"That's Something for Children"

Robotic systems are increasingly seen as possible technical aids against the background of demographic change and the associated pressures on care systems, with increasing numbers of care recipients and a decreasing number of trained caregivers. In human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work, different design paradigms are currently being pursued to explore which features and appearances are favorable for meaningful interactions of humans with robotic systems. One such approach, labeled as "otherware", proposes to conceptualize robots beyond a naive anthropomorphism or zoomorphism, rather developing the idea of a figure that goes beyond the dichotomy between "being alive" and "being a technical artefact". We present an ethnographic study on the perceptions, attitudes, and practices of care attendants and nursing-home residents in their experimenting with off-the-shelf robotic cats and dogs. The three-week study shows specific appropriation practices of the robotic pets, and how the care attendants - partly together with the residents - define their experiences of the robotic pets, i.e., in which situations the robotic pets are considered either as living beings or as technology toys. The study provides practice-based insights into how possible uses of robotic pets could be meaningfully integrated into care practices, but also which ethical reflections were discussed during their use. Finally, this ethnographic study functioned as a collaborative learning process between researchers, care attendants, and residents, and thus also points out possible aspects that arose with regard to future learning spaces of professional and organizational development for dealing with innovative technologies in residential care contexts.

Burnout and Obesity in Middle and Upper Management in the Manufacturing Industry of Baja California

Globally, companies are increasingly considering the importance of mental health in workers and their relationship with productivity, which has led to increased research on work stress, which showed that there is a relationship between stress related to work and health disorders, both physical and mental. This chapter addresses the analysis of two of the main consequences that a worker can develop when having work stress: burnout syndrome, measured by the Maslach burnout inventory general survey (MBI-GS) and obesity, through the body mass index (BMI). The study was carried out in 118 people who occupy middle and upper management of the manufacturing industry of Baja California, having as objective to find the relationship that exists between the two variables, using ordinal logistic regression, as well as to characterize the sample using mean difference and hypothesis testing. From this perspective, this chapter can serve as a guide to study the behavior of variables and propose organizational development strategies aimed at reducing and preventing these problems.

Engaging Employees With Positivity

This chapter attempts to find the role of appreciative inquiry in employee engagement and organizational transformation. An attempt has been made to explain the impact of appreciative inquiry on employee engagement, which eventually helps in organizational transformation with minimal hindrances. Employee engagement has turned into an undeniably conspicuous issue in the region of organizational development (OD) likely because of the developing collection of research encompassing the positive connection between employee engagement and organizational development, which also comprises profit margin. Appreciative inquiry is a vision-based approach of open dialogue that is designed to help organizations and their partners create a shared vision for the future and a mission to operate in the present. The main thrust area of appreciative inquiry is to find out what works best for the organization. Instead of focusing on negativity, appreciative inquiry focuses on the positive aspect of the organization.

Civic Engagement and Strategic Leadership for Organizational Development

Community-based organizations (CBOs) are non-profit organizations established voluntarily by members in order to deliver specified services effectively. However, CBO development in Tanzania reported performing unsatisfactorily. This chapter highlights causal key problems and controversial and established solutions that can improve CBO development. Among the problems are financial dependency, weak managerial skills, low ICT coverage, gender inequality, poverty, and poor infrastructure. But the controversial issues are ineffective consultation between key actors and gender dominated by males. To achieve CBO development, the chapter notes the use of civic engagement, especially sensitization, awareness creation while strategic leadership focus on voluntary, sacrificial and compromising leaderships. The chapter concludes that CBO development in Tanzania is best to apply components of civic engagement and strategic leadership while the recommendation is to combine and integrate both civic engagement and strategic leadership with their essential sub-components.

Sustainable Organizational development

This study is aimed to analyze the various features and elements related to strategic organizational sustainability. The analysis departs from the assumption that traditional organizations must face a lot of challenges posed by the new global economy context confronting contradictory patterns of globalization and des-globalization processes. To create the new conditions for the organizations not only to survive but to succeed, it is proposed a new model based on designing and implementing strategic organizational sustainability, abandoning the narrow focus on economic growth and profits to embrace the social inclusion and equity as well as the environmental sustainability issues. Keywords: Economic growth, Organizational sustainability, organizations, social inclusion, strategy, sustainability.

The Prevention of Work-Related Risks

The goal of this chapter is to present how security and safety in the workplace, humanistic management, and humanistic psychology have become a fundamental pillar for the fulfillment of business objectives and the intervention on social and environmental issues, all the while recognizing human talent as the main axis for organizational development. For this purpose, the authors rely on two main axes: the first, the prevention of occupational hazards abiding by the guidelines established by different international organisms, including the implementation of governmental policies for the management of occupational safety and health in Latin America and mainly in Colombia; the second, the point of view of business administration, starting with their evolutionary process and leading to the new tendencies in administration such as B companies and businesses with purpose, all of which focus on an economy where success is measures by the wellbeing of people, societies, and nature.

Analysis of internal control and its impact on the organizational development of the decentralized autonomous government of the Uzhcurrumi parish

This research aims to determine the impact of internal organizational control in the Uzhcurrumi Parish GAD through the investigation of policies and norms that regulate the fulfillment of institutional objectives. For an institution to be competitive and successful in its administration requires transparency, good honorability, good conduct, organization and integrity in the execution of the management system, in addition to constant monitoring of financial, economic and administrative activities. For this reason, the management of internal control is essential for an adequate organizational development, since it guarantees a correct administration and the organizational development of the institution. The methodology applied is the qualitative-descriptive, which is carried out by searching for information that supports the topic addressed, thus allowing the verification of the effectiveness of the control system and its importance in public institutions. Concluding that public entities must have an internal control system as a management tool within the institution.

Isomorphism and organizational performance: evidence from quality management in higher education

Purpose Quality management has become an integral part of management reforms in public sector organizations. Drawing on a new institutionalist perspective, this study aims to investigate the relation of management reforms and organizational performance in the context of higher education. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyse the interaction between isomorphic conformity in quality management adoption, organizational learning and quality improvement and, in so doing, address the central theoretical question of what effects isomorphic conformity has on organizational performance. Empirically, the study draws on survey data from quality managers at public higher education institutions in Germany. Methodically, it applies confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings The results suggest that mimetic isomorphism is surprisingly compatible with processes of organizational learning, and thus, does not inevitably compromise organizational development. Originality/value By presenting these findings, the authors contribute to the controversial theoretical debate concerning the effects of isomorphism and to the ongoing discussion regarding the organizational impact of quality management in higher education.