ORCID Profile
0000-0003-0471-4433
Current Organisation
UNSW Sydney
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-03-2022
DOI: 10.1002/HPJA.593
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted organised cruise holidays as perfect incubators for microbiological infections due to the constant socialising within closed spaces. Little is known about people's health behaviours and perceptions during cruise holidays. Narrative group interviews and respondent photo diary exercises were conducted with families (n = 25) residing in different areas across metropolitan NSW, Australia. Guided by a social practice theoretical approach we undertook a thematic analysis that identifies reasons for choosing a cruise, health considerations and behaviours in relation to cruise travel and awareness of official cruise health information. Cruise travel included a licence to abandon cautious behaviours, reinforced by confidence in the cruise organiser's risk management ability. Health concerns were not a high priority for participants and were mainly understood in terms of eating healthy, modest exercise, managing seasickness and having adequate supplies of medications. Awareness of official cruise health and risk information was largely non-existent. Understanding how travel health practices emerge and are likely to be modifiable produces health-promoting awareness and intervention efforts that recognise and link with people's ideas about cruise holidays as times of fun, leisure, relaxation, without interfering with or imposing on them. SO WHAT?: This study highlights the importance of developing health communication and promotion strategies that are responsive to the interconnected meanings, competencies and materials that have a bearing on how cruise travellers understand and enact health-related behaviours in preparation for and during a cruise holiday.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-06-2023
Abstract: Machinery of Government restructures—transformations that create or abolish departments or move functions between agencies—often result in the misalignment of cultures and subcultures that impact business operations and customer service levels. An understanding of how subcultures are impacted during restructures is vital as they can reveal diffused microcultural boundaries that reflect highly problematic cultural tensions. This study provides rare ethnographic insights into how Machinery of Government restructures destabilise the delivery of optimal customer service by disrupting Business as Usual operations. Based on 74 interviews and ethnographic methods, the integrationist ‘DNA’ culture, subcultures, and emerging microcultures within Service NSW, a public sector agency in New South Wales (Australia), were examined during and after its merger with the Department of Customer Service. Microcultures were shown to function in a way that preserved Business as Usual activities and responsibilities to secure task independence, highlighting the importance of developing a conceptual framework for the detection and resolution of cultural resistance. Scholars and practitioners may adopt the framework used in this study to determine how, when, and where cultural resistance is likely to emerge. This study critically analyses the ‘DNA’ culture of a service delivery agency in New South Wales during and after its merger with the Department of Customer Service. Service NSW's ‘DNA’ integrationist culture, the broader subculture of its ‘Support Office’, and various microcultures were detected. Microcultures were shown to preserve Business as Usual activities and secure task independence as reflected in backstage sites of enactment. The degree of intra‐ and interpersonal tensions experienced by Service NSW employees was opaque to senior leaders responsible for the restructure. Leaders and practitioners responsible for mergers should fully understand the changing nature of employee language and behaviour. It is advisable they act on the assumption that employees are experiencing tensions resulting from the organisation's disturbed social reality. Scholars and practitioners may adopt the conceptual framework and this case study's methodological approach to analyse a public service agency's various cultures, before, during, and after Machinery of Government (MoG) mergers or restructures, to pre‐empt, identify, and reduce cultural tensions, and should consider the feasibility of appointing a Workplace Change Committee. Workplace Change Committee Members act like first responders across impacted departments and isions within subcultures. Workplace Change Committee Members manage emerging issues, specifically cultural disparities to ensure both the intra‐ and interpersonal safety of employees impacted by MoG mergers.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-01-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-09-2023
DOI: 10.1002/HPJA.794
No related grants have been discovered for Theaanna Kiaos.