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1 – 10 of 124Rodney McAdam and Daniel McCormack
This paper presents a qualitative study of the integration of supply chain management and business process management activities. It reviews published literature in both fields…
Abstract
This paper presents a qualitative study of the integration of supply chain management and business process management activities. It reviews published literature in both fields and a number of supporting areas, revealing a minimal overlap in the research. A number of case studies of progressive organisations are examined, including an in‐depth study of Nortel Networks Corporation’s recent market repositioning and current supply chain integration activities. The study concludes that, while there is little evidence of research exploring the integration of processes extending throughout supply chains, some businesses are gaining competitive advantage by maximising the efficiency of their “global” supply chains or “virtual” organisations. A conceptual model of an integrated business process, derived from the case study, is presented, which highlights the importance of communication between processes and between partners in the supply chain.
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The Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act of 1996, better known as Welfare Reform, implemented, in addition to many other features, a 60-month lifetime…
Abstract
The Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act of 1996, better known as Welfare Reform, implemented, in addition to many other features, a 60-month lifetime limit for welfare receipt. Research to date primarily documents individual-level barriers, characteristics, and outcomes of those who time out. Very little scholarly work considers experiences of mothering or carework after timing out. In this chapter, I ask, what kinds of carework strategies are used by women who have met their lifetime limits to welfare? What do the ways mothers talk about these strategies tell us about the discursive forces they are resisting and/or engaging? Using in-depth interviews at two points in time with women who have timed out of welfare (n = 32 and 23), this analysis shows how mothers’ strategies and the ways they discuss them reveal covert material and symbolic resistance to key discourses – negative assumptions about welfare mothers and a culture of work enforcement – and the conditions shaping their lives (Hollander & Einwohner, 2004). Mothers use carework strategies very similar to those identified in many other studies (e.g., London, Scott, Edin, & Hunter, 2004; Morgen, Acker, & Weigt, 2010; Scott, Edin, London, & Mazelis, 2001), but they provide us with an understanding of carework in a new context. The three groups of strategies explored here – structuring employment and non-employment, protecting children, and securing resources – reveal raced, classed, and gendered labor in which women engage to care for children in circumstances marked by limited employment opportunities and limited state support. The policy implications of mothers’ strategies are also discussed.
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Katharina Prummer, Salomé Human-Vogel and Daniel Pittich
The South African vocational education and training (VET) sector is required by legislation to redefine postsecondary education, advance industrialisation and expand the job…
Abstract
Purpose
The South African vocational education and training (VET) sector is required by legislation to redefine postsecondary education, advance industrialisation and expand the job market to address unemployment in the country. Yet, VET leaders' heterogenous educational and occupational backgrounds do not enable them to address the needs of the VET sector. Continuous professional development of leaders in the education sector needs to include support structures such as mentoring.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study sought to investigate how VET managers in South Africa perceive three different types of mentoring – individual, peer group and expert-based key performance area (KPA) mentoring – during a part-time professional leadership development programme. Using interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), the authors collected and analysed data from focus group discussions (n = 24) and individual interviews (n = 21) from two cohorts of the programme.
Findings
The results revealed that individual mentoring represented the most important driving mechanism, followed by peer group mentoring and expert-based KPA mentoring. Participants identified leadership as a prerequisite for their development. Emotions formed the final outcome of the mentoring framework.
Research limitations/implications
Based on the findings, the authors suggest investigating the role played by leaders' interpersonal competences such as emotional competence in the workplace. Additionally, research needs to clarify if and how mentoring can support leaders to develop interpersonal competences in formal and informal settings.
Originality/value
The study offers empirical evidence on a three-pillar mentoring framework adopted in a professional development programme for leaders in VET in South Africa. It highlights the importance of individual, social and emotional factors.
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Aroon Manoharan, James Melitski and Daniel Bromberg
The purpose of this paper is to examine US state strategic plans for e-government (or information technology), identify their strengths and weaknesses, and presents best practices…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine US state strategic plans for e-government (or information technology), identify their strengths and weaknesses, and presents best practices for both practitioners and scholars interested in improving state strategic plans for information technology.
Design/methodology/approach
The research analyzes the e-government strategic plans, based on a content analysis using a rubric consisting of 15 questions.
Findings
The findings suggest that of the state information system plans reviewed – Michigan, Virginia, and Massachusetts are the most comprehensive. Overall, the state plans were effective in developing strategies and core beliefs, and assessing their strengths and opportunities, while less successful in recognizing weakness and threats.
Research limitations/implications
This study builds on existing research examining strategic information systems plans in US states and assesses the extent to which each plan addresses established criteria for developing strategic plans. This study also attempts to fill the need for more data and empirical evidence in the development of literature in strategic planning and performance measurement.
Practical implications
The research employs a public sector approach to strategic planning, and while the process is not specific to information systems it is comprehensive in its approach, grounded in literature, and offers guidance to public sector leaders in planning for investments in information systems and technology.
Originality/value
The conclusion offers suggestions for both public administration practitioners and scholars interested in improving state strategic plans for information technology.
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The purpose of this paper is to show how material gathering and elicitation can induce metacognition and metaemotions in interviewees and its usefulness for the study of affective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how material gathering and elicitation can induce metacognition and metaemotions in interviewees and its usefulness for the study of affective phenomena.
Design/methodology/approach
The author will draw on the exploratory study on sound affects conducted with five individuals in Lisbon’s metropolitan area in order to discuss these aspects. After presenting the methodology, the author will address the concepts of metacognition and metaemotion. Afterwards, the author will explain how these occur during the gathering of data by ordinary people and the use of elicitation of materials during interviews.
Findings
Metacognitive and metaemotional experiences can be triggered through material gathering and their elicitation during interviews with the purpose of identifying aspects of the everyday experience that are usually unnoticed. Furthermore, they are instrumental to obtain empirical data that illustrates subjects in their everyday lives as simultaneously affective-reactive and reflexive, meaning-making individuals.
Originality/value
The interview has often been disregarded as a method for interpreting affective phenomena. However, the author argue that this method remains very useful to address the distinct interpretations that subjects make of themselves and their emplaced experiences, by calling for attention to the role of metacognition and metaemotions, an instrumental yet unrecognized tool for interpreting affective phenomena.
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To provide a video reflection model based on interactivity for teachers to facilitate disciplinary literacy and a culturally responsive pedagogy during video reflection. The model…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide a video reflection model based on interactivity for teachers to facilitate disciplinary literacy and a culturally responsive pedagogy during video reflection. The model presents multiplicity of voices within the context of classroom activity crossing boundaries to expand teachers beyond their zone of proximal development for enhanced pedagogical practices.
Methodology/approach
Expansive learning as model of learning originates from the Cultural Historic Activity Theory framework. It enables viewing learner–teacher–technology interactions embedded within classroom walls that embrace diverse socio-cultural-historical practices. Given its connectedness to a responsive teaching-learning approach the model is adapted with the tenets of interactivity to help teachers with a professional learning tool to include, promote, and expedite pedagogical practices that reflect learner background through video reflection.
Findings
The video reflective model using four central question and five principles of the expansive learning matrix examines the various interactivities during a science class period to embrace and enhance a disciplinary literacy approach to teaching. The chapter provides details of opportunities on how the teacher uses this model to adopt a disciplinary literacy and responsive pedagogy approach. It provides directions on how to improve learner–technology interactivity and assist teachers to orchestrate other classroom technologies along with videos as teaching and learning artifacts.
Practical implications
Knowledge construction occurs in spaces that are hard to identify, that is to say that it is difficult to measure when, why, and how knowledge construction happens. By identifying, drawing connections, and making interconnections of the various activities and interactivities from their classroom worlds to lived practices through the tenets in our proposed reflective model the teacher will initiate, facilitate, and eventuate expansive learning and teaching processes. Thereby videos can highlight teacher’s motivations and contradictions when paired with this model and promote the examination of one’s practices to cross-boundaries that embrace the dynamics of learning and knowledge construction as and when it occurs.
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Kevin Real, Leanna Hartsough and Lisa C. Huddleston
This chapter examines group communication in medical teams through psychological safety and simulation training research. Research has shown that medical teams are challenged by…
Abstract
This chapter examines group communication in medical teams through psychological safety and simulation training research. Research has shown that medical teams are challenged by established hierarchies, power/status differences, temporal stability, changing team memberships, and deeply held beliefs that emphasize individual responsibility. A review of 47 studies (29 psychological safety, 18 simulation) was conducted to understand key findings in relationship to group communication. Results indicate that team leadership promotes team psychological safety, voice, and relationship quality while status differences and hierarchy continue to affect psychological safety within medical teams. Simulation training facilitated interprofessional relationships, attitudes toward teamwork, self-efficacy, and group communication. The findings of this review suggest that psychological safety may be developed through simulation training. The quality of patient care is improved when all members of medical teams have the ability and motivation to communicate effectively.
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Interpersonal skills are increasingly important tools in long-term care with older people, especially against the backdrop of loneliness affecting older people and expectations…
Abstract
Purpose
Interpersonal skills are increasingly important tools in long-term care with older people, especially against the backdrop of loneliness affecting older people and expectations for a person-centred, joined-up approach. However, the term is used as a composite and its definition lacks shape and focus. In existing literature, participants appear to be selected on the basis of specific illnesses rather than age. Better understanding of the features of everyday communication processes associated with person-centred care can lead to improvements in policy and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review examined communication features associated with person-centred care for older adults. This identified the extent and nature of literature. Several databases were searched; after screening and hand-searching, 31 were included. Findings were analysed for patterns and contradictions, against the objectives of person-centred and integrated care.
Findings
Emotional intelligence and the ability to employ various communication styles are crucial skills of person-centred communication. Such approaches can have positive effects on the well-being of older people.
Research limitations/implications
Some studies' validity was weakened by methodological designs being founded on value judgements.
Practical implications
Using personalised greetings alongside verbal and non-verbal prompts to keep residents emotionally connected during personal care is considered good practice. Stimulating feedback from people using services and their relatives is important.
Originality/value
The role of communication is highlighted in many professional guidance documents on person-centred and integrated care, but the process of implementation is decentralised to individual employers and workers. This paper draws on the findings of contemporary literature, grounded in naturalistic data, with implications for practice and policy.
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Jack Buffington and Donald McCubbrey
The purpose of this paper is to address the problem in research of a lack of a holistic conceptual framework related to incremental and discontinuous innovation. Too often, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the problem in research of a lack of a holistic conceptual framework related to incremental and discontinuous innovation. Too often, the term “innovation” is used without an understanding of how it can be applied in a product design and supply chain fulfillment system. In this study, the goal is to develop a holistic “innovation continuum” to treat innovation as a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive literature review was conducted, and from it, four propositions and a conceptual framework were developed.
Findings
The authors determined that an “innovation continuum” can be established through the use of a complex adaptive system. Two, incremental innovation is determined to possess adaptive qualities, and can be enhanced through the use of collaboration and evolutionary algorithms. Three, discontinuous innovation is established as a creative process enabled through expert designers, and improved through the use of generative design. Next, a supply chain system for incremental innovation can be assisted by the use of adaptive systems, but it is not proven that a generative customization system (for discontinuous innovation) can be improved through the use of a CAS.
Originality/value
The paper has established an “innovation continuum” linking incremental and discontinuous innovation within one holistic system. It establishes the use of evolutionary algorithms to improve the viability of incremental innovation, and generative design for discontinuous innovation. Finally, the concept of generative customization as an end to end product design and supply chain fulfillment solution for discontinuous innovation is established.
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Caroline Wolski, Kathryn Freeman Anderson and Simone Rambotti
Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.
Methodology/Approach
In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.
Findings
We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.
Originality/Value of Paper
We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.
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