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Researchers in supply chain (SC) payment management have long sought to understand how project contractors, project owners, specialist contractors, and suppliers behave in the context of negotiating payment terms that improve contractors' SC cash flow.

Using a single case study approach, semi‐structured interviews with contract and project managers identify behavioral patterns. An analysis of categorical experiments and Spearman's correlation tests on 118 surveys from Taiwanese project contracting corporations generalizes the case findings.

The findings suggest that payment terms of project owners, specialists, and suppliers have an important impact on contractors' working capital. The findings also reveal that contractors pass project owners' payment terms down to specialists and suppliers, suggesting that contractors' behavior depends on that of the project owners.

This paper generalizes the case findings via surveys, but does not assume that the reported behavior patterns apply to all business enterprises. Future research could triangulate the findings.

This study combines qualitative and quantitative methods to understand how the project owner‐contractor‐supplier (or owner‐contractor‐specialist) triad behaves. Particularly, it focuses on an economic sector – real estate and construction – that receives less research interest than processing or manufacturing.

This paper explores the findings from a recent study about the assessment and management of care for older people who may have a sensory impairment. Using qualitative research methods, the work focused on non‐specialist practitioners who are responsible for the assessment and management of care for older people and their carers. The findings are based upon the analysis of in‐depth interviews with non‐specialist practitioners, specialist workers and managers from statutory and voluntary sector agencies. Older people with a hearing impairment or a visual impairment are not a homogenous group of people with a single set of needs or service support networks. It is the existence of non‐specialist practitioners, carrying out the assessment and management of care for older people that draw together in one study the three areas of visual impairment, hearing impairment and dual impairment. The findings relate to practitioners' awareness of sensory impairment in their local community; how practitioners assess and manage care; access to services; staff training and development; and, information strategies. The interface between non‐specialists and practitioners with particular expertise in sensory impairment is also examined. The implications for policy and practice are identified.

Many Mexican universities are now offering Internet access to their faculty and users. This access is provided by computer services staff who traditionally have been responsible only for the technical aspects of establishing, maintaining, and updating the university computer systems. The computer specialists are finding themselves largely unprepared to assume this new role as information specialists. Examines the newly emerging and evolving roles of these computer specialists.

This paper aims to assess the validity of a questionnaire aimed at assessing how general practitioners (GPs) and specialists rate collaboration.

Primary data were collected in The Netherlands during March to September 2006. A cross‐sectional study was conducted among 259 GPs and 232 specialists. Participants were randomly selected from The Netherlands Medical Address Book. Specialists rarely contacting a GP were not invited to participate.

Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the questionnaire, consisting of 20 items, measured five domains: organisation; communication; professional expertise; image; and knowing each other. Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.64 to 0.83 indicating sufficient internal consistency. Correlation coefficients between domains were all <0.4. All but “communication” clearly produced distinguishing scores for different respondent groups.

This study shows that the doctors' opinions on collaboration (DOC) questionnaire is valid and that it may have the potential to give feedback to both medical professionals and policy makers. Such feedback creates an opportunity to improve collaboration.

The DOC questionnaire is a useful instrument for assessing collaboration among GPs and specialists. It can provide feedback to both medical professionals and policy makers. Such feedback creates an opportunity to improve collaboration.

The emergence of COVID-19 has exacerbated and spurred the growth of mental health issues in ways that have challenged mental health workers tremendously. The complex nature of COVID-19 has made the need of mental health professionals extremely important. Hospital ward overcrowding, social distancing requirements, sequestrations, limits to face-to-face consultations have created barriers to mental health access, especially those in need of Certified Peer Recovery Specialists. Certified Peer Recovery Specialists play a critical role in the treatment of mental illness through their support and engagement of those recovering from substance abuse. Many in this role are hired because they have a strong skillset for help-oriented clinical work but are often challenged, especially in times like this to development and demonstrate leadership skills. This paper explores the nature and need to develop leadership skills and leadership challenges for people in this field through interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and a content analysis of the current and seminal literature.

This paper explores the nature and need to develop leadership skills and leadership challenges for people in mental health through IPA and a content analysis of the current and seminal literature.

The essential necessity to invest in the cultivation of peer recovery specialists and mental health professionals as organizational leaders.

Hospital ward overcrowding, social distancing requirements, sequestrations, limits to face- to- face consultations have created barriers to mental health access, especially those in need of Certified Peer Recovery Specialists. Certified Peer Recovery Specialists play a critical role in the treatment of mental illness through their support and engagement of those recovering from substance abuse.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to understanding the nature of specialist and generalist human capital by exploring the ways in which knowledge workers view their experience of working in specialist and generalist roles in pharmaceutical firms in Ireland and the UK.

The findings are based on interviews with 55 knowledge workers employed in a range of scientific, technical and managerial positions in four Irish and two UK firms located in the pharmaceutical sector. Interviews were also conducted with nine human resource/training and development managers within these six firms.

The findings suggest that the categorisation of human capital as either specialist or generalist is too rigid and does not take account of the fact that individuals may themselves choose to shape their careers by investing in a range of education, training and development opportunities that will enable them to move between specialist and generalist roles.

The paper unpacks the concepts of specialist and generalist human capital from an employee perspective and challenges the sharp distinction that is made between specialist and generalist human capital.

Emergency care delivery is a process requiring input from various healthcare professionals within the hospital. To deliver efficient and effective emergency care, professionals must integrate rapidly at multiple interfaces, working across functional, spatial and professional boundaries. Yet, the interdisciplinary nature of emergency care presents a challenge to the optimization of patient flow, as specialization and functional differentiation restrict integration efforts. This study aims to question what boundaries exist at the level of professionals and explores how these boundaries may come to influence integration and operational performance.

To provide a more holistic understanding of the inherent challenges to integration at the level of professionals and in contexts where professionals play a key role in determining operational performance, the authors carried out an in-depth case study at a busy, Level 1 trauma center in The Netherlands. In total, 28 interviews were conducted over an 18-month period.

The authors reveal the existence of structural, relational and cultural barriers between (medical) professionals from different disciplines. The study findings demonstrate how relational and cultural boundaries between professionals interrupt flows and delay service processes.

This study highlights the importance of interpersonal and cultural dynamics for internal integration and operational performance in emergency care processes. The authors unveil how the presence of professional boundaries creates opportunity for conflict and delays at important interfaces within the emergency care process, and can ultimately accumulate, disrupting patient flow and increasing lead times.

This conspectus attempts to achieve three objectives:

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of industry specialization on the absorption and competitive pricing (or lack thereof) of audits of large Andersen clients (S&P 1500 companies) who switched to the remaining Big 4 international accounting firms in 2002 due to the demise of Arthur Andersen LLP (Andersen). Did the audit clients pay a premium or discount in audit fees to their new auditor who specialized in their industry?

Ordinary least squares regression is used to test hypothesis of a positive association between industry specialization and audit fees charged to former Andersen's audit clients in 2002 following Andersen's demise. This study provides more control over size effects by design. Test variables are constructed based on national market share of audit fees within an industry. Logistic regression is used to examine the likelihood of choosing new auditor that is an industry specialist.

Results support hypothesis, consistent with auditor differentiation explanation. Proportion of clients that had engaged an industry specialist in 2001 increased from 38 percent (84 clients) to 48 percent (105 clients) in 2002. No evidence of price‐gouging in 2002 although clients who aligned with industry specialist paid a 23.2 percent premium in audit fees. Large clients lost bargaining power to negotiate lower fees. Findings are robust to the inclusion of additional alternative measures of company size.

Results of logistic regression analysis imply that large audit clients with former auditor of tarnished reputation, long auditor tenure and high leverage are more likely to switch to an industry specialist to possibly signal audit/financial reporting quality. Large sample companies may limit the ability to generalize findings to smaller companies.

Mandatory audit firm rotation (currently being debated in the profession) will have costly effect on the pricing of Big 4 audits for companies wanting to signal audit and financial reporting quality to affect market perception, and large companies would likely lose their ability to bargain for lower audit fees.

The paper focus on the alignment of Andersen clients and impact on audit fees with Big 4 industry specialists resulting from the sudden increase in audit market concentration. Prior to Andersen's collapse, evidence on the association of audit fees premium and industry specialists was mixed, and little attention has been given to the influence of auditor industry specialization on both audit fees and alignment of former Andersen clients with a Big 4 specialist. This paper fills that void.

To meet the information processing needs of the new global organisation, IS/IT managers and their IS/IT staff need to develop new skills, so that they may be more focused on the business rather than on technical processes. In exploring the theme of the changing role and contribution of the IS/IT professional, this monograph provides a literature analysis of the changing skills of IS/IT professionals and identifies the new skills and competencies required for successful IS/IT development and utilisation. The monograph also presents capability‐related models that have been tested in two global corporations. The results of the two case studies suggest that there is a need for improvement in the area of IS/IT leadership for effective IS/IT development and utilisation. Strategies for developing IS/IT leadership capabilities are discussed at the end of the monograph.