IN BRIEF
Old ways prevail in new healthcare
DEER MANAGEMENT Government agencies are starting to consider deer in the context of ecosystem services. Research has developed a framework that has informed disputes among neighbours and between policymakers over deer management. Stakeholders, policymakers and researchers will co-produce a ‘best practice’ guide for developing sustainable deer management plans. ESRC Grant Number RES-811-25-0002
OFFSHORING DECISIONS European multinationals increasingly hold intellectual property offshore. Researchers will develop a model of firms’ choices over intellectual property location in the form of patents and examine how such decisions are affected by corporate tax. The methodology will be useful for evaluating recent tax reforms, such as the exemption system for the taxation of foreign income, as well as future reforms. ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-4268
RENEWABLE ENERGY If the UK is to meet increasingly ambitious targets for renewable energy, much depends on what happens in the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A two-year study will assess the impacts of devolution on the provision of renewable energy based on interviews with government, business and pressure groups, as well as qualitative and quantitative data. ESRC Grant Number RES-062-23-2526
6 SOCIETY NOW AUTUMN 2010
NEW INDEPENDENT SECTOR Treatment Centres (ISTCs) may not be reshaping healthcare working practices as successfully as had been hoped, says new research. Healthcare providers are increasingly encouraged to become ‘learning organisations’. This involves sharing information across organisational and occupational boundaries to foster new ways of working and to enhance service quality and safety. But a study of two National Health Authority (NHA) and two ISTC Day Surgery Units reveals that knowledge sharing between clinical groups in ISTCs is not markedly changed as traditional ways of working are ‘carried over’ from the NHS. “Our early findings suggest management was unable to
act with greater autonomy and radically reshape working practices within ISTCs. Instead, existing cultural and institutional forces were replicated and amplified in the emerging order of the new organisation,” says Dr Justin Waring. “Efforts by managers to transform working practices tended to be limited to enhancing productivity and speed as opposed to integration and learning.” n
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Contact Dr Justin Waring, Nottingham University Business School Email
Justin.waring@nottingham.ac.uk Telephone 0113 823 1275 ESRC Grant Number RES-061-25-0040
Public shuns blame game after fatal accidents
IN CASES OF work-related fatality, where the activities of an organisation cause the deaths of members of the public or workers, there is little public appetite for retributive justice, suggests a new study.
In recent years, a series of high- profile work-related fatality cases (such as the 2000 Hatfield rail crash) prompted a concern as to whether the law would hold those responsible to account through criminal conviction. Indeed, a new offence of ‘corporate manslaughter’ was introduced in 2007 to allow homicide liability to be imposed. “Ostensibly this was a response to what the Home Office identified as a lack of ‘public confidence’ in the law’s ability to deal with fatal incidents,” says researcher Dr Paul Almond.
To discover what the public really think, researchers from the University of Reading undertook a pilot study of 60 people discussing real-life work-
related fatality cases. “Our findings show that the public certainly regards these cases as serious and significant,” Dr Almond says. “But in this study people tended not to express anything like the degree of ‘punitiveness’ that might be expected. Indeed, the appetite for blame was tempered by sophisticated reasoning and rational approaches to culpability, with people viewing the law as a way of achieving better outcomes in the future.” Researchers conclude that people have a desire for accountability, not simply for punishment, in work- related fatality cases. Criminalisation as an element of stronger and more meaningful regulation, rather than for its own sake, seems to be what the public prefers. n
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Contact Dr Paul Almond, University of Reading Email
p.j.almond@
reading.ac.uk Telephone 0118 378 7527 ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-3080
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