Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the scholarly impact agenda in the context of work-based and workplace research, and to propose new directions for research and practice.
...Design/methodology/approach
This paper combines a contemporary literature review with case vignettes and reflections from practice to develop more nuanced understandings, and highlights future directions for making sense of impact in the context of work-based learning research approaches.
Findings
This paper argues that three dimensions to making sense of impact need to be more nuanced in relation to workplace research: interactional elements of workplace research processes have the potential for discursive pathways to impact, presence (and perhaps non-action) can act as a pathway to impact, and the narrative nature of time means that there is instability in making sense of impact over time.
Research limitations/implications
The paper proposes a number of implications for practitioner-researchers, universities/research organisations, and focusses on three key areas: the amplification of research ethics in workplace research, the need for axiological shifts towards sustainability and the need to explicate axiological orientation in research.
Originality/value
This paper offers a contemporary review of the international impact debate in the specific context of work-based and workplace research approaches.
The East Asian economies of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand suffered declines in their economic growth rates in 1997. The Indonesian and Thai government followed the World Bank prescription for ...adjustment, which included a cut-back in government spending at a time when there were significant job losses. Malaysia chose its own path to adjustment. Evidence presented in this paper shows that although the declines were short-lived that there was an impact on the health status measured by mortality rates for the populations of Indonesia and Thailand. There was little apparent impact on the health status of Malaysians. The lessons for other developing economies include the importance of social safety nets and the maintenance of government expenditure in minimising the impact of economic shocks on health.
The empirical analysis employs individual level data from the Australian Health Survey combined with retrospective data on tobacco price matched to the age at which the individual started and quit ...smoking. Split‐population hazard models are estimated for both starting and quitting smoking. The analysis suggests price plays a significant role in the decision to start smoking but not in the decision to quit. Further sensitivity analysis of different age groups and an alternative data source, questions the robustness of the significant role of price in the smoking initiation decision. From a policy perspective, the results indicate that increases in tobacco taxation can be an important instrument in reducing the incidence of smoking, but should be combined with other mechanisms such as mandating smoke‐free environments and antismoking education. Our results strongly support the targeting of antismoking campaigns towards teenagers.
This article focuses on the relationship between private insurance status and dental service utilisation in Australia using data between 1995 and 2001. This article employs joint maximum likelihood ...to estimate models of time since last dental visit treating private ancillary health insurance (PAHI) as endogenous. The sensitivity of results to the choice between two different but related types of instrumental variables is examined. We find robust evidence in both 1995 and 2001 that individuals with a PAHI policy make significantly more frequent dental consultations relative to those without such coverage. A comparison of the 1995 and 2001 results, however, suggests that there has been an increasing role of PAHI in terms of the frequency of dental consultations over time. This seems intuitive given the trends in the price of unsubsidised private dental consultations. In terms of policy, our results suggest that while government measures to increase private health insurance coverage in Australia have been successful to a significant degree, that success may have come at some cost in terms of socio‐economic inequality as the privately insured are provided much better access to care and financial protection.
This study explores the acceptance of online learning (OL) for continuous professional development among lecturers at Kenya Medical Training College in 2009. The large and multi-campus College faces ...logistical and cost challenges in ensuring that its 700 lecturing staff have access to continuous professional development. Online learning potentially provides an effective and efficient solution to this problem. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of the lecturers to assess the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of online learning, taking into account lecturers' experiences. Two focus group discussions were also held to assess the lecturers' views on issues relating to OL. We find that there is a high level of acceptability of the idea of undertaking further training using OL as user attitudes towards web-based training were positive. The benefits of OL over face-to-face learning for clinical training and the accreditation of OL courses are issues of ongoing concern to lecturers. Successful and large scale adoption of OL course requires promotion of their benefits in addition to clarification of the accreditation of the available courses. (Contains 3 tables.)
Why Subsidise Private Health Insurance? Frech III, H. E.; Hopkins, Sandra
Australian economic review,
September 2004, Letnik:
37, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
What are the economic rationales for the public subsidy of private health insurance? Inducing more people to purchase private cover has the potential to create a positive fiscal externality, as it ...frees up the limited public beds and other public resources for people who cannot afford private health insurance. Investigating this quantitatively, based on short‐run demand estimates, we find that the subsidy cannot be justified on the basis of this externality effect alone. We estimate that the optimal subsidy is actually negative, that is, a tax on private health insurance premiums. On the other hand, the externality does finance some of the costs. We then consider a long‐run dynamic version, consistent with the government's stated rationales for the reforms. In this context, the subsidy might be justified, or at least largely offset, by the fiscal externality. We then discuss other rationales for a subsidy and implementation issues.
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