Search results

Barriers to adequate healthcare in rural areas remain a grand challenge for local healthcare systems. In addition to patients' travel burdens, lack of health insurance, and lower health literacy, rural healthcare systems also experience significant resource shortages, as well as issues with recruitment and retention of healthcare providers, particularly specialists. These factors combined result in complex change management-focused challenges for rural healthcare systems. Change management initiatives are often resource intensive, and in rural health organizations already strapped for resources, it may be particularly risky to embark on change initiatives. One way to address these change management concerns is by leveraging socio-technical simulation models to estimate techno-economic feasibility (e.g., is it technologically feasible, and is it economical?) as well as socio-utility feasibility (e.g., how will the changes be utilized?). We present a framework for how healthcare systems can integrate modeling and simulation techniques from systems engineering into a change management process. Modeling and simulation are particularly useful for investigating the amount of uncertainty about potential outcomes, guiding decision-making that considers different scenarios, and validating theories to determine if they accurately reflect real-life processes. The results of these simulations can be integrated into critical change management recommendations related to developing readiness for change and addressing resistance to change. As part of our integration, we present a case study showcasing how simulation modeling has been used to determine feasibility and potential resistance to change considerations for implementing a mobile radiation oncology unit. Recommendations and implications are discussed.

The purpose of this article is to synthesize the topics, conceptualizations and measurements of value-based management (VBM) and to suggest a research agenda covering its next evolution as sustainable governance.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 80 seminal studies published between 1979 and 2022. The authors synthesized the studies by their conceptualizations of VBM in an inductively developed framework.

The authors find that scholars explore diverse topics related to VBM with a prevailing focus on shareholder primacy. There is a paucity of studies that focus on the integration of shareholder maximization and stakeholder management practices. The authors explain which studies will form a promising foundation for advanced research on sustainable governance that will reach beyond current VBM research.

The authors' research agenda addresses new future topics on conflicting goals within and between shareholder groups, offers specific suggestions for using new research methods and untapped data sources for VBM and paves the way to substantially extend the boundaries of the firm in VBM research to include stakeholders, strategic alignment and new sustainability measures.

Integration between the different components of development is a major aspiration of the 2030 agenda, but the efforts of firms that intend to contribute simultaneously to multiple development trajectories may be hindered by trade-offs that occur between the different sustainable development goals (SDGs) and targets. At the same time, synergies may also materialize and reinforce firm’s contribution. This chapter analyzes the effects of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and other foreign investors on two different targets of SDG 7, namely access of population to modern energy systems, chiefly electricity, and the use of carbon-free and renewable energy sources in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, and the authors investigate whether foreign investors experience trade-offs and synergies in their contributions. A two-equation growth model of households’ access to electricity and carbon factor is estimated by employing a panel dataset that covers 15 SSA countries and foreign direct investment (FDI) from 82 origin countries over the 2005–2011 period. The findings reveal that foreign investors are subject to a trade-off in their effects, because when they foster access to electricity they are also likely to spur carbon factor increases, and vice versa, depending on the economic development of host and home countries. Nevertheless, electrification and carbon factor reduction are shown to be linked by a system-level synergy. The results have implications for the design of MNEs attraction measures and energy policy in recipient countries.

This work aims to propose guidelines for small industrial businesses to take their first steps toward implementing systems, programs and tools (SPTs) for environmental management in a structured way.

The authors conducted case studies in large companies certificated ISO 14001. They ran tests for construct validity, external validity and reliability. Cross-analysis of the information collected led to identifying patterns and strategies adopted by these companies to implement environmental management. Based on the literature on environmental management in small businesses and the author's experience, the practices learned from large companies were adapted to the reality of small ones, thus resulting in the proposed guidelines.

These guidelines enable small companies to develop their environmental management following the logical evolution of SPTs: ISO 14001, green supply chain management (GSCM), cleaner production (CP) and green design (GD). The implementation should happen gradually, through the PDCA cycle, according to three specific levels of environmental evolution.

Since the guidelines focused on small industrial companies, future studies should consider other sectors, such as services, to benefit from the solutions presented. As for the implications, besides improving the small company's performance and enhancing its image, implementing the guidelines creates a green synergy along the supply chain, thus benefiting society beyond the company's borders.

The main theoretical-scientific contribution of this work is to deepen a block of knowledge that articulates environmental management and small businesses, creating a basis for further research and a reference for analyzing and discussing empirical studies in small companies. As an applied-management contribution, the guidelines allow small companies to effectively develop SPTs to move toward environmental sustainability.