Search results

As part of its restructuring and commitment to collaboration and advances in healthcare, the author's organisation has recently adopted personal outcomes to ensure that services are aligned to meet patient needs more effectively. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this advancement in healthcare in the light of recent research findings, changing policies and the author's own understanding.

The paper introduces the concept of collaboration as a means of achieving personal outcomes. In addition, the paper puts forward suggestions as to how the nurse can foster interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary teamwork, utilising the core concepts of the advanced nurse practitioner, namely transformational leadership, in support of this.

While success stories of personal outcomes abound much of it anecdotal based. Therefore, the need to initiate research in this area is of paramount importance as the latter would be helpful in examining meaningful quality outcomes. Reform in structure, finance and policy will also be necessary, as these are vital ingredients to the success of personal outcomes. Despite the overlapping conflict of Irish government policy, the extra finance announced in the 2005 Budget can only serve to assist organisations in achieving accreditation through initiatives like personal outcomes. Central to the success of personal outcomes, is to engage in collaborative practice by way of fostering interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary team working.

Further study of the impact on patient outcomes of collaboration is warranted.

The paper examines organisational, professional and interpersonal challenges.

This study aims to identify the job characteristics that would boost the personal and work outcomes (e.g. job satisfaction, internal motivation and output quality) of facility managers (FMs) in Singapore based on the Job Characteristics Theory.

The research method is a survey method, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 34 FMs through electronic mail and by post.

Using t-test of the mean, 23 out of the 39 identified job characteristics are found to be significantly present in FMs’ jobs. Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed that the job characteristics that are significantly correlated with personal and work outcomes of FMs include those that use a variety of skills, in which task identity is present, task is significant, allow autonomy, provide feedback and meet FMs’ growth needs.

The Job Characteristics Theory is found to be applicable to FMs’ jobs, but this needs to be generalized carefully because of the relatively small sample size.

It is recommended that the significant job characteristics that are identified in this study be designed and incorporated into FMs’ jobs. These include setting up teams where members play their parts well; a reward system when a job is done well; a career path with ample opportunities for promotion; and communication channels that are clear and precise.

Important job characteristics that could boost FMs’ job satisfaction, internal motivation and quality of work are identified. In addition, job characteristics that could reduce their likelihood of leaving the profession are also uncovered. These job characteristics should be designed into FMs’ jobs, so that firms have high performing and motivated FMs.

This study seeks to investigate strategies for building personal relationships with an organization's members, and to examine the outcomes of personal relationships in an advocacy organization.

The case study includes interviews with 39 staff people at national, state, and affiliate levels of the organization; 58 members; and five former members, for a total of 102 participants. Document analysis and participant observation were supplemental methods.

The following strategies for cultivating personal relationships were identified: direct engagement, task sharing, constitutive rhetoric, peer linking, hat‐in‐your‐hand, investment in local relationships, and targeting of aware affiliates for diversity efforts. To contribute to the discussion about the value of personal relationships in organizations, the study also investigated the outcomes of personal relationships. The outcomes found in the study include affective commitment, political leverage, social capital, member recruitment, and member retention.

Although many of the cultivation strategies and outcomes are likely to apply to various contexts, some of them may be specific to the context of an advocacy organization that has a grass‐roots culture and layers of leadership, such as local, state, and national offices.

Organizations can read the study to identify potential strategies they can use to cultivate strong personal relationships with their stakeholders.

The study produces new cultivation strategies and outcomes for personal relationships and engages in a critical discussion of the existing literature.

Ethical decisions determine which individuals and/or groups benefit, and which suffer. Such decisions by executives impact front-line providers directly and customers indirectly; they are important because repercussions in service interactions feel personal. The purpose of this paper is to fill an important gap in the service literature by exploring how high-level executives make ethical decisions, creating values and culture within an organization; the results include testable propositions.

The research used a grounded theory approach, wherein high-level executives in successful service organizations responded through in-depth interviews. Complete interview transcripts were analyzed using standard qualitative methodology, including open coding to better understand and categorize the data, axial coding to seek out crucial relationships between concepts, and selective coding to develop research propositions.

Data analysis revealed two groups of interviewees, one more outcome-oriented in decision making and the other more process-oriented. The organizations led by more outcome-oriented executives have strong family-like (or paternalistic) cultures, whereas the organizations led by more process-oriented executives value adaptability and diversity.

The executives interviewed are quite successful; therefore, it is not possible to make inferences about unsuccessful executives or those leading poorly performing organizations. Propositions developed relate that process-oriented executives use both analytical measures and intuition in decision making, whereas outcome-oriented respondents rely more heavily on analytical measures.

Service executives apparently make ethical decisions while focusing either on processes or on outcomes; members of these two groups use different evaluative criteria to identify a successful decision. Decisions relating to people within the organization are perceived by the executives to be especially salient, apparently owing to interpersonal interaction in services.

There are inherent social implications when ethical decisions are made, because these decisions determine which individuals or groups benefit, and which suffer.

This research is among the first to interview high-level service executives about their ethical decision making when their choices define culture and values within their organizations. Findings offer a new look at how differences between executives that focus on processes and those that focus on outcomes may shape organizational cultures and lead to consideration of different criteria in making and evaluating decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to understand whether the personal capital of the entrepreneur positively or negatively affects outcomes from self-employment.

Data from the UK’s longitudinal household surveys (BHPS, UKLHS) between 1991 and 2014 were analysed. Relationships between age, education, health and family status, income earned and hours worked were tested.

Entrepreneurs with higher levels of personal capital enjoyed higher incomes. However, those with lower levels of personal capital were more likely to have negative returns from self-employment, and so experience it as “self-exploitation”.

A basis for understanding different outcomes from self-employment was developed and tested.

Specific characteristics of continuing and new entrepreneurs were identified that are positively associated with beneficial outcomes from self-employment.

Positive and negative outcomes from self-employment are explained. The notion of personal capital is developed as an explanatory framework for variable outcomes from self-employment.

The purpose of this paper is to serve as a comprehensive review of short-term study abroad (STSA) outcomes to help guide future STSA and study abroad (SA) scholars and practitioners in the further development of the field.

This paper is the first comprehensive and systematic review of all outcomes of STSA programs within the SA body of research based on 156 papers.

The study provides the first comprehensive classification of all previously studied STSA outcomes (85) into six categories: cross-cultural outcomes, STSA pedagogy outcomes, personal and professional outcomes; language outcomes; teacher and faculty outcomes; and other outcomes. Distinct sub-categories are identified that provide insights on the current landscape of STSA and related research.

This study makes a significant contribution to the theory and practice of SA, and among the key contributions are a systematic understanding of the scale and scope of STSA outcomes; insights on the most efficient design of future STSA programs; and an expanded understanding of the role and importance of STSA programs in international education. Furthermore, a comprehensive STSA outcomes map develops an extensive research agenda.

While the COVID-19 pandemic currently limits the opportunities for STSA, given its previous popularity, the authors envisage a strong return in the coming years of this form of affordable and valuable global learning. STSA programs have become an important component of higher education and which require considerable resources from participants and educational institutions alike. Therefore, further research is needed to understand the impacts of STSA programs and to further improve program design. Such research will serve to better inform both academic understanding of the phenomenon and educational practice.

The study provides the first comprehensive classification of all studied STSA outcomes.

This study aims to investigate the outcomes that researchers expect from using social media for knowledge sharing and to explore how these outcomes impact their use.

The authors conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with researchers at a major Scottish university. They analysed the interview transcripts using directed content analysis.

Researchers expect social and personal outcomes from the use of social media to share knowledge. Each type has positive and negative forms. The positive outcomes motivate researchers to use it, whereas negative outcomes prevent them from using it.

This study extends the integrative theoretical framework of outcome expectations within the social cognitive theory by exploring these outcomes and their relative amount of influence on sharing ideas, experiences, questions and research outputs on social media. While the participants included academic staff and postdoctoral researchers, the majority were PhD students.

The findings will help individual researchers and universities to use social media effectively in sharing ideas and promoting research through identifying the positive outcomes. Identifying the negative outcomes will help in using solutions to overcome them.

This is the first known study to investigate the outcome expectations that impact researchers’ use of social media for knowledge sharing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of carers as coordinators of care in their own right. It outlines how statutory and voluntary agencies can work together to support carers in this role, yet also help them work towards personal outcomes to sustain their own quality of life. It also proposes that approaches to working with carers can reveal lessons for integration.

The research analysed data from focus groups and document analysis to examine how carers and professionals experienced two different approaches to engaging with carers: the Midlothian carer ' s assessment and VOCAL ' s outcomes focused approach. From this, several themes emerged which are relevant to the current debate on integration.

Carers were found to be key co-ordinators of care who play a role in the integration of services. Approaches to working with carers can better enable personal outcomes, and integrate carers as equal partners. In addition, improved integration between services can also improve outcomes for carers.

Approaches to working with carers should be carer and outcome focused, and partnership working can mean that carers feel more empowered and included. This helps to achieve personal outcomes, as well as enhance integrated working between other services. However, differentiation between services might, in places, contribute to better outcomes for people.

This paper shifts the focus of integration to look the role of carers as equal partners, and also illustrates how statutory and voluntary services can work better together, while preserving their distinct identities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine some drivers of users’ participation in online social question-and-answer (Q&A) communities based on social cognitive theory and then identify the underlying mechanism of this process.

This study developed a research model to test the proposed hypotheses, and an online survey was employed to collected data. Totally, 313 valid responses were collected, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was adopted to analyze these data.

This study empirically finds that the outcome expectations (personal outcome expectations and knowledge self-management outcome expectations) are positively related to participation in online social Q&A communities. At the same time, users’ self-efficacy positively influences their participation behaviors. It can not only directly motivate users’ participation, but also indirectly promote participation behaviors through the two dimensions of outcome expectations. Besides, perceived expertise and perceived similarity are two positive and significant environmental elements affecting users’ participation.

This study extends the understanding about how participation behaviors will be motivated in the context of online social Q&A communities. Drawing on the social cognitive theory, constructs were established based on the features of these communities. Meanwhile, some mediating effects in the motivating process were also discussed.

Informed by the broaden-and-build theory of emotions, this study aims to investigate the relationships between consumers’ motives and personal and social outcomes in access-based services (ABS). Further, drawing on territorial behaviour literature, the second goal of this research is to test the moderating effects of psychological ownership on the relationships between personal outcomes and consumer territorial behaviour.

This research comprises a quantitative online survey complemented by a qualitative interview study. The quantitative study employed an online consumer panel survey of 317 samples. Later, the qualitative study sought additional insights into the economic benefit motives and manifestation of territorial behaviour of bicycle-sharing users to enrich the results of quantitative study. The quantitative data were analysed using structural equation modelling, and the interviews were transcribed and analysed using an inductive and deductive thematic analysis.

The results indicated that specific motives significantly affected certain personal outcomes. Namely, economic benefit, enjoyment and reputation motives drove life satisfaction, while enjoyment, sustainability and social relationships promoted feelings of gratitude. Furthermore, life satisfaction positively affected consumer cooperation, helping other consumers and territorial behaviour. In contrast, feelings of gratitude had a positive relationship with cooperation and helping other consumers, but a negative one with territorial behaviour. Additional examination revealed that consumers’ psychological ownership of the shared bicycle in an ABS model moderated the effect of gratitude on consumer territorial behaviour.

This study offers and tests a model on ABS in the context of bicycle-sharing services. Thus, it presents avenues to test the model on other ABS, e.g. clothing or home sharing.

Managers in ABS can foster positive emotional states of gratitude and life satisfaction that will inevitably promote consumer cooperation and helping behaviour.

This study is among the first to propose and examine a model that tests the relationships between consumers’ motives and personal and social outcomes in ABS.