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The failure rate of TQM interventions exceeds 75 per cent. Contends that it is missteps in the implementation of TQM – and other associated change efforts such as process re‐engineering – that undermine the likelihood that the intervention will contribute in a significant and lasting way to the competitive effectiveness of the organization. Using three case examples of TQM efforts, suggests that the implementation process must succeed in unhooking the organization from its traditional hierarchical and functional moorings and reattach it to horizontal, cross‐functional processes. To do this, the intervention process must address six distinct but interconnected stages of unhooking and reattachment and do so in a logical, sequential way.

The paper seeks to conduct a qualitative analysis to determine if organizational attempts to communicate positive images affect consumer perceptions of organizational effectiveness.

Through a rhetorical analysis, the authors categorized responses into four basic types of issues: issues of fact, issues of definition or category, issues of value, and issues of policy. The authors then employed qualitative analysis, using a rhetorical approach to categorize respondents' opinions related to their shopping experiences.

Data results support the notion that consumers' buying habits are forged or altered based on stimuli outside the quality of goods or services. Some of the factors that most influence a consumer's decision to continue to patronize a retail outlet include courtesy of sales associates, responsiveness of management in dealing with complaints and concerns, and added values such as knowledgeable staff.

The authors acknowledge that further research could be employed, using a larger sample size. Their nonrandom, convenience sample provided the data.

The overall effectiveness of an organization in developing brand‐loyal consumers seems to hinge on a combination of factors. These include developing awareness through structured and poignant commercial messages, delivering products and services with an eye toward customer satisfaction, and hiring and training qualified and courteous sales associates.

The authors' methodology looked at the issue from a rhetorical analysis perspective, not a quantitative analysis. The study should prove to be of value to retailers and organizations interested in a marketing communications approach.

This research examines the effects of health, location, and other factors on receipt of wage income for young heads of households, aged 19 to 25, who lived in HUD-assisted housing and in other rental housing in 2011.

This chapter reports results of analyses of the 2011 American Housing Survey, merged with HUD administrative records, available as a public-use file at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nineteen percent of young householders in assisted housing and 8% in other rental housing reported less than good health or a disability. Nearly two-thirds of young householders in assisted housing reported receipt of earned income. For respondents in assisted housing who reported good health and no disabilities, logistic regression models suggest that educational attainment beyond a high school diploma, more than one adult in the household, and living in metropolitan areas in the Midwest or West census regions were positively and statistically significant for receipt of earned income. For respondents in both assisted and other rental housing who reported less than good health and/or disabilities, residence in assisted housing or educational attainment beyond a high school diploma were positively associated with receipt of earned income, while residence in the metropolitan South lowered the odds of receipt of earned income.

Success of self-sufficiency programs will depend on accommodating the imperatives created by health, disability, and structural impediments created by a market economy.

This is the first analysis of health/disability and other barriers to paid employment that accurately identifies a nationally representative sample of young Millennials in HUD-assisted and other rental housing.

In the wake of rapid banking consolidations in the USA, concerns have arisen about the accessibility of capital and financial services for new businesses. With fewer and more centralized banking options, the likelihood of these entities securing financing may be compromised. This study aims to explore the repercussions of this consolidation on entrepreneurial activities in the U.S. Midwest.

To measure entrepreneurship, this study examines various business application metrics: total applications, high-propensity business applications (i.e. those with a high likelihood of evolving into businesses with payrolls), business applications from corporations (applications stemming from corporations or personal service entities) and applications with planned wages (those indicating a forthcoming payroll date). To assess the banking sector’s consolidation, this study used the deposit-based Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), a well-known measure of banking concentration.

This research underscores the detrimental impact of banking consolidation on various new business formations. To illustrate, a one standard deviation surge in the HHI, roughly 1253 points, correlates with a decline of approximately 16 total business applications, 7.3 high-propensity business applications, 3.72 applications originating from corporations and 3 applications indicating planned wages – all per 10,000 individuals. The findings indicate that reduced banking competition could slow down new business formations and negatively affect entrepreneurship.

This study examines various business formation statistics and use deposits at the institution level to determine banking concentration.

The purpose of this article is to explore the issue of drug use among police officers and police recruits. Data from two large police agencies were used in this analysis. Results of the two most popular drug screens (urinalysis and hair analysis) in the identification of drug‐involved individuals, who are either currently employed in or applying for law enforcement positions, are presented and discussed. It is found that there is an identifiable group of people in policing which appears to be drug‐involved. It also appears that, at least in some situations, and for rapidly excreted drugs like cocaine, the use of urine may be producing underestimates of these groups. The data support the idea that policing agencies may want to consider using multiple drug‐testing modalities in order to maximize the identification of different drugs, whose characteristics can be an important consideration in interpreting drug test results.

The purpose of this paper is to examine demographic details, disclosure and reporting behaviour of older women Rape Crisis Centre (RCC) service users in Ireland.

Statistical analysis of 15 Irish RCC records was carried out, using the Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) statistical database. In addition, two illustrative case studies were examined.

Older women were under-represented as RCC service users in Ireland. They were more likely to be disabled, less likely to report an incident of sexual violence and more likely to delay disclosure than younger women. Older women also had poor knowledge about sexual violence and services available to older women survivors.

Data were drawn from RCCs. Therefore, results may not reflect the population of Ireland as a whole. Population-based studies should be carried out to gauge the prevalence and nature of sexual violence among older women and assess reporting and disclosing behaviours.

The paper provides important indications of barriers to accessing RCC services among older women. Health care providers should receive education and training in identifying survivors of sexual violence among older women and providing referral where needed. RCCs should ensure that services are fully accessible to the disabled.

This paper provides unique data about older women service users which will be of value to those working with older women or in the violence against women and health sectors.

The purpose of this paper is to test and measure the outcome of a community hospital in implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through a co-management arrangement. RQ1: do the benefits of a co-management arrangement outweigh the costs? RQ2: does physician alignment aid in the effective implementation of the ACA directives set for hospitals?

A case study of a 350-bed non-profit community hospital co-management company. The quantitative data are eight quarters of quality metrics prior and eight quarters post establishment of the co-management company. The quality metrics are all based on standardized national requirements from the Joint Commission and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines. These measures directly impact the quality initiatives under the ACA that are applicable to all healthcare facilities. Qualitative data include survey results from hospital employees of the perceived effectiveness of the co-management company. A paired samples difference of means t-test was conducted to compare the timeframe before co-management and post co-management.

The findings indicate that the benefits of a co-management arrangement do outweigh the costs for both the physicians and the hospital (RQ1). The physicians benefit through actual dollar payout, but also with improved communication and greater input in running the service line. The hospital benefits from reduced cost – or reduced penalties under the ACA – as well as better communication and greater physician involvement in administration of the service line. RQ2: does physician alignment aid in the effective implementation of the ACA directives set for hospitals? The hospital improved in every quality metric under the co-management company. A paired sample difference of means t-test showed a statistically significant improvement in five of the six quality metrics in the study.

Previous research indicates the potential effectiveness of co-management companies in improving healthcare delivery and hospital-physician relations (Sowers et al., 2013). The current research takes this a step further to show that the data do in fact support these concepts. The hospital and the physicians carrying out the day-to-day actions have shared goals, better communication, and improved quality metrics under the co-management company. As the number of co-management companies increases across the USA, more research can be directed at determining their overall impact on quality care.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the post-COVID-19 fluctuations in the building construction demand from various angles at the national, regional, and sectoral levels. Despite the significant impact of COVID-19 on the building construction industry, a detailed quantitative analysis of the COVID-19 impact on the building construction demand is still lacking. The current study aims to (1) establish a statistical approach to quantify the COVID-19 impact on the building construction demand; (2) investigate the post-COVID-19 fluctuations in the construction demand of different building services, regional markets, and building sectors using the historical time series of the architecture billings index (ABI); and (3) identify vulnerable market and sector and discuss the post-COVID-19 recovery strategies.

The research methodology follows four steps: (1) collecting national, regional, and sectoral ABIs; (2) creating seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average models; (3) illustrating cumulative sum control charts to identify significant ABI deviations; and (4) quantifying the post-COVID-19 ABI fluctuations.

The results show that all the ABIs experienced a statistically significant decrease after COVID-19. The project inquiries index reduced more but recovered faster than billings and design contracts indices. The midwest billings index decreased the most among the regional ABIs and the commercial/industrial billing index dropped the most among the sectoral ABIs.

This study is unique in the way that it utilized the ABI data and the approach using SARIMA models and CUSUM control charts to assess the post-COVID-19 building construction demand represented by ABI fluctuations.

Over the past decade machine‐readable data bases have grown both in number and variety. In addition to the familiar bibliographic data bases such as MEDLINE and ERIC, one now finds data bases containing such things as properties (e.g., RTECS ‐ Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances) and full text (e.g., LEXIS, a family of files that contains the full text of court decisions, statutes, regulations, and other legal materials). As data bases increase in importance as information resources, there is a growing need for printed tools which can assist librarians in their identification and use. Available tools fall into three categories: (1) guides issued by data base producers which describe the contents of a given data base and methods of searching (e.g., INSPEC Database Users' Guide); (2) guides produced by online vendors which indicate how data bases can be searched on a particular system (e.g., Lockheed's Guide to DIALOG ‐ Databases); and (3) data base directories which include coverage of data bases produced by many different organizations and processed by a variety of online vendors. The third category is the subject of this comparative review. Readers interested in the first two categories should consult Online Reference Aids: A Directory of Manuals, Guides, and Thesauri published by the California Library Authority for Systems and Services (CLASS). This publication contains information on manuals, guides, and other search aids for over 100 online data bases, including those available through the New York Times Information Bank, National Library of Medicine (NLM), Bibliographic Retrieval Services (BRS), Lockheed DIALOG, and System Development Corporation (SDC) ORBIT. This directory is arranged by data base name, giving ordering and price information for aids available from both data base producers and online vendors. Subject and vendor indexes are also provided.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the severity of social and economic impact of floods on the communities and industries with respect to their reliance on the flood impacted critical infrastructure. This paper illustrates a severity assessment tool to determine the reduced serviceability level of critical infrastructure after a disaster, how the change in serviceability impacts activities of associated communities and industries, and the resulting social and economic impact.

The results presented in this paper are a part of a larger research designed to develop a decision support system for disaster impact mitigation. This research evaluated the impact of floods as a natural hazard on infrastructure and the related industries and communities in terms of criticality and vulnerability of infrastructure and the severity of social and economic impact if the critical infrastructure were to be affected. The overall research focused on the 2008 Midwest floods for the required data collection (including the cities of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Terre Haute, Indiana, St Louis, Missouri, Gulfport and Des Plaines, Illinois). Relevant data were collected through questionnaire surveys, personal interviews, and site visits.

The data collected through this research highlighted the importance of relationship between infrastructure, communities and industries with respect to technical, social and economic aspects. While the overall research resulted in a Decision Support System with three modules, to assess criticality, vulnerability and severity, this paper only elaborates the Severity Assessment Tool (SAT). Serviceability of an infrastructure plays an important role in post disaster recovery and response. Reduction in the serviceability of an infrastructure also affects the functionality of the activities that depend on the affected infrastructure resulting in social and economic impact. The tool presented in this paper determines the severity of social and economic impact by evaluating the reduction in the functionality of the affected activities.

The model (SAT) presented in this paper determines the social and economic impact on communities and industries due to natural disaster when the serviceability of disaster impacted critical infrastructure is impaired. This tool can be effectively used by city managers as well as emergency planners for industries and communities in developing mitigation strategies based on the severity of social and economic impact due to the affected critical infrastructure. The results would also help the decision makers in arriving at more effective investment decisions to repair/rehabilitate certain critical infrastructure.