The use of address forms among Faculty academic staff of Bayero University, Kano.

This paper investigates the use of address forms among the academic staff of the Faculty of Arts and Islamic Studies at the Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. The aim is to find out whether there is variation in the use of the terms between the members of academic staff of the Faculty which has six Departments (Arabic, English, History, Islamic Studies and Sharia, Nigerian Languages, Linguistics and Foreign Languages). An ethnography research method and the Variationist Sociolinguistics Theory are used to collect and analyze the data. Following the findings, three address forms are presented in more detail, namely titles, nicknames, and kinship terms. Special attention is put to the title Malam, which originally referred to a teacher or a person versed in Islamic knowledge, but nowadays is used more commonly than any other type of address forms. The research shows that age, gender, social status, degree of intimacy, and context of communication determine the use of the address forms among academic staff. The findings reveal that the staff members of the Faculty favor traditional address terms which are used in Hausa society rather than the terms corresponding to their professional rank. In addition, these address forms are culture specific and the dominant culture is Hausa.

Awareness of and attitudes toward translational medicine among health personnel in hospitals in Shanghai, China

Objective The study aim was to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of hospital health personnel toward translational medicine. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey from July 2013 to September 2013 with a representative sample of 1690 health personnel from 13 large comprehensive or specialized hospitals in Shanghai, China. Results The results showed that awareness of and attitudes toward translational medicine significantly differed by gender, age, highest level of education, profession, and professional rank. Health personnel showed a highly positive attitude toward translational medicine; however, their knowledge of translational medicine was low. Conclusion Effective measures are needed to improve health personnel’s awareness of and attitudes toward translational medicine.

Chief Audit Executives' Assessment of Internal Auditors' Performance Attributes by Professional Rank and Cultural Cluster

ABSTRACT This study explores chief audit executives' perceptions of the most important performance attributes of internal auditors by professional rank and cultural cluster. A large sample of chief audit executives (CAEs) from 19 countries located in five different cultural clusters was surveyed by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation (CBOK 2006). Analysis of data generated by that survey indicates that while leadership attributes (e.g., negotiating) are perceived to be most important for upper ranks in internal auditing, technical skills (e.g., analytical) are most important for lower ranks. Also, based on the cultural relativism literature, I hypothesize and find evidence that the importance of performance attributes differs significantly by cultural cluster. For example, while Latin-American CAEs rated leadership attributes at higher levels than other cultural clusters for internal audit staff, the East-European chief audit executives assessed the importance of technical skills at higher levels than other clusters. The results of the survey provide important initial empirical support to the list of “ideal” and “desirable” performance attributes for internal auditors recently developed by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA 2009). Data Availability: The source of data used in this study is CBOK (2006) from the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation.

An Investigation of the Attributes of Top Industry Audit Specialists

Prior research in psychology and auditing has established that in addition to ability, experience, and knowledge, many other attributes such as confidence and communication skills are also important to expertise. The literature also suggests that the importance of various expert attributes differ by professional rank. This study extends this literature by providing evidence on an expanded list of attributes of top industry audit specialists (TIASs). Specifically, the study elicited data from 114 senior audit partners known to be TIASs by a Big 6 accounting firm. These subjects generated an extensive list of attributes of TIASs in an open-ended questionnaire and assessed their importance. They also assessed the importance of each attribute in a 25-item pre-defined list. Our findings confirm the importance of many attributes reported in the expertise literature that can be classified as judgment/technical expertise. Our study also identifies detailed attributes related to characteristics that can generally be classified as personality and social attributes. For example, we present evidence on the importance of many attributes that can be classified as leadership (e.g., “respected”), marketing (e.g., “marketing focus”), and accepted-as-authority (e.g., “recognition”) characteristics. The findings are robust and applicable to various industry specializations. Implications for research and practice are discussed.