The Whitaker Institute for Innovation and Societal Change (Scholarly Articles)

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A pilot study of the duration of GP consultations in Ireland
(BMC (part of Springer Nature), 2019-12-01) Pierse, Tom; Barry, Luke; Glynn, Liam; Quinlan, Diarmuid; Murphy, Andrew; O'Neill, Ciaran; Health Research Board
General practitioner (GP)-led primary care is the linchpin of health care in Ireland. Reflecting international trends, there are increasing concerns about the sustainability of the current Irish GP service due to an increasing workload. Objective data on the duration of GP consultations are currently not available in Ireland. The objective of this pilot study is to demonstrate how the duration of consultations can be collected, using readily available administrative data. Software was developed to extract the duration of GP consultations using the opening and closing of electronic patient records associated with a GP consultation. GP practices (N =¿3) comprising 15 GPs were recruited from a university-affiliated research network. A retrospective analysis of GP consultations with patients with diabetes for the 9 years between 2010 and 2018 was used to assess the feasibility of using this system to measure the duration of consultations. The average duration of a consultation was 14.1¿min for the 9 years spanning 2010 to 2018. Patients had an average time between consultations of 99¿days. This pilot study confirms that an administrative data set can be utilised at negligible cost to monitor GP practice consultation workload over time. Our preliminary pilot data show that GP consultation durations among participating practices were longer than the 5-11.7¿min reported in the UK and show an increase over the period. Clearly, a larger number of practices and patients are required to substantiate this finding.
Implications of the UK HGV road user charge for Irish export freight transport stakeholders. A qualitative study
(Elsevier, 2016-04-13) Vega, Amaya; Evers, Natasha; |~|
Road user charging in the European Union has evolved from a mechanism of financing the construction and maintenance of motorways to internalising the road user costs in line with the polluter pays principle. The United Kingdom introduced a HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicles) Road User Levy Act, 2013, which became effective from 1 April 2014. Given Ireland’s geographical location as a peripheral European nation, it has been historically dependent on the use of the British road network (UK land bridge) for exporting and importing goods to and from Europe. Irish exports are set to be the main growth driver for the Irish economy in real GDP and critical for economic revival. The UK's introduction of the new HGV road charge has raised serious concerns across the freight transport sector and policy-makers in the Republic of Ireland. Such concerns relate to who will be most exposed to the charge and the future aggregate economic impact on stakeholders of the export freight transport sector—notably, hauliers, freight forwarders and exporters. This research explores the potential implications of the newly introduced UK HGV road user charge for export freight transport stakeholders operating in the Republic of Ireland. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were carried out with key stakeholders with the aim of understanding the extent to which these are affected by the road charge and the perceived feasibility of alternatives currently available for exporters and transport providers.
The ideology of population control in the UN draft plan for Cairo
(Springer, 1994-09) Grimes, Seamus; |~|
This paper examines the influence of population control ideology on the draft plan for the UN Cairo Conference on Population and Development. It is argued that this draft plan can only be fully understood in the context of the recent history of the population control movement and of the empirical reality of population control in particular countries. The paper focuses on the origins of the ideology of population control in the eugenics movement initially, and more recently in organisations such as International Planned Parenthood Federation. The role of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in promoting an incremental approach towards the wider acceptance of popUlation control since the first intergovernmental conference on population in Bucharest in 1974, is outlined. Despite the serious loss of credibility for the UN, through the association of the UNFPA with the Chinese population control programme ¬the most coercive programme of its type in history -the UN in the draft plan for Cairo continues to promote the ideology of population control. This paper argues for the need to develop a more positive model of development, which acknowledges the complementarity between the lack of development of poorer countries and their potential for significant progress, and the overdevelopment of industrialised regions, whose future growth is increasingly based on intense competition for shrinking markets.
How well are Europe's rural businesses connected to the digital economy?
(Taylor and Francis, 2004-09) Grimes, Seamus; |~|
As economic activity becomes increasingly globalized, partly by means of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), one of the key expectations of European policy-makers was that businesses in rural regions, and particularly in peripheral rural regions, would overcome some of the disadvantages of their locational contexts, and become more effective participants in larger market areas. This paper examines the reality of ICT exploitation by rural business across Europe, based on a survey of 600 enterprises in 12 regions located in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Spain, Greece and Finland. Not surprisingly, a range of outcomes has been identified in terms of telecommunications infrastructure and ICT usage, which reflect considerable differences in access to reasonably priced broadband telecommunications, awareness of how the technologies can be exploited, and in levels of skills to translate that exploitation into a means of competitiveness.
The Impact of Agile Practices on Trust in Software Project Teams
(IEEE, 2012) McHugh, Orla; Conboy, Kieran; Lang, Michael; |~|
Agile software development involves self-managing teams that are empowered and responsible for meeting project goals in whatever way they deem suitable. Managers must place more trust in such teams than they do in teams following more traditional development methodologies. The authors highlight how the use of agile practices can enhance trust amongst agile team members. They also present challenges that agile teams can face as a result of using agile practices. Their results are based on the findings from three case studies of agile software development teams.
Connecting Interdisciplinary theoretical research questions with current policy debates in the context of your own PhD research
(2009) Browne, Patricia
Recent policy debates surrounding issues regarding health service delivery and escalating costs have come to the fore within political and policy discourses. Indeed within the current economic climate this debate has broadened to include several areas of the public sector. What is the human cost involved in delivering adequate and efficient health services to a population currently exceeding four million? This paper will aim to illustrate how current policy connects with the practice of human resource management in health. It will look at the context of health services and the direction of Irish health policy. The relevance of looking at the role of HR specifically in this context in order to contribute meaningfully to enhancing the lives and work of health employee's is then explored. The paper will look at nurses as a core employee health group, and the question of whether HR policies and practices can potentially influence employee well-being is asked.
Using Agile Practices to Influence Motivation within IT Project Teams
(2011) McHugh, Orla; Conboy, Kieran; Lang, Michael; |~|
This exploratory study of IT project teams in Sweden and Ireland investigates how three agile practices, namely daily stand-ups, iteration planning and iteration retrospectives, contribute to motivation or de-motivation in an agile team. Several studies recognise that motivating staff is critically important for a project manager and have identified factors that motivate IT project staff in particular. Yet relatively little is known about motivation in an agile context and in particular how an IT project manager may use agile practices to improve team motivation. Seventeen individuals across two teams were interviewed, including both project managers and their staff. The results from both cases indicate that agile practices can contribute to team motivation and de-motivation. This study makes an important contribution in the area of motivation and agile project management by identifying factors that contribute to and inhibit motivation in agile IT project teams. It also makes a contribution to the existing literature by identifying additional factors that motivate and de-motivate IT developers, namely increased visibility and transparency on the progression of tasks, an increase in the number of meetings, lengthy meetings, use of agile practices on long-term projects and use of agile practices for complex or fragmented tasks.
Measuring safety climate in aviation: A review and recommendations for the future
(2011) O'Connor, Paul; |~|
This paper reviews 23 studies that have examined safety climate within commercial and military aviation. The safety climate factors identified in the aviation safety climate questionnaires were found to be consistent with the literature examining safety climate in non-aviation high reliability organizations. Therefore, it was concluded that the aviation safety climate tools had some construct validity (the extent to which the questionnaire measures what it is intended to measure). However, the majority of the studies made no attempt to establish the discriminate validity (the ability of the tool to differentiate between organizations or personnel with different levels of safety performance) of the tools. It is recommended that rather than constructing more aviation safety climate questionnaires, researchers should focus on establishing the construct and discriminate validity of existing measures by correlating safety climate with other metrics of safety performance. It is recognized that the accident rate in commercial aviation is too low to provide a sufficiently sensitive measure of safety performance. However, there are other measures of safety performance, collected as part of a company's Aviation Safety Action Program or Flight Operational Quality Assurance, which could be used to assess the discriminate validity of an aviation safety climate tool. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This paper reviews 23 studies that have examined safety climate within commercial and military aviation. The safety climate factors identified in the aviation safety climate questionnaires were found to be consistent with the literature examining safety climate in non-aviation high reliability organizations. Therefore, it was concluded that the aviation safety climate tools had some construct validity (the extent to which the questionnaire measures what it is intended to measure). However, the majority of the studies made no attempt to establish the discriminate validity (the ability of the tool to differentiate between organizations or personnel with different levels of safety performance) of the tools. It is recommended that rather than constructing more aviation safety climate questionnaires, researchers should focus on establishing the construct and discriminate validity of existing measures by correlating safety climate with other metrics of safety performance. It is recognized that the accident rate in commercial aviation is too low to provide a sufficiently sensitive measure of safety performance. However, there are other measures of safety performance, collected as part of a company's Aviation Safety Action Program or Flight Operational Quality Assurance, which could be used to assess the discriminate validity of an aviation safety climate tool. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Evaluation of a Human Factors Analysis and Classification System as Used by Simulated Mishap Boards
(2011) O'Connor, Paul; |~|
O'CONNOR P, WALKER P. Evaluation of a Human Factors Analysis and Classification System as used by simulated mishap boards. Aviat Space Environ Med 2011; 82:44-8.Background: The reliability of the Department of Defense Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (DOD-HFACS) has been examined when used by individuals working alone to classify the causes of summary, or partial, information about a mishap. However, following an actual mishap a team of investigators would work together to gather and analyze a large amount of information before identifying the causal factors and coding them with DOD-HFACS. Method: There were 204 military Aviation Safety Officer students who were divided into 30 groups. Each group was provided with evidence collected from one of two military aviation mishaps. DOD-HFACS was used to classify the mishap causal factors. Results: Averaged across the two mishaps, acceptable levels of reliability were only achieved for 56.9% of nanocodes. There were high levels of agreement regarding the factors that did not contribute to the incident (a mean agreement of 50% or greater between groups for 91.0% of unselected nanocodes); the level of agreement on the factors that did cause the incident as classified using DOD-HFACS were low (a mean agreement of 50% or greater between the groups for 14.6% of selected nanocodes). Discussion: Despite using teams to carry out the classification, the findings from this study are consistent with other studies of DOD-HFACS reliability with individuals. It is suggested that in addition to simplifying DOD-HFACS itself, consideration should be given to involving a human factors/organizational psychologist in mishap investigations to ensure the human factors issues are identified and classified in a consistent and reliable manner.
A methodology for identifying human error in U.S. Navy diving accidents
(2007) O'Connor, Paul
Objective: To better understand how human error contributes to U.S. Navy diving accidents. Background: An analysis of 263 U.S. Navy diving accident and mishap reports revealed that the human factors classifications were not informative for further analysis, and 70% of mishaps were attributed to unknown causes; only 23% were attributed to human factors. Method: Five diving fatality reports were examined using the consensual qualitative research (CQR) method to develop a taxonomy of six categories and 21 subcategories for classifying human errors in diving. In addition, 15 critical incident technique (CIT) interviews were conducted with U.S. Navy divers who had been involved in a diving accident or near miss and analyzed using the dive team error taxonomy. Results: Overall, failures in situation awareness and leadership were the most common human errors made by the dive team. Conclusion: The dive team human error taxonomy could aid in accident investigation and in the training and evaluation of U.S. Navy divers. Application: The development of the dive team human error taxonomy has generated a number of considerations that researchers should take into account when developing, or adapting, an error taxonomy from one industry to another.
Evaluation of a human factors analysis and classification system as used by simulated mishap boards.
(2011) O' Connor, Paul; Walker, Peter; |~|
Background: The reliability of the Department of Defense Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (DOD-HFACS) has been examined when used by individuals working alone to classify the causes of summary, or partial, information about a mishap. However, following an actual mishap a team of investigators would work together to gather and analyze a large amount of information before identifying the causal factors and coding them with DOD-HFACS. Method: There were 204 military Aviation Safety Officer students who were divided into 30 groups. Each group was provided with evidence collected from one of two military aviation mishaps. DOD-HFACS was used to classify the mishap causal factors. Results: Averaged across the two mishaps, acceptable levels of reliability were only achieved for 56.9% of nanocodes. There were high levels of agreement regarding the factors that did not contribute to the incident (a mean agreement of 50% or greater between groups for 91.0% of unselected nanocodes); the level of agreement on the factors that did cause the incident as classified using DOD-HFACS were low (a mean agreement of 50% or greater between the groups for 14.6% of selected nanocodes). Discussion: Despite using teams to carry out the classification, the findings from this study are consistent with other studies of DOD-HFACS reliability with individuals. It is suggested that in addition to simplifying DOD-HFACS itself, consideration should be given to involving a human factors/organizational psychologist in mishap investigations to ensure the human factors issues are identified and classified in a consistent and reliable manner.
Crew resource management training for offshore teams
(2003) O'Connor, Paul; Flin, Rhona; |~|Enterprise Ireland |~|
Reconsidering the exclusion of metaphysics in human geography
(Fabrizio Serra Editore, 1997-05) Grimes, Seamus; |~|
From its beginning as a systematic branch of knowledge, human geography was strongly influenced by developments in the other branches of the social sciences. Once a predominantly descriptive and ideographic discipline, human geography gradually took on a more positivist methodology. This in turn gave way to a series of approaches which included marxist, humanist and more recently postmodernist perspectives. As with similar paradigm shifts in other fields of knowledge, changes in geography were often attempts to deal with the deficiencies and criticisms of previous methodological and philosophical approaches. Because human geography emerged along with the social sciences, it was associated with the movement to distance scientific knowledge from metaphysical issues. From Descartes on a consensus emerged to exclude metaphysical questions as a necessary step towards the development of truly scientific disciplines. Within geography this view drew support from the influence of Kant and later on from the particularly hostile view of metaphysics held by the positivists of the Vienna Circle. Positivism was to take a firm grip on the development of human geography, moulding it to become "spatial science". Since the 1970s, a number of different approaches have provided a strong critique of positivist geography. Humanist geography in various forms attempted to counter the strongly deterministic perspectives on humanity presented by positivist and marxist influences. Some of these approaches have touched on the neglect of ontological issues, yet to date they have failed to examine the effect on the discipline of excluding a metaphysical perspective. The most recent development of postmodern geography, while it presents a strong critique of positivist geography, and argues for a greater tolerance of "difference", is nevertheless still quite hostile towards the possibility of incorporating a metaphysical perspective within human geography. This paper suggests the need to reconsider the exclusion of a metaphysical perspective in human geography, if the discipline is to make a more effective contribution towards helping policy makers deal with the many grave issues facing humanity.
Cost competitive places: shifting fortunes and the closure of Dell's manufacturing facility in Ireland
(2011) Grimes, Seamus; Collins, Patrick; |~|
In the early days of 2009 the city of Limerick in the mid-west region of Ireland was dealt a massive blow by the PC manufacturer Dell. After months, if not years, of speculation, the company had finally decided to move all its European manufacturing from Limerick to Lodz in Poland. Among the many reasons cited from the global economic downturn to a shifting market cost-competitiveness became the clear determining factor. The media coverage was extensive, with the headline Dell Closes bandied about in the national and regional press. Though of little consolation to the 1900 left without a job, the fact remains that Dell has not closed its Limerick operation, where it will continue to employ upwards of 1000 in sales support and research and development. We use the Dell story as an exemplar of the Irish foreign direct investment (FDI) story. Comparing it with other restructurings by foreign-owned technology companies both in Ireland and beyond we will attempt to uncover the complexity of shifting competitiveness and competencies among branches of global operations. Although the case of Dell, among others, may serve to support the political economy view of large multinational corporations, we see the picture as being more complex and rely on literature relating to global production networks (GPNs) in attempting to uncover the shifting spatial dynamics of cost-competitiveness.
Exploiting information and communication technologies for rural development
(Elsevier, 1992-07) Grimes, Seamus; |~|
This paper examines how information technology (IT) might be exploited to promote rural development; it also considers how IT impacts on the rural periphery. The appropriate adaptation of this technology for indigenous development is considered and whether it may lead to greater centralisation or decentralisation. It is suggested that much can be learned from the Nordic telecottage experiments to date, particularly in relation to the big challenge of diffusing this technology to SMEs.
Identifying and addressing the limitations of safety climate surveys.
(Elsevier, 2011-06) O'Connor, Paul; |~|
There are a variety of qualitative and quantitative tools for measuring safety climate. However, questionnaires are by far the most commonly used methodology. This paper reports the descriptive analysis of a large sample of safety climate survey data (n=110,014) collected over ten years from U.S. Naval aircrew using the Command Safety Assessment Survey (CSAS). The analysis demonstrated that there was substantial non-random response bias associated with the data (the reverse worded items had a unique pattern of responses, there was a increasing tendency over time to only provide a modal response, the responses to the same item towards the beginning and end of the questionnaire did not correlate as highly as might be expected, and the faster the questionnaire was completed the higher the frequency of modal responses). It is suggested that the non-random responses bias was due to the negative effect on participant motivation of a number of factors (questionnaire design, lack of a belief in the importance of the response, participant fatigue, and questionnaire administration). Researchers must consider the factors that increase the likelihood of non-random measurement error in safety climate survey data and cease to rely on data that are solely collected using a long and complex questionnaire.
Wireless Valley, Silicon Wadi and Digital Island - Helsinki, Tel Aviv and Dublin and the new economy GPN
(Elsevier, 2004-06) Grimes, Seamus; |~|
Hyper-capitalism in global information and communication technology (ICT) markets during the late 1990s created a new global production network, shaped by multinational corporations, international capital flows, and a flourishing of high-tech entrepreneurship. Each of the cities considered here benefited substantially from this growth, but their positions as nodes in the ICT global production network differed markedly, as did their ability to appropriate the Value they generated. In Dublin, value creation was based largely on inward technology and capital flows, although indigenous Dublin-based software companies did demonstrate their ability to compete internationally. ICT development in Helsinki and Tel Aviv drew more strongly on the local knowledge base, and benefited from changes in national regulatory and political conditions. In Helsinki, public and private R&D investments supported the highly effective globalisation strategy of Nokia to create a strongly localised, vertically-integrated and strongly specialised sector. Value creation in the more diverse Israeli ICT sector was also based primarily on locally developed technology, university R&D and the commercialisation of technology developed initially for military applications. By the end of the 1990s, the resulting ICT node in Tel Aviv was grounded in the local knowledge-base, technologically diverse, strongly entrepreneurial and globally oriented. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Irelands foreign-owned technology sector: evolving towards sustainability?
(Wiley, 2008) Grimes, Seamus; Collins, Patrick; |~|
For some, Ireland¿s pursuit of an exogenous-led development model has proved to be the cornerstone of recent economic success. Others point to recent high-profile closures and argue that foreign-owned operations are attracted to Ireland solely because of the advantageous tax breaks and lucrative grants scheme offered by the Irish government.We pay tribute to both arguments by pushing the level of enquiry beyond that of supply and backward linkages to try and gauge the actual performance of affiliates themselves. This brings some interesting facets of the Irish foreign direct investment scene to light. We highlight complexity of process, attainment of broader investment remits, and the emergence of a managerial class as integral to the ability of affiliates to adapt to and exploit organisational change. By examining 10 case studies and making use of media searches and company interviews,we highlight evidence of Ireland¿s largest technology transnational corporation affiliates showing positive performance advances. With these movements come, what we term,increased nodal significance of Irish operations within the global production network of their corporations.We argue against policy and theories that see these movements as linear and provide evidence of how some Irish operations have leveraged control and gained significant regional and global remits that have resulted in their growing significance, both in the corporation and in the country in which they are based. In the same line we argue that embeddedness in terms of supply linkages does not fit the Irish case and instead employ the term ¿network anchoring¿ of affiliates as they increase their nodal weighting through increased mandates.
Coping with stress in military aviation: A review of the research.
(2010) O'Connor, Paul; |~|
Military aviation exacts a costly toll in psychological stress from those who choose to pursue the occupation (Stokes & Kite, 1994). A prime example is landing on an aircraft carrier, a task which physiological indices and subjective accounts both rate as one of the most stressful in aviation (Miller, Rubin, Clark, Crawford, & Ransom, 1970). The intense psychological pressure associated with a career in military aviation makes military aviators an ideal population for understanding individual differences in robust functioning in high stress environments. Such an understanding benefits not only those seeking to develop aviation selection and classification instruments, but also those interested in identifying important protective factors relevant to alternative military and civilian occupations in which personnel are expected to operate sophisticated systems while exposed to profound stress. Unfortunately, popular mythology and stereotypes of aviator stress coping tend to outnumber empirically based profiles of military aviators (Kern, 2006). This chapter is an attempt to provide an empirically grounded starting point for those seeking a better understanding of stress coping amongst military aviators. The chapter will try to provide a brief review of stress coping theories germane to the aviation literature. The objective of the literature review is not to synthesize the variety of approaches and theories encompassed in that literature. Instead, the intention is to provide the reader with a unique opportunity to formulate their own conclusions with respect to the emergence or absence of a theoretical paradigm for this nascent, multi-disciplinary field of study.
The U.S. Navy's aviation safety program: a critical review.
(2007) O'Connor, Paul; |~|
Safety research has shown that human error, as opposed to mechanical failure, is a major causal factor in accidents in high reliability organizations. In U.S. Naval aviation, human error accounts for more than 80% of mishaps. This paper represents the first attempt to summarize the elements of the U.S. Naval aviation safety program in a single document, and disseminate it to a non-military audience. The program is discussed in the context of safety research carried out in other military and high reliability organizations. The many areas in which the U.S. Navy has learned from other high reliability organizations are identified, and areas in which the elements of the Navy's safety program could be adapted to mitigate the human factors causes of mishaps in commercial aviation delineated.

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