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The purpose of this paper is to provide insights toward the potential of lean healthcare organization for environment sustainability and develop propositions for future studies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights toward the potential of lean healthcare organization for environment sustainability and develop propositions for future studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper to study the inbuilt capacity of lean healthcare organization to mitigate environmental footprint. As a result, lean compatibility with environmental sustainability (ES) has been explored in areas like manufacturing, supply chain, aviation, construction, etc. The lean philosophy, lean culture and lean tools were analyzed to identify their contribution to ES in the context of healthcare organizations.
Findings
Based on the analysis of lean philosophy, culture and tool, this paper theorizes that lean healthcare organizations have huge potential to mitigate environmental footprints. Lean healthcare organizations need not to do any extra effort for ES albeit it is inbuilt in it. Lean philosophy provides a vision to the healthcare organization for ES whereas lean culture bestow healthcare with an epistemology for the same.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides insight that ES is embedded in lean healthcare organizations. Lean healthcare organizational culture is ideal for application for constructivism theory where employees construct a new knowledge from their experiences to minimize the waste that eventually help in ES.
Originality/value
Major contributions of the study include a new approach for mitigating the environmental footprints by adopting lean in healthcare organization.
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This article aims to report on the findings from a research project that explored a school’s changing ideological storyline with the appointment of a new Principal and the Board…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to report on the findings from a research project that explored a school’s changing ideological storyline with the appointment of a new Principal and the Board of Trustees’ intention to move towards a strengths-based approach to education. Following the school’s dialogue and decision-making over a three-year period enabled the identification of a range of competitive processes between the dominant and an emergent ideology within the school.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an ideological framework proposed by Meighan et al. (2007), the research focussed on the development and maintenance of shared understandings within each ideology. For the purpose of this article, the participants have been limited to those in school governance, the school’s senior leadership team and some teachers across a three-year period. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, online surveys and informal observations and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes.
Findings
The findings show the subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies that represented different philosophies for education: a deficit discourse of progressive ideals and a strengths-based ideology of education. The existing and dominant ideology is challenged by the determination and moral purpose of the principal with the unanimous support from those in governance. In due process, the school emerged into a creative enterprise through the adoption of shared understandings that were underscored by a strengths-based ideology.
Originality/value
It is incumbent upon school principals to notice the shifting organisational storylines within their schools and communities and act in a manner that realises the moral imperative of schooling for the students (Fullan, 2011). This article opens specific ideological processes that have appreciatively moved a school towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of the organisation for the students’ sake.
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Larry C. Giunipero and Robert M. Monczka
Analysis of the organisational structures utilised to conduct international purchasing activities was undertaken at 24 multinational corporations. The majority of the corporations…
Abstract
Analysis of the organisational structures utilised to conduct international purchasing activities was undertaken at 24 multinational corporations. The majority of the corporations studied had decentralised purchasing organisations and all had corporate purchasing staffs. Four basic approaches were found: (1) totally decentralised; (2) co‐ordinated; (3) totally centralised; and (4) separate international purchasing group. Within this overall framework there were several forms of staff assistance to assist operating units effectively accomplish their international purchasing goals. This assistance included foreign buying offices, trading companies and international staff specialists. There was also a common philosophy which indicated the necessity of worldwide sourcing.
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Herman Vantrappen and Michael Wagemans
The nitty-gritty of organizing for sustainability requires carefully defining and assigning the roles and responsibilities for carrying out the activities required to implement…
Abstract
Purpose
The nitty-gritty of organizing for sustainability requires carefully defining and assigning the roles and responsibilities for carrying out the activities required to implement the company’s sustainability strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors offer a framework to help managers make design choices for their company’s Sustainability organization.
Findings
The “sustainability focus” and “organizational philosophy” dimensions can be combined into a grid onto which a company?s position can be mapped.
Practical/implications
Should Sustainability be a distinct and integrated function, or combined with another function, or split into subfunctions, or absorbed into the general management of the businesses?
Originality/value
Sustainability is a hot topic at the CEO level nowadays and the authors have worked out a practical guide for customizing a company’s implementation agenda and its organizational structure so its program will be effective.
The purpose of this paper is to invite managers and practitioners to reflect on the meaning and implications of the concept of zero for individual and organizational spiritual…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to invite managers and practitioners to reflect on the meaning and implications of the concept of zero for individual and organizational spiritual growth.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on spirituality and complexity literatures, this paper stimulates non‐traditional thinking in organizational change and leadership. The paper uses the concept of zero as a creative metaphor for organizational development.
Findings
The paper introduces a systemic, unified, multidimensional, holistic, complex, chaotic and dynamic paradigm for organizations based on spirituality: paradigm zero. Zero represents paradox, transcendence, interconnectedness, balance, modesty, creativity, inspiration, and the essence and mystery of human existence.
Practical implications
This paper invites managers to consider a futurist perspective called zero‐centered thinking that enables creativity and reflection in the middle of complexity.
Originality/value
This paper builds on cutting edge spirituality and complexity concepts to enable new thinking for twenty‐first century managers and professionals. Zero philosophy provides organizations a new trans‐disciplinary paradigm based on spirituality, complexity, chaos, systems sciences, quantum physics, emergence, and Sufism.
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Olga Iermolenko and Anders Hersinger
This study aims to investigate how and why a new management accounting control (MAC) regime emerged in a previously government-owned energy company with a Soviet past in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how and why a new management accounting control (MAC) regime emerged in a previously government-owned energy company with a Soviet past in the context of changing politico-economic dynamics in Ukraine.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon data from a case study of a large Ukrainian energy company with a Soviet past that has undergone major transformations in recent years, the authors analyze MAC regime changes in the company from an institutional logics perspective. All primary and secondary data used in this study were collected from 2012 to 2016. Retrospective interviews and extensive use of written materials, including corporate documents and other publicly available data, helped them reconstruct those events, which the authors could not observe personally.
Findings
The authors observed that MAC regime changes in the company mirror; overall changes in the political and economic environment and Ukraine’s willingness to become closer to the West. The company seems to follow liberal Western market logics and eliminate those of Soviet heritage. The MAC regime changes seemed to contribute to the company’s survival during challenges caused by the political and economic crises that began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories in the East of the country, demonstrating the usefulness of the new MAC regime and overall business logic.
Research limitations/implications
This study adds to the literature on management accounting and control change in emerging economies and extractive industries by highlighting the role of changing institutional logics in shaping a MAC regime. The authors explain why, in some contexts (i.e. Ukraine), organizational actors accept and favor liberal Western market logic.
Originality/value
A particularly significant facet of this study concerns its extension of the role of MAC and the way it is perceived in a new international context in times of significant transformation. The results suggest that MAC regime change may be favorably received if it is based on local values and aspirations.
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Guoquan Chen, Jingyi Wang, Wei Liu, Fen Xu and Qiong Wu
This paper aims to theoretically investigate a knowledge management model from the combined perspective of knowledge acquisition and knowledge application and its effect on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to theoretically investigate a knowledge management model from the combined perspective of knowledge acquisition and knowledge application and its effect on organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study reviews prior research on knowledge acquisition and knowledge application, puts forward the concepts of “the extensiveness of knowledge acquisition” and “the concentration of knowledge application” and more importantly proposes an integrated model by combining these two dimensions. Four case examples of enterprises are subsequently described and analyzed to illustrate the sources of knowledge acquisition, the objects of knowledge application and their influences on organizational performance.
Findings
Four knowledge management modes and their impacts are confirmed in this study. Specifically, the organization of the turbojet engine mode (high extensiveness of knowledge acquisition and high concentration of knowledge application) can achieve good performance. The pipeline mode (high extensiveness of knowledge acquisition and low concentration of knowledge application) is the second, which has limited influence on good organizational performance. Organizations with the flashlight mode (low extensiveness of knowledge acquisition and high concentration of knowledge application) can achieve limited performance under the appropriate environment. The candle mode (low extensiveness of knowledge acquisition and low concentration of knowledge application) is the worst, performance of which is poor due to the break of the knowledge chain.
Practical implications
This paper holds that organizations should actively use the turbojet engine mode, adopt the pipeline mode and the flashlight mode cautiously, and avoid falling into the candle mode.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to propose the concepts of “the extensiveness of knowledge acquisition” and “the concentration of knowledge application,” and provides a combined model for analyzing differences in organizational performance from the perspective of knowledge.
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Larry C. Giunipero and Robert M. Monczka
Discusses analysis of the organizational structures utilized to conduct international purchasing activities which was undertaken at 24 multinational corporations. The majority of…
Abstract
Discusses analysis of the organizational structures utilized to conduct international purchasing activities which was undertaken at 24 multinational corporations. The majority of the corporations studied had decentral‐ ized purchasing organizations and all had corporate purchasing staffs. Four basic approaches were found: (1) totally decentralized; (2) co‐ordinated; (3) totally centralized; and (4) separate international purchasing group. Within this overall framework there were several forms of staff assistance for helping operating units effectively to accomplish their international purchasing goals. This assistance included foreign buying offices, trading companies, and international staff specialists. There was also a common philosophy which indicated the necessity of worldwide sourcing.
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Keywords
Vijaya Sunder M., L.S. Ganesh and Rahul R. Marathe
The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for services, construct a morphological analysis (MA) framework and identify research gaps…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for services, construct a morphological analysis (MA) framework and identify research gaps to point to future research possibilities and priorities.
Design/methodology/approach
The MA framework is based on literature review of 175 papers published from 2003 to 2015, across 67 journals recognised by Scopus or ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide 2015. A three-phased methodology is used by the authors, with Phase1 featuring a five-stage systematic review protocol to identify relevant journal papers for review; Phase2 presenting a framework for classifying the reviewed papers in terms of their fundamental, methodological, chronological and sector-wise orientations; and Phase3 constructing an MA framework on the classified papers and identifying the research gaps.
Findings
The MA framework constructed based on six dimensions, namely, organizational context of applications, desired outcomes, implementation systems, LSS tools and techniques, integration with other management philosophies and evaluation methods, involving 40 focused themes, has revealed 355 distinct research gaps as opportunities for future research.
Practical implications
This paper confirms the existence of substantial scope and points to specific topics for further research in the area of LSS for services. The findings demonstrate the gaps in academic research on the subject. In addition, the study also helps organisational leaders and practitioners to look at LSS from a holistic perspective in the services context.
Originality/value
The MA framework of the existing literature on LSS for services presents a unique, systematic effort to identify research opportunities. In addition, a five-stage systematic review protocol is proposed in this paper. This could be valuable to researchers and practitioners in enabling them to systematically review the literature on research subjects of interest to them.
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Focuses on contemporary law enforcement institutions, in Canadian and US cities, to illustrate the service limitations and public conflicts that are increasingly being generated…
Abstract
Focuses on contemporary law enforcement institutions, in Canadian and US cities, to illustrate the service limitations and public conflicts that are increasingly being generated into violent encounters by the failure to move beyond the authoritarian organizational operational model. The capacity of public policing institutions to provide effective, non‐violent police services to meet the needs of the communities is determined by the nature of the police institutional and/or organizational model employed. This analysis assesses the appropriateness of current police training models, race relations training, non‐violent conflict resolution training and all other police training that may be grounded and generated from a paramilitary authoritarian hierarchical composition. This applied approach discloses much needed systemic and policy reformation by considering a more expanded understanding of this prominent social agency, the actors and the interconnectedness with other institutions.
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