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Social prescribing link workers are recently introduced roles in English primary care. One of their intended functions is to support patients with conditions influenced by the wider, social determinants of health. Their main purpose is to connect people to community resources to meet their nonmedical needs. However, our research reveals that link workers provide not only connections but also what we have described as "holding" for individuals with complex needs, who lack informal networks of support or who are waiting to access services. We explore the concept of holding, its meaning and significance in this context, and consider its consequences. As part of a realist evaluation, we observed seven link workers in GP practices in England during focussed ethnographies over a 3‐week period. We took field notes and interviewed 61 patients and 93 healthcare and voluntary sector professionals. Nine to twelve months later, we carried out follow‐up interviews with forty‐one patients, seven link workers, and a link worker manager. We identified four functions of holding: supporting patients waiting for services, sustaining patients as they prepare for change, reducing the emotional burden of primary healthcare professionals, and bearing witness to patients' distress. Holding appears to be a vital but often overlooked aspect of social prescribing. Patients benefit from having a reliable and consistent person to support their emotional needs. However, similar to the impact of holding on other primary care professionals, there are unintended consequences: some link workers exceed their capacity, become overburdened, experience burnout, and leave their job. Recognizing the importance of holding and understanding its role in link workers' primary care responsibilities are critical. If holding work is accepted as a role for link workers, providing training and support to them should be prioritised to ensure successful implementation and positive outcomes for patients, link workers, and primary healthcare staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of 226 faculty in mentoring relationships found that a larger proportion of women are mentored. There were no significant differences in psychosocial support from mentors in cross-cultural versus homogenous pairings. The impact of mentoring on organizational commitment was significantly greater for Caucasian men and women. (SK)

Utilization of a new research tool called scientific visualization proved to be highly beneficial in the analysis of organizations. Scientific visualization permits a more detailed analysis and diagnosis of organizational issues by allowing simultaneous viewing of both variables and organizational entities. It is capable of viewing vague or unexplained organizational processes mathematically.

George (1990) examined personality, affect, and absence behavior as group-level phenomena. The recognition of level of analysis issues in that study was important, and the formulation of group-level hypotheses was interesting. However, the incomplete application of within and between analysis (WABA) led to suspect conclusions about group-based effects. The current study reexamined and reinterpreted George's results in light of an appropriate application of WABA. Personality, affect, and absence behavior appear to be based primarily on individual rather than group differences. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Tested the importance of temporal trends within absenteeism data for males and females. The data support previous findings of higher absenteeism rates for women when compared to men. The data also indicate the importance of temporal trends. Conclusions are drawn concerning the use of absence rates as dependent variables. (Author)

Byline: Steven E. Markham, Ina S. Markham, Barry A. Wray This research compares the results of utilising an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) approach versus a combined Genetic Algorithm (GA) with an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for the task of selecting high-productivity employees. Demographic and piece-rate performance data were collected from 378 employees of a large garment manufacturer. While the OLS model showed only 3 of 11 predictors to be significant, a combined GA procedure coupled with an ANN model found seven determinants to be important in identifying the most productive employees. The ANN model's R of 0.30 was significantly better at predicting hourly productivity than the OLS model (R = 0.14). The accuracy of the classification results showed that the two techniques were very different; the ANN results were significantly more accurate for identifying and classifying high-performance employees. The implications of this for the field of productivity and employee selection are discussed.

The article discusses research pertaining to the relationship between unemployment and absenteeism at the national level, the regional level, and/or the organizational level. Data on monthly absenteeism rates from 1976 to 1982 were collected from the U.S. Bureau of National Affairs. The results revealed a significant relationship between absenteeism and unemployment. It has found that the absenteeism rate for the organizations included in the study was closely associated with the national unemployment rate and was not significantly associated with the local rate.

The pay-for-performance relation was examined at the individual level of analysis using data from 71 managers and professionals who constituted the entire management hierarchy at a manufacturing facility. There was no significant correlation between performance rating and total merit raise (r = .19, ns). However, there was a significant hidden supervisory group effect: Units with higher average performance ratings were given higher average raises (r = .45, p