Suchergebnisse

Several months in 2013 and 2014 have been a hardly predictable time in Ukraine, and the situation is still far from being stable. This made the editorial team of TCPHEE based in Ukraine postpone publishing consecutive issues. However, while the situation still requires practical steps, many aspects including those related to public health require analysis and debate. Thus we invite opinion pieces and studies addressing all different spheres of how public health should function under changing social circumstances. There might be a wide range of such related topics.The most obvious ones are those linked to changing living conditions. Many studies have been undertaken and published with regard to health threats to refugees, people involved in natural or technical disasters (Noji, 2005). Along with environmental health threats, there might be mental health disturbances (World Health Organization, 1992) resulting from long-term strain, losses et cetera.Another important focus is related to changes in health services provision. Crimea, which is a former Ukrainian territory now occupied by the Russian Federation, was among those in Ukraine highly affected with HIV (Dehne, Khodakevich, Hamers, & Schwartlander, 1999). This was responded by several NGOs actively providing harm reduction services to high-risk groups along with methadone substitution therapy to opiate users and antiretroviral medicines to those HIV-infected (Curtis, 2010). However, there are news reports that Russia is going to stop provision of methadone (kommersant.ru, 2014). As opiate substitution programs have been shown an effective approach towards preventing HIV transmission among people who inject drugs (MacArthur et al., 2012), such change in public health policies might affect not only most at risk populations but their partners and population as a whole as well resulting in a rapid spread of HIV.Yet another related topic is that of how health services can be organized at times of social upheavals. Health service of Maidan, though has already attracted much attention (Yasynska, February 7, 2014), should probably become a focus of more scrutiny as an example of volunteer labor force and resources involvement.However, a wide range of even more difficult issues is to be addressed once life comes to some order after the power transfer to those people who were in favor of the changes. Some models have long been known and just required practical implementation - including those related to preventive medicine and primary health care, to mention just two established internationally as a must of health care several decades ago but still not fully in place in Ukraine. Nevertheless, as these models could not be properly implemented for many years in line, this might derive from the obstacles pertaining to either how health workers are educated or how the system is regulated.Considering the best intentions of people who aimed, as opposed to the bygone authorities, to work for the benefit of their compatriots, we may assume that they would be willing to implement the ideas and technologies with proven ability to improve health and well-being of people. Yet, implementation of evidence-based approaches might be deemed slow and boring in comparison to heroic happenings and populist slogans of the power transfer. What are the tipping points to achieve changes in how people think and work in order to open doors for the best practices elaborated elsewhere along with trial-based implementation of new ideas arising on the spot? Though diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 1962) is a well-known model that describes the process, what could be made to facilitate it?If evidence-based and benefit-aimed technologies are to be brought into deployment, obviously good surveillance systems (Klaucke et al., 1988) become inexorably needed. Yet, overall they are costly and difficult to justify in a poor country. What is an appropriate way of their step by step implementation which allows quick display of payoffs and cost-effective use with the impact on the ways people think and act?Yet, the opposite side of the same story, those pieces of surveillance which are already in place are very unlikely to be properly used. Even those favorable trends in national statistics which showed years of declining mortality (Polischuk, Krasovsky, & Andreeva, 2009) and could be presented by ruling politicians as a sign of their successes, is neglected. This certainly does not mean that surveillance is not needed, but this is still the need to be felt and the tool to be understood and learnt.Many models considered normal and well-developed within the public health in the West are still beyond proper understanding of most health professionals in Ukraine, and probably other countries which resemble it in some features. An important achievement of Maidan was the feeling of community, the ability to self-organize in order to solve arising issues. While 'community' was a hardly definable entity in most countries deriving from the former Soviet Union, it now becomes tangible how people can be together and act together. This gives opportunities to address issues of 'community health,' which was never perceived a realistic construct before. How communities live and act, how they might interact with health policies and health determinants at different levels, how to diagnose and understand them is still another large area that was never studied or taught in a country we come from.Moving towards Europe, as Ukraine strives now, requires crucial changes in many spheres of life. What are the known rules for these changes to happen? What are the hypothetical predictors of these changes to be successful? What are the additional factors yet to be explored and taken into account? Your knowledge, ideas and guesses are welcome!

The main task, first of all, of developing economies, is the question of attracting capital to the sphere of high-tech production. Based on historical experience, we can conclude that it is the real sector of the economy that is the basis of the economic security of the state. It is the problem of attracting investments in the real sector of the economy, which creates competitive products that are in demand on world markets, that is acute for the Republic of Moldova today. Thus, the article reveals the importance of attracting capital to the real sector of the economy, proposals for creating a competitive environment for attracting capital, proposals for the actions of public authorities to create appropriate conditions for the flow of capital for investing in the real sector of the economy.

Purpose– Intellectual capital (IC) has been argued to be the key element of value creation in contemporary economies and this argument has been widely supported by empirical research, but mainly based on data from developed markets. The question of how IC and its elements work in other contexts remains under-researched and the limited empirical evidence that exists contradicts the conclusions drawn from developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insight into the relationship between three main elements of IC (human, relational and structural) and organizational performance in the particular context of Russian manufacturing companies.Design/methodology/approach– The sample comprises 240 Russian manufacturing companies. The data are collected by survey using the scales already validated in the international context. The authors use a two-step analysis – factor and regression analyses – to answer the research questions.Findings– The findings demonstrate that structural and human capitals positively influence organizational performance, explaining a quarter of its variation, while relational capital does not.Practical implications– The core managerial implication of this study is that developing structural capital is of particular importance for Russian manufacturing companies.Originality/value– The paper contributes to further development of IC theory by investigating its application in the new institutional and cultural context of Russia.

As service companies increasingly occupy a significant place as drivers of economic growth, there is a pressing need to understand their peculiarities in order to facilitate their effective management and governance. One important area where this kind of understanding is lacking is knowledge management (KM). Although KM has become a key value driver for all types of organizations, there has been a lack of systematic research into whether there are some fundamental differences between the nature of KM in service‐oriented versus product‐oriented companies. To address this gap in the existing knowledge, this paper examines the main differences between the KM practices and benefits produced by KM in service‐oriented versus product‐oriented companies. Empirical evidence is collected from 171 companies in Finland, China, and Russia and analyzed statistically. The results demonstrate that there are significant differences between service‐oriented and product‐oriented companies in time savings achieved through the application of KM and also on the impact of KM practices on KM benefits. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractWhile the potential influence of national culture on the efficiency of knowledge management interventions has been widely accepted, the question of whether the knowledge management theories are influenced by culture received little attention. This paper aims to address this gap by analyzing SECI model of knowledge creation by Nonaka and Takeuchi in the context of Russian national culture. The model's authors claim of its universal validity, and current criticism against this position is limited and controversial. We maintain that it is partly due to the fact that SECI model in its original format resists empirical verification. Thus we propose a framework for operationalization of the SECI model. We suggest that decomposing SECI model into three levels—basic cognitive processes, societal and organizational conditions, and managerial tools—opens the ways for its empirical and cross‐cultural investigation. Applying this framework to Russia, we develop a set of theoretical propositions regarding opportunities and limits of SECI application in Russian cultural context. Finally we discuss theoretical and management implications of our analysis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

BACKGROUND: The importance of effective policy aimed at improving nutrition practices is highly recognized by the global community. METHODS: Analysis of Ukrainian legislative documents was conducted to clarify the situation in the field of policy initiatives and legislation devoted to nutrition in Ukraine. Documents in force adopted from 1991 to 2011 including key words "nutrition", "health", "concept", and "food products" were reviewed. RESULTS: We reviewed 55 legislative acts related to nutrition and identified several groups: 18 documents are related to organization of supply, regimen, norms of nutrition in state establishments or for special populations; 12 documents related to economic and technological regulation of food preparation, quality control and distribution; 3 documents regulating nutritious and safety norms of food products for children under 3 years; 14 documents aimed to control food safety, quality and accessibility; 6 other documents partly referred to nutrition, including 4 Concepts of healthy lifestyles. Some of the principles of healthy eating are declared in the "Concept of improving food security and quality of nutrition of the population" approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in 2004. Principles of maintaining breastfeeding, activities aimed to reduce iodine deficiency among population as well as school educational program "Foundations of health" were those few governmental activities, which supported some of the ideas declared in the Concept. CONCLUSION: Great attention of policymakers is paid to regulation of production, distribution of food, its quality control, affordability of products for special population groups, especially children. Not much attention is devoted in the official documents to creating and maintaining the healthy eating practices of the population. Mechanisms aimed to form healthy eating practices are not specified in the legislative documents. No regulatory documents to implement these principles were found. The existing regulatory documents do not fully reflect global trends and practices for healthy eating. KEYWORDS: healthy eating, nutrition policy.

PurposeThis study aims to examine relational norms in cross-cultural business settings. Cross-cultural business partners may differ in their normative orientations toward relational exchange. Owing to the high extent of international trade, there is a need for developing a more nuanced understanding of cross-cultural relational exchange.Design/methodology/approachThe repertory grid method was used to elicit the personal constructs characterizing the perceptions of business-to-business (B2B) relational exchange for 22 Russian and Finnish managers. These items were further categorized into categories of relational elements drawn from relational exchange literature using a content analysis. Then, the category means of scored importance and scored evaluations of domestic and foreign business partners were tested statistically.FindingsRelational norms of flexibility, information exchange, long-term orientation, mutuality and solidarity were equally important to both Russian and Finnish managers. The importance of a business partner's ability seems to be culturally dependent. Sharing the same cultural background might have an adverse effect when evaluating poorly functioning business relations.Research limitations/implicationsThe validity of these findings is limited to this context and material. Future research should repeat cross-cultural comparisons of the relational norms with more data and other nationalities.Practical implicationsFirms should focus on long-term orientation and mutual targets to form well-functioning cross-cultural business relationships.Originality/valueThis study provides new knowledge into B2B marketing literature by revealing the role of relational norms, business partner's ability and shared cultural background on functionality of cross-cultural business relations. It also demonstrates the use of the repertory grid method in studying perceptions of relational norms.

The review is devoted to the analysis of the book "Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries. Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I" by the famous American historian Alexander Martin dedicated to the history of Russian conservatism in the first quarter of the 19th century. The author explores the process of formation of conservative ideology in politics, Russian social thought, culture, and also reveals its origins, defines features that are distinctive from the liberal doctrine. Against the broad background of the political and cultural life of Russia at that time, the complex relationship of various systems of conservative ideology is shown. It is demonstrated that the religious conservatism of such prominent defenders of Catholicism and Orthodoxy as Mestre and Sturdza, the clash of their opposite positions, disputes about the historical fate and civilizational purpose of Christianity, as well as the romantic nationalism of A. S. Shishkov and S. N. Glinka and the noble conservatism of N. M. Karamzin and F. V. Rostopchin reflected the search for new forms of anti-revolutionary conservative worldview. The position of Alexander Martin is especially noteworthy in relation to the significant contribution of conservative thinkers of Alexander's reign to the formation of state policy in the interests of Russia, the formation of the foundations of civil society, the development of national identity, Russian culture and language. The author comes to a reasonable conceptual conclusion that although the early conservatives did not develop a single ideology, they laid the foundation for various forms of Russian conservatism in the second quarter of the 19th – early 20th centuries.

The article explores the process of the formation the new Polish policy through the prism of biographies of representatives of the Kingdom of Poland who became members of the Council of State during the reign of Nicholas I. The article demonstrates that the problem of management of a huge country at the beginning of the researched period was one of the main issues. The extraordinary circumstances of the accession to the throne, that is, the dynastic and political crises, and then the revolutionary upheavals in Europe, had a decisive influence on the choice by Nicholas I of strategic priorities and tactical attitudes of state policy. A tactical means of achieving it was a new type of absolutism combining the monarch's strong authoritarian power with an improved management system, one of the most important components of which was determined by the "national" administration of Poland. At the same time, the "information war" unfolding in connection with European revolutionary events forced the supreme power to pay special attention to its ideological and institutional convergence with the political system of Russia. Given the conditions of the destruction of the system of relations with Poland that existed until 1830, the government's priority was to develop a new domestic policy that would ensure that the imperial center maintain social peace in the region by means of not only establishing a single legislative space,but also by incorporating the Polish administrative and military elite into the highest state institutions of the country.

AbstractThis paper explores the idea that well‐aligned HR practices may produce varied and even negative effects on innovation performance. To do so, we examine the interaction effect between rewards for and appraisal of knowledge behaviours on radical and incremental innovation outcomes. Drawing on the insights from the strategic HRM literature on the internal fit between HR practices, as well as the developments of the knowledge governance approach, we argue that rewards and appraisal applied together produce a setting that is conducive for deepening existing knowledge bases, but hindering for more distant and diverse knowledge search. Empirical test of these hypotheses using the data from 259 Finnish companies lends partial support for this argument. Intensive usage of appraisal of knowledge behaviours reduces the positive impact that rewards for such behaviours have on radical innovation. At the same time, rewards and appraisal do not intensify each other's effect on incremental innovation.

Russia has experienced a large increase in injecting drug use since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Injecting drug use is presently attributed with up to 90 perccent of newly acquired HIV. Peer educators of an outreach program conducted a survey of injecting drug users (IDUs) in Moscow. The survey was supplemented by qualitative field notes. Due to differences in settings and methods, the hospital and street survey results are presented separately. A total of 298 hospital and 126 street surveys were collected. Results showed that IDUs are young (average 20 years), and the majority were studying or working. Needles were rated as easy to get, although police pressure often deters carrying a syringe. Sharing needles was common; IDUs that used only heroin were significantly less likely to share (RR 0.38 to 0.56). IDUs that had spoken to a peer educator were also less likely to share (RR 0.55). Heroin users had lower rates of hepatitis. Self-assessed HIV risk was unclear for many IDUs. HIV prevalence was 3 percent.

ObjectiveTo quantify potential bridging of HIV transmission between the injection drug using subpopulation to the non‐injection drug using population through unprotected heterosexual sex.DesignSecondary analysis of cross‐sectional data.MethodsA sub‐sample of participants who reported having a permanent partner who are not injection drug users and have not injected drugs in the past (N=1379) was selected from a survey implemented in 26 Ukrainian cities in 2011. This study evaluates the association between consistent condom use and awareness of HIV status as measured by rapid testing during the study (known/unknown HIV+, known/unknown HIV− and undetermined) among a sub‐sample of male injection drug users (IDUs) who have a non‐injecting permanent partner. Poisson regression, with robust variance estimates, was utilized to identify associations while adjusting for other factors.ResultsReported consistent condom use varied between 15.5% (unknown HIV−) and 37.5% (known HIV+); average use was 19.3%. In multivariate analysis, males who were aware of their HIV+ status were more likely to report recent consistent condom use compared to those who were unaware of their HIV+ status. This association remains after adjustment for age, region, education level, years of injection, alcohol use, self‐reported primary drug use and being an NGO client (prevalence ratio=1.65; 95% CI 1.03–2.64). No such association was found for those who were HIV−.ConclusionsOur results regarding HIV‐positive male IDUs reinforce previous findings that HIV testing and counselling may be an effective means of secondary prevention. Further research is needed to understand how to effectively promote safer sex behaviours for IDUs who are currently HIV−.

This report is part of the "Implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions" (NDCs) project (FKZ 3716 4111 80), which considers NDC implementation in 10 countries: Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Marshall Islands, Morocco, Peru, and Viet Nam. This project places a special emphasis on identifying potential barriers to NDC implementation and mitigation potentials which could go beyond the current NDCs. The country reports analyse the NDCs in terms of their robustness and coherence with other national or sectoral plans and targets, and put them into the context of additional mitigation potentials and other national circumstances. For countries where coal plays a critical role in consumption or national production, the analysis covers further details on this sector, including the economic relevance and local impacts of coal production or consumption. The content is based on available literature from research and public sector information on policies and institutions. This report summarises the findings on coal given in the country reports of Colombia, Indonesia and Viet Nam. It has been augmented by a literature analysis on global coal trends and structural change in coal mining areas as well as very recent country specific publications which became available only after the finalisation of the three country reports. The project was suggested and is financed by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, supervised by the German Environment Agency and carried out by independent think tanks - NewClimate Institute and Wuppertal Institute. The country reports are a continuation of similar previous efforts (project numbers 3713 41 102, 3711 41 120, 360 16 022, 364 01 003 and 363 01 128) and aim to inform policy makers and the interested public about the implementation of NDCs in individual countries. The choice of countries is based on developing countries with which Germany works closely on climate change topics. The country reports are scientific in nature, and all suggestions are derived by the authors from careful analysis, having in mind the individual backgrounds of countries. They aim to increase knowledge about implementation of mitigation potentials to meet the globally agreed goal of staying within a temperature increase of 1.5°C or well below 2°C above preindustrial levels, without intending to prescribe specific policies.