Search results

Medical and legal records of 64 inmates receiving mental health services at a maximum-security prison located in the Northeast United States were examined to look at whether prison adjustment is impacted by housing in a mental health residential treatment unit. Inmates in the residential treatment unit, the “treatment group” had a significant decrease in hospitalizations and disciplinary reports while housed in the residential treatment unit. Inmates with a mental health history housed in the general population, the “control group,” did not show a decrease in these behaviors during a similar time period. Results find that inmates referred to the residential treatment unit seem to have high numbers of hospitalizations and segregations while housed in the general population, which level off and become similar to the control group upon entry to the residential treatment unit. Implications for future research evaluating the impact of the residential treatment unit on the behavior of the inmate after he has left the unit are discussed.

This paper explains how a variety of business units within a listed corporation have tried to define their strategic capabilities, as part of a process of developing independent business strategies within the corporation's corporate strategy. This paper describes the processes by which strategic capabilities were identified in each unit, the differences and similarities between the capabilities identified at the business unit level, and their consistency (or otherwise) with an overall corporate strategic positioning.

This paper is based on the author's consulting experience with both the parent corporation and its individual business units over a period of 15 years, and most recently on an intensive relationship with one division of the corporation and its 13 business units began three years ago. An objective of these relationships has been clarifying each business unit's strategy and any basis for sustainable competitive advantage of its strategic capabilities. What emerged from this process is a set of definitions of business unit strategic capabilities which are both similar to, but in some cases different from, the corporate parent's perceptions of the strategic capabilities of its business units.

This paper describes the process by which a first representation of “strategic capabilities” emerged in each business unit. For each unit, the agreed descriptions of strategic capabilities helped guide strategic decision making and implementation and assisted each unit in clarifying its strategic positioning in its markets. However, considerable differences remain in the articulation of each unit's capabilities and in what capabilities are considered to exist in the business units.

This paper is designed to give practitioners and academics a case study through which to consider practicalities involved in articulating and operationalizing strategic capabilities in general and in defining corporate strategies in particular.

The Philippine health care system is comprised of both private and public hospitals, clinics, and health care providers, and public health units serve a huge majority of the population because of their number and accessibility to more people in terms of price and location. It is therefore important to examine the performance of these public health units and see if they could become more efficient in the delivery of health services. This study will apply data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the efficiency of provinces in providing health care services in order to assist the Department of Health in identifying the performance level of each province, determining the targets for improvements in securing benefits and using resources, and identifying the peers of provinces in the delivery of health care. The data used in this study are taken from the Field Health Service Information System and Philippine Health Insurance System of the Department of the Health and the Statement of Income and Expenditure of the Department of Finance. The following programs were analyzed in this study: Maternal Health Care, Child Health Care, and Environmental Sanitation. These programs’ outcomes comprise the percentage of the prevalence of contraceptive use and fully immunized children, for maternal and child health care programs; and the percentage of people who have access to potable water and sanitary toilets, for environmental sanitation. As for inputs, expenditure efficiency is analyzed by the health unit budget per capita and technical efficiency includes the number of doctors and midwives per 100,000 population and the percentage of rural health units accredited by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation. The DEA results for efficiency expenditure shows that only 9 out of 77 provinces are efficient in providing health programs given their budgets and the average input efficiency score is 54 percent and the average output efficiency score is 87 percent. As for the DEA results for technical efficiency, 24 out of 77 provinces are efficient in providing health care programs given the percentage number of doctors, midwives, and accredited health facilities by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation. The average input efficiency score is 79 percent and the average output efficiency score is 80 percent. This study has shown the importance of DEA in analyzing the efficiency of delivery of public health services in provinces using expenditure, number of available health care providers, and the presence of accredited rural health units vis-à-vis environmental sanitation and maternal and child health care programs. DEA can rationalize the allocation of budgets among similar health units in order to further improve the efficiency in the delivery of health services in provinces. Moreover, benchmarking using DEA results can improve the accountability of provincial health units in the utilization of their budgets in order to further increase the reach of province-based health programs which could lead to a marked improvement in the health of Filipinos.

This chapter presents a new approach to teach process costing that uses worksheets to create the information necessary to account for costs. The approach employs a five-column, five-row worksheet that presents weighted-average and FIFO costs per equivalent unit simultaneously. Then, the goal of process costing, accounting for costs, is formally presented in a manner to emphasize its importance. As a result, students are better able to compare and contrast the two process-costing methods.

The aim of this paper is to advance applied theoretical knowledge on international business (IB) ideation by designing the managing of such ideation as three recursive, multi-competence-enabled systems.

The core principles of Beer’s (1985) Viable System Model are adopted for this system design task. The Viable System Model consists of five interacting sub-systems that can support a viable IB unit.

The contribution of this design of the three recursive, multi-competence-enabled systems will be three novel pieces of the applied theoretical knowledge about recursivity and competences that advance the management of an IB unit as a whole and in particular that of IB ideation.

For future research, I initially propose that the IB ideation (unit) is being managed the more successfully within its focal contexts, the more extensively the IB ideation is designed as a set of three recursive systems enabled by respective multi-competences. Moreover, the 3-system design may serve as the frame of reference for those compatible theorization initiatives vis-à-vis viable IB ideation management that interested competence-based management scholars will conduct in the future.

I put forth the three templates (coupled with Functions 2–3) to facilitate the enhancement of the IB ideation practices among leading, innovative firms and especially by the pioneering management of IB (ideation) units.

The literature on organizational change has long acknowledged the need to balance stability and economic efficiency with the need to be flexible and to change. Authors, certainly in the dynamic capabilities tradition but also in other perspectives, have stressed the importance of more open and loosely coupled systems to promote adaption. However, many organizations do not operate on such premises but rather rely on creating efficient business units through tight coupling, building strict social and administrative control, and jointly relying on common systems. In this study, we conduct 46 interviews with employees from three different retail organizations to investigate how units in such tightly coupled systems change within the framework of the set standards. Through contrasting the characteristics of high and low functioning units, we identify three mechanisms that seem to enable the units to successfully and repeatedly realign and establish new configurations. We conclude that the orchestrator of all three realignment mechanisms is the middle manager, and we discuss the middle manager's role and the different activities that enable a successful realignment.

This article suggests that given the fulfilment of a number of preconditions Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) may be attractive instruments for countries in Africa seeking to improve the quality and competitiveness of their services base, particularly the so-called infrastructure services. This article builds, in addition to a selective review of the vast literature on PPPs, on first-hand practical experience on the ground and a number of pilot projects. This methodological approach provides a non-exhaustive PPP mapping in Africa, which in turn leads to a discussion of some of the challenges and risks to PPPs in Africa. It also covers a discussion of the recent trends in the approach to improving the enabling environment upon which are based a few policy recommendations, respectively: establishing an institutional framework for PPPs; designing a realistic and efficient strategy for enabling environment improvement; and finally moving from national-level initiatives to intergovernmental initiatives. This article takes the position that a series of pitfalls and shortcomings, many of which are associated with the enabling institutional environment and the governance framework, need to be addressed if PPPs are to deliver their full potential in Africa. It is believed that the national and intergovernmental PPP initiatives could lend significant support to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Africa. In addition to the reviewing and discussing primarily the most recent literature on PPPs, the main value addition of our chapter brings to the literature is derived from the presentation of recent PPP cases, which draw directly from the authors own practical experience on the ground.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) provide a mechanism through which investors can participate in the real estate market with liquidity and transparency. In this study, we benchmark the performance of 11 residential REITs for the period 2009–2013. The study tracks the performance of residential REITs through the economic crisis period. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) model uses well-performing units (efficiency of 1% or 100%) that are closest to the underperforming unit on the efficiency frontier as a “role model” (peer units) for the underperforming unit. In addition, the DEA model also calculates by how much a nonperforming unit should increase the output level or decrease the inputs level to be on the efficiency frontier (100%) (slack values). Thus, the DEA model identifies the underperforming units and the most feasible path to move to efficiency frontier. The DEA model identifies the peer units that are closely related to these units and calculates the value of the slack variables required to achieve the same efficiency level as their peers.