Evaluation of a hospital medical library class for NICU nurses

A library class was designed and offered to new nurses from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Children's Hospital of Michigan between 2003 and 2005. The class was intended to increase their knowledge of quality health information resources and to assist them with their smooth transition to a new health care organization. The goal of the library training class was to develop the nurses' awareness and knowledge of the library services and online resources on the organization Intranet and to improve their skills in finding reliable information related to patient care, patient parent education, and research. An evaluation study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the library class. Although the findings demonstrated strengths of the library class, they also revealed some areas for improvement. The data gathered resulted in a number of recommendations regarding library instruction design and evaluation.     

Strategic ambiguity in the role development process

Today's turbulent business and social environment often compels organizations to adopt internal programs that will help them cope with complexity. One organizational sector in which this is particularly true is the health care industry, as managed care programs and competitive forces have changed the way hospitals and clinics operate. This study looks at a specific organizational program designed to cope with these industry changes and considers the impact of the program on the nurses involved. Drawing on theory and research on role development and strategic ambiguity, this case analysis looks at a hospital system in which the nursing role of “care coordinator”; was defined in a strategically ambiguous way. After analyzing interviews with 19 care coordinators, conclusions are drawn regarding affective reactions to strategic role ambiguity, behavioral adaptation to strategic role ambiguity, and the importance of conceptualizing role ambiguity as a systemic process.     

Protean places: teams across time and space

Proteanism is about the simultaneous disruption of place and the seeking of a new sense of place. These metaphorical concepts of the fluid yet grounded, the shape shifting and consolidation, and the evolving creation of a sense of place are applied to a discussion of changing organizational forms and communicative processes. These new formings within ever-changing forms are referred to as Protean Places. The protean concepts of sequentiality, simultaneity, and sociality are examined within the context of what we know about changing organizational forms, major communicative processes, and the history of a virtual customer service team organized across time and space. Finally, the metaphor of Protean Places and the case study are utilized to provide direction for future research, theory building, and practical application in organizational communication.     

Protean places: teams across time and space

Proteanism is about the simultaneous disruption of place and the seeking of a new sense of place. These metaphorical concepts of the fluid yet grounded, the shape shifting and consolidation, and the evolving creation of a sense of place are applied to a discussion of changing organizational forms and communicative processes. These new formings within ever-changing forms are referred to as Protean Places. The protean concepts of sequentiality, simultaneity, and sociality are examined within the context of what we know about changing organizational forms, major communicative processes, and the history of a virtual customer service team organized across time and space. Finally, the metaphor of Protean Places and the case study are utilized to provide direction for future research, theory building, and practical application in organizational communication.     

Information-seeking behavior of nursing students and clinical nurses: implications for health sciences librarians.

OBJECTIVES: This research was conducted to provide new insights on clinical nurses' and nursing students' current use of health resources and libraries and deterrents to their retrieval of electronic clinical information, exploring implications from these findings for health sciences librarians. METHODS: Questionnaires, interviews, and observations were used to collect data from twenty-five nursing students and twenty-five clinical nurses. RESULTS: Nursing students and clinical nurses were most likely to rely on colleagues and books for medical information, while other resources they frequently cited included personal digital assistants, electronic journals and books, and drug representatives. Significantly more nursing students than clinical nurses used online databases, including CINAHL and PubMed, to locate health information, and nursing students were more likely than clinical nurses to report performing a database search at least one to five times a week. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Nursing students made more use of all available resources and were better trained than clinical nurses, but both groups lacked database-searching skills. Participants were eager for more patient care information, more database training, and better computer skills; therefore, health sciences librarians have the opportunity to meet the nurses' information needs and improve nurses' clinical information-seeking behavior.     

Expressions of Identifications: The Nature of Talk and Identity Tensions Among Organizational Members in a Struggling Organization

This study investigates how organizational members communicatively enact identification and more specifically how tensions in identification are expressed through members’ talk and behaviors. Using a case-study approach, we explored the experiences of members in an organization in turmoil. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires given at two times, and observations of organizational events were used to understand the identification tensions these individuals negotiated and ways that identification, disidentification, and ambivalent identification were enacted. The study provides empirical evidence of changing identifications and articulates their communicative manifestations. The findings not only support the notion that identification is a complex and dynamic process but also contribute to the identification literature by illustrating specific ways that various forms of identification tensions are enacted and communicated in response to organizational change.     

Cultural Competence and Institutional Contradictions: The Hydropower Referendum

This study explores a corporate campaign to pass a referendum to enable the development of a hydropower plant in a small Swedish community. In the changing institutional context that grounds this case, the organization needed to develop communicative practices that embodied “cultural competence,” a set of processes identified as critical for the legitimacy and success of business organizations in the emerging global/intersectoral environment. Findings suggest that the MNC's communication strategy captured important components of cultural competence. However, institutional contradictions impeded enactment of the strategy and resulted in delegitimizing paradoxical communication. The results indicate that organizational awareness of institutional change and culturally competent strategy are insufficient without special attention to contradictions and resultant communicative paradoxes embodied within a particular institutional context. The importance of a reflective communication approach that engages contradictions and tensions in the surrounding micro–macro institutional contexts is underscored.     

The Volunteer Experience in Temporary Organizations: Volunteer Role Negotiation and Identification in a Pop-Culture Convention

The present study explores the role negotiations and identity of volunteers at a large Southwestern pop-culture convention. A sensemaking perspective was used to understand how volunteers retrospectively interpret their experiences as volunteers in this temporary organization. Data collection included participant observation and interviews of 26 volunteers. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis. Three role negotiation categories were identified: learning roles, negotiating roles, and making sense of roles. Ineffective communication during role learning and negotiation created ambiguity and uncertainty for volunteers. Volunteers identified with the convention primarily through communicative interactions with patrons but also through communicating with staff or by wearing artifacts (e.g., clothing). Results suggest modifying sensemaking theory to recognize individual as well as collective sensemaking.     

Emergent Team Roles in Organizational Meetings: Identifying Communication Patterns via Cluster Analysis

Previous team role taxonomies have largely relied on self-report data, have focused on functional roles and have described individual predispositions or personality traits. Instead, this study takes a communicative approach and proposes that team roles are produced, shaped and sustained in communicative behaviors. To identify team roles communicatively, 59 regular organizational meetings were videotaped and analyzed. Cluster analysis revealed five emergent roles: the solution seeker, the problem analyst, the procedural facilitator, the complainer, and the indifferent. In terms of meeting outcomes, solution seekers were beneficial to idea longevity, whereas complainers were harmful for meeting satisfaction and idea longevity. Future research directions and managerial implications are highlighted.     

图书馆阅读推广人角色研究:类型构成、前置因素和后续影响

阅读推广已经成为图书馆的主流服务,但作为阅读推广主体的阅读推广人在实践中仍然存在角色模糊的问题,这在一定程度上制约了阅读推广人的专业化发展。本文在借鉴公关人员角色和团队成员角色研究的理论视角和实证研究的基础上,采用混合研究方法,试图明确图书馆阅读推广人角色的类型构成,并分析其前置因素和后续影响。研究发现,当前图书馆阅读推广人的角色类型包括组织联络、宣传评估、调研策划、现场主导和内部辅导;这一角色分类体现了从管理者到混合型再到技工的连续体,其中组织联络位于管理者一端,宣传评估位于技工一端,调研策划因其典型的混合型特点位于中间位置,而现场主导和内部辅导这两个角色则可能位于该连续体的其他任何中间位置;除了性别和学科背景之外,职称、所在图书馆的类型、图书馆所处地域和工作性质对图书馆阅读推广人的角色类型都有一定的影响,而这些角色类型又在很大程度上影响他们对角色重要性的认知和对工作满意度的评价。本研究可为图书馆培养阅读推广人提供参考。图1。表6。参考文献47。附录1。     

高校图书馆学科馆员角色定位的再思考

在网络资源迅猛发展的今天,图书馆学科馆员的服务方式面临着巨大的机遇和挑战。图书馆的学科馆员应充分利用网络的新工具和图书馆权威优质的资源为读者提供新的学科服务方式,对学科馆员的角色定位重新进行思考来适应当前的环境变化。     

Communication during job promotions: A case of ongoing assimilation

This interview study examines communication during job promotions as part of the ongoing assimilation process. Results suggest promoted employees experience phases similar to those experienced by newcomers or transferees: a Pre‐Promotion Phase during which they gain experience; a Shifting Phase in which their communication changes as they develop and negotiate their new roles; and an Adjustment Phase when they feel comfortable in their new roles. Results indicate that those promoted must develop new communication relationships and skills despite remaining in the same organizational location. Unlike others making role transitions, those promoted frequently experience testing or hazing, but also appear to have more ability to change and influence their organizations.     

Pediatric nurses’ communication of role expectations to parents of hospitalized children

This study examines the role performance of pediatric nurses and parents in relation to hospitalized children. The ambiguity associated with role behaviors for both groups is considered in terms of rules that might be formally adopted to define nurses’ and parents’ roles. Pediatric nurses were interviewed to identify behaviors appropriately performed by parents for their hospitalized children, and formal rules were drafted. These rules were communicated by nurses in writing, orally, or both and were compared to no formal communication for impact on nurses’ job satisfaction, parents’ satisfaction with nursing care, and both nurses’ and parents’ role ambiguity. The formal rules were found to enhance both nurses’ job satisfaction and parents’ satisfaction with the technical‐professional competence component of nursing care. Moreover, both nurses and parents perceived a reduction in role ambiguity as measured by the information that nurses give and the communication of expectations.     

The Changing Face of Retirement: Exploring Retirees’ Communicative Construction of Tensions through Bridge Employment

As more adults see bridge employment as part of their retirement, it becomes important to understand the communicative construction of this experience. This point is especially true as bridge employment emphasizes tensions between work and leisure and serves as a way to affirm or create occupational identity. To address this topic we conducted qualitative interviews with retirees and completed an abductive analysis of the data. In doing so, we found two overarching themes: bridge employment is an uncertain experience (negative, positive, or both frames), and bridge employment is an opportunity to (re)establish identities (maintenance, change, or both orientations). Not only do these findings make theoretical contributions, but inform practical implications for retirees and organizations, such as updating retention and recruitment efforts and changing age-based organizational structures.     

I’m New…Again: Reconceptualizing the Socialization Process Through Rotational Programs

Communication scholars have studied how organizations socialize new employees in breadth, but we know less about how employees adapt to multiple roles rather than just one position. With the rise of rotational programs, which introduce newcomers to several different jobs within a brief time, socialization theory should be expanded. This study focused on people’s experiences in rotational programs to provide a more accurate picture of this complex socialization process. Longitudinal, qualitative data from employees during their first and second job rotation revealed that such employees’ socialization differs from traditional employees’ experiences. The results suggested a Model of Rotational Socialization that more accurately portrays the socialization process by accounting for the contrast between role and organizational socialization.     

Communicating Knowing Through Communities of Practice: Exploring Internal Communicative Processes and Differences Among CoPs

Knowing is an enacted, communicated process that is difficult to observe, let alone manage, in organizations. Communities of practice (CoPs) offer a productive solution for improving knowledge and knowledge management, but the communicative processes that enact CoPs have not been explored, leaving CoPs as an organizational black box. This research extends CoP theory as a means to determine the presence of a CoP and distinguish between various CoPs, and as a practical means to evaluate the communicative processes of organizational knowledge. CoPs enact the communicative nature of knowing through the elements of mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. Specifically, two groups of volunteers are examined through a combination of participation, observation, and interviews in order to explore CoP theory as a dynamic system for examining and evaluating organizational knowledge.     

An Information Needs Assessment of School Nurses in a Metropolitan County

ABSTRACT

School nurses are an integral though often underserved population within the health care and education professions. To develop an effective outreach program for this group, an academic health sciences library conducted an information needs assessment of public school nurses in Tulsa County, Oklahoma. An online survey collected perceptions regarding information needs and behaviors, and a focus group session further explored the survey results. The assessment revealed that school nurses frequently require specific types of information to perform their responsibilities and face challenges accessing and integrating research into their daily practice. This article presents the implications and results of this assessment.     

Communicating Knowing Through Communities of Practice: Exploring Internal Communicative Processes and Differences Among CoPs

Knowing is an enacted, communicated process that is difficult to observe, let alone manage, in organizations. Communities of practice (CoPs) offer a productive solution for improving knowledge and knowledge management, but the communicative processes that enact CoPs have not been explored, leaving CoPs as an organizational black box. This research extends CoP theory as a means to determine the presence of a CoP and distinguish between various CoPs, and as a practical means to evaluate the communicative processes of organizational knowledge. CoPs enact the communicative nature of knowing through the elements of mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. Specifically, two groups of volunteers are examined through a combination of participation, observation, and interviews in order to explore CoP theory as a dynamic system for examining and evaluating organizational knowledge.     

Religious disengagement and stigma management by African-American young adults

This study examines religious disengagement among African-American young adults through a communicative lens. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we unpack the tensions between organizational and institutional disengagement in participants’ accounts and trace the relational factors shaping their use of specific stigma management strategies. Participants’ religious disengagement unfolded through encounters with new information that contradicted institutional teachings, ongoing struggles with institutional ideologies they found problematic, localized conflicts with specific church experiences, and family circumstances. Stigma management strategies were chosen to keep the peace within their social circles, protect loved ones from being hurt, care for themselves to ensure their best and most authentic self, defend themselves from perceived attacks and social censure, and come to a mutual understanding with confidants about disengagement. Theoretical implications pertaining to religious membership, organizational vis-à-vis institutional disengagement, and stigma management were discussed, along with practical recommendations to empower congregants to grow spiritually.