A practice-based framework for understanding (informal) play as practice phenomena in organizations

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 846-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Spraggon ◽  
Virginia Bodolica

AbstractPlay as practice literature has long been dominated by studies on the serious play. Focusing on a play that develops in artificial settings and requires managerial intervention, these studies overlook other playful manifestations, which are employee-driven and situated in the natural work habitat. This paper extends current play as practice reflections by adopting the notion of informal play as an alternative to prevailing views that espouses the employee rather than the managerial perspective. Drawing upon insights from play and practice literature, we incorporate five practice-based constructs into the systematic analysis of informal play in the world of work. We advance an integrative framework that highlights the constitutive relationships between the retained constructs and acknowledges different enactments of informal play for generating productive outcomes or cynically resisting authority. A multi-domain agenda for future inquiry that may contribute to a more nuanced understanding of informal play as practice in organizations concludes the paper.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5491
Author(s):  
Melissa Robson-Williams ◽  
Bruce Small ◽  
Roger Robson-Williams ◽  
Nick Kirk

The socio-environmental challenges the world faces are ‘swamps’: situations that are messy, complex, and uncertain. The aim of this paper is to help disciplinary scientists navigate these swamps. To achieve this, the paper evaluates an integrative framework designed for researching complex real-world problems, the Integration and Implementation Science (i2S) framework. As a pilot study, we examine seven inter and transdisciplinary agri-environmental case studies against the concepts presented in the i2S framework, and we hypothesise that considering concepts in the i2S framework during the planning and delivery of agri-environmental research will increase the usefulness of the research for next users. We found that for the types of complex, real-world research done in the case studies, increasing attention to the i2S dimensions correlated with increased usefulness for the end users. We conclude that using the i2S framework could provide handrails for researchers, to help them navigate the swamps when engaging with the complexity of socio-environmental problems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 164 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad S. Boda ◽  
Turaj Faran ◽  
Murray Scown ◽  
Kelly Dorkenoo ◽  
Brian C. Chaffin ◽  
...  

AbstractLoss and damage from climate change, recognized as a unique research and policy domain through the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in 2013, has drawn increasing attention among climate scientists and policy makers. Labelled by some as the “third pillar” of the international climate regime—along with mitigation and adaptation—it has been suggested that loss and damage has the potential to catalyze important synergies with other international agendas, particularly sustainable development. However, the specific approaches to sustainable development that inform loss and damage research and how these approaches influence research outcomes and policy recommendations remain largely unexplored. We offer a systematic analysis of the assumptions of sustainable development that underpins loss and damage scholarship through a comprehensive review of peer-reviewed research on loss and damage. We demonstrate that the use of specific metrics, decision criteria, and policy prescriptions by loss and damage researchers and practitioners implies an unwitting adherence to different underlying theories of sustainable development, which in turn impact how loss and damage is conceptualized and applied. In addition to research and policy implications, our review suggests that assumptions about the aims of sustainable development determine how loss and damage is conceptualized, measured, and governed, and the human development approach currently represents the most advanced perspective on sustainable development and thus loss and damage. This review supports sustainable development as a coherent, comprehensive, and integrative framework for guiding further conceptual and empirical development of loss and damage scholarship.


2021 ◽  
Vol 184 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-448
Author(s):  
Luc Pijnenburg ◽  
Joe-Elie Salem ◽  
Bénédicte Lebrun-Vignes ◽  
Jean Sibilia ◽  
Rose-Marie Javier ◽  
...  

Objective Atrial fibrillation (AF) may be triggered by intravenous bisphosphonates (IVBPs) such as zoledronic acid or pamidronic acid. Our objective was to confirm the association between AF and IVBPs in a real-life large pharmacovigilance database. Design A systematic analysis of VigiBase, the World Health Organization's pharmacovigilance database. Methods Analysis of adverse events reported as ‘atrial fibrillation’ (according to the Medical Dictionary for Drug Regulatory Activities) associated with the use of zoledronic acid or pamidronic acid, in VigiBase, the World Health Organization's global Individual Case Safety Report (ICSR) database. All ICSRs reporting AF associated with zoledronic acid or pamidronic acid were included in a disproportionality analysis determining the lower end of the 95% credibility interval for the information component (IC025), showing a statistical association when >0. Results 530 ICSRs reporting on the association between AF and IVBPs were extracted. Bayesian disproportionality analysis detected a significant association between AF and use of zoledronic acid (IC025 = 1.83) and pamidronic acid (IC025 = 2.16). Further analysis of these ICSRs determined that AF was severe in 85.0% of cases and with a mortality of 17.7%. The risk of severe AF was increased (OR: 2.98 (95% CI: 1.17–7.57), P = 0.02) following zoledronic acid vs pamidronic acid, after adjustment for age and gender. Conclusions This is the first VigiBase pharmacoepidemiological study confirming the association between IVBPs and AF. Most AF were severe, with a high frequency of lethal outcome. The risk of severe AF was increased following zoledronic acid use compared to pamidronic acid, advocating for a cautious use of IVBPs.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Morton

In both the Australian and British debates about media ethics and accountability, a key question about the News of the World phone-hacking scandal was whether or not the law should provide stronger protection for individuals from invasion of their privacy by news organisations. There is no explicit reference to privacy in the terms of reference of either Britain’s Leveson or Australia’s Finkelstein inquiries. It can safely be said, however, that invasions of personal privacy by NOTW journalists were an important element in the political atmospherics which lead to their establishment. This article also asks where that dividing line should be drawn. However, it approaches the issue of privacy from a rather different perspective, drawing on a case study from relatively recent history involving Sharleen Spiteri, an HIV+ sex worker who caused a national scandal when she appeared on television in Australia in 1989 and revealed that she sometimes had unprotected sex with her clients.


2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-111
Author(s):  
Faheem Jehangir Khan

Poverty is one of the most depressing global problems in the world today. Therefore, there is a growing consensus among development organisations that poverty alleviation should be the primary goal of cooperation between the rich and the poor countries. This consensus is due to the awareness that a widening international income gap threatens the well-being of people in the rich countries. In this volume, the author, Philip Kircher, offers a comprehensive study on the evolution, the content, the different national accentuations, and the problem of the international consensus on poverty alleviation, and provides a systematic analysis of today’s donor strategies for development cooperation for poverty reduction. The study focuses specifically on the strategic positions of the World Bank, the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), as well as the positions presented by the governments of these countries in regard to development.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Priya Atwal

This brief chapter introduces key figures from the ruling dynasty of the nineteenth-century Sikh Empire. It discusses how Maharajah Ranjit Singh, its founding father, has long occupied a central, glorified position in history-writing about this former northern Indian kingdom. It argues how such simplified narrativization has hampered our understanding of the roles played by his female relations and children in the running of the Sikh Empire; alongside the impact of wider cultural and political dynamics that shaped its fortunes in the period between the kingdom’s rise and fall, from 1799 to 1849. The chapter outlines core goals of the book: to reach a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the world of the Sikh Empire and its broader connections to South Asian and global royal history, by setting Ranjit Singh and his empire within the wider context of his family; as well as within the regional politics of the new, expanding powers of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century India.


2015 ◽  
pp. 1763-1786
Author(s):  
V. J. Suseela

The rapid increase of e-resources together with several value-based applications has been gradually superseding the traditional means of communication in almost all parts of the world. The transformation enforced government-funded consortia to build ICT environments in academic institutions and created a pressing demand on the libraries for increasing their acquisitions. The bundled (packages) resources available to libraries through several means are raising issues about their usefulness, real benefit as per user's preferences, and also the usage. Issues of the kind invariably require thought, exceptional policy decisions, and implementing standard procedures for the optimum utilization of expensive resources and their management. The chapter discusses the features of e-resources, challenges encountered by the library administrators, the existing and innovative practices in their evaluation and organization, while highlighting the supporting technologies and integrated management tools emerging as per the latest requirements of academic institutions.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2024
Author(s):  
Helen Parish

The pages of early modern natural histories expose the plasticity of the natural world, and the variegated nature of the encounter between human and animal in this period. Descriptions of the flora and fauna reflect this kind of negotiated encounter between the world that is seen, that which is heard about, and that which is constructed from the language of the sacred text of scripture. The natural histories of Greenland that form the basis of this analysis exemplify the complexity of human–animal encounters in this period, and the intersections that existed between natural and unnatural, written authority and personal testimony, and culture, belief, and ethnography in natural histories. They invite a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which animals and people interact in the making of culture, and demonstrate the contribution made by such texts to the study of animal encounters, cultures, and concepts. This article explores the intersection between natural history and the work of Christian mission in the eighteenth century, and the connections between personal encounter, ethnography, history, and oral and written tradition. The analysis demonstrates that European natural histories continued to be anthropocentric in content and tone, the product of what was believed, as much as what was seen.


2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. 844-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eden Sebbag ◽  
Renaud Felten ◽  
Flora Sagez ◽  
Jean Sibilia ◽  
Hervé Devilliers ◽  
...  

BackgroundMusculoskeletal (MSK) diseases are expected to have a growing impact worldwide.ObjectiveTo analyse the worldwide burden of MSK diseases from 2000 to 2015.MethodsDisability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which combines the years of life lost (YLLs) and the years lived with disability (YLDs), were extracted for 183 countries from the WHO Global Health Estimates Database. We analysed the median proportion of DALYS, YLLs and YLDs for MSK diseases (ICD-10: M00–M99) among the 23 WHO categories of diseases. Mixed models were built to assess temporal changes.ResultsWorldwide, the total number of MSK DALYs increased significantly from 80,225,634.6 in 2000 to 107,885,832.6 in 2015 (p < 0.001), with the total number of MSK YLDs increasing from 77,377,709.4 to 103,817,908.4 (p = 0.0008) and MSK diseases being the second cause of YLDs worldwide. YLLs due to MSK diseases increased from 2,847,925.2 to 4,067,924.2 (p = 0.03). In 2015, the median proportion of DALYs attributed to MSK diseases was 6.66% (IQR: 5.30 – 7.88) in Europe versus 4.66% (3.98 – 5.59) in the Americas (p < 0.0001 vs Europe), 4.17% (3.14 – 6.25) in Asia (p < 0.0001), 4.14% (2.65 – 5.57) in Oceania (p = 0.0008) and 1.33% (1.03 – 1.92) in Africa (p < 0.0001). We observed a significant correlation (r = 0.85, p < 0.0001) between the proportion of MSK DALYs and the gross domestic product per capita for the year 2015.ConclusionsThe burden of MSK diseases increased significantly between 2000 and 2015 and is high in Europe. These results are crucial to health professionals and policy makers to implement future health plan adjustments for MSK diseases.


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