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1 – 10 of over 9000“Starting with basic market research information about the nature of the market place, OR simulation in effect generates further data. It helps to answer the manager's question…
Agneta Larsson and Anna Fredriksson
The purpose of this paper is to explore tactical planning potential within hospital departments. The study had two objectives: first, to develop a framework for tactical capacity…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore tactical planning potential within hospital departments. The study had two objectives: first, to develop a framework for tactical capacity planning in healthcare departments by identifying and structuring essential components for healthcare capacity management; and, second, to identify context-specific requirements and functionality demands on tactical planning processes within healthcare.
Design/methodology/approach
A framework for tactical capacity planning was developed through a literature review. Additionally, an exploratory multiple-case study was performed, with cases from three Swedish hospital departments, which provide the opportunity to study framework applicability in its natural context.
Findings
Findings illustrate how an active tactical planning process can facilitate adjustments to capacity. However, the multiple-case study shows that there are contextual differences between departments, depending on available treatments and resources that affect capacity adjustments, and how the planning process activities should be structured.
Originality/value
This project develops a framework for a tactical capacity-planning process adapted to healthcare provider contexts. By developing the framework, based on the literature and tactical level planning processes within three Swedish hospital case studies, the authors bridge gaps between theory and application regarding healthcare capacity planning.
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Francesco Capalbo, Luca Galati, Claudio Lupi and Margherita Smarra
This paper aims to examine how proportional appropriation systems affect the quality of financial reporting in entities controlled by local governments.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how proportional appropriation systems affect the quality of financial reporting in entities controlled by local governments.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine this issue using the setting of Italian municipally owned entities (MOEs) following the implementation of a new accounting regulation that limits the spending power of the participating municipality when the owned entity reports losses. The authors apply Benford's law on net income figures using the Chi-square and Z-tests on the adjusted version of the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) criterion to spot any sign of low data quality. The sample, which consists of 2,120 MOEs, covers the years 2010–2019 and is evenly divided into the periods pre- and post-policy introduction.
Findings
Widespread data anomalies were detected following the introduction of the new regulation for MOEs controlled by local governments. Evidence is stronger for entities owned entirely by municipalities. The results suggest that the extent of data manipulation grows as the municipality's ownership stake increases, consistent with the hypothesis that a decrease in spending power through the appropriation of financial resources affects earnings management practices in municipally controlled entities.
Practical implications
This paper sheds light on government-based accounting policies by documenting evidence of somewhat inefficient responses by those responsible for the preparation of financial statements on behalf of municipally owned entities, and, accordingly, insights are provided to help review these policies so as to forestall even indirectly detrimental repercussions on public services.
Originality/value
This paper extends prior research in public-sector earnings management by being the first to test whether MOEs manipulate their earnings as a consequence of participating municipalities' reduced spending capability. Understanding factors influencing earnings management practices driven by governments, other than political incentives, is still an open issue.
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Allen S.B. Tam and John W.H. Price
Asset maintenance activities need to be prioritised as budget and planned outage time is often limited for all maintenance work to be carried out. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
Asset maintenance activities need to be prioritised as budget and planned outage time is often limited for all maintenance work to be carried out. The purpose of this paper is to develop a technique for prioritising maintenance work that maximises the return on investment under the constraints of budget and time.
Design/methodology/approach
Three indices are proposed to be used as indicators for prioritising maintenance. These indices are termed: maintenance investment index (MII), time index (TI) and budgetary index (BI). These indices permit prioritisation of asset maintenance based on the required emphasis on return on maintenance investment, time and budget respectively.
Findings
It is found that approaches to prioritising maintenance which integrate the critical dimensions in the decision making process are lacking in the literature. There is a need for such an approach to assist decision makers to ensure enterprise's objectives and targets are maximised with given budget and planned shutdown time.
Practical implications
The proposed techniques will assist engineers and mangers to develop their maintenance plan according to the enterprise needs and constraints and allowing management to make a better informed decision in maintenance.
Originality/value
This paper provides a new technique for ranking maintenance that maximises return on investment.
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Farooq Ali and Harri Haapasalo
This article aims to address the confusion related to the meanings of interorganisational cooperation, control, coordination and collaboration in collaborative projects by…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to address the confusion related to the meanings of interorganisational cooperation, control, coordination and collaboration in collaborative projects by developing a conceptual framework. From this, the authors aim to describe the links among these concepts in terms of development levels of stakeholder relationships. In addition, the authors aim to identify challenges and preconditions in relation to developing relationships at different levels.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have adopted the directed approach of qualitative content analysis method to validate and extend the conceptual framework of this study. The context of this study is a large hospital construction project located in northern Finland.
Findings
The findings of this study suggest that collaboration is a multilevel process of active engagement of multiple stakeholders. These stakeholders must have a high degree of shared understanding in terms of cooperation, control and coordination to achieve the mutually desired outcomes. This study also identifies the challenges that project stakeholders could face in developing collaborative relationships and propose preconditions for the same.
Practical implications
This study provides a better understanding for project managers to manage interorganisational collaborative construction projects successfully. The outcome of this research would be beneficial to project management team to deliver dispute-free construction projects.
Originality/value
Existing practical research on the development of relationships at different levels in collaborative construction projects is limited. This study offers a framework for the same which is validated in a real-life project.
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Hannu Salmela and Pekka Turunen
Increased use of market mechanisms in the delivery of public services is one of the major attempts made by governments to achieve greater efficiency, higher quality and a clearer…
Abstract
Increased use of market mechanisms in the delivery of public services is one of the major attempts made by governments to achieve greater efficiency, higher quality and a clearer focus on customers. Information systems (ISs) can promote the adoption of market mechanisms, but they can also preserve a monopolistic and hierarchic model of service delivery. Hence, understanding the competitive implications of information technology (IT) is becoming relevant for managers in the public sector as well. Provides a brief overview of previous research on IT‐based competition and discusses its relevance for public sector management. Then continues to describe a project where six offices of one city co‐operated in developing a shared geographic information system (GIS). While this research is based on an in‐depth analysis of only one case, other researchers have reported similar experiences. It appears that effective use of market mechanisms in the public sector requires new orientation in IS planning and rethinking of the role of IS departments in public sector organisations.
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This paper considers locating congested fast charging stations (FCSs) and deploying chargers in a stochastic environment, while the related studies have predominantly focused on…
Abstract
This paper considers locating congested fast charging stations (FCSs) and deploying chargers in a stochastic environment, while the related studies have predominantly focused on problems in deterministic environments. Reducing the inconvenience caused by congestion at FCSs is an important challenge for FCS service provider. This is the underlying motivation for this study to consider a problem for FCS network design with the congestion restriction in a stochastic environment. We proposed a maximal coverage problem subject to budget constraints and a congestion restriction in order to maximize the demand coverage. With the derivation of the congestion restriction in the considered stochastic environment, the problem is formulated into an integer programming model. A real-life case study is conducted and managerial implications are drawn from its results.
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This paper aims to uncover the nexus between budget deficits, money growth and inflation in Vietnam in the period 1995–2012.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to uncover the nexus between budget deficits, money growth and inflation in Vietnam in the period 1995–2012.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a structural vector auto-regressive model of five endogenous variables including inflation, real GDP growth, budget deficit growth, money growth and the interest rate.
Findings
It is found that inflation rose in response to positive shocks to money growth and that budget deficits had no significant impact on money growth and therefore inflation. This empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that fiscal and monetary policies were relatively independent. Money growth significantly decreased in response to a positive shock to inflation; interest rates had no significant effect on inflation but considerably increased in response to positive inflation shocks. This implies that the monetary base was more effective than interest rates in fighting inflation.
Originality/value
This paper sheds light into understanding the link between budget deficits, money growth and inflation in Vietnam during the high-inflation period 1995–2012. The finding supports the hypothesis that fiscal and monetary policies were relatively independent over the period.
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Anna Białek-Jaworska and Agnieszka Krystyna Kopańska
This paper aims to determine whether local governments (LGs) use non-consolidated municipally owned companies (MOCs), excluded from public sector entities and, consequently, from…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine whether local governments (LGs) use non-consolidated municipally owned companies (MOCs), excluded from public sector entities and, consequently, from sub-national debt to avoid fiscal debt limits. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the fiscal debt rule’s impact on the off-budget municipal activities in total and separate in different types of local government units.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses difference-in-differences and the system general method of moments model with the Blundell–Bond estimator for dynamic panel data analysis of MOCs owned by 866 Polish municipalities in 2010–2018.
Findings
This paper shows that the MOCs’ revenues support limited local public debt capacity by indebtedness restrictions imposed on municipalities in 2014. As a result, less indebted municipalities have higher off-budget revenues. The tightening of fiscal rules related to sub-sovereign indebtedness increased off-budget activities, but that effect is much stronger in rural and rural–urban municipalities than in urban municipalities and big cities.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the fiscal debt rule’s impact on the off-budget municipal activities in total and separate in different types of local government units. In this paper, the authors combine theories relating to private and public finance; this is a novel approach and one that is also necessary – as, in fact, the worlds of public and private actors intersect – as exemplified by the existence of MOC.
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Kerui Weng and Bo Qu
The purpose of this paper is to present a model to determine which roads to be built in each stage with limited budget.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a model to determine which roads to be built in each stage with limited budget.
Design/methodology/approach
A multistage network discrete expansion model with budget restriction is formulated and a heuristic algorithm is developed by the technique of comparing the original shortest paths and the sum of crossed shortest paths to avoid computing the shortest paths matrix repeatedly.
Findings
The optimal approach has a very significant effect in finding which roads to be built by the largest net benefit.
Research limitations/implications
The paper discusses a new multistage network discrete expansion problem is the main research implications.
Practical implications
The optimal choice for road building schedule of new urban district when budgets were limited.
Originality/value
The paper presents a model and an algorithm for the optimization of road building schedule based on budget restriction.
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