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Alignment is a key aspect of strategic change. Alignment between customers and employees is a critical component. Two functional areas ‐ marketing and human resources ‐ are well positioned to play important roles in the alignment process, and they share similar methods. But in most organizations they are often not linked. The authors argue for leadership to overcome the functional barriers, avoid duplicate effort and gain fuller utilization of potential. They present a model for the alignment process and a set of tools to analyze alignment gaps and facilitate the cross‐functional linkage. The efficacy of the tools is illustrated by case examples. At the same time, the authors caution that continuously building alignment is more akin to a trek than a sprint.

Medical errors in obstetric departments are commonly reported and may involve both mother and neonate. The complexity of obstetric care, the interactions between various disciplines, and the inherent limitations of human performance make it critically important for these departments to provide patient-safe and friendly working environments that are open to learning and participative safety. Obstetric care involves stressful work, and health care professionals are prone to develop burnout, this being associated with unsafe practices and lower probability for reporting safety concerns. This study aims to test the mediating role of burnout in the relationship of patient-safe and friendly working environment with unsafe performance. The full population of professionals working in an obstetrics department in Malta was invited to participate in a cross-sectional study, with 73.6% (n = 184) of its members responding. The research tool was adapted from the Sexton et al.’s Safety Attitudes Questionnaire – Labor and Delivery version and surveyed participants on their working environment, burnout, and perceived unsafe performance. Analysis was done using Structural Equation Modeling. Results supported the relationship between the lack of a perceived patient-safe and friendly working environment and unsafe performance that is mediated by burnout. Creating a working environment that ensures patient safety practices, that allows communication, and is open to learning may protect employees from burnout. In so doing, they are more likely to perceive that they are practicing safely. This study contributes to patient safety literature by relating working environment, burnout, and perceived unsafe practice with the intention of raising awareness of health managers’ roles in ensuring optimal clinical working environment for health care employees.

Causal models have been used in recent intellectual capital research studies to better understand the various outcomes of antecedent configurations of intangible asset components. These studies have been conducted in various industry sectors including insurance, healthcare, banks, and others. The purpose of this study is to replicate and extend prior research results within a new financial services sub‐sector.

A survey instrument based on prior research was administered to 396 employees from ten credit unions across Canada.

The results show that the pattern and value of causal paths change slightly from one context to another.

Six research implications are offered which summarize the key academic findings of the study related to how the interdependencies of the constructs alter from one context to another.

The empirical results presented here should lead analysts to recognize that measuring and strategically managing intellectual capital may in fact become the most important managerial activity for driving organizational performance.

The study provides a unique opportunity to test the generalizability and contextual implications of administering a similar survey instrument across various contexts.

We examined the relationship between employee equity compensation, incentive compensation, and firm growth using a sample of 480 privately held firms from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s database of Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) winners. Using frameworks from agency and motivation theories, we argued that larger percentages of both equity- and incentivebased compensation allocated to top managers and employees would be associated with firm growth. After controlling for firm and industry effects, the results of the study showed that while the firms in the sample preferred providing incentive compensation, providing equity compensation for employees was a positively significant predictor of firm growth over a three-year period. These findings suggest that prescriptions for growth in larger firms developed from agency theory also may be applicable to entrepreneurial firms, and founder/CEOs seeking to grow their firms should consider using equity compensation to motivate their current employees and to attract new ones.

Entrepreneurship and leadership may flow from the same genealogical source and the appearance of separation of the two constructs may be due to differences in the contexts through which the root phenomenon flows. Entrepreneurship and leadership are figuratively different manifestations of the need to create. To better understand the origin of entrepreneurship and leadership, research must first focus on the combinations or hierarchy of traits that are necessary, but perhaps not sufficient, to stimulate the two constructs. Factors that trigger a drive to create or take initiative within the individual in the context of a particular circumstance should be identified, and the situational factors that move the individual toward more traditional leader or classic entrepreneurial-type behaviors need to be understood.