Books on the topic 'Recruitment costs'

Merchants of labor are the intermediary recruiters between workers in one country and employers in another. They have a checkered history, often associated with trickery or coercion to fill undesirable jobs, from finding soldiers in ancient Rome and sailors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to moving low-skilled workers over borders today. Moving workers over borders is a big business, generating at least $10 billion a year from 10 million workers each paying $1,000 to work abroad. UN agencies such as the International Labor Organization want employers to pay all of the costs of the workers they recruit, and the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 call on governments to cooperate to reduce worker-paid migration costs. Governments try to reduce worker-paid migration costs by setting maximum fees that recruiters can charge and punishing violators. However, there are not enough complaints and inspectors to detect overcharging, which can be a victimless crime if workers get what they want, a job abroad that pays higher wages. Merchants of Labor explores the potential of government incentives to encourage recruiters to better protect migrant workers during their recruitment and deployment. Faster processing, exemptions from taxes and subsidies, and awards could be carrots to reduce worker-paid costs rather than rely exclusively on the stick of enforcement.

The Body Project is an empirically based eating disorder prevention program that offers young women an opportunity to critically consider the costs of pursuing the ultra-thin ideal promoted in the mass media, and it improves body acceptance and reduces risk for developing eating disorders. Young women with elevated body dissatisfaction are recruited for group sessions in which they participate in a series of verbal, written, and behavioral exercises in which they consider the negative effects of pursuing the thin-ideal. This online resource provides information on the significance of body image and eating disorders, the intervention theory, the evidence base which supports the theory, recruitment and training procedures, solutions to common challenges, and a new program aimed at reducing obesity onset, as well as intervention scripts and participant handouts. It is the only currently available eating disorder prevention program that has been shown to reduce risk for onset of eating disorders and received support in trials conducted by several independent research groups.

HRM comprises of a set of activities (recruitment and selection, training, reward, performance management, etc.) related to the management of people. It is often posited that because people are a key source of competitive advantage, such activities should be seen as central to organizational success. However, the HR function in most organizations is typically administrative in character, and seen as a cost to be minimized. Normative models of HRM that stress HR’s strategic dimension are rarely adopted in practice. This chapter seeks to explain why this is. It argues that five powerful forces constrain the role of HR: continued scepticism over their performance effects when put into practice; the history of the HR function and the expectations, skills and competencies of HR professionals that follow from that history; the impact of competing narratives; the impact of globalization and financialization logics; and societal rules and norms.

The pulmonary oxygen uptake (pV̇O2) kinetic response to exercise provides valuable non-invasive insight into the control of oxidative phosphorylation and determinants of exercise tolerance in children and adolescents. Few methodologically robust studies have investigated pV̇O2 kinetics in children and adolescents, but age- and sex-related differences have been identified. There is a clear age-related slowing of phase II pV̇O2 kinetics during heavy and very heavy exercise, with a trend showing during moderate intensity exercise. During heavy and very heavy exercise the oxygen cost is higher for phase II and the pV̇O2 component is truncated in children. Sex-related differences occur during heavy, but not moderate, intensity exercise, with boys having faster phase II pV̇O2 kinetics and a smaller pV̇O2 slow component compared to girls. The mechanisms underlying these differences are likely related to changes in phosphate feedback controllers of oxidative phosphorylation, muscle oxygen delivery, and/or muscle fibre recruitment strategies.

Health services research in palliative care and end-of-life care involves the study of palliative care needs, access and quality of palliative care, and the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost of palliative and end-of-life care services and interventions. The evaluation of services and interventions involving patients with advanced illness presents unique challenges, both ethical and methodological. In this chapter, several research designs that are useful for the service evaluation of complex interventions in palliative care and end-of-life care are discussed and examples of studies using these designs are described. The designs that are described include both experimental and non-experimental designs. The problems and challenges that doing research with dying patients presents are subsequently described and possible solutions proposed. The challenges dealt with in this chapter include defining the intervention, determining relevant outcome measures, randomization of patients to intervention and control group, achieving recruitment and minimizing attrition, heterogeneity of the patient group, and obtaining informed consent.

Institute for Management and Business Research (IMBRe) is pleased to put forward this book which contains a compilation of business management case studies.The cases in this book are meant for teaching and learning purposes which could be used for both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.In specific, the first case about Lang Buana Museums requires students to apply their knowledge of how to manage an entity in public sector with respect to its accountability, financial management and accounting to address the Museums problems in trying to improve the operation and financial conditions of the Museums. The second case about Regular Care insurance and Critical Care insurance requires students to apply their knowledge of insurance management and also financial management about time value of money (TVM) concept in making purchase decisions for different needs of medical care and for different premium payment terms.The third case about BFN Bank Berhad requires students to apply their knowledge of bank management with respect to commercial banks operations and its lending activities to come up with turnaround strategies in reducing the banks non-performing loans (NPLs) to enable the bank to generate high return. The fourth case about Langkawi Buffalo Park requires students to apply their knowledge of how to manage a farm to improve its performance with respect to management, marketing and finance by conducting SWOT analysis and re-establishing the length of time expected to break even.The fifth case about a small family business requires students to apply their knowledge of strategic management by performing SWOT analysis, explaining how business creates values under cost-leadership strategy, discussing the disadvantages of resource-based model and identifying exit barriers. The sixth and last case about Knots Group Café requires students to apply their knowledge of human resource management with regard to the recruitment, development (talent management) and retention of employees for business sustainability.

Screening involves testing asymptomatic individuals who have risk factors, or individuals who are in the early stages of a disease, in order to decide whether further investigation, clinical intervention, or treatment is warranted. Therefore, screening is classically a primary prevention strategy which aims to capture disease early in its course, but it can also involve secondary prevention in individuals with established disease. In the words of Geoffrey Rose, screening is a ‘population’ strategy. Examples of screening programmes are blood pressure monitoring in primary care to screen for hypertension, and ultrasound examination to screen for abdominal aortic aneurysm. The effectiveness and feasibility of screening are influenced by several factors. First, the diagnostic accuracy of the screening test in question is crucial. For example, exercise ECG testing, although widely used, is not recommended in investigation of chest pain in current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, due to its low sensitivity and specificity in the detection of coronary artery disease. Moreover, exercise ECG testing has even lower diagnostic accuracy in asymptomatic patients with coronary artery disease. Second, physical and financial resources influence the decision to screen. For example, the cost and the effectiveness of CT coronary angiography and other new imaging modalities to assess coronary vasculature must be weighed against the cost of existing investigations (e.g. coronary angiography) and the need for new equipment and staff training and recruitment. Finally, the safety of the investigation is an important factor, and patient preferences and physician preferences should be taken into consideration. However, while non-invasive screening examinations are preferable from the point of view of patients and clinicians, sometimes invasive screening tests may be required at a later stage in order to give a definitive diagnosis (e.g. pressure wire studies to measure fractional flow reserve in a coronary artery). The WHO’s principles of screening, first formulated in 1968, are still very relevant today. Decision analysis has led to ‘pathways’ which guide investigation and treatment within screening programmes. There is increasing recognition that there are shared risk factors and shared preventive and treatment strategies for vascular disease, regardless of arterial territory. The concept of ‘vascular medicine’ has gained credence, leading to opportunistic screening in other vascular territories if an individual presents with disease in one territory. For example, post-myocardial infarction patients have higher incidence of cerebrovascular and peripheral arterial disease, so carotid duplex scanning and measurement of the ankle–brachial pressure index may be valid screening approaches for arterial disease in other territories.

The aim of the study was to determine the influence of different disturbances (both natural and anthropogenic) on species composition and stand structure of old-growth mixed mountain forests in the Western Carpathians. These stands are usually dominated by beech, fir and spruce, mixed in different proportions. The tree main species represent different growth strategies, and they compete against each other. The longevity of trees makes the factors influencing the stand structure difficult to identify, even during longitudinal studies conducted on permanent research plots. That is why dendroecological techniques, based upon the annual variability of tree rings, are commonly used to analyze the disturbance histories of old-growth stands. Dendroecological methods make it possible to reconstruct the stand history over several centuries in the past by analyzing the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial scale of disturbances causing the death of trees. Combining the dendroecological techniques with the detailed measurements of stand structure, snag volume, CWD volume, and the analyses of regeneration species composition and structure allows us to identify the factors responsible for the changes in dynamics of mixed mountain forests. Various disturbance agents affect some species selectively, while some disturbances promote the establishment of tree seedlings of specific species by modifying environmental conditions. Describing the disturbance regime requires a broad scope of data on stand structure, on dead wood and tree regeneration, while various factors affecting all the stages of tree growth should be taken into consideration. On the basis of the already published data from permanent sample plots, combined with the available disturbance history analyses from the Western Carpathians, three research hypotheses were formulated. 1. The species composition of mixed mountain forests has been changing for at least several decades. These directional changes are the consequence of simultaneous conifer species decline and expansion of beech. 2. The observed changes in species composition of mixed mountain forests are the effect of indirect anthropogenic influences, significantly changing tree growth conditions also in the forests that are usually considered natural or near-natural. Cumulative impact of these indirect influences leads to the decrease of fir share in the tree layer (spruce decline has also been observed recently),and it limits the representation of this species among seedlings and saplings. The final effect is the decrease of fir and spruce share in the forest stands. 3. Small disturbances, killing single trees or small groups of trees, and infrequent disturbances of medium size and intensity dominate the disturbance regime in mixed mountain forests. The present structure of beech-fir-spruce forests is shaped both by complex disturbance regime and indirect anthropogenic influences. The data were gathered in permanent sample plots in strictly protected areas of Babia Góra, Gorce, and Tatra National Parks, situated in the Western Carpathians. All plots were located in the old-growth forest stands representing Carpathian beech forest community. The results of the measurements of trees, snags, coarse woody debris (CWD) and tree regeneration were used for detailed description of changes in the species composition and structure of tree stands. Tree ring widths derived from increment cores were used to reconstruct the historical changes in tree growth trends of all main tree species, as well as the stand disturbance history within the past two to three hundred years. The analyses revealed complex disturbance history in all of the three forest stands. Intermediate disturbances of variable intensity occurred, frequently separated by the periods of low tree mortality lasting from several decades up to over one hundred years. The intervals between the disturbances were significantly shorter than the expected length of forest developmental cycle, in commonly used theories describing the dynamics of old-growth stands. During intermediate disturbances up to several dozen percent of canopy trees were killed. There were no signs of stand-replacing disturbances, killing all or nearly all of canopy trees. The periods of intense tree mortality were followed by subsequent periods of increased sapling recruitment. Variability in disturbance intensity is one of the mechanisms promoting the coexistence of beech and conifer species in mixed forests. The recruitment of conifer saplings depended on the presence of larger gaps, resulting from intermediate disturbances, while beech was more successful in the periods of low mortality. However, in the last few decades, beech seems to benefit from the period of intense fir mortality. This change results from the influence of long-term anthropogenic disturbances, affecting natural mechanisms that maintain the coexistence of different tree species and change natural disturbance regimes. Indirect anthropogenic influence on tree growth was clearly visible in the gradual decrease of fir increments in the twentieth century, resulting from the high level of air pollution in Europe. Synchronous decreases of fir tree rings’ widths were observed in all three of the sample plots, but the final outcomes depended on the fir age. In most cases, the damage to the foliage limited the competitive abilities of fir, but it did not cause a widespread increase in tree mortality, except for the oldest firs in the BGNP (Babia Góra National Park) plot. BGNP is located in the proximity of industrial agglomeration of Upper Silesia, and it could be exposed to higher level of air pollution than the other two plots. High level of fir regeneration browsing due to the deer overabundance and insufficient number of predators is the second clear indication of the indirect anthropogenic influence on mixed mountain forests. Game impact on fir regeneration is the most pronounced in Babia Góra forests, where fir was almost completely eliminated from the saplings. Deer browsing seems to be the main factor responsible for limiting the number of fir saplings and young fir trees, while the representation of fir among seedlings is high. The experiments conducted in fenced plots located in the mixed forests in BGNP proved that fir and sycamore were the most preferred by deer species among seedlings and saplings. In GNP (Gorce National Park) and TNP (Tatra National Park), the changes in species composition of tree regeneration are similar, but single firs or even small groups of firs are present among saplings. It seems that all of the analysed mixed beech-fir-spruce forests undergo directional changes, causing a systematic decrease in fir representation, and the expansion of beech. This tendency results from the indirect anthropogenic impact, past and present. Fir regeneration decline, alongside with the high level of spruce trees’ mortality in recent years, may lead to a significant decrease in conifers representation in the near future, and to the expansion of beech forests at the cost of mixed ones.