Search results

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

Major gaps exist in the documented history of occupational therapy in Ireland. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to filling these gaps by providing an overview of three major transitions in Irish occupational therapy in the century preceding the opening of St. Joseph?s College of Occupational Therapy in 1963. Research on occupational therapy’s past is valuable not only for recording and commemorating key events and individuals but also for allowing reflection on and questioning of contemporary practice and assumptions.

This descriptive paper draws on multiple documentary sources to present an overview of the first 100 years of the use of occupation as therapy/occupational therapy in Ireland from 1863 to 1963.

Three major transitions in occupational therapy in Ireland are presented: from moral treatment and the use of occupation as therapy to medical patronage of occupational therapy, from medical patronage to the early/pre-professional era and finally from the pre-professional era to the era of professionally qualified occupational therapists. To illustrate these transitions, a small number of individuals and their contributions are discussed including Dr Eamon O’Sullivan, Dr Ada English, Donal Kelly, Olga Gale and Ann Beckett.

This paper charts the foundations upon which the currently thriving profession of occupational therapy are built. The Association of Occupational Therapists of Ireland recently celebrated their 50th anniversary (AOTI, 2015a), and in 2017, it is 100 years since occupational therapy was formalised in Clifton Springs, New York, USA. Occupational therapy is a relatively young profession, and great opportunities exist to research its history in Ireland to capture the memories and experiences of the pioneers who laid the foundation of the profession as well as to situate the development of the profession in the broader social, cultural and scientific contexts within which it developed.

This paper describes a quality improvement project to improve oversight of quality at national board level using statistical process control (SPC) methods, complimented by a qualitative experience of patients and frontline staff. It demonstrates the application of the “Picture-Understanding-Action” approach and shares the lessons learnt.

Using co-design and applying the “Picture-Understanding-Action” approach, the project team supported the directors of the Irish health system to identify and test a qualitative and quantitative picture of the quality of care across the health system. A “Quality Profile” consisting of quantitative indicators, analysed using SPC methods was used to provide an overview of the “critical few” indicators across health and social care. Patient and front-line staff experiences added depth and context to the data. These methods were tested and evolved over the course of six meetings, leading to quality of care being prioritised and interrogated at board level.

This project resulted in the integration of quality as a substantive and prioritised agenda item. Using best practice SPC methods with associated training produced better understanding of performance of the system. In addition, bringing patient and staff experiences of quality to the forefront “people-ised” the data.

The application of the “Picture-Understanding-Action” approach facilitated the development of a co-designed quality agenda item. This is a novel process that shifted the focus from “providing” information to co-designing fit-for-purpose information at board level.