Ergonomics is a human-centered discipline. This is particularly true for healthcare systems and patient safety where the human's well-being will undergo critical impacts if solutions are not properly designed and practiced. Effective handling of these concerns involves knowledge from healthcare work (e.g., shift work, patient handling, and medical teamwork), to safety research (resilience, medical process control, intensive care, surgery/anesthesiology, and patient involvement), and to more general issues such as community participation in public affairs. To pursue the mission, the Healthcare System Ergonomics and Patient Safety (HEPS) commenced its first conference in Florence, Italy in 2005. Following the founding success, HEPS became an IEA-sponsored event and the series subsequently took place in Strasbourg, France in 2008, and in Oviedo, Spain in 2011. The three remarkable conferences have forged a world-class platform for researchers and practitioners from around the globe to exchange and disseminate the knowledge in HEPS. This volume contains the selected papers presented at the Fourth International conference on HEPS, held from June 23 to 26, 2014 in Taiwan. The Fourth HEPS, organized by the Ergonomics Society of Taiwan (EST) and endorsed by the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), aims to consolidate the knowledge bridged between ergonomics research and healthcare practices for the safety and welfare of patients. Researchers, professionals, and practitioners in ergonomics and healthcare around the world have shared their wisdom, experience, insights, and visions on past, current and future efforts in healthcare systems ergonomics and patient safety. The papers contributing to this book address the latest research, applications and practices in accordance with the theme of the conference, "Bridging Research and Good Practices towards Patients Welfare," and cover the following areas: "Aging and Healthcare System", "Healthcare, Mobil Application and Usability", "Safety, Hazards and MSDs", "Simulation, Modeling and Decision Making", "Environment and System Design", and "Human Factors and Product Design".

This book, first published in 1986, focuses on the activity of the Soviet Union in Southeast Asia and the effects of Soviet policy on the region since 1969. In particular, Leszek Busynski examines the rivalry between the Soviet Union and China, Soviet presence in Vietnam, and the responsive efforts of surrounding regions towards collective security. U.S. policy in the region is a key consideration, particularly in terms of American attempts to both placate China and encourage Japan to assist in the defence of the region. With a concluding assessment of regional trends and possible outcomes, this is an important and valuable work for students and scholars with an interest in the history and politics of international diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

Most frauds perpetrated by senior managers take longer to uncover than those by other occupational groups and they steal more. This is a serious problem world-wide. Currently the Red Flag approach is used by auditors to prevent and uncover fraud and in some countries it is statutory. However, the existing approach does not catch managerial fraudsters quickly or very often. In Managerial Fraud, Dr Terry Sheridan reports the findings of her study of fraudulent executives. Her work illuminates the particular methods fraudsters employ to appear more authentic than the average person and reveals two types of executive fraudster with very different behaviours. All this helps to explain why the current Red Flag approach fails to identify potential fraudsters and instead tends to focus on Red Flag executives who are negative characters, but non-fraudulent and accounts for the problem auditors face, who see Red Flag indicators and are obliged to conduct further audits, yet find nothing of substance. During the author's research, the innocent colleagues who worked closely with fraudulent managers have for the first time been interviewed about their experiences and had their impressions analysed, leading to the development of an innovative typology of fraudulent executives based on Impression Management Theory. Better understanding of what Dr Sheridan has uncovered might result in organisations being able to reduce their exposure to fraud perpetrated by their own senior management.

In The Laws of the Knowledge Workplace, Dr Jemielniak has collected research-based chapters providing deep, interdisciplinary insight into knowledge professions, addressing issues of professional identity, emotion, power and authority, trust and indoctrination, and management behaviour. This leads to an examination of issues related to time and work scheduling and its bearing on play, family, symbolic sacrifices, and employee burn-out. In particular, it delves into the identity shifts between knowledge workers and managers, nepotism and turnover intentions among knowledge workers, the implementation of engineering projects, coordination problems in offshore production systems, leadership in virtual teams, decision support systems; taking into account the moral aspects of consequences, netnography as a tool for studying knowledge work, and innovative networks in the aviation industry. The accounts and studies in this book come from management, organization studies, sociology, and anthropology of work perspectives and are fully international in scope. They highlight the scale of the serious changes in occupational roles and to the meaning of work that is taking place in knowledge-intensive environments and give a pointer to what might constitute good and bad management practice in knowledge-intensive companies.

This volume presents a scientific and practical trend in lifelong education, which focuses on "human activity." This trend is particularly apparent in French speaking countries where a seminal tradition of ergonomics, born in the middle of the 20th century, produced studies about work and workers activity in various contexts. Results demonstrate that working activity, firstly, is always complex, creative and enigmatic despite the efforts done by the designers to create prescribing working environments and by managers to control production procedures, and secondly, cannot be understood without specific field studies about real work. This approach influenced adult educational researchers and trainers to develop programs in order to help trainers to better know human activity and its transformations in various social practices (and not only in working context). It also helps them to design learning environments accompanying human activity transformations at various time scales.

The chapters in this volume present a range of original studies on human activity in various social practices, such as tourism, theatre prop-makers in opera, manual job environments, management in a small company, high level athletes illegal practices, school teaching and finally during teachers retirement ceremonies. These studies of the relationships between social practices and human activity and its transformations, give empirical and conceptual bases for designing programs aimed at emphasizing and accompanying specific individual and collective learning, and human development in a lifelong perspective.

This book was published as a special issue of "International Journal of Lifelong Education.""

Understanding the conditions under which variability in performance may arise, and the processes related to its emergence, gives us insight into the development of techniques for improving the quality of performance. Variability in Human Performance details the scientific and the practical implications of human performance variability by providing a broad perspective on how and why such variability occurs across a number of disciplinary domains. The text takes an approach that rests upon the idea of context, or design, specificity in performance, namely that variability in performance is closely referenced to design factors in the environment in which performance is occurring. An exploration of the link between variability and related processes, the book introduces a comprehensive framework for understanding human performance variability, presented in terms of how human control of behavior is closely tied to design factors in the performance environment. The authors introduce empirical evidence, as well as practical examples and application areas, in support of this framework. The book begins with coverage of neurobiological and biomechanical basis of movement variability, then examines rich and extensive empirical evidence available for context specificity in cognitive performance and learning, as a basis for cognitive performance variability. The book then reviews the evidence for context specificity in: Student learning Displaced feedback conditions Human error behavior Affective performance Social and team performance The authors also explore work performance as influenced by complex sociotechnical systems and as a basis for performance variability, applying control systems concepts to an interpretation of the nature and basis of performance variability in all of these domains. They conclude by taking an evolutionary perspective on the origins and behavioral significance of human performance variability. The book then provides strategies on how individuals, groups, and organizations can significantly reduce variability in human performance that often leads to systems failures.

In Conceptions of Professionalism, Ken Bruce and Abdullahi Ahmed present the results of research into understanding what professionalism means to individuals who are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERa"c professionals and how they conceive of acting professionally. Financial planning is establishing itself as a relatively new, emerging profession and an understanding of how its members experience professionalism provides insights that will help those responsible across the international financial planning community to establish relevant, accurate and meaningful professional standards for financial planners. The authors employ the relatively new research methodology of phenomenography, which enables them to describe the qualitatively different ways in which people understand or experience a phenomenon. This particularly lends itself to the study of a concept such as professionalism. This study gives voice to the financial planners represented in the research and will inform standard setting bodies seeking to understand professionalism through the eyes of the professionals themselves. What the research reveals about the concept of professionalism itself will be of value to those whose interests lie beyond the world of financial planning, and the application of the methodology used in the study will inform researchers contemplating phenomenographical studies elsewhere.

Patient Safety: Perspectives on Evidence, Information and Knowledge Transfer provides background on the patient safety movement, systems safety, human error and other key philosophies that support change and innovation in the reduction of medical error. The book draws from the multidisciplinary areas within the acute care environment to provide models that support proactive changes in how team-based improvement efforts can affect the knowledge provision necessary to support safe care delivery. The publication discusses how the tenets of safety (described in the beginning of the book) have been or can be actively applied in the field. Tools and case studies, in addition to a brief discussion of core resources, are included.The key objectives of the book: * To inform healthcare leadership, clinical directors, risk managers and information professionals of the intersection between key patient safety philosophies and information, evidence and knowledge delivery mechanisms that support medical error reduction.* To raise awareness of the potential for systemic and individual information and knowledge sharing failures that are latent in the health care delivery process. * To explore the application of systemic improvement processes and tools to identify opportunities to reduce risk and potential for failure.* To provide evidence-based recommendations for health care information professionals and, with the knowledge they need to position themselves as partners with healthcare providers and leadership* To illustrate how expertise from information and knowledge professionals folds into elements and language of the safety sciences* To submit innovative activities and measures that illustrate a tangible contribution to patient safety from the knowledge transfer field

Based on the formal concept of "knowledge structures" originally proposed by Jean-Claude Falmagne and Jean-Paul Doignon, this book contains descriptions of methodological developments and experimental investigations as well as applications for various knowledge domains. The authors address three main topics: * theoretical issues and extensions of Doignon & Falmagne's theory of knowledge structures; * empirical validations of specific problem types and knowledge domains, such as sentence comprehension, problem solving in chess, inductive reasoning, elementary mathematical reasoning, and others; and * application of knowledge structures in various contexts, including knowledge assessment, intelligent tutoring systems, and motor learning. Unlike most other approaches in the literature in cognitive psychology, this book provides both a rigorous mathematical formulation of knowledge-related psychological concepts and its empirical validation by experimental data.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, Heads or Tails answers the question: what changes should financial institutions undergo to ensure reliable protection against extreme risks? Recent massive failures among large and respected financial institutions, clearly demonstrate that contemporary risk management and regulation fail to provide adequate responses to the challenges set by extreme risks. Dr Evgueni Ivantsov combines analysis of the nature of extreme risk (so-called tail risk), risk management practices and practical solutions to build a robust, enterprise-wide, extreme risk management framework which includes three lines of defence, ranging from strategic to tactical, designed to help address the tail risk during different stages of its development. The author also discusses: c Why modern 'sophisticated' risk management frameworks, strong capitalisation and liquidity do not prevent banks from failure in the face of systemic crisis; c What it means to build an effective defence against systemic and catastrophic losses; c What risk architecture should look like to ensure that extreme risk events are identified early and efficiently mitigated; c How modern management practices, regulation and risk and business culture need to change to guarantee sustainability. While the context of Dr Ivantsov's writing is financial services, the book contains an important message for specialists from any industries exposed to the extreme risks (oil/gas, energy, mining, chemical productions, transportation, etc.). Until the shortcomings of current risk management and regulation are resolved, financial services and other at risk industries will repeat the painful mistakes of the past, over and over again.

In It Should Never Happen Again, Dr Mike Lauder questions the value of public inquiries. Every day, we hear about another inquiry being set up, or why the last one failed to deliver the hoped for outcomes. A great deal of time and taxpayers' money is spent on inquiries and even more on implementing their recommendations, but the author suggests that those conducting inquiries might be considered (by their own test) criminally negligent in the way they do so and that it is no surprise that they do not lead to the learning they should. The focus of Mike Lauder's research is the gaps between what is known, what knowledge is used by practitioners and those who judge them. He contends that the difference between the judicial perspective and that of practitioners who are judged by the inquiry process creates barriers that impede others from learning. Crucially, inquiry outcomes do not assist the leadership of organisations to improve risk governance. It Should Never Happen Again is based on research into high profile public inquiries and presidential commissions in the UK, the USA, Continental Europe, and elsewhere. Embracing issues ranging from terrorist attacks to pollution, fire and air disasters; criminal cases; banking and bribery scandals; and the state of public services, Mike Lauder contrasts the judicial perspective of those who inquire, the academic perspective of those who know and the practical perspective of those who are required to act, and offers new models for understanding risk and its governance.

This book is the third in a three-volume set covering all aspects of adaptive thermal comfort. It provides a simple, step by step method for designing comfortable low energy buildings in any climate. Building on the academic principles, practices and fundamental research described in the first two volumes this book is written for building designers, owners, occupants, planners, architectural engineers, self-builders, renovators and educated laymen. It has been written to demystify the art and science of the performance and impacts of buildings and to explain how to, in practice, achieve adaptable, well-behaved and well-liked buildings.

This second edition of Human Factors Methods: A Practical Guide for Engineering and Design now presents 107 design and evaluation methods as well as numerous refinements to those that featured in the original. The book has been carefully designed to act as an ergonomics methods manual, aiding both students and practitioners. The eleven sections represent the different categories of ergonomics methods and techniques that can be used in the evaluation and design process. Offering a 'how-to' text on a substantial range of ergonomics methods that can be used in the design and evaluation of products and systems, it is a comprehensive point of reference for all these methods. An overview of the methods is presented in chapter one, with a methods matrix showing which can be used in conjunction. The following chapters detail the methods showing how to apply them in practice. Flowcharts, procedures and examples cover the requirements of a diverse audience and varied applications of the methods. The final chapter, a new addition, illustrates the EAST method, which integrates several well-known methods into a teamwork analysis approach.

Corporate Risk and Governance addresses corporate risk management and governance requirements affecting large organizations in all industry sectors and countries. The book strongly advocates implementation of Corporate Governance Codes, ISO 31000 Risk Management, ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management and PAS 200 Crisis Management but warns against treating any standard or model slavishly, as if it can offer easy salvation or a simple route to a risk nirvana. Alan Waring challenges many hallowed beliefs, attitudes and practices that continue to hamper the delivery of effective Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and thereby good governance. Those boardroom and corporate cultures that are complacent about risk exposures and risk management or, worse, encourage 'chancers' and a 'what can we get away with' attitude, are examined in depth along with what is required to embed a culture of responsible risk-taking. Some 75 cases from around the world provide graphic examples and lessons to be learned. Although the text includes some summary practical guidance, this book is designed primarily as a thinking aid rather than a risk management cookbook. It is something to encourage better informed risk-decision making; a more informed view of enterprise risk exposures, control and mitigation issues and an awareness of boardroom and corporate culture issues and their impact on effective ERM.

Originally published in 1979, this book represents an effort to bring together the two disciplines at the core of psycholinguistics, psychology and linguistics. It discusses a broad variety of theoretical approaches to psycholinguistics as well as covering a wide range of topics. At the time the book had four goals: to discuss many of the important contemporary issues in psycholinguistics; to explore the different views on major theoretical controversies; to provide an analysis of background literature as a framework in which to evaluate the issues and controversies; and to describe interesting high-quality research currently being done by the authors and some of their colleagues. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context, with many of the chapters still relevant in psycholinguistic research today.

Creativity and Innovation in Organizational Teams stemmed from a conference held at the Kellogg School of Management in June 2003 covering creativity and innovation in groups and organizations. Each chapter of the book is written by an expert and covers original theory about creative processes in organizations. The organization of the text reflects a longstanding notion that creativity in the world of work is a joint outcome of three interdependent forces--individual thinking, group processes, and organizational environment. Part I explores basic cognitive mechanisms that underlie creative thinking, and includes chapters that discuss cognitive foundations of creativity, a cognitive network model of creativity that explains how and why creative solutions form in the human mind, and imports a ground-breaking concept of "creativity templates" to the study of creative idea generation in negotiation context. The second part is devoted to understanding how groups and teams in organizational settings produce creative ideas and implement innovations. Finally, Part III contains three chapters that discuss the role of social, organizational context in which creative endeavors take place. The book has a strong international mix of scholarship and includes clear business implications based on scientific research. It weds the disciplines of psychology, cognition, and business theory into one text.

This book focuses on the activity of the Soviet Union in Southeast Asia and the effects of Soviet policy on the region from 1969 to the time of first publication in 1986. In particular, Leszek Buszynski examines the rivalry between the Soviet Union and China, Soviet presence in Vietnam, and the responsive efforts of surrounding regions towards collective security. U.S. policy in the region is a key consideration, particularly in terms of American attempts to placate China and encourage Japan to assist in the defence of the region. With a concluding assessment of regional trends and possible outcomes, this is an important and valuable work for students and scholars with an interest in the history and politics of international diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

The current business environment requires that individuals, teams, and organizations are equipped to cope with an unpredictable marketplace and increasing competition. Organizations are forced to be kinetic, organic, and without boundaries if they are to remain successful. Given these environmental and marketplace demands, scholars must rethink the applicability of existing organizational theories and frameworks. In March 2001, a conference was held with the aim of developing and articulating this new model of organizations. Scholars contributed their expertise in areas, such as leadership, human resource management, negotiation and conflict, teams, entrepreneurship, organizational change, power and influence, and diversity. The contributors focused on their own area of expertise and considered how existing theories must be altered to fit a more agile, organizational form. Theoretical and empirical questions were raised, testable hypotheses were developed, and emerging themes were uncovered. The end result of the conference is this volume. It brings together the reflections of a diverse collection of organizational theorists and researchers on the implications of this new business model within their own areas of expertise. The book's goal is to inspire organizational scholars to develop a new theory and produce sound managerial advice for how to build and maintain a successful organization in a dynamic workplace. The chapters include a review of research literature with the highlights and citations that everybody working in a field must know, followed by how the research agenda is affected by the increasingly dynamic marketplace.

The rail human factors/ergonomics community has grown quickly and extensively, and there is much increased recognition of the vital importance of ergonomics/human factors by rail infrastructure owners, rail operating companies, system developers, regulators and national and trans-national government. This book, the fourth on rail human factors, is drawn from papers presented at the London 4th International Conference on Rail Human Factors. The contributions cover the range of human and organisational issues on the railway, from driving to signalling and control to maintenance and engineering work, to passengers and security issues such as trespass, and address improvements in safety, reliability, use of capacity, efficiency and quality. The book represents the best of recent work in rail human factors, and starts to define the framework for the next few years. As well as the human factors areas listed above, the conference and thus the book are notable for sessions on simulation in rail human factors and on human factors in metro design and operation. The book also reflects the increased attention being paid to, and developments in, understanding all aspects of rail stakeholders' behaviour, and also the contribution of ergonomics/human factors to innovative network control systems which will enhance reliability, safety and use of capacity. The book will be of interest to a number of groups: those working in the rail sector from a human factors point of view; the larger rail industry and related bodies generally; and in terms of transferrable knowledge to ergonomists and human factors specialists working in other industries.

It is more possible than ever to influence and shape our working environments, our experience of work and each other. Business leaders who set the conditions and create engaging, meaningful work through organisational design and use of the knowledge and creative potential of their workforces are engaging in smart working. In Smart Working: Creating the Next Wave, Anne Marie McEwan explains how smart working is more than just flexible and mobile working. It is about flexibility and autonomy - how people work, not just where and when. She argues that systems, working environments and governance are more likely to lead to effective performance if they maximise self-determination and choice. She describes how collaborative communication technologies create possibilities for stimulating and harnessing collective intelligence, within and beyond organisational boundaries. In short, smart working is an outcome of designing organisational systems that are good both for business and people. McEwan warns that the tendency to talk about new management paradigms risks overlooking insights derived from years of academic research, and particularly from lessons learned from process innovation methodology. This rigorously researched but intensely practical book examines current workplace trends relating to people, technology, place and space. It reviews what we already know about effective management and high performance work methods and shows how those insights can be used to advantage in contemporary workscapes. It will help those with responsibilities for the strategic direction of their organizations. Learning and development and HR professionals will understand how to interpret these insights for their own business.

Surveys conducted within organizations have become an important aspect of human resource management and organizational functioning. This new book by Frank Smith--a leader in this field--offers a unique perspective on organizational surveys. It emphasizes the experience of developing, carrying out, and interpreting surveys on a wider variety of organizational issues in a very diverse set of organizations. The book is intended to acquaint managers, students, and potential survey users with a broad understanding of the kind of information surveys can provide and how they have been applied in a wide variety of organizational settings. Through many examples, the book emphasizes the close and necessary link between the continual development of a survey program and the parallel body of research in organizational behavior. This book will be of interest to survey practitioners, students, and instructors in human resource management and organizational behavior, and anyone looking for first-hand examples or survey approaches and the links to research and psychometric theory.

The rail human factors/ergonomics community has grown quickly and extensively, and there is much increased recognition of the vital importance of ergonomics/human factors by rail infrastructure owners, rail operating companies, system developers, regulators and national and trans-national government. This book, the third on rail human factors, is drawn from papers presented at the Lille 3rd International Conference on Rail Human Factors. The contributions cover the range of human and organisational issues on the railway, from driving to signalling and control to maintenance and engineering work, to passengers and security issues such as trespass, and address improvements in safety, reliability, use of capacity, efficiency and quality.
The book represents the best of recent work in rail human factors, and starts to define the framework for the next few years. As well as the human factors areas listed above, the conference and thus the book are notable for sessions on simulation in rail human factors and on human factors in metro design and operation. The book also reflects the increased attention being paid to, and developments in, understanding all aspects of rail stakeholders behaviour, and also the contribution of ergonomics/human factors to innovative network control systems which will enhance reliability, safety and use of capacity.
The book will be of interest to a number of groups: those working in the rail sector from a human factors point of view; the larger rail industry and related bodies generally; and in terms of transferrable knowledge to ergonomists and human factors specialists working in other industries."

The National Science Foundation funded the first Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology initiative to look at systems that support collaborations in business and elsewhere. This book explores the global revolution in human interconnectedness. It will discuss the various collaborative workgroups and their use in technology. The initiative focuses on processes of coordination and cooperation among autonomous units in human systems, in computer and communication systems, and in hybrid organizations of both systems. This initiative is motivated by three scientific issues which have been the focus of separate research efforts, but which may benefit from collaborative research. The first is the effort to discover the principles underlying how people collaborate and coordinate work efficiently and productively in environments characterized by a high degree of decentralized computation and decision making. The second is to gain a better fundamental understanding of the structure and outputs of organizations, industries, and markets which incorporate sophisticated, decentralized information and communications technology as an important component of their operations. The third is to understand problems of coordination in decentralized or open computer systems.

Reconstructing Medical Practice examines how doctors see health care and their place in it, why they remain in medicine and why they are limited in their ability to lead change in the current system. Doctors are beset by doubts and feel rejected by systems where they should be leaders - some see their role as 'flog[ging] a derelict system to get the last breath of workability out ... for their patients'. Others simply turn away. Rigorous studies carried out at large public teaching hospitals in Australia found that doctors were reluctant to increase safety in the wider health system, despite making every effort for their 'own' patients. Doctors' self-esteem was found to be delicate due to the uncertain nature of their work; colleagues provide the support doctors need to deliver good care. However, these essential relationships and their cherished connections with patients have disadvantages: reducing doctors' ability to admit to error. On top of this, senior doctors predict a future bereft of professional values - one where medicine is 'just a job'. While the loss of professional identity introduces new risks for patients and doctors, the repercussions of the more self-serving attitudes of younger doctors are unknown. Reconstructing Medical Practice concludes that regulation, despite its recent proliferation, is a clumsy and limited approach to ensuring good care. It presents original and much-needed ideas for ways to rebuild the critical relationship between doctors and the system. By better valuing communicative interactions and workplace relationships, safe and satisfying medical practice can be reconstructed.

For the past decade, the rapid development of the ergonomics disciplines as well as the fast growing economy in the Asian region have been attracting the attention of the international ergonomics community. Although East Asia has been changing from a traditional agriculture-oriented society into a modern industry-oriented society and its economy covers a great deal of shared interests across the continents, yet the ergonomics related knowledge and practice are still in its infancy. Because of the geographic proximity and a strong historical, cultural and technology affinity, it is vitally important to maintain good communication and cooperation among the individuals as well as among the ergonomics organizations in the region. This symposium, EAEFS, has provided supporting ergonomics organizations and interested participants a forum to exchange ideas, build friendship, foster greater understanding of and among these individuals and organizations, and develop perspectives concerning ergonomics issues in this region and beyond.

This volume contains the selected papers presented at the Second East Asian Ergonomics Federation Symposium (EAEFS), held from October 4 - 8, 2011 at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. The Second EAEFS, endorsed by the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), aims to consolidate the established ties within East Asia and to extend the cooperation among ergonomics researchers, professionals, and practitioners in the region to other regions in Asia and the world. Senior scholars and leaders from Asian countries have shared their wisdom, experience, insights, and visions on past, current and future ergonomics efforts in Asia.

The papers contributing to this book address the latest research and application in accordance with the theme of the symposium, "Ergonomics in Asia: Development, Opportunities and Challenges," and cover the following areas: Virtual Environments & Design, Aging & Work Ability, Usability & Interface, Biomechanics & Anthropometry, and Occupational Safety & Health.