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Interview by Galina Goncharova with Galya Koycheva, parent of a person with multiple disabilities, activist, psychosocial support specialist.
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This article is devoted to parental hesitancy about the mandatory childhood immunization schedule in Bulgaria. The term ‘hesitancy’ describes the growing uncertainty and actions to delay or refuse childhood vaccinations. In the specific analysis based on semi-structured interviews with parents, the issue of vaccine hesitancy is examined through the lens of the doctor-patient interaction framework. The focus is on outlining the types of vaccine hesitancy and the reasons for them. New parenting styles and parental responsibilization, in turn, undermine parents’ trust in GPs; parents are becoming experts on their children. It seems that the doctor-patient relationship has become more horizontal. This kind of parental ‘expertise’ in turn leads to the emergence of a common enemy of the overall construction of the child’s body – ‘terrible chemistry’, unnecessary interventions in the body, where vaccines are among the ‘risky’ and ‘dangerous’ interventions. Thus, vaccination turns out to be a process of balancing between fears – of the disease and of its side effects. Hence, respondents also raised the issues of ‘coercion to vaccinate’ and ‘parents’ right to choose’, which contradict their understanding of parental role and responsibility.
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This article examines everyday practices in the public representation of two groups of people in Bulgaria: children living with cognitive impairment and adults living with mental illness. It traces the way the images of these two groups are present in the Bulgarian public sphere and the extent to which the social attitudes projected on these images ensure their integration into or exclusion from the life of the community. The article contains quotes from biographical and expert interviews with parents of children with disabilities, and with social and health professionals, as well as from news stories related to both groups.
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This article presents the results of a pilot study on pediatric palliative care needs in Bulgaria consisting of an online questionnaire survey of public opinion, and a series of indepth interviews with professionals and parents. The results have proved that there is a huge need for further research on this subject. Approximately five to eight thousand children in Bulgaria need palliative care. At the same time, there are vast differences of opinion, including among professionals, as to what pediatric palliative care consists of and how it ought to be organized.
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This article focuses on certain ethical issues that are evident in the images of children with autism spectrum disorders, drawn from semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted with their parents. The main subject of study is to what extent, why, and how parents’ images adopt, modify, contest and/or combine different normative models of dealing with their children’s condition. Parental care is examined in the context of ethically relevant concepts, such as normality and disability, normative moral agent, and ultimately, good life. The analysis addresses the ethical limits of care experienced, as a burden, but also as an aspect of mutual growing. The ethical conceptions of vulnerability and autonomy are discussed, as well as the moral problems of stigmatization and social exclusion. The study uses biographical research methods and approaches from the field of bioethics and ethics of care, critical disability studies, and social studies of autism. A conclusion is reached that parents strive towards medical and social normalization of their children, but also respect their difference, thus attaching ethical value to it.
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This article examines the ‘male’ voice in the field of care through life-stories and aims to go beyond the stereotypical gender discourse in which men are represented mostly as ineffective in providing care because they cannot emulate (or take over completely) the role of women. Interpreting the family as the central institution in a period of crisis, the main question the article seeks to answer is what are the gender-specific roles of men and women in it. More specifically, the male voice is found to be not only different and complementary to the female voice; it voices a specific way of thinking ‘outside the system’ and even a sort of resistance against the traditional notions and state policies of care.
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The aim of this article is to analyse health and ageing in their interdependence and to debate some myths about ‘the significant others’, the people over the age of 65, as the fastest growing group in modern societies. The investigation of the demographic ageing and the health determinants is performed from the position of a medical doctor and a public health researcher. Data from large-scale sociological studies are presented as proof that healthy habits greatly improve health-related quality of life and prolong life. On the other hand, there is age discrimination in healthcare, which, together with poverty, determines the gloomy picture of our ageing society. In the context of the historic political changes after 1989, the term ‘fourth value transition’ is introduced, which unites themes of sustainable societal efforts to achieve a better health-related quality of life in opposition to the banalized and socially demobilizing myths regarding old age and population ageing.
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Interviews by Galina Goncharova with Galya Koycheva, parent of a person with multiple disabilities, activist, psychosocial support specialist
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interviews by Galina Goncharova with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nevyana Feschieva, MD, doyenne of social medicine in Bulgaria, longtime professor and head of the Department of Social Medicine and Public Health at the Medical University of Varna, President of the Bulgarian Association of History of Medicine.
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Developing applicable solutions to urgent environmental concerns, which would reconcile the interests of various stakeholders with regard to the common good, requires the adoption of different perspectives related to knowledge processes. Thus, some authors have proposed undertaking cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional and cross-sectoral research. The objective of this paper is to inquire into the network structure, and investigate the rarely considered interdependence of these three types of collaboration within the environmental conservation field, as it is recognised in Poland. Research grant data from the POL-on database (the central nationwide ICT system) were used, and social network analysis (SNA) was applied. This study is institution oriented and depended on formal collaboration in the form of partnership agreements, which are rarely applied but benefit the research process.Environmental conservation in Poland is weakly internally integrated, but is well connected with neighbouring disciplines, as well as with the technical sciences. Industrial re-search institutes, as well as profiled higher education institutions, hold more influential network positions than leading large universities. Moreover, cross-disciplinarity does not offer significant stimulation for cross-organisational or cross-sectoral collaboration. This study is embedded within the specific national context of the science sector, which is currently undertaking a transition period (especially since the most recent reform of the Polish science and higher education in 2018), and the presented results shed light on the present and future challenges which it faces. The work con-tributes to studies on the knowledge production processes involved in the environmental sciences and provides results that may be used by the science sector for assessing and adjusting its strategic position at both the national and the institutional levels.
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Smart City concepts are facing ecological, economic and social changes, creating opportunities for better lives, sustainability, development and resilience. Yet strategic management has to flexibly respond to ongoing changes, adapt to trends in the outside environment and, in particular, ensure common elements of Smart City concepts such as the quality of life. While significant, the term “quality of life” is somewhat ambiguous at present, not understood comprehensively, and no set of factors to measure it in cities exists. This paper seeks to respond to the gap in the research by developing its own definition of quality of life, identifying the factors that need to be evaluated in sustainable Smart Cities according to best practice. The objective set out was fulfilled by means of the secondary analysis of articles about the quality of life in Smart Cities and by comparing and summarising them, along with induction, deduction, abstraction and logic. The most frequently used factors were mainly found to be the environment and social inclusion; essentially, ecological and social aspects in combination with hard and soft factors. In theoretical terms, the contributions of this paper to the field are the definition, the analysis undertaken and results for fellow researchers. The practical benefits mainly encompass the strategic management of cities through a set of frequent factors used in international best practice.
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The aim of the paper is to diagnose social attitudes towards professional work of the 55+ generation of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The analysis is based on the research carried out in Katowice, Ostrava and Debrecen among the 55-65 age group. The research was conducted in April – June 2019. The resulting discussion concerns the cognitive, affective and behavioural attitudes towards professional work. Three national groups are compared. The research findings indicate that taking into account all components of the overall attitude, it is the Poles who achieve the highest value of a positive attitude towards work, then the Hungarians, and finally the Czechs. The Poles demonstrate a consistent attitude towards work, with the individual components displaying similar results. The Czechs exhibit an inconsistent attitude. The highest value is achieved by the affective component and the lowest - by the behavioural one. The Hungarians also show an inconsistent attitude. The cognitive component achieves the same values as in the Czech Republic, however, the affective component achieves a very low value and the behavioural component is high. In Conclusions, the author shows that the economic activity of the 55+ generation is influenced by objective factors, in particular the state policy in the field of obtaining retirement rights and employment opportunities.
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This study aims to demonstrate how senior leadership applies to high-reliability organizations' functions when managing the Coronavirus pandemic in healthcare organizations and extend the current research by focusing on identifying which functions are more important for the leadership when managing crises in healthcare organizations. To achieve the aim of the study, a qualitative research approach was applied with well-known statistical analyses. Descriptive statistics were applied to determine the characteristics of variables. A correlation matrix shows the relationship between variables, while explanatory factor analyses were employed to determine the reliability of the variables. Ordinary least square regression analysis was used to emphasize the relationship between the role of leadership and different functions in high reliability healthcare organizations in Turkey. It has been found that the role of leadership has a positive and significant relationship with organizational safety, organizational trust, collective mindfulness, flexibility, and communication functions. In addition, the importance of leadership in healthcare organizations will improve many functions in an effective and professional manner, which is reflected in the reduction of the spread of Coronavirus which has been found among workers and in different environments.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the strategic role played by the University Management Teams (hereafter, UMTs) as a key internal stakeholder for the successful performance and sustainability of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Regarding the UMTs, we focus on four main dimensions: profile (background and professional experience), response to a dilemmatic situation, training needs (technical and managerial skills) and strategic management orientation. By using MAXQDA (v.10) data analysis software, we apply a qualitative methodological approach, based on in-depth semi-structured and reflexive interviews with a sample of UMTs belonging to a young small-sized Spanish university, characterized by its trajectory and involvement in strategic management. We found some consensus regarding the main drivers of the UMTs managerial performance, where the seniority in the academic position, institutional engagement, previous training on management (mentorship), professionalization and strategic thought are crucial to ensuring a more flexible, adaptive, competitive and sustainable HEI in the long term.
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The paper elaborates on the drivers of voluntary labour turnover in Polish enterprises in the context of segmented labour markets. The data consist of primary CAWI survey results collected from 1000 companies operating in Poland. The ordered choice model is used to analyse the propensity of employees from different labour segments to leave an enterprise voluntarily. The study confirms neither the trap hypothesis nor the concept of compensating differentials. However, it reveals that structural factors are the main drivers of voluntary turnover (with a different impact depending on the labour segment). Additionally, the number of labour segments in the enterprise determines the frequency of voluntary resignations only for employees attached to the primary segment. Since the main drivers of voluntary turnover are related to a person’s job satisfaction, this points to the role of HR and managerial practices in reducing the scale of voluntary resignations in companies.
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The return to education and the gender wage gap are essential issues in the public policy decision-making. Return to wage from attainment of each additional educational level can be a valuable incentive to stimulate people towards higher levels of schooling. The study investigates the return from a higher level of education to hourly earnings and the gap in “returns” due to gender identity differences in the case of Azerbaijan, a resource-rich developing country. We argue that a return to hourly wage from an additional level of education is positive and moderated by gender identity. Based on a pooled cross-sectional dataset (N=4548, n_male=2617; n_female=1931,〖Mean〗_age=34.18), empirical results support the research hypothesis and display a continuous positive return from education attainment. Simultaneously, a lesser return is identified for females. The gender return gap extends further for post-bachelor degrees. The results of this research can help deliver the message of “to earn more, learn more” at the micro-level and aid public policy officials in designing educational and gender-related policies at the macro level.
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It is no longer a question today that in many cases employees find themselves in a situation where either they or their environment believe that they have committed a misdemeanor or sin at work. The perception of sin can depend on a number of factors, such as the particular organizational culture, management, employee preferences, the degree of trust in the organization, and so on. There are cases where we judge the same sin differently, making the severity and extent of the penalties involved vary. The present study examines workplace offenses and subsequent employer penalties and their impact. The researchers did not focus on illegal acts, but on those that violate moral standards or affect an employee's professional development and ability to advance in the workplace. The analysis made a distinction between misdemeanors that came to light and those that did not. The test results confirmed the following. The employees are more critical of their own faults than the employer, and this is especially true of moral faults. People experience sin and punishment differently by gender and age.
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The main objective of this study is to characterize socially responsible consumption (SRC) through the lens of social welfare and degrowth proposals. The central research questions are (i) whether SRC can contribute to the realization of the foundations of a degrowth society and (ii) whether SRC fits into the critique of the economic growth paradigm. These are essential questions because SRC is often treated as an “invention” of affluent societies that seek more sophisticated methods of consumption (such as conspicuous, green, and ethical consumption) due to the prevailing cultural system. We challenge this viewpoint by drawing on studies from the intersection of social and environmental sciences. For this purpose, Talcott Parsons’ extended AGIL paradigm is introduced, referred to as AGIL+DE, as is our proposal of nature-based social welfare. Although this study is preliminary, its task is to develop new interpretative possibilities for the sociology of degrowth and innovative approaches to consumption in particular. The results suggest a change of approach in the study of the consumption phenomenon from the side of redefined social welfare, with a focus on moderate (SRC) and more radical (degrowth) solutions respecting the environmental impact. This change of approach to consumption requires rethinking and incorporating new empirical indicators.
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The article proposes an original approach to evaluating the effectiveness of the sports management system, which differs from the classical linear and non-linear optimization methods due to its use of quantile regression models. Three main indicators were chosen for creating the quantile regressions: (i) number of participants in the Olympic Games - as a feature of the effectiveness of the high-achievement sports; (ii) total number of people engaged in sports - as a feature of an effective mass sports system, which ensures a healthy lifestyle of the population; and (iii) state expenses on recreational and sports services. The quality of quantile regressions was validated by the Fisher test and the two-factor variance analysis. The research focused on the data of 30 European countries, which officially and publicly provide access to statistical reports on these issues. The countries were divided into two groups with above-average and below-average effectiveness of the sports management system. Two hypotheses were proposed and tested in the study. Hypothesis H1 was that the effectiveness of high-achievement sports depends on the amount of state funding for developing the sports industry. Research results confirmed this hypothesis for countries with an above-average level of sports management system effectiveness, but refuted it for the other group. Hypothesis H2 stated that the more massive the development of sport in a country, i.e., the more people are engaged in sports and lead a healthy lifestyle, the more likely this country is to achieve victories in high-achievement sports. This hypothesis was confirmed for both groups of countries.
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