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The rising of chronic illness and the continuous aging of the global population requires a re-organization of health care systems based on relations and exchange of information to address patient needs in the community. The re-organization of health care systems involves interconnected changes and the development of integrated health care information systems and novel eHealth services. In Crete, the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas has developed HYGEIAnet, a Regional Health Information Network (RHIN) to contribute to the re-organization of health care systems and information sharing. We present HYGEIAnet, some of the most critical and novel eHealth services developed and deployed, discuss the impact of an RHIN on health care processes, and explore innovative models and services for health delivery and the coordination of care. We then critically discuss lessons learned regarding the effective management of change to overcome organizational and cultural issues in such large-scale initiatives. The paper concludes with policy and practice recommendations for managing change processes in health care organizations.

Dual marketing, i.e. selling the same product to both consumers and business customers, calls for a rearrangement of companies’ organizational chart. New figures, appointed with new roles, need to be integrated within the organization. In addition, dual marketers are required new skills by the market, having to learn to blend push and pull marketing techniques. This chapter discusses how the market's imperatives make the dual marketer an on-the-edge figure within the business landscape, able to constantly reinvent herself to keep pace with innovations.

Expertise in designing organizations is an important construct for scholars interested in studying the micro-foundations of organizational performance. We investigate the existence and nature of this expertise in this chapter. Conceptualizing the designing of organizations as a problem-solving process, we describe the underlying structure of this problem space. Further, we propose that this process of problem solving should look different for “greenfield” design problems and for “brownfield” redesign problems. We test our arguments through a comparison of the think-aloud verbal protocols of 16 subjects with greater experience with organization design problems (experts) and 16 subjects with significantly lower experience with organization design problems (novices). The results suggest that the parts of the problem that experts focus on are different from those that novices focus on, and expertise matters differently for design and redesign problems.

This study examines the reasons behind managerial resistance to change, particularly in instances where innovative work practices have been imposed. An increased need for firms to develop flexible production systems, become quality oriented and manufacture more quickly has resulted in work re-organization. This shift from Fordism to a form of mass customization has involved not only technological and organizational changes in the workplace, but has also restructured much of managerial work. Instead of a pre-occupation with operational efficiency, managers are now required to coordinate activities designed to promote a more effective use of human resources. Drawing evidence from case studies, we describe the responses by managers to these changes in an industry undergoing intense competitive pressure. Initial implementation of new practices is often followed by modification to those practices that protect managerial interests. It becomes apparent that what is rational for the firm often might be irrational for managers, hence the reason why many changes are resisted by managers. We conclude with a discussion of ambiguous evaluation procedures that further compound managerial uncertainty as unprecedented economic volatility continues to plague firms in this industry.

Purpose – This chapter examines the expectation that because the developmental trajectories of cultural frontiers are often seen as being tied to that of their more complexly developed neighbors, increases in interregional interaction provide frontier communities with previously unavailable political-economic opportunities that promote social change.

Design/methodology/approach – This expectation is examined using data from archaeological excavations at the site of El Dornajo in southwestern Ecuador. Models based on external conditions like interregional interaction are considered alongside those based on internal conditions like environmental perturbations.

Findings – The results suggest that increased interregional interaction promoted the emergence of a regional prestige economy that symbolically legitimated (and perhaps made possible) the co-option of traditional risk buffering strategies during a time when the availability of subsistence resources had changed due to local conditions.

Practical implications – This chapter supports the notion that the emergence of institutionalized inequality requires control over both internal and external relationships. Furthermore, it suggests that examining models based on both internal and external conditions of change may help to explain the timing and pace of that change.

Originality/value – Much of the archaeological literature is dichotomized between models based on internal conditions and those based on external conditions. Few archaeologists would take exception to the notion that both conditions matter, but equally few archaeologists are looking at both kinds of conditions in the same case study.

Iraqi universities in the aftermath of invasion in 2003 experienced extremely high levels of “post”-war violence and insecurity. The most widely known dimension of this violence is the shocking assassination campaign that killed hundreds of Iraqi academics. This paper provides an analysis of violence and insecurity in post-2003 that takes a broader optic and considers multiple forms of vulnerability to attack including insurgencies, sectarian conflict, and criminal violence. It also considers the various responses to the security dilemma taken by Coalition forces – principally counter-terrorism and stabilization efforts – and by Iraqi policy-makers and higher education communities, including security measures, politicization, ethno-sectarianization, and displacement.

Purpose – Chapter 3 analyses if Russia's current problems in agriculture, particularly the slow growth of labour productivity are due primarily to the weak property rights of shareholders stemming from the privatisation and therefore attributed to Russia's failure to implement the family farm project as supposed by the World Bank and many other international institution.

Methodology – To compare the development of labour productivity and farm structure in Russia and the Baltic countries after decollectivisation.

Findings – The comparisons show that the outcomes in Latvia and Lithuania are not in fact any better than in Russia, even though large-scale farms here have largely been replaced by individual farms. They also show that the most likely explanation for the extremely poor results in Lithuania lies in the overly strong property rights of shareholders. Estonia's success compared to Russia's failure cannot be explained away by stronger property rights or family farming, but the reasons lie in the country's more successful application of Soviet farming traditions, the capability of the middle class of former Soviet farms to maintain and modernise large-scale production in capitalist conditions.

Originality/value of chapter – It calls into question one of the basic interpretations presented by World Bank, IMF, OECD and EBRD.