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We examine the association of for-profit (FP) and nonprofit (NP) economic incentives in hospice care providers with financial and nonfinancial metrics of management performance. Controlling for quality of patient care and differences in cost-efficiency, we find that FP providers (1) selectively admit patients with longer life-prognoses and billable days and hence lower average costs per day, (2) employ a lower average cost/skill mix of workers, and (3) have higher CEO compensation and profit. The NP providers admit more patients with the less profitable life-prognoses attributes, have lower CEO compensation, and reinvest their net earnings under the non-distribution constraint. While the profit incentive may be needed to attract providers into this rapidly growing and underserved market, the NP providers return a lower cost per patient served from the taxpayer's perspective.

We examine earnings management in non-publicly listed companies, with a focus on for-profit (FP) hospice organizations, and extend the accounting earnings management literature to the hospice industry. FP hospice organizations file Medicare cost reports that include complete financial statements not otherwise publicly available. Managers of FP hospice organizations have incentives to manage earnings to increase performancebased bonuses, meet or beat bond covenant requirements, or avoid public scrutiny. We find total accruals are significantly positively associated with profitability, debt, and size factors. However, discretionary accruals are significantly negatively associated with debt and size, but not profitability. Thus, monitoring and political cost factors appear to effectively mitigate earnings management in this industry sector.

This paper examines the association of charitable donations with quality of care proxies for nonprofit hospice providers in the United States (US). An estimated 1.45 million patients received hospice care in the US in 2008. Medicare hospice spending exceeded $10 billion in 2007 and is expected to more than double over the next 10 years. Using Guidestar and Medicare Hospice Cost Report data, we find donations are positively associated with proxies for nurse and social worker quality of care, but not with our home-health aide quality proxy. This research adds to our understanding of charitable contributions in hospice provider organizations.

Mentoring is highly regarded as a career‐enhancing phenomenon necessary for any aspiring executive. Several debates within the literature have led to a lack of consistency regarding the definition of mentoring and a mentor, the functions of a mentor, and the various types of mentoring. It appears that much of the confusion stems from the relationship and association of mentoring with the concept of sponsoring. Within the majority of the literature regarding developmental relationships, sponsoring has been posited to be a sub‐function of mentoring. This paper presents two arguments for viewing and examining mentoring and sponsoring as distinctly different, non‐mutually exclusive, and possibly concurrent phenomena, as well as offers universal definitions for both terms. This delineation is offered to aid aspiring executives in their decision making process as to whether to select a mentor, a sponsor, or both.

Defines polychronic time as the consumer’s ability to do a number of things at once and explains that it has been studied by researchers in an attempt to understand how individuals regard new products and services and their potential to save time or enhance polychronicity. Examines the literature on this subject with particular reference to Internet marketing. Generates a number of hypotheses for future research.

Although scholars have shown that group goals can positively affect group performance, very little work has focused on developing an understanding of group feedback as a component of the group goal‐group performance relationship. A current model of individual‐level response to group feedback is examined as a basis for moving towards an interactionist perspective encompassing both the individual and group‐level response to group feedback based on an understanding of groups as information processors. It is suggested that individual feedback provided in groups is a complex phenomena necessitating an understanding of the multiple ways in which information in groups may be processed. Implications for future research are considered.

Fifty eight per cent of reporting companies have a shortage of skilled workers and 64 per cent of manufacturers believe entry‐level workers lack the necessary skills to positively impact their company. The most recent reports estimate that employers spend around one per cent of payroll on training. Lack of investment in training is an often‐cited reason why companies in the USA. are losing market share to foreign competitors. This study provides data regarding the extent to which training is conducted, formally and informally, in a sample of small businesses. According to the results of the study and a review of current literature, employees need training in a variety of areas and are not receiving adequate training in today’s small business environment. The study specifically includes information with respect to: (1) the types of training that small business owners believe they need to be more successful; (2) the various training methods currently used in training both employees and managers; and (3) the primary training resources used by the small businesses. The study was intended not only to determine what is happening in training and development in small businesses, but also to make owner‐managers more aware of the importance of training to their long‐term success. If owner‐managers of small businesses worldwide both read and apply the results of the study to their own individual small businesses, they could be expected to increase the level of their training programmes and change their overall attitude towards the importance of training.

Mentoring is more and more studied by researchers on account of its professional and personal impact on mentees. This contribution has two main objectives. First, to empirically validate the benefits for the mentor and to test links between mentoring activities and benefits through a multidimensional analysis. Second, to incorporate two variables structuring the relationship into the analysis: the formal vs informal nature of the mentoring relationship and the gender composition of the dyad. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In total, 161 French managers have been surveyed.

The results show that mentors value the personal dimension of the relationship more than the professional dimension. Moreover, informal mentoring favours the perception of a rewarding experience by the mentor, whereas formal mentoring is synonymous with improved professional performance. This research calls into question the advantage of same-sex dyads, suggesting that heterogeneity favours improved performance.

The originality of the paper was to focus on the homogeneity of the mentor-protégé dyad in terms of gender.

One important issue is whether spirituality in the workplace can be used only to benefit employees or can it be developed also to the advantage of organizations? The purpose of this article is to articulate a model of how spiritual values can be integrated into organizations and then assess how this model predicts organizational behavior in one company, Southwest Airlines (SWA). The application of this model provides insights into how and under what specific conditions spiritual values can positively impact both profitability and employee attitudes in organizations. Implications for both research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what contributes to transfer of soft‐skill, leadership training.

The paper presents a literature review resulted in five broad factors that may influence transfer of leadership training. These were used to guide a qualitative, exploratory study. Interviews were conducted with 18 participants of an extensive, soft skill oriented leadership development program, along with peer observers. Where possible, quantitative analyses are used to test and confirm qualitative findings.

The results showed substantial transfer of training and suggest that actual utilization of newly learned skills is influenced differently than judgments about the value of the training. The greatest inhibitor to transfer appeared to be fear of breaking cultural norms and the most important remedy, the number of other managers who receive the training. In particular, having one's boss take the same training was strongly associated with post‐training utilization. Some kinds of social support, like encouragement and verbal praise, were associated with positive judgments of the training but not with utilization. Instead, observing others use the skills and being able to coach one another was the kind of “support” that effected utilization, which depended on colleagues and bosses also receiving the training.

As an exploratory case study, the study lacks a large sample and the kind of methodology that could prove the validity of the findings.

A number of implications for training managers wanting to ensure their leadership development programs have real impact are discussed. In particular, the study points to a need to plan for rapid diffusion of the training and for cultural change processes in parallel with leadership development courses.

The paper meets a need for empirical investigation of factors associated with transfer of soft skills into the workplace, as called for by researchers like Cheng and Ho. It identifies differences in what impacts judgments of value versus what actually impacts transfer. It also identifies how changing leadership behavior is as much a cultural intervention as a change in skill sets.