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This chapter outlines the potential of phenomenology to illuminate how individuals experience the emotions replete within organizations. It employs one particular type of phenomenological approach known as Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The chapter considers how the hermeneutic and phenomenological foundations of this approach lend themselves to the study of affect. The chapter then clarifies and develops established IPA guidelines to render them more appropriate for research on emotions. In doing so, the chapter demonstrates how IPA can produce contextualized accounts that explore the role of emotions in individuals’ experiences of organizational events and processes.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) offers management researchers an approach which allows deep examination of the relationship between individuals and their environments, particularly in complex social situations. Phenomenology studies phenomena, or things and events, as they are perceived by people's consciousness. Interpretivism allows researchers to access such internal awareness of research participants by attempting to understand the words used by subjects to describe their experiences and perceptions. Inherently subjective, this approach requires self-awareness by the researcher and the willingness to abandon preconceived notions in favor of interactive listening and exploration, relying on terms and concepts volunteered by participants rather than nominated by theory or preceding literature. Qualitative text analysis software can be utilized to facilitate aggregation and distillation of the voluminous narratives that result from the open-ended semi-structured interviews typically employed to collect data for IPA. However, impartiality and discernment on the part of the researcher remain essential in interpreting any automated analytical results. The researcher becomes in essence a second-hand observer, peering through windows voluntarily opened by participants, attempting to understand their understanding of their world.

This chapter introduces IPA, providing an overview of its rationale and approach, and illustrates its application in a management-related setting, focusing on cultural adaptation of immigrant professionals.

Researchers recommend a reorganization of the medical profession into larger groups with a multispecialty mix. We analyze whether there is evidence for the superiority of these models and if this organizational transformation is underway.

We summarize the evidence on scale and scope economies in physician group practice, and then review the trends in physician group size and specialty mix to conduct survivorship tests of the most efficient models.

The distribution of physician groups exhibits two interesting tails. In the lower tail, a large percentage of physicians continue to practice in small, physician-owned practices. In the upper tail, there is a small but rapidly growing percentage of large groups that have been organized primarily by non-physician owners.

While our analysis includes no original data, it does collate all known surveys of physician practice characteristics and group practice formation to provide a consistent picture of physician organization.

Our review suggests that scale and scope economies in physician practice are limited. This may explain why most physicians have retained their small practices.

Larger, multispecialty groups have been primarily organized by non-physician owners in vertically integrated arrangements. There is little evidence supporting the efficiencies of such models and some concern they may pose anticompetitive threats.

This is the first comprehensive review of the scale and scope economies of physician practice in nearly two decades. The research results do not appear to have changed much; nor has much changed in physician practice organization.

This study compares the applicability of the zone of tolerance and importance-performance analysis (IPA) techniques in the evaluation of convention delegates’ perceptions of products and services. Overall, 217 cases out of 400 were used for analysis, a response rate of 54 percent. The study results indicate that although an IPA technique is still useful in assessing the service performance of a convention facility, IPA should be employed with caution, concrete criteria, and clear goals. The study results also show that the zone of tolerance is practically applicable into business practice to assess service performance item by item.

This study compares the applicability of the zone of tolerance (ZOT) and importance performance analysis (IPA) techniques in the evaluation of convention delegates’ perceptions of products and services. Overall, 217 out of 400 were used for analysis, providing a response rate of 54%. The study results indicated that although an IPA technique is still useful in assessing the service performance of a convention facility, IPA should be employed with caution, concrete criteria, and clear goals. The study results also showed that the ZOT is practically applicable into business practice to assess service performance item by item.

Scholars have pointed out the need for improvement and refinement in public management research, also depending on the role of public administration for sustainable development. Because government organizations employ a substantial portion of the workforce, management practices in the public sector are critical areas for designing, implementing and delivering policies that can achieve the goals set forth in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For these purposes, and in implementation of the Next Generation EU (NGEU) programme, Italy recently launched an ambitious National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) which includes, among other things, upskilling goals for staff employed, following the modernization process that has involved the Italian public sector in the last decades, with the Decree n. 150/2009. Aiming both to understand the extent of the application of the reform and to answer some basic questions (why, what and how) concerning Individual Performance Appraisal Systems (IPAS), we conducted a content analysis on the 220 documents already produced by the Italian Ministries. The study has been conducted in two different steps of the reform process and provides solid evidence of the reforms' effects on designing and implementing individual performance systems. The analyzed documents reveal no longer-term vision in implementing the IPAS that involves some critical performance management utilities such as training, development, fair pay and deployment of employees, raising new questions about a sustainable approach to the individual performance management process even in public organizations.

The sudden rise of the socio-political importance of security that has marked the twenty-first century entails a commensurate empowerment of the intelligence apparatus. This chapter takes the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 as a vantage point from where to address the political significance of this development. It provides an account of the powers the Act grants intelligence agencies, concluding that it effectively legalizes their operational paradigm. Further, the socio-legal dynamics that informed the Act lead the chapter to conclude that Intelligence has become a dominant apparatus within the state. This chapter pivots at this point. It seeks to identify, first, the reasons of this empowerment; and, second, its effects on liberal-democratic forms, including the rule of law. The key reason for intelligence empowerment is the adoption of a pre-emptive security strategy, geared toward neutralizing threats that are yet unformed. Regarding its effects on liberal democracy, the chapter notes the incompatibility of the logic of intelligence with the rule of law. It further argues that the empowerment of intelligence pertains to the rise of a new threat-based governmental logic. It outlines the core premises of this logic to argue that they strengthen the anti-democratic elements in liberalism, but in a manner that liberalism is overcome.

This research takes Taijiang National Park (TNP) tourists as the study population while gathering the survey data via an online questionnaire. For the data analyses, it uses the importance–performance analysis (IPA) and the Kano two-dimensional quality model to evaluate the tourist satisfaction of TNP. Specifically, it considers the importance of service quality, classifies its service quality attributes, and suggests the priority for service improvement, rendering the TNP valuable reference points to realign service strategies. The study shows that the service quality attributes related to service personnel are the priority item to be improved, which could eventually enhance tourist satisfaction. In addition, brand differentiation could be achieved by improving the attractive quality items identified in this study to enhance tourist loyalty.

Gender-based abuses (GBAs; more frequently referred to as ‘violence against women’) have been a concern of current day feminists and their predecessors, dating back centuries, but only came under broader scrutiny in the latter half of the twentieth century. The goal of this chapter is to provide a historical overview of the emergence of feminist concerns and activism that led to a largely global identification and recognition of the prevalence and ramifications of GBA. The chapter includes a range of GBAs, such as sexual harassment, stalking, sex trafficking, and forced marriage, but focusses primarily on intimate partner abuse and rape. It is beyond the scope of one chapter, or even one book, to adequately address the efforts to respond to GBA across the world. Instead, the authors hope to describe the work by feminist activists and scholars to identify GBA as a serious and prevalent social problem, the various and often overlapping types of GBA, and the work to design and implement a range of responses to deter GBA, advocate for GBA survivors, hold gender-based abusers accountable, and provide safer communities. In addition to the early attempts to assess and respond to GBA, this chapter covers some of the most original and innovative documentations and responses to GBA from across the globe.