Selecting the Right Evidence to Inform Compensation and Benefits Decisions

It is important that managers make well-informed, evidence-based decisions about employee compensation and benefits. As a field, evidence-based management recognizes four primary sources of sound evidence: scientific research, personal expertise, specific organizational data, and stakeholder perceptions. This article walks the reader through each so that compensation and benefits practitioners may make better informed, evidence-based compensation and benefits decisions.

By the Crowd and for the Crowd: Perceived Utility and Willingness to Contribute to Trustworthiness Indicators on Social Media

This study explores how people perceive the potential utility of trustworthiness indicators and how willing they are to consider contributing to them as a way to combat the problem of misinformation and disinformation on social media. Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from the survey (N=376) indicates that a majority of respondents believe trustworthiness indicators would be valuable as they can reduce uncertainty and provide guidance on how to interact with content. However, perceptions of how and when these indicators can provide value vary widely in detail. A majority of respondents are also willing to contribute to trustworthiness indicators on social media to some extent due to their sense of duty and personal expertise in information verification practices but are very wary of the effort or burden it would place on them. Respondents who did not want to use or contribute to trustworthiness indicators attributed it to their lack of faith in the concept of trustworthiness indicators stemming from perceived inherent and unsurmountable biases on social media. Together our findings highlight the complexity of designing, structuring and presenting trustworthiness indicators keeping in mind the diverse set of user attitudes and perceptions.

Family Company Direction Case

Two brothers founded the sport retail shop “Outdoor Champions.” The company strived on their exquisite personal expertise and hands-on business skills. After reaching retirement age, they faced a company direction and succession challenge typical of family businesses. They resolved it in a simple, authentic and unconventional way.

Immunized against science: Narrative community building among vaccine refusing/hesitant parents

Recent outbreaks of measles have centered in specific communities, pointing to the influence of social ties on vaccination practices. This study adds to the conversation on public understanding of vaccine-related science, documenting how the individualist epistemologies highlighted in prior research are externalized and validated in communication with others, focusing on how the narrative strategies used to do so contribute to community building among vaccine refusing and hesitant parents. Through qualitative content analysis of testimonials given to the creators of the anti-vaccination documentary VaxXed, we identify how the common narrative strategies used to question the scientific consensus on vaccines—distrust of doctors, self-diagnosis, building credibility, advocacy, and community building—build a competing consensus based on personal expertise. With this approach, we are better able to understand how participation in online communities strengthens the privileging of individualist epistemologies among vaccine refusing and hesitant parents.

Report from the COVID-19 Virtual Summit, Disaster Experts Speak Out, March 31, 2020

This article captures the webinar narrative on March 31, 2020 of four expert panelists addressing three questions on the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Each panelist was selected for their unique personal expertise, ranging from front-line emergency physicians from multiple countries, an international media personality, former director of the US Strategic National Stockpile, and one of the foremost international experts in disaster medicine and public policy. The forum was moderated by one of the most widely recognized disaster medical experts in the world. The four panelists were asked three questions regarding the current pandemic as follows:1.What do you see as a particular issue of concern during the current pandemic?2.What do you see as a particular strength during the current pandemic?3.If you could change one thing about the way that the pandemic response is occurring, what would you change?

Ethics and Etiquette in Humanitarian Engagement—101

As the travel industry continues to grow, so does the creation and proliferation of voluntourism opportunities offered to individuals who want to impact the lives of populations due to adversities or misfortunes of war, weather, or poverty. A more popular form of tourism for individuals to volunteer professional or personal expertise in a chartable manner is often termed “voluntourism.” Unquestionably, there is a lure to volunteer for a short-term experience in exotic lands with the hopes of improving living conditions. This article aims to identify how an individual can move from being a well-meaning voluntourist to an engaged and dedicated humanitarian by following professional ethical principles and etiquette behavior.

Authoritative discourse in advanced studio lessons

The purpose of this paper is to explore authoritative discourses in advanced studio lessons. Authoritative approaches have been described variously as systematic instruction, direct teaching and teacher-centred, and they appear to be widely accepted in music education, and sought by advanced students. Concerns have been raised in general education theory about the limitations of such approaches, but they have been little researched in the context of studio teaching. This qualitative case study seeks evidence of authority in advanced studio behaviour, through Bakhtin’s account of dialogism and authoritative discourse and theories related to direct instruction. Specifically, an analysis is made of a single studio lesson given by an expert saxophone teacher to an undergraduate student. The terms of inquiry are focused on features of lesson dialogue, including representations of others as emblems of authority, the teacher’s initiation of tasks, student responses and teacher feedback. The study identifies internally consistent patterns of behaviour that provide abundant evidence of teacher-centred approaches to advanced studio tuition, which draw attention to the teacher’s personal expertise, privilege her perspective and convey a sense of her authority. However, the observed studio practices are found to be complex and sophisticated, with features of cognitive scaffolding that are inconsistent with authoritative discourse. It is argued that authoritative approaches are contingent on the subject matter, with their productivity contingent on the balance and match between participants’ expertise, commitment and purpose.

Pilot application of drone observations and pigment marker detection by HPLC in studies of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms in Bulgarian inland waters

This paper describes the first use of aerial observations by a drone as an additional means for choosing sampling points during field studies of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) in selected Bulgarian waterbodies and the use of HPLC analysis of marker pigments for the fast determination of phytoplankton composition and biomass. The selection of waterbodies was based on the authors’ personal expertise and data collected over a 25-year period. In all sites chosen by drone, there were high levels of cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins were present: microcystins (MC-LR, MC-RR, MC-YR in Durankulak Lake and MC-LR and MC-RR in the Sinyata Reka Reservoir), cylindrospermopsin (in the Vaya Lake and in the Mandra Reservoir) and saxitoxins (in Durankulak Lake). The finding of cylindrospermopsin is the first in Bulgaria, the detection of saxitoxins is the first for Durankulak Lake and the microcystins records are the first for Sinyata Reka Reservoir. Considering the high total number of wetlands in Bulgaria, many of which are lowland, small and shallow and therefore vulnerable to CyanoHABs, we recommend further use of drones and HPLC in monitoring, which should speed up detection and reduce sampling efforts while enabling valuable information to be gathered.

The Role of Community Development as a Partner in Health

This chapter introduces the community development sector, an extensive network of financially skilled institutions and members that work collectively to reduce poverty in underserved and under-resourced communities by addressing social and structural determinants of health. Offering innovative and sizeable financial opportunities to invest and improve vulnerable communities, this sector shares a common mission to improve health, generates economic growth, and catalyzes and sustains multi-sector partnerships for population health improvements. The chapter adds some narrative on personal expertise as a funder at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and describes how they have gotten involved with Community Development Financial Institutions.