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Existing overviews of barriers for openly sharing and using government data are often conceptual or based on a limited number of cases. Furthermore, it is unclear what categories of barriers are most obstructive for attaining open data objectives. This paper aims to categorize and prioritize barriers for openly sharing and using government data based on many existing Open Government Data Initiatives (OGDIs).

This study analyzes 171 survey responses concerning existing OGDIs worldwide.

The authors found that the most critical OGDI barrier categories concern (in order of most to least critical): functionality and support; inclusiveness; economy, policy and process; data interpretation; data quality and resources; legislation and access; and sustainability. Policymakers should prioritize solving functionality and support barriers and inclusiveness barriers because the authors found that these are the most obstructive in attaining OGDI objectives.

The prioritization of open data barriers calls for three main actions by practitioners to reduce the barrier impact: open data portal developers should develop advanced tools to support data search, analysis, visualization, interpretation and interaction; open data experts and teachers should train potential users, and especially those currently excluded from OGDIs because of a lack of digital skills; and government agencies that provide open data should put user-centered design and the user experience central to better support open data users.

This study contributes to the open data literature by proposing a new, empirically based barrier categorization and prioritization based a large number of existing OGDIs.

Employee loyalty is generally a very positive trait. However, when loyal employees are confronted with dysfunctionality in the workplace the impact on their well-being can be significant. The purpose of this paper is to assess the interaction of employee loyalty and employee experience of inter-professional dysfunction in a hospital setting to predict employee job tension.

The paper is based on the analysis of a cross-sectional attitudinal survey of employees within a hospital setting in Australia. The authors use OLS regression and an SPSS macro (by Hayes, 2013) to assess the regions of significance of the interaction effects.

The authors find, as anticipated, significant direct effects for employee loyalty and inter-professional dysfunction on employee job stress. The authors further find significant interaction effects that suggest that highly loyal employees who experience inter-professional dysfunction also experience disproportionately high levels of job tension.

The main research implication of this research relates to the confirmation of the presence of an interaction effect between loyalty and inter-professional dysfunction in predicting employee job stress. Further, the zone of significance analysis (following Johnson and Neyman) suggests that this effect is evident at even low levels of inter-professional dysfunction.

Organisations should appreciate employee loyalty but should also be aware that loyal employees are more vulnerable to the negative consequences of organisational dysfunction than are employees with limited organisational loyalty.

The paper confirms the importance of managing organisational cooperation between groups in organisations as a precursor to positive employee outcomes.

This is the first paper to investigate this interaction and to apply Johnson-Neyman analysis to confirm the regions of significance for the interaction effects noted.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospective analysis of computer simulation’s role in accelerating individual innovation adoption decisions. The process innovation examined is Lean Systems Thinking, and the organizational context is the imaging department of an Australian public hospital.

Intrinsic case study methods including observation, interviews with radiology and emergency personnel about scheduling procedures, mapping patient appointment processes and document analysis were used over three years and then complemented with retrospective interviews with key hospital staff. The multiple data sources and methods were combined in a pragmatic and reflexive manner to explore an extreme case that provides potential to act as an instructive template for effective change.

Computer simulation of process change ideas offered by staff to improve patient-flow accelerated the adoption of the process changes, largely because animated computer simulation permitted experimentation (trialability), provided observable predictions of change results (observability) and minimized perceived risk.

The difficulty of making accurate comparisons between time periods in a health care setting is acknowledged.

This work has implications for policy, practice and theory, particularly for inducing the rapid diffusion of process innovations to address challenges facing health service organizations and national health systems.

The research demonstrates the value of animated computer simulation in presenting the need for change, identifying options, and predicting change outcomes and is the first work to indicate the importance of trialability, observability and risk reduction in individual adoption decisions in health services.

Many clients who suffer from severe mental health problems also struggle with alcohol and drug use. And although there seems to be a consensus in most European countries that integrated treatment models (especially the integrated treatment of dual disorder clients model) are best fitted to help these clients, none of these have strong evidence, mostly owing to methodological limitations in the studies. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge of why integrated treatment is helpful by conducting in-depth interviews with dual disorder clients who are currently receiving integrated treatment.

This study is a qualitative thematic analysis using a timeline tool to elicit participants’ responses. In the interviews, dual diagnosis clients with severe problems reflected on their situation at admission, the care they received in integrated treatment and their opinions on positive and negative elements. The interviews were coded and analysed with MAXQDA.

In the analyses of the interviews, this study found three clusters of elements that clients indicated were the most helpful during their treatment and recovery process: trusting and meaningful relationship with the team, components of integrated treatment and organisation of care.

The findings emphasized the importance of working relationship in the treatment of complex and long-term problems. This has implications for the evaluation of these integrated treatment models which so far mainly focuses on specific interventions.

The purpose of this study is to examine what kinds of Dutch organisations offer their employees a choice in the composition of their benefits with the aid of a theoretical model that incorporates insights from rational choice theory, the theory of institutional pressures and the bundles of human resource management (HRM) theory.

To test the theoretical model data were collected from nearly 600 Dutch organisations in the market sector. Multivariate binary logistic regression analyses were used to analyse these data.

The research showed that flexible benefit plans (FBPs) are widespread and show a considerable degree of consistency in the options they offer. FBPs are most likely to be offered by organisations that have freedom to manoeuvre in their benefits, that witness other organisations around them offering such arrangements, and that offer HRM policies and practices that are strongly focussed on the combination of work and family, and on flexibility in working arrangements.

Attention to HRM policies in addition to a combination of rational choice and institutional theory proved valuable in explaining the uptake of a new arrangement, and this merits further exploration.

FPBs offer Dutch organisations the opportunity to give their employees more choice in the way they are paid, and to adjust this pay to their personal situation. Offering this choice fits in with a family‐friendly HRM structure and increases flexibility for both parties.

The paper provides useful information on FBPs.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether firms' transparency in supply chain (TISC) statements indicate that substantive action is being taken on modern slavery in UK government supply chains.

The authors analyse 66 of the UK government's strategic suppliers' TISC statements and 20 key documents related to the policy intent of the UK Parliament, 2015 TISC requirements. Qualitative document analysis identifies what suppliers say they are doing and what they are not saying to provide novel insights into how firms employ ambiguity to avoid timely action on modern slavery in their supply chains A set of propositions are developed.

The authors elaborate the concepts of time and change in socially sustainable supply chains and illustrate how firms use ambiguity in TISC statements as a highly strategic form of action to defend the status quo, reduce accountability and delay action for modern slavery within supply chains. The authors identify three ambiguous techniques: defensive reassurance, transfer responsibility and scope reduction that deviate from the policy intention of collaborative action.

The results illustrates how ambiguity is preventing firms from taking collaborative action to tackle modern slavery in their supply chains. The lack of action as a result of ambiguity protects firms, rather than potential victims of modern slavery.

Prior research focuses on technical compliance rather than the content of firms' TISC statements. This qualitative study provides novel insights into the policy-resistant effects of ambiguity and highlights the dynamic and instrumental role of modern slavery reporting. Theoretically, we identify accountability as an essential concept to address the causes of modern slavery in supply chains and for developing collaborative supply chain environments to tackle the issues.

Lean concept is implemented in healthcare organizations, as it deals with improvement processes so that best services may be provided to the patients and competitive advantage may be achieved. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the important factors which influence implementation of lean principles in the healthcare industry.

The factors influencing lean implementation in the healthcare industry have been determined through literature review and results of a survey where questionnaires were distributed among 325 healthcare professionals. Fuzzy Interpretive Structural Modeling (FISM) approach has been used to analyze the interrelationships among these factors. A FISM model has been developed to extract the key factors influencing lean implementation.

Results of the survey and model show that lean leadership, professional organizational culture and teamwork and interdepartmental cooperation are the top level factors. Clarity of organizational vision, communication of goals and results, follow up and evaluations are the factors with strong driving as well as strong dependence power. Even a slight action taken on these factors will have a significant impact on other factors.

The healthcare professionals and managers can acquire information from the drive power dependence matrix so that they can thoroughly understand the relative importance, interdependencies and relationships among these factors. The model will help in determining the hierarchy of various actions and activities which may be taken by the management for managing the factors that remarkably affect the lean management in hospitals.

In this paper, only 15 variables appropriate for the Indian healthcare industry have been identified. The model developed in the present research has not been validated statistically which can be done by structural equation modeling (SEM).

Though there are various studies which depict that lean principles have been implemented successfully in various industries, there are few studies specifying the application of lean principles in healthcare sector in India. This paper is an attempt to identify various factors which are important for application of Lean concept in the healthcare sector.

The purpose of this paper is to test the theoretical proposition, put forward by Yukl et al. (2002), that the leadership constructs of transformational and transactional leadership, laissez-faire, consideration, and initiating structure can be arranged into three meta-categories of leadership, namely, relations, task, and change-oriented leadership.

After a comprehensive literature search, 1,402 correlations from 286 sources were obtained which referred to the above mentioned leadership constructs and outcome criteria of effective leadership.

It was found that three meta-categories of leadership (i.e. relations, task, and change-oriented leadership) were sufficient to explain the leadership constructs of transformational and transactional leadership, laissez-faire, consideration, and initiating structure. Moreover, it was also found that change-oriented leadership was most effective in predicting the job satisfaction of followers. In contrast, relations-oriented leadership accounted for most of the variance in both commitment and job performance.

In combination, these results allow for a more comprehensive, integrative description of effective leadership behavior.

The results have implications for leadership assessment and development as well as leader selection and feedback.

Applying Occam’s razor, and in contrast to the majority of prior leadership studies, the present meta-analytical study provided evidence that three categories of leadership behaviors allow for a precise and comprehensive description of effective leadership behavior.