Search results

The purpose of the study is to test the utility of a taxonomy of innovation based on perceived characteristics in the context of healthcare by exploring the extent to which discrete innovation types could be distinguished from each other in terms of process antecedents.

A qualitative approach was adopted to explore the process antecedents of nine exemplar cases of “challenging”, “under‐cover” and “readily‐adopted” healthcare innovations. Data were collected by semi‐structured interview and from secondary sources, and content analysed according to a theoretically informed framework of innovation process. Cluster analysis was applied to determine whether innovation types could be distinguished on the basis of process characteristics.

The findings provide moderate support for the proposition that innovations differentiated on the basis of the way they are perceived by potential users exhibit different process characteristics. Innovations exhibiting characteristics previously believed negatively to impact adoption may be successfully adopted but by a different configuration of processes than by innovations exhibiting a different set of characteristics.

The findings must be treated with caution because the sample consists of self‐selected cases of successful innovation and is limited by sample size. Nevertheless, the study sheds new light on important process differences in healthcare innovation.

The paper offers a heuristic device to aid clinicians and managers to better understand the relatively novel task of promoting and managing innovation in healthcare. The paper advances the argument that there is under‐exploited opportunity for cross‐disciplinary organisational learning for innovation management in the NHS. If efficiency and quality improvement targets are to be met through a strategy of encouraging innovation, it may be advantageous for clinicians and managers to reflect on what this study found mostly to be absent from the processes of the innovations studied, notably management commitment in the form of norms, resource allocation and top management support.

This paper is based on original empirical work. It extends previous adoption related studies by applying a configurational approach to innovation attributes to offer new insights on healthcare innovation and highlight the importance of attention to process.

Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, manufacturing companies have adopted a wide variety of performance‐improvement programmes. Such approaches have resulted in productivity gains for some companies, although the UK still has few world‐class performers. Despite huge investment in performance‐improvement programmes, competitive advantage for many British companies still remains elusive. Looks at recent developments in thinking which have begun to shed light on why this is happening. Discusses flaws in the widely‐adopted competitive‐forces model and considers the strategic‐capabilities approach as an alternative and potentially crucial model. In the context of the whole organization, it is claimed that the role of facilities management has evolved from merely helping the organization survive, to acting to enhance its potential to prosper in a volatile commercial climate. Thus the challenge for facilities management is indeed the same challenge facing the organization.

Companies which seem to have succeeded in complementing TQ programmes over time appear to be those which have acquired the capability to change direction frequently. Argues that the choice managers make about which direction they take depends on the particular mindset they use. Describes research which highlighted four different quality mindsets. Most TQ approaches can be placed in one of these. Concludes that those senior managers of companies who were seen as leaders in quality appear to have frequently reformed the way they think. This results in changes of direction in their approach to quality.

Management research on strategic issues has focussed on economic and market forces surrounding a firm. Although this has re‐emphasized the need to become more attentive to the needs of customers and the activities of competitors, many companies are still finding it difficult to gain competitive advantage. Suggests that strategy should be given an “inside‐out” perspective as something that managers do rather than copy from outside the organization. Reports on research concerning the issues and concerns which underpin the agendas of MD/CEOs of a number of organizations in South Yorkshire. Develops a tool, quality executive development (QED), aimed at assisting the MD/CEOs in auditing their agendas.

Total quality (TQ) is likely to fail or run out of steam 18‐24 months into the endeavour and this cycle is likely to repeat itself as the programme progresses. Discusses why this occurs and describes a methodology of resuscitating the total quality management (TQM) programme. This involves, in addition to the traditional approaches to TQ (planning, learning and visionary mindsets) introduction of the transformation mindset.

Reports the findings of a research project into the development of a total quality methodology for strategic use by senior management teams aimed at enabling them to audit current approaches, revise where necessary, and then implement in order to produce TQM programmes which are resilient in the medium/long term. Recounts the empirical and theoretical work underpinning a partially inductively derived map of approaches to TQM, comprising four TQM paradigms which are postulated to be the product of managerial mindsets and which result in predominant and implicit TQM cultures in management teams. Explores the role of TQM in strategic cultural change. Finally details the development of a methodology (TQM2) based on the research findings.

Reports research into how the organisational learning process can be routinised. Three sets of enabling routines and four sets of defensive routines are identified which are core to facilitating and challenging the learning process. A field‐tested prototype methodology is reported which supports the introduction of a strategy for organisational learning and change by practitioners within companies. In this way the abstract notions of organisational learning, corporate regeneration and change can be made operational.

The paper argues that the widespread changes in manufacturing industry are best conceptualised as paradigmatic, in that they constitute a patterned reconfiguration of ideas, beliefs and values about manufacturing philosophy, strategy, structure, organisation and operations. The widespread adoption of teamworking is part of this patterning and is argued to reflect a new institutional form of manufacturing organisation. In investigating teamworking, the paper uses the concept of organisational archetypes to investigate whether or not teamworking takes a single, or variety of interlocking forms. Empirical studies are introduced to justify the articulation of three teamworking forms: a “‘self‐directed” archetypal form and two other sub‐types, “lean” and “project”, neither of which, it is argued, are truly archetypal. The paper concludes that broad institutional changes toward a teamworked manufacturing organisation impact on the “interpretive schema” of managers operating in specific task environments who prescribe and deploy this new organisational format. This creates the two hybrid sub‐types in practice. The findings of this research have implications for both practitioners involved in designing and introducing teamworking into manufacturing firms, and for academics researching on team based organisational design.

This paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review on the fintech services and financial inclusion of the developing nations that particularly focuses on lower middle-income group nations (LMIGN) and upper middle-income group nations (UMIGN) to highlight the research areas that have not received attention and present opportunities for future research.

This paper adopts a systematic approach to examine 65 research articles published from 2016 to 2021, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

The study identifies research gaps in two key themes: backward and outward linkages. In backward linkages, the literature on UMIGN should pay attention to the behavioural patterns associated with lending, investment and market provision-related fintech services. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between fintech services on the usage and quality dimension of financial inclusion in both LMIGN and UMIGN. For outward linkages, future research work should explore the role of fintech and financial inclusion in the development of LMIGN. This study provides valuable insights and guides future research directions by comprehensively mapping the existing studies.

This study does not use quantitative tools, such as meta and bibliometric analysis, to validate the findings.

This research paper offers new perspectives that introduce a novel framework for analysing literature on fintech, financial inclusion and its impact on the overall development of UMIGN and LMIGN.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce the themed issue about qualitative research in the business and management field

The paper considers some issues about how to define the term “qualitative research”, and then introduces each of the papers in the themed issue.

The contents of this themed issue demonstrate the insights that qualitative research can make into the management field.

A large amount of interest was generated in the themed issue. As a consequence, Emerald Publishing Group are launching a new journal which specifically focuses on qualitative research in this field.