Professional diversity,identity salience and team innovation: The moderating role of openmindedness norms

The impact of diverse composition in teams is neither straightforward nor direct, and evidence suggests that diversity can be either conducive or detrimental to team innovation. Professionally diverse healthcare teams are increasingly used to develop innovative clinical approaches and solve complex healthcare problems; however, there is evidence that collaboration across professional boundaries creates conflict and is frequently unsuccessful. Healthcare organizations consequently face a dilemma. If they embrace professional diversity in teams, they risk interprofessional hostility, but if they choose homogeneous teams, they diminish their teams' capacity to innovate. We respond to this quandary by utilizing social identity theory to better understand the mechanisms through which professional diversity can enhance team innovation. In particular, we argue that professional identity salience operates as a mediator capable of explaining both positive and negative outcomes of professional diversity, contingent on the moderating effect of openmindedness norms. Analysis of survey data from 70 healthcare teams supports our model and indicates that professional salience can both enhance and undermine team innovation, depending on the extent of team openmindedness. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北京地区某生活垃圾处理工程周边公众参与和社会监督情况调查研究

通过实地走访、资料查阅、问卷调查的方式,以北京城区东部某垃圾处理工程为研究案例,对中国生活垃圾处理在立项和运行阶段的公众参与和社会监督情况做全面的调查分析.调查结果显示,中国在生活垃圾处理的公众参与和监督方面总体上仍处于起步的初期阶段,公众对垃圾在处理处置方面的意愿体现程度仍有提高空间.同时,垃圾处理处置的信息披露需要进一步完善,在公开渠道和受众面上要更加广泛和及时.     

中国废弃物处理处置社会监督体系模式现状及存在问题研究

废弃物不妥善处理处置是环境污染的主要部分,但废弃物治理的社会监督尚处于起步阶段,相关政策法规并不完善甚至缺位,同时国内也缺少相应的经验可供借鉴。现阶段,公众环境权意识逐渐萌发,对环境保护工作提出更高要求,社会监督作为环境监管的重要组成单元,其发展水平和公众权益意识在一定程度上代表着国家环境保护工作的长足进步。通过实地调研和资料查阅相结合的方式,重点对目前中国社会监督体系的现状、途径、体系构成、存在问题进行系统梳理,并有针对性地提出建设性意见。     

HYDROLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING AND SOCIETAL ACTION1

ABSTRACT: Hydrology is both an applied practical science and a pure geophysical science. The goal of hydrology, as a geophysical science, is to achieve theories capable of explaining with satisfactory accuracy the phenomena of interest. Through the rapidly accelerating power and versatility of digital computing technology, theory development and application are immensely facilitated via increasingly sophisticated predictive modeling schemes, which are now the principal operating tools both for applied management hydrology and for basic geophysical hydrology. While this approach treats phenomena as classes or generalizations, social and behavioral scientists have long argued that human beings base their actions on percepts, i.e., on the concrete specifics of their experience. Thus, the commonly held ideal of basing policy, decisions, and public actions on the best possible science encounters a conflict in belief systems. A possible resolution of this dilemma lies in the use of observational components, which in concept-centered science serve as data to test or calibrate models. These components also serve as a great repository of natural experience that is closely attuned to the perceptual reality that propels societal action. Landscapes and sediments provide indices of real processes, whose occurrence can be expected by continuity to extend to present and future activity. More attention to research on such indices is warranted as a means of triggering perception-based action by responsible decision-makers. Grounded in reality, and tempered by their intrinsic fallibility, the scientifically powerful conceptual schemes (models) will then serve as guides to further action. The full societal benefit of hydrological science requires a balanced approach in which subdisciplines focused on environmental indices are afforded equal attention to those focused on conceptual idealization.     

Negotiating Indigenous knowledge at the science-policy interface: Insights from the Xáxli’p Community Forest

Despite increasing interest in learning from Indigenous communities, efforts to involve Indigenous knowledge in environmental policy-making are often fraught with contestations over knowledge, values, and interests. Using the co-production of knowledge and social order (Jasanoff, 2004), this case study seeks to understand how some Indigenous communities are engaging in science-policy negotiations by linking traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), western science, and other knowledge systems. The analysis follows twenty years of Indigenous forest management negotiations between the Xáxli’p community and the Ministry of Forests in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, which resulted in the Xáxli’p Community Forest (XCF). The XCF is an eco-cultural restoration initiative that established an exclusive forest tenure for Xáxli’p over the majority of their aboriginal territory—a political shift that was co-produced with new articulations of Xáxli’p knowledge. This research seeks to understand knowledge co-production with Indigenous communities, and suggests that existing knowledge integration concepts are insufficient to address ongoing challenges with power asymmetries and Indigenous knowledge. Rather, this work proposes interpreting XCF knowledge production strategies through the framework of “Indigenous articulations,” where Indigenous peoples self-determine representations of their identities and interests in a contemporary socio-political context. This work has broader implications for considering how Indigenous knowledge is shaping science-policy negotiations, and vice versa.     

Economic and Social Impact Assessment of the Alternatives to DDT Usage for Antifouling Paint Production in China

China is the only nation that uses DDT in antifouling pain at present, approximately 5% of DDT is applied as the additive of the antifouling paint production. Therefore, actions shall be taken urgently for banning the use of DDT and substituting with non-POPs alternatives in antifouling paints. The paper researches the social and economic backgrounds of DDT booster antifouling paint production and usage, analyzes the social and economic impact assessment of the alternatives to DDT usage for antifouling paint. The implementation of the project of alternatives will completely eliminate the adverse impact of DDT booster antifouling paint on terrestrial, marine ecosystem and human health. The broad use of alkali silicate and pepper alkali as substitutes will be feasible if appropriate measures will be taken to encourage their development, and the social and economic risk will be reduced to accepted levels.     

资源约束与经济增长研究

资源约束条件下的经济增长研究对中翻经济的可持续发展具有重要的理论和现实意义.本文从宏观经济的微观基础分析入手.结合当前中国社会和经济发展的实际,在传统效用函数的基础上,引入了社会地位和资源两个影响因素,通过模型的静态及动态分析,重点研究资源约束对经济系统均衡条件、动态转移的影响.分析结果表明:①当期资源的使用量取决于资源的边际效用、消费的边际效用和时间贴现率的大小.②消费资本比足够大或消费足够多且资本与消费的边际替代率足够小是经济系统存在鞍点均衡的必要条件.③资源消耗足够多时,消费资本比将显著下降.并从资源约束这一角度解释了中国经济增长的投资消费失衡问题.最后从实证角度,利用协整理论验证了资源消耗与消费资本比之间的反向关系.     

Can Sustainable Agriculture Feed Africa? New Evidence on Progress, Processes and Impacts

Africa faces enormous food security challenges. Most commentators agree that, despite the complexities of food insecurity, there will have to be increases in food production from existing agricultural land. Most, too, are pessimistic about the future, judging likelihood of success on the basis of past performance of modern agricultural development. Sustainable agriculture, though, offers new opportunities, by emphasising the productive values of natural, social and human capital, all assets that Africa either has in abundance or that can be regenerated at low financial cost.This paper sets out an assets-based model of agricultural systems, together with a typology of eight improvements that are currently in use in sustainable agriculture projects. In the 45 projects/initiatives spread across 17 countries that are investigated, some 730,000 households have substantially improved food production and household food security. In 95% of the projects where yield increases were the aim, cereal yields have improved by 50–100%. Total farm food production has increased in all. The additional positive impacts on natural, social and human capital are also helping to build the assets base so as to sustain these improvements in the future.This analysis indicates that sustainable agriculture can deliver large increases in food production in Africa. But spreading these to much larger numbers of farm households will not be easy. It will require substantial policy, institutional and professional reform.     

关于建立我国资源节约型经济体系的认识

从可持续发展角度看,我国资源节约型经济体系机制应在坚持集约经济和适应消费的基础上,强调社会生产与消费两者间的平衡和协调发展,欲达此目的,加快市场经济体系的完善和国家宏观指导是保障这一体系机制正常运转的根本条件。     

Overcoming socio-ecological vulnerability through community-based social learning: the case of Lomba do Pinheiro in Porto Alegre,Brazil

ABSTRACT

Community-based initiatives and collective learning practices are key themes in sustainability transition processes. This paper presents the results of a participatory study that investigated a local initiative in the community of Lomba do Pinheiro in south Brazil to examine social learning processes in the context of socio-ecological vulnerability. In this community, a group composed of local residents and members representing the public sector and local educational institutions has promoted several learning-oriented actions aimed at restoring a degraded local watershed and improving residents’ livelihoods. This study used social learning as a lens through which the initiative enacted by this group may be understood, and analysed how local conditions, determined by a context of vulnerability, have influenced local processes. We applied a multi-dimensional analytical framework that included individual, collective, and territorial dimensions. The analysis focused on the leading group, the individuals who comprise it, and their actions in the territory, while considering local constraints. Our findings highlight the importance of (1) shared values, mutual trust, and affective bonds for group cohesion as well as concerted action, equalisation of diverse languages within the group, knowledge integration, and initiative persistence; (2) a practical-reflexive approach based on a sequence of actions that catalyses group learning and facilitates advancement within the wider community; and (3) the role of inter-sectoral articulations and the establishment of partnerships to support actions. This paper raises questions about the limits of an exclusively bottom-up approach to solve complex problems in the context of extremely precarious conditions.