Search results

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine how buyer-supplier episodes are characterised by their dimensions of time and social space, and how these dimensions interact to impact the criticality of an episode; second, to explore how time and social space create patterns of episodes that lead to buyer-supplier relationship change and continuity; and third, to examine the social space by the different roles that the buyer assumes among their episodes, while focusing on the concept of critical time to denote the temporal context.

A case study of a small retailer and five suppliers is employed. The primary data are e-mail communications between the buying and selling firms, along with a two-week field study at the retailer’s location. A total of 2,000 e-mails are coded to yield 75 episodes for the analysis.

The criticality of episodes differs depending on the role that the buyer assumes, and whether the episode occurs within a critical time period. The social space affects the type of criticality, while critical times enhance an episode’s criticality. This study outlines five different patterns of episodes occurring within critical times and across social spaces that characterise each of the buyer-supplier relationships.

This paper focuses on e-mail communication, with little data on interactions occurring outside of this medium.

To the researcher’s knowledge, this paper is the first to link specific patterns of episode characteristics to the concept of buyer roles. It also examines episodes using e-mail communication, which is not a common source within the IMP research stream.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the choice of buying managers to share or limit the sharing of strategic information with their suppliers relates to the presence or absence of goodwill and competence trust in the buyer–supplier relationship.

An interpretive single case study of a mid-sized retailer was used. In total, 17 semi-structured interviews examining information sharing events were conducted with buying managers, along with the analysis of company documents.

Goodwill and competence trust have a positive effect on strategic information sharing, yet this study reveals several tactics used by buying managers in the presence of competence trust only. With a lack of established trust, or earlier trust breaches, little to no information sharing occurs.

This study featured cross-sectional data of a single case from the buyer’s perspective. This limits its generalizability, yet provides opportunities to test the findings through longitudinal studies, potentially gathering data from both buyers and suppliers.

Relating which types of information being shared for different forms of trust guides managers’ expectations on which type of trust they wish to build for each of their buyer–supplier relationships.

This study examines the trust and information sharing relationship in more detail, linking different types of trust to categories of strategic information. It also distinguishes between the different concepts of encouraging information sharing and deliberately limiting strategic information sharing.

The purpose of the paper is to show that, despite comprehensive coverage of services for TB provided by a public‐private partnership for TB control in Patan, a city in Nepal, case finding is low, compared with the target based on an Annual Risk of Tuberculosis Infection (ARTI) of 4 per cent. Doubts have been raised as to the appropriateness of the target. The objective of the study was to estimate the number of new TB cases occurring in Patan, to assess whether the target was appropriate.

In the paper doorstep interviews were conducted with all households in the study area, followed by in‐depth interviews of households with possible or probable TB cases. The survey findings were validated against the patient registers of the five DOTS centres in Patan.

The paper finds that, among the study population of 36,918, the household survey identified 17 smear‐positive TB cases (none privately‐treated) and 24 smear‐negative/extra‐pulmonary cases (including four privately‐treated cases). Validation against the DOTS patient registers indicated that the survey was 54 per cent complete. After adjusting for incompleteness, the number of smear‐positive cases in the study area was estimated as 31, equivalent to an incidence of 85 smear positives per 100,000 population and an ARTI of 1.7 per cent.

The paper shows that using the ARTI may lead to misleadingly high targets for urban TB control. Unrealistically high targets may cause TB workers to become demoralised, and useful strategies to be abandoned. Therefore, further work is needed to identify better ways of setting targets.

Experts cite the lack of a sound business plan and a diminished regard for basic marketing and management practices as major reasons for the failure rate of Web‐based retailers. The dot‐com platform alone was often viewed as a sufficient basis for business success. This article provides a guide in applying marketing management principles to Internet‐based retailers. The format for this guide uses marketing management plans, providers, access, distribution, markets, products, prices, and promotions. The practices and examples provided in this guide are useful for gaining competitive advantage in the retail, dot‐com marketplace.

American business enterprise is increasingly seeking export markets for products as a means of expansion, and in some instances to offset loss in domestic business due to declining markets or international competitors. This paper deals with market segmentation and its role in the successful positioning of products in foreign markets. More specifically, the focus here is how consumer political identifications and ideological values can be used as a basis for effectively segmenting markets. To U.S. firms, the potential benefit of gaining this insight is twofold. First, firms may thus have at their disposal a segmentation tool as yet unrecognized by competitors. Second, politics and political ideology have constructs which appear to be common to most election‐based governmental forms; thus the segmentation applications explored here would be transferable to foreign markets, whereas many other more conventional means of segmentation transfer poorly from the U.S. to other countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the wider societal issues that can impact on the success of a TB programme.

The paper is a qualitative study of the experiences of people involved in a community‐based DOTS programme in Lubombo, Swaziland, involving patients, DOT treatment supporters, clinic nurses and other key informants.

The paper finds that study participants spontaneously raised two main societal issues, which had major impact on the success of the TB programme: health beliefs and poverty. It is seen that health beliefs can have a major impact on treatment‐seeking behaviour and outcomes of TB treatment. Problems related to poverty were of two main types: insufficient funds to attend for review, and lack of food whilst on TB treatment.

This paper discusses why these issues, although strictly outside the remit of the health services, are important factors to consider when implementing TB programmes. It suggests further research that may help break the link between TB and poverty (particularly relating to food insecurity) and recommends considering local health beliefs when dealing with individuals and the community. Neither the impact of health beliefs nor the impact of poverty are new ideas, yet these issues tend to be forgotten by quantitative researchers who perhaps understandably focus on issues that may be perceived as being easier to measure. This paper serves to remind one of their importance and to illustrate the value of qualitative research in highlighting them and ensuring that issues that are important to participants are not neglected.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an up‐to‐date overview of Tajikistan's health system, focusing on the main factors affecting health systems development. The wider contextual environment is to be explored, focusing on political, social and economic issues. Different elements of the health system including health policy, governance, service delivery, human resources and health financing are reviewed in the light of their development over the past decade.

The paper shows that the Republic of Tajikistan is in transition. Formerly one of the most neglected republics within the USSR, the country became independent in 1990 and faced the civil conflict shortly thereafter. In the last few years there have been major public sector reforms with health reforms formally launched in the late 1990s. Little information about current Tajikistan is widely available.

The paper finds that the progress of health reforms in Tajikistan has been relatively slow compared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This is largely due to the effects of civil war in the mid‐1990s and significant out‐migration of qualified experts, but it can also be attributed to an inability of central government to adequately adapt to the requirements of transition.

The paper shows that many problems are still to be overcome by the health system, ranging from operational issues related to service delivery to strategic issues such as formulating an explicit privatisation policy, reducing fragmentation of, and aligning, external aid. However, some recent developments, such as adoption of a country health reform conception, a health financing strategy, and willingness of central government to improve coordination, suggest that improvements are possible.

The purpose of the paper is to show that community involvement is a successful way of overcoming certain barriers to the successful management of the current tuberculosis epidemic, namely delayed presentation and non‐completion of treatment. Volunteers are an important resource for engaging with the community. This research, conducted in an urban TB treatment centre in Nepal, seeks to investigate the motivations of TB volunteers, and how these motivations can be increased to involve volunteers, and the community, in fulfilling their maximum potential in delivering successful TB treatment programmes.

Semi‐structured interviews were carried out with 26 TB volunteers, followed by volunteer discussion groups. Topics covered included: detailed accounts of the volunteers' many and varied roles; motivations – how they initially became involved and why they continue to be involved; incentives for volunteering; problems they have encountered; family and friends' attitudes to their volunteering; and the future of TB volunteering.

The findings show that the TB volunteers are involved in many important roles. Volunteers initially became involved, having been asked or informed about the programme by area committee members, staff or friends. Most were also involved in other voluntary work.

This paper gives recommendations for volunteer programmes in developing countries including: sustained communication and contact between volunteers and the organisation; volunteer programmes based in a centre with an established community focus; flexibility of time commitment; regular recruitment drives for volunteers from different generations and status levels; and the use of training as a possible incentive for volunteering.

This paper seeks to study the process of clinical audit to improve tubercolosis (TB) diagnosis in Cuba, Peru and Bolivia. It aims to present the lessons learned in implementing clinical audit in the three specific study sites and highlight what may be relevant to low‐income settings in general.

The lessons are based on observations and qualitative data collected from 22 health centres that completed a minimum of two audit cycles in the three study countries. Local audit committees selected audit criteria, collected relevant data, compared their performance against the agreed standards and proposed ways for improvement.

Lessons for the development of clinical audit for TB diagnosis in the study countries include the difficulties in setting achievable standards based on appropriate criteria; the need to establish clinical guidelines and routine data; and the need to address patients' beliefs and attitude. Lessons for the development of clinical audit in low‐income countries include the need for preparation (e.g. through clinical guidelines) before introducing quality improvement tools and the importance of a visible relationship between audit activity and patient care. Crucially, local clinicians struggle in developing evidence‐based audit criteria that should be developed at national level.

The lessons learned presented here are derived from interviews, document analysis and participant observation. Such techniques are liable to observers' and informants' bias. Similarly, conclusions drawn from an inquiry into contextual factors also threaten their external validity. The paper used chronological analysis and explanation building to overcome these limitations.

In low‐income countries, audit needs to be fully integrated in the national and local disease control programmes. The lessons presented here provide practical guidance for those considering developing or improving clinical audit in low‐income countries.

Clinical audit has major potential for improving health care delivery in low‐income countries within existing resource constraints. The lessons presented here have relevance to audit across the entirety of health systems in low‐income countries.