after completion and post-training 2-3 months). The hypotheses were tested by selecting a sample of n1 = 406, n2 = 402, n3 = 391 trainees in health and safety training working in national oil and gas companies located in Oman by using convenience sampling. Structural equation model (AMOS) software is used to validate the research model. The study has contributed to the field of training evaluation by developing Kirkpatrick's four levels model through an the examination of the impact of training characteristics on Kirkpatrick's four levels (reaction, learning, behaviour and results) and on intention to transfer learning in the national oil and gas industry in Oman before and after training was completed. The findings indicated that pre-training intervention and practices were positively and significantly related to expectations of training outcomes, and only trainee readiness was found to be positively and significantly related to the expectations of training environment and expectations of trainer performance and behaviour. The result confirmed the positive and significant correlation between reaction and learning, and between behaviour and results. Moreover, the results indicated that trainer performance and behaviour were positively and significantly related to the two training outcomes: reaction and learning; and in addition, training environment had a strong and positive impact on learning. Training content and objectives were positively and significantly related to behaviour. ii Nevertheless, pre-training interventions and activities had an insignificant effect on expectations for the training outcomes. Further, trainee readiness had an insignificant effect on expectations for the training environment and on expectations of trainer performance and behaviour. Learning had an insignificant effect on intention to transfer learning. The training environment and training methods were not found to be positively and significantly related to reaction. Training methods were not found to be positively and significantly related to learning. Further, the training characteristics, such as the training environment, training methods and trainer performance and behaviour had an insignificant impact on intention to transfer learning. The findings did not support that training characteristics had a moderating role on the relationship between training outcomes. This research has empirically investigated the moderating effects of training characteristics on the relationship between reaction, learning, intention to transfer learning, behaviour and results. This study has contributed to the literature empirically by showing that pre-training interventions and activities were the strongest factor contributing to expectations of the training environment, as well as to expectations of trainer performance and behaviour. Trainee readiness was the strongest factor contributing to expectations of the training outcomes. Furthermore, this study has contributed to the extant literature empirically by showing that trainee reaction is related significantly to trainee learning. This study has contributed to the literature by showing that trainer performance and behaviour was the strongest factor contributing to reaction. Furthermore, the training environment (followed by trainer performance and behaviour) was the strongest factor supporting learning. This study has further contributed to the extant literature empirically by showing that behavioural change is related significantly to results. This study also shows that training objectives (followed by training content) was the strongest factor affecting behaviour. From a practical perspective, the findings of this research have significant and practical implications for instructors, training designers, managers and supervisors when creating effective training programmes. In addition, this study contributes a framework for the practice of evaluating training effectiveness.

Transition is a common characteristic of our lives, particularly in a rapidly changing world. In this context, how careers are enacted has become increasingly varied, requiring new conceptual tools to study the transitions of learners and workers. This paper uses theoretical constructs from the literature on boundaryless career discourse as well as learning and on work transitioning in order to explore the learning pathways of environmental engineers. It thus contributes to empirical work that articulates ongoing transitions (beyond the first job) within ‘occupational and organisational life’, as well as to the understanding of learning pathways as educational and occupational progression. The career stories help us to understand how non-linear transitions emerge, the complexity of these transitions, and the need to attend to broader institutional arrangements within and across education and training, the labour market and the workplace. Through its focus on the environmental engineer, it helps us to understand the processes and outcomes of transitions in an important occupation in contemporary professional work in South Africa. Finally, in a field dominated by research on entry into a first job, the paper also provides much-needed insights into occupational transitions into specialised work.

Choi Suet Yung Jasmine. / "Running head: Development of team player behavior inventory." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-63). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.2 / ABSTRACT --- p.5 / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.3 / INTRODUCTION / Prevalence of teamwork --- p.7 / Objective of the present paper --- p.7 / Definition of team --- p.8 / Definition of good team-player --- p.8 / Criterion for measuring team functioning --- p.9 / Literature review on effective teams --- p.10 / Profile of a good team-player --- p.14 / Group assessment as the assessing method --- p.15 / Validation Procedures --- p.16 / METHOD / Participants --- p.17 / Item Development / Literature research --- p.17 / Empirical interviews --- p.18 / Item categorization --- p.19 / The seven dimensions --- p.20 / Rating method and observer training / Behavioral observation scale --- p.21 / Rating scale --- p.22 / Observer training --- p.23 / Procedure of the workshop / Two tasks / Build-a-tower --- p.25 / NASA Moon Survival Task --- p.25 / Personality assessments --- p.26 / Other measurements --- p.30 / Development workshop evaluation --- p.31 / Dependent variables --- p.31 / Control variables --- p.33 / RESULTS / Inter-rater reliability --- p.33 / Construct validity / Construct validity ´ؤ convergent and discriminant validity --- p.34 / Comparisons of observers ratings and participants mutual ratings --- p.35 / Construct validity - personality measurements --- p.37 / Correlational analyses of CPAI and TPBI --- p.40 / Predictive validity / Tower height --- p.42 / Completion time for tower task --- p.43 / Group score in NASA Moon Survival Journey --- p.43 / Completion time for NASA task --- p.44 / Project grade --- p.44 / Individual Criterion / NASA individual score --- p.45 / Process satisfaction --- p.48 / Process satisfaction controlled group acquaintances rating --- p.49 / Development workshop evaluation --- p.51 / GENERAL DISCUSSION / Brief summary --- p.51 / The seven dimensions --- p.51 / Possible uses of TPBI --- p.53 / Further research --- p.54 / REFERENCES --- p.57 / LIST OF TABLES --- p.64 / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.74 / APPENDIX / Appendix I Detail definitions of the 38-items --- p.78 / Appendix II Experimental procedures --- p.86 / Appendix III Standard script for the experiment --- p.87 / Appendix IV Experimental materials for NASA task --- p.92 / Appendix V Self-report measure --- p.94 / Appendix VI Correlation analyses of CPAI and TPBI --- p.103

In October 2012, the United Kingdom adopted nation-wide automatic enrolment into workplace pension schemes. Automatic enrolment on the current scale is a major undertaking but it is also an untested policy and it is important that we understand how individuals are adapting to these radical changes in pension provision. There is currently a lack of research into the dynamic decision-making processes that lie behind some individuals' deviation from workplace pension scheme default settings. This exploratory study investigates the importance of financial planning, social relations, and the role of the employer to default adherence and deviation. The embedded case study comprises qualitative interviews with 25 middle-income employees of a large UK utility company. Participants were selected on the basis of socio-economic similarity but had variable behavioural responses to the default settings of their workplace pension scheme. The study uncovered different motives underpinning individuals' reaction to membership defaults, contribution defaults, and investment fund defaults. Continued membership following automatic enrolment was driven by social pressures. Subsequent to enrolment, individuals tried to achieve a balance between current expenditure and saving for retirement. Property ownership and mortgage debt redemption were prioritised over additional pension scheme investment. The life-stage of the individual influenced how they reacted to the contribution default settings - default adherence appeared to be linked to unsettled personal lives and career insecurity. Motives for increasing contributions were household formation, parental ageing, and relationship breakdown. Saving strategies were influenced by parental accumulation of retirement assets and parental financial literacy. Employer-matching contributions were implicated in participants' willingness to increase pension contributions beyond the minimum default; investment in share option schemes was offered as justification for limiting contributions to the maximum match. Employer endorsement effects, driven by trust in the employer's intentions, were strongly implicated in fund default adherence and in investment diversification strategies: participants pointed to the employer's promotion of the pension scheme and employer-provided financial seminars. Advice from older colleagues was also cited as influential in directing retirement savings behaviour. The research concludes that the employment context is crucial to understanding how middle-income employees react to the default settings in their workplace pension scheme.

Almost 25 years ago, Clawson, Bostrom, and Anson (1993) drew attention to the fact that the ability to facilitate diverse human and technological interactions will be one of the most essential skills for leading and contributing to all levels of the organization in the future (p. 547). Today, there is an increased interest in studying facilitated meetings, wherein facilitation is most commonly understood as the process of helping groups work effectively to accomplish shared outcomes. Nevertheless, little of the existing research has provided empirically-grounded insights into the practice of facilitation. This thesis aims to close this gap by means of providing a detailed analysis of how facilitators go about doing facilitation work in facilitated computer-supported workplace meetings. The data comprise 53 hours of audio- and video-recorded multi-party interactions among facilitator(s) and participants, occurring during facilitated meetings in a business setting. The data were analysed using conversation analysis to examine the talk and embodied conduct of facilitators and meeting participants, as these unfold sequentially. The first analytic chapter reveals the macro-organization of the facilitated meetings, and it contrasts the practice view with the theoretical approach towards the organization of the facilitated meetings. The second analytic chapter investigates the interactional practices used by the facilitators to unpack participation that has already been elicited, captured, and displayed graphically on the public screen via the use of technology. In the third analytic chapter, I explore how the facilitators use computer software to build visual representations of the participants contributions. In the final analytic chapter, I investigate the practices of decision-making in meeting settings with multiple participants. Overall, this thesis makes innovative contributions to our understanding of the practice of facilitated computer-supported workplace meetings. It challenges existing literature on facilitation by finding that facilitators can orchestrate participant input, questioning the facilitator s role as content-neutral , as proposed by leading practitioners in the field of facilitation (e.g., Kaner et al., 2014). At the same time, it shows how the manipulation of computer software is an accountable action and how the decision-making process occasions or constrains the production of alignment between participant(s) and facilitator(s). The thesis also contributes to conversation analytic research on questioning, as well as the action of unpacking participation. I show that the notion that open-ended questions better elicit participation than interrogatives is generally not supported empirically, at least in this context. The thesis contributes to existing literature on multi-party meeting interaction, showing how the departure from the canonical next-speaker selection technique which involves the use of address terms and address positions in an utterance takes place. Further, it enhances our understanding of how computer software constrains and/or affords progressivity in interaction. In this sense, I enhance our understanding of the concept of agency of artefacts. Finally, I contribute to knowledge on group decision-making, an under-researched yet core activity in facilitated and other types of meetings. Here, I contribute to the body of work on the interplay between deontics and epistemics in interaction. This thesis shows the applicability of conversation analysis to the study of facilitation. By analysing talk and embodied conduct, communicative practices for accomplishing successful facilitated meetings are revealed and these should be of core interest to both professional and novice facilitators.

This study is about the Turkish diaspora in Sweden and how whose thoughts about being a Turk interact with how they perceive their work environment. The purpose of the paper is to analyse how four individuals with Turkish background interact with surrounding actors at their workplaces in Sweden and when, where, and how their Turkish identity is performed. Following are the questions asked to fulfil the purpose of the study;  How do high educated Turks in diaspora experience being Turkish in Sweden?  When, where, and how is the Turkish identity performed?  How do high educated Turks in diaspora interact with and perceive their surrounding actors in workplaces in Sweden? The results show that the participants do not have a direct experience of being a Turk. Their experiences are mostly a result of their interaction with others and of others’ perception of their Turkish identity. The results also show that the Turkish identity is often visible in interaction with actors outside the Turkish diaspora. However, the heterogeneous Turkish diaspora shows that perceptions of religion, politics and education can be identified as critical factors at play in interactions within the Turkish diaspora. Participants’ interaction with others and their perceptions of their workplaces are highlydependant on the workplace. Depending on the workplace’s heterogeneity or homogeneity the experiences differ. Some of the participants have developed strategies to eliminate conflicts associated with their Turkish identity.

Background: Physical and verbal aggression against healthcare staff, particularly nurses is an international concern. The emergency department is seen as a high-risk area for workplace aggression. Working as a nurse in such environment is demanding and involves facing a variety of risks and threats. Aim: To highlight nurses' experiences of threatening situations at emergency departments. Method: A literature study based on qualitative articles. Eleven articles were analysed and included. Results: How the nurse experience the threatening situation defines the outcome of the consequences. The nurses' experiences can be divided into three main themes; to constantly be on your guard, unseen and unheard, vulnerable and inadequate. The feeling of fear in their working environment effected the caring of all patients. Conclusion: The experience of threatening situations is individual and can be percieved in different ways. Often a feeling of fear and insecurity emerges. The patientcare is therefore negatively affected and nurses receive little support from the hospital management. / Hotfulla situationer är ett fenomen som ökar inom samhället, vilket också återspeglas inom vården. Akutmottagningar är en plats inom sjukvården som betraktas vara ett högriskområde för hot och våld. Att arbeta som sjuksköterska på en akutmottagning gör att risken för att hamna i hotfulla situationer är stor. Hur stor förekomsten egentligen är kan vara svårdefinierad då alla händelser kanske inte alltid rapporteras. Upplevelsen i samband med hotfulla situationer kan vara individuell och uppfattas på olika sätt. Genom en litteraturbaserad studie belystes området. I studien granskades 11 kvalitativa artiklar vilket genererade i ett resultat bestående av tre teman och sju underteman. De teman som framkom var att ständigt vara på sin vakt, att inte bli sedd och hörd och att känna sig sårbar och otillräcklig. Sjuksköterskorna ansåg att de ständigt fick vara på sin vakt, då de aldrig visste när en hotfull situation kunde uppstå. När hotfulla situationer uppstod fanns det brister i stöd från verksamheten, samtidigt som avvikelserapporteringen inte skedde på ett sätt som gjorde att förekomsten kom till ledningens kännedom. Verksamheten satte in åtgärder i form av överfallslarm och säkerhetsvakter, istället för att ordna förebyggande säkerhetsåtgärder. Sjuksköterskorna ansåg att det var en brist på känslomässigt stöd från ledningen, vilket ledde till att de kände rädsla och att omvårdnaden brast när de inte ville vårda hotfulla patienter. Sjuksköterskorna upplevde att de hade det svårt att se hur de skulle kunna hantera hotfulla situationer i framtiden, de hade svårigheter att hantera sina känslor och deras privatliv påverkades negativt.

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Thesis advisor: Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes / The majority of family caregivers of older adults are also working for pay, and many experience work-family role conflict in managing both work and caregiving responsibilities. Work-family role conflict is associated with poorer psychological and physical health, which interferes with their ability to provide optimal care. Informed by role theory, this dissertation uses a randomized national sample of caregivers of older adults (N=465) to address the relationships between workplace characteristics, workplace flexibility, work-family role conflict, and caregiver stress. While much research has explored the work-family interface, few studies have investigated the workplace characteristics and work-family role conflict exclusively among caregivers of older adults. Additionally, the few studies exploring the relationship between workplace flexibility and stress among caregivers of older adults have yielded inconsistent findings. Results indicate that workplace characteristics associated with work-family role conflict among caregivers of older adults include supervisor support, work overload, work hours, and perceptions of a family-supportive work environment. A significant interaction effect between caregiving frequency (weekly vs. intermittent) indicates that while workplace flexibility is associated with decreased work-family conflict among those providing care intermittently, this association is not found for those providing care on a regular, weekly basis. A second set of analyses limited to regular, weekly caregivers (N=211) finds that work-family role conflict mediates the relationship between workplace flexibility and caregiver stress. This suggests that workplace flexibility may only benefit caregivers when work-family conflict is mitigated or reduced. Workplace flexibility is not associated with stress among caregivers in fair or poor health; caregivers struggling with their own health issues may need additional supports to manage work and family demands. These findings can inform the efforts of policymakers and practitioners working to promote the well-being of family caregivers of older adults. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.