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1 – 10 of over 2000Arjella van Scheppingen, Nico Baken, Gerard Zwetsloot, Ellen Bos and Frank Berkers
Health is a main resource for human functioning. Embedding generative health management within organisations, therefore, is useful for health and productivity reasons. Generative…
Abstract
Purpose
Health is a main resource for human functioning. Embedding generative health management within organisations, therefore, is useful for health and productivity reasons. Generative health management requires a change in the thinking and actions of all stakeholders, and should be regarded as a system transition that may be supported by a value case. In this study, a value case methodology is described and piloted. The aim was to investigate the efficacy of the value case methodology for generative health management within organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes the form of a case study, in which the interactive value case methodology is piloted within a research foundation in The Netherlands.
Findings
The different perspectives from the internal stakeholders on generative health management were made explicit, and revealed a strong relation between organisational development and health. The interactive value‐case methodology has initiated a process in which stakeholders jointly defined the full value of generative health management. During that process, some stakeholders developed an active personal commitment towards the transition.
Research limitations/implications
The research was only carried out in one case. The value case methodology is potentially also useful for other transitions (long‐term complex developments or system innovations). The case study provided a broad view on the relevance of health for all stakeholders within this single case, and contributed to ownership of the transition.
Practical implications
A value case presents stakeholders' multi‐perspective visions and preferences with regard to health and organisational development. The participative approach opens up ways to an active commitment of relevant stakeholders who are willing to support transitions.
Originality/value
The methodology to assess the full value of complex transitions is still of an explorative nature. The value case methodology may offer innovative ways to support transitions in individuals, organisations and society as a whole.
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James Xolani Nyawera and Theodore Conrad Haupt
This paper aims to report on the development of a model to improve process health and safety within the context of a petrochemical environment to achieve a generative health and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on the development of a model to improve process health and safety within the context of a petrochemical environment to achieve a generative health and safety culture within that sector.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research methodology and deductive research approach were used in the study. A survey was conducted in a major petrochemical enterprise in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa with 259 returned and duly completed questionnaires. The data was statistically analysed using statistical packages for social science version 25.
Findings
This study found that the key process health and safety critical drivers needed to grow a generative process health and safety culture were leadership commitment, chemical exposure management, health and safety risk assessment, process hazard analysis and permit to work.
Research limitations/implications
This study was conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa within the petrochemical industry. Because of self-reported methods of data collection, there is a probability of bias existing in the results of the study.
Practical implications
The contribution of this research is to understand, based on theoretical assumptions, how health and safety improvement could be institutionalised in an organisation. The developed model can be used as a practical tool.
Social implications
This paper is part of the larger discussion of increasing importance in health and safety policy-making. This study aims at contributing to the literature in the field of health and safety by incorporating the drivers towards a generative process health and safety culture.
Originality/value
This study provides a model to assist senior management to reduce exposure to process health and safety hazards in the petrochemical industry and improve overall performance.
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To date the practice of health sector management has not been sufficiently theorised. An adequate theory should be able to answer the pre‐eminent critique of managerial…
Abstract
To date the practice of health sector management has not been sufficiently theorised. An adequate theory should be able to answer the pre‐eminent critique of managerial rationality and ethics mounted by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue and should also offer robust analytical and ethical resources to identify and engage with the social, political, economic and moral issues underlying health sector management. Critical realism with its ontology of generative mechanisms, agency‐structure relationships, valorisation of activity and ideology critique offers such resources in an empirically orientated but adequately theorised realist framework. Rather than negate MacIntyre, critical realism incorporates and transcends his key arguments regarding the rationality and ethics of management. This article introduces the main elements of critical realism and clears a conceptual space for the cumulation of critical realist case‐studies and managerial craft knowledge.
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Michael Aherne and José Pereira
This paper situates a large‐scale learning and service development capacity‐building initiative for hospice palliative care services within the current Canadian policy context for…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper situates a large‐scale learning and service development capacity‐building initiative for hospice palliative care services within the current Canadian policy context for use by international readers.
Design/methodology/approach
In 2000 a national initiative using action research as its design was crafted to support continuing professional development and knowledge management in primary‐health care environments.
Findings
The Canadian health policy context is complex and requires innovative solutions to achieve desired changes in response to emerging population health demands for quality end‐of‐life care. Employment of educational and social science constructs, including complexity theory, communities of practice, transformative learning theory, and workplace learning methods, has proven helpful in supporting the creation of national capacity for hospice palliative care.
Research limitations/implications
There is a significant contribution for social scientists to make in aiding a better understanding of the complexity in health systems. At the same time, an aging population in industrial countries demands more active engagement of legal and bioethical scholars in a range of emerging policy and legislative questions about quality end‐of‐life care. Educational research is also required to understand better and reform curricula to prepare an emerging generation of health science practitioners for the demands of an aging population.
Practical implications
Changing health service delivery environments demand rethinking of the knowledge and skills leaders require to influence desired change. A broader understanding of where and how learning takes place is essential for enhancing the quality of patient care.
Originality/value
The Pallium Project represents a generative response to facilitating learning and building longer‐term system capacity. The journey of project development to date illustrates some important lessons that can be adopted from hospice palliative care to inform other primary‐health care initiatives, including, potentially, mental health, cardiology, diabetes, geriatrics, where productive change can result from productively linking specialists and primary‐care colleagues.
Ying Zhou, Yu Wang, Chenshuang Li, Lieyun Ding and Cong Wang
This study aimed to propose a performance-oriented approach of automatically generative design and optimization of hospital building layouts in consideration of public health…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to propose a performance-oriented approach of automatically generative design and optimization of hospital building layouts in consideration of public health emergency, which intended to conduct reasonable layout design of hospital building to meet different performance requirements for both high efficiency during normal periods and low risk in the pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design follows a sequential mixed methodology. First, key points and parameters of hospital building layout design (HBLD) are analyzed. Then, to meet the requirements of high efficiency and low risk, adjacent preference score and infection risk coefficient are constructed as constraints. On this basis, automatic generative design is conducted to generate building layout schemes. Finally, multi-objective deviation analysis is carried out to obtain the optimal scheme of hospital building layouts.
Findings
Automatic generative design of building layouts that integrates adjacent preferences and infection risks enables hospitals to achieve rapid transitions between normal (high efficiency) and pandemic (low risk) periods, which can effectively respond to public health emergencies. The proposed approach has been verified in an actual project, which can help systematically explore the solution for better decision-making.
Research limitations/implications
The form of building layouts is limited to rectangles, and future work can explore conducting irregular layouts into optimization for the framework of generative design.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is the developed approach that can quickly and effectively generate more hospital layout alternatives satisfying high operational efficiency and low infection risk by formulating space design rules, which is of great significance in response to public health emergency.
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Vinayak Ram Tripathi, Manish Popli, Swati Ghulyani, Shrey Desai and Ajai Gaur
This paper aims to examine the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the knowledge creation practices adopted by a health care organization. The organization…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the knowledge creation practices adopted by a health care organization. The organization is delivering care to patients of a genetic disorder, called the sickle cell, in tribal communities. The paper identifies how ICT intermediates knowledge creation practices across the organizational boundaries wherein tribal patients, front-line counselors and expert physicians interact, which then produces context-specific, evidence-based medicine (EBM).
Design/methodology/approach
The knowledge-in-practice approach is adopted to conduct an ethnographic study of sickle cell care practices in a non-profit health care organization in Western India. The analysis focuses on ICT-mediated interactional practices among the physicians, front-line counselors, tribal patients and their families, for more than a year-long observation. These are supplemented with informal and formal interviews, archival records and vignettes based on several episodes to explicate the key knowledge creation practices.
Findings
Technology-mediated informative interactions at organizational boundaries can bridge socio-linguistic and interpretive barriers between actors, while also providing a generative structure that leads to the creation of longitudinal clinical evidence about a rare genetic disorder. Three specific ICT-entwined knowledge creation practices emerge, namely, knowing the community, increasing interactional engagement and constructing gradients of socio-clinical history. These practices generate organization-wide knowledge about the social and clinical dimensions of the genetic disorder. The findings are presented through vignettes and a novel conceptual framework.
Research limitations/implications
This study identifies various useful knowledge creation practices in health care delivery for resource-constrained emerging economy contexts. Further, the study suggests that the involvement of local front-line actors and ICT can become important resources in the delivery of health care in these settings.
Originality/value
A novel framework is developed which demonstrates knowledge creation at organizational boundaries wherein the actors use ICT-based practices for effective delivery of health care. The proposed framework may be used by health care organizations in similar contexts providing care to marginalized communities.
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This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network…
Abstract
This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.
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Kristian Rotaru, Leonid Churilov and Andrew Flitman
The current state of theory-building in the field of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) is in a strong need of rigorous, empirically based theories that enhance…
Abstract
Purpose
The current state of theory-building in the field of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) is in a strong need of rigorous, empirically based theories that enhance understanding of the causal relationships between the structural elements and properties of the business processes. In this research note the authors propose the critical realism (CR) philosophy of science as a particularly suitable philosophical position (not to the exclusion of others) to review the mechanisms of OSCM knowledge generation and to provide philosophical grounding and methodological guidance for both OSCM theory building and testing.
Design/methodology/approach
To demonstrate potential benefits of CR-based structured approach to knowledge generation in OSCM research, this conceptual paper uses a case study that illustrates the adoption of one of the OSCM theories – i.e. the theory of swift, even flow.
Findings
CR interprets the accumulated empirical information about OSCM phenomena as observable manifestations of the underlying causal mechanisms that cannot be perceived otherwise. CR can provide epistemological support to the choice of performance measures that manifest the underlying causal mechanisms of interest. Extensive accumulation of empirical data from multiple innovative sources will not dramatically add to understanding of the system under investigation, unless and until the underlying causal mechanisms that trigger the observed behaviour are identified and tested. The CR abductive mode of reasoning emphasises the role of uncertainty in complex process behaviours and can facilitate enrichment and refutation of OSCM theories.
Originality/value
CR has a clear potential to contribute to OSCM research by enabling better understanding of causal relationships underlying complex behaviours of different elements of business process by providing robust and relevant mechanisms of generating knowledge about business processes that explicitly link empirical and causal aspects of theory building and testing.
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Sumaira Nazeer, Muhammad Saleem Sumbal, Gang Liu, Hina Munir and Eric Tsui
The purpose of this paper is to embark on evaluating the role of Chat Generative-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) in personal knowledge management (PKM) practices of individual…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to embark on evaluating the role of Chat Generative-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) in personal knowledge management (PKM) practices of individual knowledge workers across varied disciplines.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology involves four steps, i.e. literature search, screening and selection of relevant data, data analysis and data synthesis related to KM, PKM and generative artificial intelligence (AI) with a focus on ChatGPT. The findings are then synthesized to develop a viewpoint on the challenges and opportunities brought by ChatGPT for individual knowledge workers in enhancing their PKM capability.
Findings
This work highlights the prevailing challenges and opportunities experienced by knowledge workers while leveraging PKM through implying ChatGPT. It also encapsulates how some management theories back the cruciality of generative AI (specifically ChatGPT) for PKM.
Research limitations/implications
This study identifies the challenges and opportunities. from existing studies and does not imply empirical data/result. The authors believe that findings can be adjusted to diverse domains regarding knowledge workers’ PKM endeavors. This paper draws some conclusions and calls for further empirical research.
Originality/value
ChatGPT’s capability to accelerate organizational performance compelled scholars to focus in this domain. The linkage of ChatGPT to Knowledge Management is an under-explored area specifically the role of ChatGPT on PKM hasn't been given attention in the existing work. This is one of the earliest studies to explore this context.
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