Last August, the former finance chief at Zurich Insurance Group AG committed suicide and blamed the company’s chairman for creating an unbearable work environment. “Accountability should flow upwards,” said Richard LeBlanc, professor of law and ethics at York University, in the Financial Post March 24. “People respond to stimuli such as workplace rules, who is rewarded and who is not, and all of that is structure controlled by the board and management.” Read full story.
Can Lululemon stay king of yoga pants?
Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University, believes the veteran retailer can fight off attacks from the likes of the savvy Joe Mimran, who’s hocking $16 cropped yoga pants through his discount Joe Fresh line.“[Lululemon has] got to market how they’re different – emphasizing things like sweat management, stretchability and technology,” he said in Metro March 25. “Joe Fresh will eat into their business if people see no difference between the products.” Read full story.
Teaching ‘productivity’
“Recently the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario released a report on a study ‘designed to measure the teaching loads of faculty members in the Ontario university system and the relationship of this variable to others, such as research output and salary’,” wrote York University PhD candidate Melonie Fullick in University Affairs March 24. “As is clear from the some of the responses it’s received, this study prods at a sore spot (the quest to translate faculty work into measurable units) with what seems like a blunt instrument – but why is that the case?” Read full story.
Health Canada falling short on trial transparency
While Health Canada has made efforts to improve the transparency of its drug-approval procedures, clinical-trial information provided in Summary Basis of Decision (SBD) documents is still insufficient to give doctors a reliable basis for prescribing decisions, a new study claims. According to Roojin Habibi, the lead researcher and a former York University student who collaborated on the study with Professor Joel Lexchin from the University’s Faculty of Health, key omissions from SBD documents included characteristics of the patients who took part in related clinical trials, as well as the results of those trials, reported PharmaTimes March 25. Read full story.