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The objective of this study is to shed some light on quality improvement practices of for‐profit and not‐for‐profit hospitals

The scope and effectiveness of several quality improvement efforts are studied for a sample of 110 hospitals. Factor analysis was utilized to analyze the data collected.

The results of this study tended to suggest that for‐profit and not‐for‐profit hospitals were more similar than different with the regard to the effective utilization of quality improvement initiatives, thus underscoring the utility of quality improvement efforts despite differences in operating characteristics, strategies and operating constraints.

The sample used in this study is limited. Thus, the results should be interpreted accordingly.

This study offers decision‐makers in healthcare operational settings empirical evidence of the operational and strategic effectiveness of different quality improvement efforts, thus justifying investments related to the initiation and implementation of such quality improvement efforts.

This study represents an important step toward understanding the effective implementation of quality improvement initiatives in different operational settings.

This paper aims to describe how a social enterprise can use product innovation and management to succeed in its mission.

The case describes an approach to new product development and management that is of value to social enterprises. The Vehicles for Change organization exists and operates in the USA.

Provides information and action approaches to non‐profit organizations to increase their sustainability. Often non‐profits do not understand nor value business. Consequently, they elevate their mission to do good but sabotage their ability to succeed. Infusing business into non‐profits can lead to an entirely new organization, the social enterprise. Social enterprises use profit‐generating businesses to fund their charitable elements. This new form can be called a for benefits organization. That focus lends itself to using product development and management techniques to succeed. Their results offer implications for non‐profit organizations.

As in all case studies, the specific conditions found in one organization may not be found more generally in others. Readers are cautioned that the conclusions drawn in the case may have limited applicability.

The case depicts the process that one firm uses to innovate and succeed. It requires breaking existing perceptions, changing managerial attitudes, restructuring and adopting a consumer focus.

The case describes an evolutionary approach to social welfare in part based the benefits of a product. It illustrates the value that a product focused, profit seeking approach can yield in support of an organization that seeks to aid humanity.

Several farm safety net strategies are available to farmers as a source of financial protection against losses due to price instability, government policies, weather fluctuations and global market changes. Producers can employ these strategies combining crop insurance policies with countercyclical policies for several crops and production areas; however, less is known about the efficiency of these strategies in enhancing profit and reducing its variability. In this study, we examine the efficiency of these strategies at minimizing inter crop year farm profit variability.

We utilized relative mean of profit and coefficient of variation, to compare counterfactually calculated farm safety net strategies for a sample of 28,615 observations across 2,486 farms and four dryland crops (corn, soybean, sorghum and wheat) in Kansas spanning nine crop years (2014–2022). A no farm safety net strategy is used as the benchmark for every alternative strategy to ascertain whether a policy customization is statistically different from a no farm safety case.

The general pattern of the results suggests that program combination strategies that have a high-profit enhancement potential necessarily have low profit risk for dryland wheat and sorghum production. On the contrary, such a connection is absent for dryland corn and soybeans production. Low-cost farm safety net strategies that enhance corn and soybeans profits do not necessarily lower profit risks.

This paper is one of the first to use a large sample of actual farm-level observations to evaluate how combinations of safety net programs offered under the Title I (PLC, ARCCO and ARCIC) and XI (FCIP) of the U.S. Farm Bill rank in terms of profit level enhancement and profit risk reduction.

By comparing and contrasting the two scenarios of power producers investing in renewable energy and electricity sellers investing in renewable energy, we explore the conditions under which profit growth and carbon emission reduction can be realized, and provide a theoretical basis for decision-making on renewable energy investment by electric power companies as well as for government policy formulation.

This paper constructs a game model of a grid supply chain consisting of a leader generator and a follower seller in the context of the C&T mechanism, considering two scenarios in which the generator and the seller invest in renewable energy. Conclusions are drawn by comparing and analyzing the equilibrium solutions in different scenarios.

The scenario where electricity sellers invest in renewable energy exhibits a higher investment volume compared to the scenario involving power generators. In scenarios where power producers invest in renewable energy, electricity sellers achieve lower profits than power generators, while scenarios with electricity seller' investments yield higher profits for them. Increasing the cost coefficient of renewable energy investment reduces investment volume, electricity prices and electricity demand, leading to decreased profits for electricity seller but increased profits for power generator. A rise in the preference coefficient for renewable energy results in increased profits for electricity seller but decreased profits for power generator.

Addressing a literature gap in the context of low carbon, this study examines the investment scenario of electricity sellers in low carbon technologies, complementing existing research focused on power generators and consumers. The findings enrich knowledge in low carbon investment. By analyzing the investment decisions of both power producers and electricity sellers, this study explores the practical implications of renewable energy investments on the decision-making and operational dynamics of power supply chain enterprises. It sheds light on their profitability and investment strategies.

This study aims to explore and analyze the issues in weightages-based profit distribution mechanism in Islamic banks from Shari’ah, practical and regulatory perspectives.

A qualitative research approach was used in this study based on primary data collected through semi-structured interviews from Shari’ah practitioners and senior industry experts in the field of pool management in the Islamic Financial Services Industry of Pakistan.

The current study found that the weightages-based mechanism conforms to the rules of Mudarabah and; therefore, permissible. However, the elements of exploitation, transparency and fairness require further research, as these elements seem to exist in this mechanism. It was also found that there are many loopholes in the regulatory guidelines for pool management in Islamic banking institutions (IBIs) in Pakistan resulting in practical issues.

The findings of this study may help improve pool management in IBIs, which in turn may cater the objections raised by academicians, customers and industry experts. Moreover, the alternative solution based on the findings of this study can be transformed into a proposal for regulators to take necessary actions against unfair profit distribution and issue further improved guidelines for IBIs in Pakistan.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, very limited studies have been conducted on pool management particularly with issues from different perspectives and alternative solutions have been suggested that may act as a proposal for IBIs as well as regulatory authorities.

Hospitals are complex organisations accounting for most of total health expenditure. They play a critical role in providing care to patients with high levels of need. A key policy concern is that patients receive high quality care. Policymakers have attempted to influence hospital quality in different ways. This chapter focuses on three key policy levers: the extent to which hospital competition and higher hospital tariffs (of the DRG type) can stimulate quality, and whether non-profit hospitals provide higher or lower quality than for-profit ones. The chapter outlines key methodological challenges and selectively reviews the main findings from the literature. While several studies suggest that hospital competition reduces mortality rates for heart attack cases when hospital tariffs are fixed (under a DRG system), at this stage is unclear whether the effect holds across a range of quality indicators. Moreover, the limited literature on hospital mergers tends to suggest that hospital quality does not change following a merger. Finally, whether non-profit hospitals provide higher or lower quality varies across regions and institutional arrangements. The economic theory suggests several mechanisms with opposite effects on quality. To guide policy, future work needs to further unpack the various mechanisms through which these three key policy issues affect hospitals incentives.

This chapter argues that the Marxian theory of exploitation underlies the concepts of surplus and deficit industries that appear in Sraffa’s (1960) Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. This is seen from archival research of the unpublished papers of Piero Sraffa housed at the Wren Library, Trinity College, University of Cambridge. There it is shown that the origin of these concepts lies in the Marxian theory of exploitation that Sraffa developed regarding the notion of the ‘pool of profits’ the Italian economist utilized over a 14-year period from 1942 to 1956. The chapter engages in an extensive textual study of the archival evidence and then presents a simple analytical model of these relations.

This paper is a translation of the third and most important chapter of Keizaigaku shi (History of Political Economy) by the Japanese Marxist economist Samezō Kuruma (1893–1982), first published in 1948. Kuruma discusses in detail the achievements and limitations of the Classical school of political economy. He examines the fundamental ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo regarding the determination of commodity value and the source of surplus-value, and then looks at how these ideas are connected to production price and profit. Kuruma notes that Smith and Ricardo managed to arrive at the essential labor theory of value, but that neither could correctly apply this theory to adequately explain phenomena in the realm of competition – either abandoning the labor theory of value altogether to embrace a composition theory of value (Smith) or directly applying the theory to explain phenomena without grasping the intermediary processes of development (Ricardo). Kuruma's critique of Smith and Ricardo highlights the achievement of Marx in overcoming the limitations that ultimately led to the breakdown of the Classical school of political economy.

Policymakers worldwide have proposed a new contract – the ‘social impact bond’ (SIB) – which they claim can allay the underperformance afflicting not-for-profits, by tying the private returns of (social) investors to the success of social programs. We investigate experimentally how SIBs perform in a first-best world, where investors are rational and able to obtain hard information on not-for-profits’ performance. Using a principal-agent multitasking framework, we compare SIBs to inputs-based contracts (IBs) and performance-based contracts (PBs). IBs are based on a piece-rate mechanism, PBs on a non-binding bonus mechanism, and SIBs on a mechanism that, due to the presence of an investor, offers full enforceability. Although SIBs can perfectly enforce good behaviour, they also require the principal (i.e., government) to relinquish control over the agent’s (i.e., not-for-profit’s) payoff to a self-regarding investor, which prevents the principal and agent from being reciprocal. In spite of these drawbacks, in our experiment SIBs outperformed IBs and PBs. We therefore conclude that, at least in our laboratory test-bed, SIBs can allay the underperformance of not-for-profits.

In a decentralized supply chain with one supplier and one retailer, a properly designed contract can lead to supply chain coordination. In this chapter, we model the selection of an appropriate coordinating contract from a menu of contracts including wholesale price, buyback, and markdown money, while allowing both the supplier and the retailer to assume the roles of Stackelberg leader and/or supply chain captain. This work extends previous literature that assumes that the supplier is both the Stackelberg leader and the supply chain captain. In our models, either agent can make stocking and pricing decisions. Our findings suggest that the feasibility of a coordinating contract depends on the addition of Pareto-improving, profit-sharing conditions that motivate agents to take part in the contract. Further, the selection of an optimal contract is based not only on which agent holds the overstock liquidation advantage, but also on the decision structure of the supply chain. For instance, when the supplier is the Stackelberg leader and the retailer is the supply chain captain, as well as holds the inventory liquidation advantage, and controls the stocking level, then a wholesale price contract can coordinate the supply chain under the proposed Pareto-improving profit sharing, termed Pareto-improving coordination. Additional results and managerial implications are presented in the chapter.