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To guide organizations toward total quality management (TQM), various models have been developed such as the European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model (EFQM Model). The purpose of this paper is to conduct a longitudinal investigation of whether the EFQM Model can serve as a framework for TQM in healthcare.

Data on a national representative survey about quality management (QM) in the hospital population in the Netherlands were used to conduct this study. The survey had five measurement points between 1995 and 2011.

The results of the study show that applying the EFQM Model in hospitals is related to improvement in organizational performance over time, a feedback loop in which hospitals use their results to further improve their organizational processes is established, and improvement is stronger when all the model’s elements are considered simultaneously.

The results of the study can be applied by quality managers of healthcare institutions to achieve higher quality of care.

Previous research on the relationship between the EFQM excellence model and TQM neglects two essential characteristics of the TQM philosophy, namely, the holistic perspective on QM and the presumed feedback loop of organizational performance that feeds a cycle of continuous quality improvement. The study provides new insights into the long-term benefits of applying the EFQM Model as a framework for TQM in healthcare.

The web application presented in this paper allows for an analysis to reveal centres of excellence in different fields worldwide using publication and citation data. Only specific aspects of institutional performance are taken into account and other aspects such as teaching performance or societal impact of research are not considered. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

Based on data gathered from Scopus, field-specific excellence can be identified in institutions where highly-cited papers have been frequently published.

The web application (www.excellencemapping.net) combines both a list of institutions ordered by different indicator values and a map with circles visualising indicator values for geocoded institutions.

Compared to the mapping and ranking approaches introduced hitherto, our underlying statistics (multi-level models) are analytically oriented by allowing the estimation of values for the number of excellent papers for an institution which are statistically more appropriate than the observed values; the calculation of confidence intervals as measures of accuracy for the institutional citation impact; the comparison of a single institution with an “average” institution in a subject area: and the direct comparison of at least two institutions.

This paper aims to improve upon the initial quantitative assessment of Kerlin’s macro-institutional social enterprise (MISE) framework (Monroe-White et al., 2015) to test for the effect of country-level institutions on the social enterprise sector. Major improvements are the inclusion of the civil society variable and expansion of the culture component in the analysis.

By following Kerlin’s (2013) original work that draws on the theory of historical institutionalism, this paper employs multi-level regression analysis to test the effect of country-level institutional factors on organizational-level social enterprise across countries. This analysis uses new macro-level data specifically for civil society and culture components.

The initial assessment of the framework found that several country-level factors had a significant effect on the variance in the size of the social enterprise sector across countries. The analysis provided here additionally shows a significant positive influence of civil society on the size of the social enterprise sector and shows that formal institutions capture the effect of informal cultural institutions when included in the model together.

This analysis provides policymakers, development actors and researchers with a better understanding of the influence of civil society on social enterprises and the interaction between formal and informal institutional underlying factors.

This paper’s significant contribution is the addition of civil society in the MISE analysis, which was not possible before owing to lack of data, and additional cultural analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the multi-level relationship between people-related total quality management (TQM) practices and employee job satisfaction. The authors draw upon organizational climate theory to hypothesize that TQM is related to job satisfaction at the individual employee level, as well as at the organizational level in the form of shared perceptions of TQM practices in the workplace.

Multi-level modelling was used to test the study hypotheses. The sample was drawn from 201 employees working in 23 organizations in Australia.

The findings show that people-related TQM practices are positively related to job satisfaction at both individual and organizational levels, with a stronger effect on employee attitudes observed at the organizational level.

The statistically significant multi-level relationship between people-related TQM practices and job satisfaction extends the findings of previous studies conducted only at the individual level; thus, supporting the sustainability of TQM as a management principle at a company-wide level.

The findings broadly support the implementation of people-related TQM practices as part of a strategy of creating a “high performance” climate in organizations, which in turn, will likely to positively affect both individual and organizational performance.

From a wider social perspective, the implementation of TQM practices as a company-wide initiative could facilitate greater corporate social responsibility of the organization. Such practices as training, involving, and empowering employees can promote social commitment by valuing employees as one important stakeholder.

This is the first empirical study to the best of the author’s knowledge that uses multi-level modelling to examine the relationship between TQM practices and employee attitudes such as job satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate employers’ recruitment strategies to address distinct job-related agency problems before establishing an employment relationship. Insights from agency theory and the social embeddedness perspective are combined to hypothesize whether and why employers adapt their recruitment strategies to the job type (differing in level of discretion) for which they are externally hiring.

The hypotheses are empirically tested using data from a survey of 288 Dutch employers. Questions were asked about the two types of jobs. Multi-level logistic regression analysis is applied to investigate the effect of social context on the choice of recruitment strategy. In addition to that, separate analyses are conducted for the two job types, using logistic regression analysis.

As predicted, employers have the tendency to use informal recruitment channels more often for jobs with high degree of discretion (i.e. managerial, professional, and specialists jobs (MPS)) than for jobs with low degree of discretion (i.e. administrative and supporting jobs). In addition, the type of information transmitted through employers’ social contacts matters for their recruitment strategies. In particular, the reliable and trustworthy information from contacts with friends and family is more important for MPS jobs. This seems to be the way employers deal with the high agency costs characterizing this type of jobs.

This study extends prior research as follows. First, while earlier studies more closely looked at why organizations use formal or informal recruitment, this study specifically focusses on the role the job type plays in the hiring process. Second, it provides an extension of agency theory by including job type in the analyses. And, third, the study examines how the networks of employers, rather than employees, affect the hiring process.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the (in)congruence between team leader self-evaluation and follower evaluation about the leader's transformation leadership (TL) on team performance, as well as the conditions under which the impact can be strengthened or weakened.

This study adopts a survey method to collect data from matched sales team leaders and sales team members in 81 teams. A multi-level polynomial regression analysis was conducted.

Team performance was higher in teams with balanced or high TL than with balanced or low TL. Among the teams with incongruence, no difference was found between leader underestimation and leader overestimation. TL congruence plays a moderating role in the relationship between team follower evaluation of TL and team performance, such that the relationship is stronger when team leader self-evaluation and follower evaluation are congruent than incongruent.

This study extends the authors' current understanding of TL literature by combining and contrasting the different perceptions of TL from both the leaders themselves and the followers towards leaders. The findings highlight the importance of congruence versus incongruence rather than just the high or low levels of follower TL evaluation. It provides a more complete understanding of the TL and team performance relationship than the traditional view that promotes a linear relationship between TL and performance.

The purpose of this paper is to advance a new explanation for cross-country variations in the participation of small businesses in the informal economy. Drawing upon institutional theory, it proposes that the greater the asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of formal institutions (state morality) and the unwritten socially shared rules of informal institutions (civic morality), the greater is the propensity of small businesses to participate in the informal economy. To analyse this, the extent to which small businesses evade payroll taxes by paying employees an undeclared (envelope) wage in addition to their official declared salary is analysed.

To evaluate this, data are reported from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey involving 5,174 face-to-face interviews with employees in small businesses across the 28 member states of the European Union (EU-28).

The finding is that small businesses display a greater propensity to engage in this informal wage practice in countries where there is a higher degree of asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of formal institutions (state morality) and the unwritten socially shared rules of informal institutions (civic morality). A multi-level logistic regression analysis reveals these to be countries which have lower qualities of governance, lower levels of taxation and intervention in the labour market and less effective social transfer systems.

The major limitation of this study is that it has only examined whether employees in small businesses receive informal wages. Future cross-country surveys should analyse a wider range of ways in which small businesses participate in the informal economy such as under-reporting turnover.

This is the first known analysis of cross-country variations in the participation of small businesses in the informal economy.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the importance of private labels (PLs) offered by each retailer on store loyalty, combining different loyalty-driven factors and assessing the importance of PLs on different loyalty stages – attitudinal and behavioural store loyalty.

Data were collected through a questionnaire (online survey) run in Portugal (n=469). Multi-level regressions were run to estimate the different loyalty models (base and full models) on each loyalty stage.

Results stress the positive contribution of PLs on consumers’ loyalty across different loyalty stages. However, findings suggest that this relationship may not be as strong as suggested in earlier studies. Findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between attitudinal and behavioural loyalty, emphasizing the complexity of the consumer loyalty construct and that multiple store-related factors can positively contribute to it.

Data were collected in one single country. It would be interesting to collect similar data in other countries in order to assess the extent to which results prevail across different competitive and cultural contexts.

Findings indicate that the loyalty factors that contribute to store loyalty are not homogeneous across the different loyalty stages, strengthening the idea that retailers should adopt different loyalty strategies depending on the loyalty stage its target customers are in.

This study is the first of its kind combining in a single framework the loyalty towards the retailers’ brand, store-related variables (in-store and economic factors), and specific consumer and retailer characteristics across different loyalty stages.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a supervisor’s incivility in teams impact team’s creative performance through the mediating factor of knowledge sharing intention among team members. Moreover, the moderating role of collaborative climate was investigated as protector against leaders’ incivility.

The proposed multi-level model was tested by surveying 312 health care providers nested within 42 work units at eight large hospitals in Iran. Multi-level regression analysis was used to analyze the data.

The findings revealed that those team members experiencing incivility from their supervisors are more likely to show reluctance to share knowledge with team members and as a consequence this response further decreases team’s creative performance. However, the climate of collaboration inside hospitals can buffer the negative impact of incivility on their readiness to share knowledge.

In team-based organizations, a supervisor’s incivility can stifle the creative performance of his/her team through blocking the knowledge sharing of members. First, human resource department should have some plans to curtail incivility of supervisors. Second, establishing a climate of collaboration and trust among team members can mitigate the insidious effects of supervisors’ incivility.

In prior research studies, the role of incivility on individual outcomes has been highlighted. This paper, according to the best knowledge of the author, is the first considering the negative impact of incivility on team’s performance. Moreover, collaborative climate is a novel moderator considered in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence that family factors have on an individual’s intention to be self-employed.

The authors selected, from Swedish national registers, all full siblings born between 1945 and 1960 and their biological children, who were born before 1985. The authors created one family database consisting of male individuals (n=1,204,436) and one family database consisting of female individuals (n=1,349,904). The authors defined the outcome variable during the years 2003-2010. Separate analyses were conducted for each of the four outcome variables: all self-employed individuals, owners of limited liability companies, sole traders and hybrids. The authors used multi-level logistic analysis for this study.

The study demonstrates that the influence that family factors have on an individual’s choice of company type is strong; however, it varies depending on intentions transferred within the family.

The authors divide self-employment into three distinct parts based on the company type, which enables a sophisticated analysis of self-employed individuals and of the transference of intentions to be self-employed within families. The authors contribute to the understanding of why individuals become self-employed by examining the impact of family factors on the intention of an individual to choose different types of company.