Search results

Capture, consumption and use of person-centred information presents challenges for hospitals when operating within the scope of limited resources and the push for organisational routines and efficiencies. This paper explores these challenges for patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) and the examination of information that supports successful hospital discharge. It aims to determine how the likelihood of readmission may be prevented through the capturing of rich, person-specific information during in-patient care to improve the process for discharge to home.

The authors combine four research data collection and analysis techniques: one, an analysis of the patient record; two, semi-structured longitudinal interviews; three, an analysis of the patient's journey using process mining to provide analytics about the discharge process, and four, a focus group with nurses to validate and confirm our findings.

The authors’ contribution is to show that information systems which support discharge need to consider models focused on individual patient stressors. The authors find that current discharge information capture does not provide the required person-centred information to support a successful discharge. Data indicate that rich, detailed information about the person acquired through additional nursing assessments are required to complement data provided about the patient's journey in order to support the patients’ post-discharge recovery at home.

Prior research has focused on information collection constrained by pre-determined limitations and barriers of system design. This work has not considered the information provided by multiple sources during the whole patient journey as a mechanism to reshape the discharge process to become more person-centred. Using a novel combination of research techniques and theory, the authors have shown that patient information collected through multiple channels across the patient care journey may significantly extend the quality of patient care beyond hospital discharge. Although not assessed in this study, rich, person-centred discharge information may also decrease the likelihood of patient readmission.

This paper aims to examine the effect of concentration in the insurance sector on insurer stability for a large set of developed and developing countries. In particular, the authors test whether concentration reduces financial fragility in the insurance sector (“concentration-stability view”) or decreases stability in the insurance sector (“concentration-fragility view”).

The authors use a data set of 14,402 firm-year observations of property-liability insurers who appear in A.M. Best’s Statement File Global database during the period 2004-2012. They use regression analyses to examine the effect of concentration on the stability of insurance firms and apply different measures of concentration.

The results provide empirical support for the “concentration- fragility view”; that is, higher levels of concentration are associated with decreases in the insurance sector’s financial stability.

The results have important policy implications, given that a primary purpose of insurance regulation is to protect policyholders against insurance firm defaults.

No previous research analyzes how recent trends in competition and consolidation, which have led to changes in insurance market concentration, affect the stability of insurance firms around the world. This research is the first paper that provides evidence on the relation between concentration and stability in the insurance sector.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the competence-led structuring and understanding of sustainability education by analysing the practices of professional individuals who have completed university education geared to the development of sustainability change-makers.

The research scope was initially on examining professional practices following the boundary work theory. Social practice theory was used as a methodological approach in conducting and analysing thematic interviews with 19 sustainability-focused master’s programme alumni. The interviews were analysed against the theoretical framework while also noting findings that fell outside of this framework.

A framework for understanding materials, competences and meanings of practices connected to the professional field of sustainability was introduced. The framework suggests that in the practices of sustainability-educated professionals, meanings emerge as a top priority and are conveyed using position-based materials and various complexes of competency.

The authors suggest that boundary theory informs well the emergence of the professional field of sustainability, and the utilisation of a practice theory furthers the understanding of sustainability professionalism and its education.

The authors’ suggest that practice theory could thus provide deeper insights on how sustainability science alumni use their education after graduation, how they practice their profession and in return offer applicable reflections to sustainability education.

Research using practice theory in reflection on sustainability education and the professional practice of sustainability has not been widely conducted and in the authors’ opinion brings value to the education and practice of sustainability and to the research of sustainability education.

The paper aims to critically evaluate the day-to-day processes of employee performance management and control (EPMC) in an African-based organization and sheds light on formal and informal management controls, social relations and worker responses.

The paper draws on research undertaken within an Ugandan-based agricultural research organization. A case study approach was used to facilitate an understanding of everyday organizational practices and context. The paper uses ethnographic research and grounded theory, with methods including interviews and observation of work practices.

The findings provide a nuanced understanding of how performance management and control plays out in practice and show that the unquestioning imposition of Western practices that ignore traditional norms is unlikely to result in desired outcomes.

Since the paper took on a cross-sectional study, a longitudinal study might reveal whether and how the values of managers and employees in Africa-based organizations change over time.

The study's findings indicate the need for a more critical examination of EPMC that takes account of employee attitudes, behaviors and social relations at the intersection of both the formal and informal organization.

Although cultural and institutional approaches have been used to evaluate human resource management (HRM) practices in Africa, organizational behavior approaches to performance and control at the micro-level had been underexplored.

This chapter analyzes the importance and performance of values in tourism higher education and business as seen by the alumni of the European Master in Tourism Management. The students were exposed to the values-based education framework proposed by the Tourism Educational Future Initiative. This chapter empirically tests the relevance of its model for an ideal and real industry, and for the corresponding world of tourism education. Using importance performance analysis, results identify gaps between the importance and performance in the values. The findings have implications for the future development and implementation of experimental values-based education.

Employing institutional logic and institutional work as its theoretical framework, this study analyzes scholars' reactions to performance measurement systems in academia.

Large datasets were collected over time, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements. The data were gathered from a two-wave survey in 2010 (966 respondents) and 2015 (672 respondents), conducted among scholars performing teaching- and research-oriented tasks in three Finnish universities.

The analysis showed statistically significant changes over time in the ways that the respondents were positioned in three major groups influenced by different institutional logics. This study contributes to the international debate on institutional change in universities by showing that in Finnish universities, emerging business logics and existing professional logics can co-exist and be blended among a growing group of academics. The analysis of qualitative open-ended answers suggests that performance measurement systems have led to changes in institutional logic, which have influenced the scholars participating in institutional work at the microlevel in academia.

While most scholars remain critical of performance measurement systems in universities, the fact that many academics are adapting to performance measurement systems highlights significant changes that are generally occurring in academia.

While most extant studies have focused on field- and organizational-level analyses, this study focuses on understanding how the adoption of performance measurement systems affects institutional logic and institutional work at the microlevel. Moreover, the study's cross-sectional research setting increases society's understanding of institutional evolution in academia.

Firms are increasingly organizing cross-regional R&D collaborations among different units. Such collaborations should promote knowledge flows across distance and bring new knowledge to the local communities. However, the nature of cross-regional collaborations varies widely depending on the organizations within which they are organized. Compared with collaborations within small firms, collaborations in large firms tend to be routinized, which reduces the need for interpersonal interactions and increases the dependence on organizational structure. As a result, additional spillover from cross-regional collaboration is likely to be lower if the collaboration is within large firms. We extend this argument to the regional level and hypothesize that regions with a higher level of cross-regional collaborations tend to generate more valuable technologies, but when large firms dominate the formation of such collaborations, the marginal benefits of cross-regional collaboration are significantly reduced. Using a data set from the pharmaceutical industry between 1975 and 2001, we find support for our hypotheses. We conduct a series of robustness tests to check the consistency of our results.

The previous literature has indicated that the productisation of services may play a role in service management, although a certain level of obscurity still surrounds the concept. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the meaning of service productisation (SP) as well as to contribute to a greater understanding of the concept.

An inductive analysis was applied to 13 instances of activities related to the productisation of services, with secondary data being analysed to identify practices relevant to SP and to examine their significance. The analysis is guided by an extensive literature review.

SP has been found to play a role in systematising and tangibilising a service offering and its related processes as well as in formalising the processes and service offerings. The potential elements of SP have been identified and supporting evidence has been provided. The findings indicate that SP has a specific focus on the offering and its related processes, with the aim being to create a service product that can be sold, delivered and invoiced. SP may utilise various practices and techniques, and customer orientation also plays a significant role. A typology of SP has been created by reflecting on its commercial and technical aspects.

This study has important implications for the service industry as it provides a structure and key considerations for productising services.

This study is one of the first to seek evidence for the concept of SP from multiple instances of SP as well as an extensive literature base. The typology created provides a context for discussing SP as well as reflecting on its commercial and technical aspects.