bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Clinicians, market players or bureaucrats?
Authors: Abbott Stephen , Procter Sue , Iacovou Nicci 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the variety of mechanisms applied since 1991 to engage English and Welsh general practitioners (GPs) in local health services planning and implementation.Design/methodology/approachThree qualitative case studies.FindingsThe paper identifies three types of mechanism: separation, alliance and integration. “Separation” characterises the relationship between most GPs and health authorities during the 1990s; alliance refers to the cooperative arrangements between groups of GPs and health authorities such as GP commissioning pilots, total purchasing, primary care groups and local health groups; integration refers to the integration of most health authority functions with primary care organisations (primary care trusts – PCTs and local health boards). Alliance models appear to have been most successful in promoting GP engagement in local planning and implementation; the necessarily bureaucratic nature of PCTs an local health board has alienated many.Practical implicationsAs yet, the National Health Service (NHS) lacks organisational arrangements which permit GPs a primarily clinical focus while ensuring that their knowledge and advice is available to those carrying out administrative functions. Practice‐based commissioning may provide a means of improving such arrangements.Originality/valueThe paper combines a number of features in health services and policy research. Few studies of primary health care organisations in the mid‐2000s have been undertaken; the Welsh NHS is very under‐researched; organisational analysis of the NHS is more often based on analysis from the outside rather than grounded in the felt experience of NHS personnel; and the historical perspective is often neglected.
Outsourcing in public health: a case study of contract failure and its aftermath
Authors: Young Suzanne 
Published: September 2008

PurposeOutsourcing has been used in Australia as part of the new public management agenda with the aim of increasing efficiency and decreasing costs. In the public health sector its use has been problematic and the purpose of this paper is to explore the largest Australian health contract at the time; investigating the reasons, the processes and the outcomes. Specifically, it investigates why the contract failed and the lessons to be learned from its subsequent awarding.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a case study approach to investigate in depth the outsourcing decision.FindingsAlongside savings in costs, changes to work practices and reduction in union power, it was found that the outsourcing contract produced problems with service quality, sharing of culture, relationships between contract and internal staff, and in managing the contract and staff; and reductions in trust and morale of both internal and contract staff. Inadequate contract specifications and subsequent under pricing was the cause of contract termination, poor quality, and difficulties in contract management.Practical implicationsThe paper provides important lessons for decision makers when outsourcing in public health.Originality/valueThe paper investigates the largest outsourcing contract in public health in Australia in the 1990s. It investigates the failure of the initial contract and its subsequent awarding to another vendor. The case study approach provides an in‐depth analysis of this decision.
Innovative doctors in Germany: changes through communities of practice
Authors: Bosa Iris M. 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe healthcare sector faces new financial and managerial accountability demands, along with their clinical accountability. Various studies show strong opposition by clinicians to new accountability tools, new structures and new ways of working. Less attention is paid to the innovative roles doctors can play in leading changes that use new managerial tools and techniques. The purpose of this paper is to analyse two original case studies illustrating how general practitioners (GPs) in Germany have led radical change.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws upon original research in Germany to present two case studies using a qualitative method, which are analysed using Glaser and Strauss' conventions of grounded theory, structured by Wenger's communities of practice framework, supporting a comprehensive literature review.FindingsGPs are found to be able to lead radical change in healthcare delivery models and organisation using entrepreneurial talents developed in their practice businesses and to embrace modernising tools and techniques and in the process redefine their identities to include management process in addition to medical competences.Originality/valueThe paper presents two original case studies of radical change leading to an integration of healthcare services in Germany. The approach adopted by the German GPs reveals important general lessons for practitioners, as does the analytical framework employed in the paper.
Non‐price competition in NHS secondary care contracting: empirical results
Authors: Gray Keith , Bailey Mark F. 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is, for English acute NHS hospitals, to investigate how they operate their governance systems in the area of secondary care contracting and identify the key determinants of relationship building within the contacting/commissioning of secondary care focusing upon non‐price competitive behaviour.Design/methodology/approachA survey instrument was designed and mailed to a sample of all acute NHS hospitals in England of whom 35 per cent responded. This survey was then analysed using logit techniques.FindingsThe analysis suggests that: those NHS Trusts offering volume discounts, non‐price competitive incentives or having a strong belief in performance being by “payment by results” criteria are significantly more likely to offer augmented services to secondary care purchasers over and above contractual minima; those NHS Trusts strongly believing in the importance of non‐price factors (such as contract augmentation or quality) in the contracting process are more likely to offer customisation of generic services; and those NHS Trusts using cost‐sharing agreements to realign contracts when negotiating contracts or who strongly believe in the importance of service augmentation in strengthening relationships, or that increased hospital efficiency is the most important aspect of recent NHS reform are more likely to utilise default measures to help realign contracts.Originality/valueThis paper fills a gap in the area of non‐price competition in English NHS acute secondary care contracting.
The performativity of the service management discourse
Authors: Nordgren Lars 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe formation and spreading of market‐, management‐ and individual‐rights discourses into society, as well as the movement of consumerism, have paved the way for a transformation of the linguistic usage. The transformation suggests that the view of the care seeker has shifted from a waiting patient, via a consumer to a customer creating value. Another example of the process is that the former medical meeting between patient/doctor now is described as a service meeting. With this background, the purpose of this paper is to explore the transformation of linguistic usage and to analyse the performativity of the service management discourse in health care.Design/methodology/approachThe concept of performativity (Butler) supported with discursive formation and subjectivization (Foucualt) is used as theoretical framework. The performativity of the discourse is understood as a vehicle within the discourse, which influences people on an ontological level that names and makes them active subjects in line with what the discourse is saying.FindingsWhen the service management discourse travels into the world of health care, discursive tensions between medical‐, care‐ and management discourses follow. These become apparent in the distinction between the different discursive constructions of patient – related to passivity, and customer – related to the performative image of active participation in value creating health. Even if the customer in service management discourse is imagined as an agent for himself with power and individual responsibility it is doubtful if people view themselves as customers. The dialectics between the use of the customer concept in commercial service meetings and the patient – doctor meeting, which is illustrated, point to unexpressed and implicit presumptions of an ontological kind in the ways service management researchers describe service meetings. Recent health care research can be interpreted as if a majority of patients have a desire to be part of their value creating processes. Since the responsibilities and tasks of the professions in health care however are regulated by law and institutionalised, the process of delegating tasks to patients seems not to be a matter of course.Practical implicationsIt seems to be problematic to replace the patient concept with the customer concept in general. This concept gives hardly much room for the vulnerability that characterises a sick person. A reasonable approach would of course be to use the customer concept in a nuanced way.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates that the performativity of service management theories, through the use of discursive analysis, is valuable in order to understand shifts in linguistic usage.
Lekking displays in contemporary organizations
Authors: Braithwaite Jeffrey 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to draw on scientific models in conceptualising the evolutionary bases of contemporary behaviours, and make cross‐species comparisons, to account for male managerial activitiesin situin health organizations.Design/methodology/approachIn the animal world, males of many species display in order to induce females to mate. Such lekking behaviour involvesinter alia,strutting, puffing out, catching attention via the use of ornamental physical characteristics, exhibiting gaudily‐coloured body parts, singing or splashing, and other courting and wooing strategies. The paper applies these behavioural repertoires as an explanatory device for male‐dominant organizational lekking in a set of contemporary settings. It draws on six studies of managerial talk, appearance and behaviour in order to do so.FindingsWithin the organizational lek male managers display mainly by power dressing, positioning, and exercising power and influence via verbal and behavioural means. Social and religious mores prohibit overt sexual coupling in organizations but lekking for other rewards is nevertheless pursued by male managers. The paper explores this managerial patterning, compares it to the lekking behaviour of other species, and discusses points of comparison and departure. It shows how male managers display within various sub‐habitats, and discusses the central issues of appearance, tasks and work assignment, physical interaction structure, and talk and physiognomy.Practical implicationsUnderstanding what makes people tick via deep explanations than are customarily rendered is a vital contribution of scholarship to the practical world of management.Originality/valueThe evolutionary bases of contemporary behaviours, and cross‐species accounts, may prove useful paradigms for other theorists and empiricists in organizational studies, and could encourage the development of a new field that might be labeled evolutionary organizational behaviour.
Seventh circuit “disapproves” Gartenberg, but is this new approach fundamentally different?
Authors: Anne Copenhefer Lea , Joseph Roger P. , Sterling Joshua B. 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the implications of the May 19, 2008 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Jones v. Harris Associates.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the 1982 decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Gartenberg v. Merrill Lynch Asset Management, summarizing the Harris Associates opinion of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the paper also discusses the criticisms by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals of the earlier Gartenberg decision, and makes observations on why other courts may not be persuaded by the Harris Associates decision, and provides guidance to mutual funds and their directors and advisers in light of the Harris Associates opinion.FindingsThe findings in the paper are that the Harris Associates opinion suggests that a court need only determine whether the adviser to a mutual fund negotiated its advisory fee in a manner consistent with its fiduciary duty to that fund. However, the paper also finds that it would be premature for directors and advisers to conclude that they should abandon or substantially lessen the processes they have implemented to satisfy the Gartenberg standard, including requesting and evaluating such information as may reasonably be necessary to evaluate the terms of an advisory contract and reviewing an adviser's performance and compensation carefully. In addition, their opinion does not relieve mutual funds of their obligations to discuss – in their shareholder reports and proxy statements – the material factors considered and the conclusions reached in approving advisory contracts.Originality/valueThe paper is a practical guidance by experienced securities lawyers.
Summary of selected FINRA Regulatory Notices and disciplinary actions, April‐June 2008
Authors: Davis Henry A. 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide excerpts of selected Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Regulatory Notices issued from April to June 2008 and a sample of disciplinary actions during that period.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides excerpts from FINRA Regulatory Notice 08‐16, Third Party Research Reports; 08‐17, Customer Complaint Reporting; 08‐18, Unauthorized Proprietary Trading; 08‐21, Partial Redemption of Auction Rate Securities; 08‐22, Definition of Public Arbitrator; 08‐27, Midleading Communications about Expertise; 08‐30, Illiquid Investments; 08‐31, Trading Ahead of Customer Orders; and 08‐33, Minor Rule Violation Plan Amendment.FindingsUseful information may be found in each of these notices.Originality/valueThe paper provides direct excerpts designed to provide a useful digest for the reader and an indication of regulatory trends. The FINRA staff is aware of this summary but has neither reviewed nor edited it.
Perspectives of productivity growth in Indian food industry: a data envelopment analysis
Authors: Kumar Mukesh , Basu Partha 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to measure the Malmquist Productivity Index and its different components such as technological change, technical efficiency change and the change in scale efficiency in the Indian food industry during the period spanning 1988‐1989 to 2004‐2005. Further, it examines the variation in productivity and its components with respect to the factors internal to the firms.Design/methodology/approachThe technique of data envelopment analysis has been used to measure productivity index and its different components under the assumption of variable returns to scale. Further, log‐linear regression model has been used to explain the variation in productivity and its components with respect to certain factors internal to the firms.FindingsIn spite of a strong agricultural base and being the third largest producer of food products in the world, India's food processing industry is far from tapping its full potential as a result of a low rate of technological progress/regress on the one hand and increasing inefficiencies of the firms on the other hand. It is necessary to encourage imports along with R&D to ensure faster technological progress in the Indian food industry. However, the technological possibilities depend on the mode of organization and various economic and institutional factors. Therefore, bold institutional changes are to be made side‐by‐side in order that inefficiency is substantially reduced.Originality/valueThe present study evaluates the contribution of technological change, technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change to total factor productivity growth in the Indian food processing industry by using the firm‐level data, collected from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). It further examines the impact of some common factors internal to the firms on their performance.
Firm operation performance analysis using data envelopment analysis and balanced scorecard
Authors: Chen Tser‐yieth , Chen Chie‐Bein , Peng Sin‐Ying 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a case study showing how the selection of performance indices affects performance results and the evaluation of a firm's performance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper employs a data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework using four kinds of performance indices selection, which include basic input/output items, balance scorecard (BSC) indices, balanced scorecard with risk management, and traditional financial indices, to evaluate banking operations.FindingsShows that a DEA‐based evaluation of performance produces a similar view of the firm's well‐being as does an analysis of financial indices; however, a BSC‐based evaluation produces a different assessment.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was based on the following assumptions: first, when organizational units achieve technical efficiency, they will improve their organizational performance. Secondly, the inputs and outputs selected for the data envelopment analysis provided an indicator of the changes of bank's technical efficiency over the six‐year period.Practical implicationsThis research was based on the data envelopment analysis approach to find different performance efficiency to apply four performance indicator selections, which include basic inputs/outputs items, balanced scorecard indices, balanced scorecard with risk management, and traditional financial indices, to evaluate bank operation.Originality/valueCombines the balanced scorecard concept with data envelopment analysis measurements (model information) to generate measures of technical efficiency for a Taiwanese bank. It shows how comparisons can be made within and across companies on the basis of balanced scorecard measures.
Evaluation of technical efficiency and ranking of public sector banks in India
Authors: Kumar Sunil , Gulati Rachita 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent of technical efficiency in 27 public sector banks operating in India and to provide strict ranking to these banks.Design/methodology/approachTwo popular data envelopment analysis (DEA) models, namely, CCR model and Andersen and Petersen's super‐efficiency model, were utilized. The cross‐section data for the financial year 2004/2005 were used for obtaining technical efficiency scores.FindingsThe results show that only seven of the 27 banks are found to be efficient and thus, defined the efficient frontier; and technical efficiency scores range from 0.632 to 1, with an average of 0.885. Thus, Indian public sector banks, on an average, waste the inputs to the tune of 11.5 percent. Andhra Bank has been observed to be the most efficient bank followed closely by Corporation Bank. Further, the banks affiliated with SBI group turned out to be more efficient than the nationalized banks. The regression results incisively indicate that the exposure to off‐balance sheet activities, staff productivity, market share and size are the major determinants of the technical efficiency.Practical implicationsThe practical implication of the research findings is that apart from the proportional reduction of all inputs equivalent to the amount of technical inefficiency, most of the inefficient public sector banks need to reduce the use of the physical capital and augment non‐interest income to project themselves on the efficient frontier.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to provide a strict ranking of Indian public sector banks on the basis of super‐efficiency scores.
An endless debate: the sense and nonsense of budgeting
Authors: Rickards Robert C. 
Published: September 2008

PurposeThis article aims to summarize several studies about how businesses currently practice budgeting in Western and Central Europe. While analyzing these studies in the larger context of the ongoing debate about budgeting's importance, it provides conceptual linkages between them and additional insights into their findings.Design/methodology/approachThe reported studies employ survey research, sometimes with panels of self‐selected interviewees within a single country and sometimes with samples of SMEs across multiple countries.FindingsRecent survey results continue to show managers complaining about the wastefulness of preparing budgets, while steadfastly believing they are indispensable. Among others, Horváth and Partners accordingly advocate “advanced budgeting” concepts to modernize both planning and budgeting processes. CFO‐panel participants generally uphold the advocates' position except in the crucial area of available IT‐support. However, as explained next, connecting operational and strategic planning is primarily a conceptual rather than a hard‐ or software problem. In the European automobile suppliers' industry, controlling services therefore generally still rely on a small set of well‐understood standard tools.Practical implicationsFirms not using these standard tools in their operational controlling risk falling behind the competition. In order to close the gap between the perceived importance of and satisfaction with more complex instruments, however, several tools require improvement or simplification as well as conceptual clarity about how to employ them.Originality/valueThis article presents results from diverse studies on budgeting as currently practiced, reform concepts, and obstacles to their implementation. In doing so, it discusses how they relate to one another and what their significance is for both theory and practice.
The empowered customer and the digital myopia
Authors: Constantinides Efthymios 
Published: September 2008

PurposeVarious developments in the marketing terrain in combination with the emergence of a new breed of information and communication technologies have been constantly transforming market dynamics and customer behavior over the last two decades. The purpose of this article is to explain the reasons behind one of these changes – the customer empowerment – and to discuss the implications of this development for the marketing practice.Design/methodology/approachThe article analyses the background of customer empowerment on the basis of literature review, anecdotal evidence and underlines the role of the internet as a tool of customer empowerment. The paper attempts to identify the main issues around this new subject and often makes use of practical cases. The scope of the paper is to underline the need for marketing strategists to approach their customers and markets in new ways.FindingsThe old type push marketing approaches based on mass media and massively produced products become less and less effective.Practical implicationsMarketers must realize that the empowered consumer is now in control of the message and the communication process. He is able to ignore the marketer and make decisions based on high quality information, many alternatives and new forms of transactions. Reaching this consumer requires a trust‐based approach (customer advocacy) based on openness and a real effort to help the customer achieve his objectives.Originality/valueThe paper summarizes several ideas and demonstrates with many practical examples the new market realities. The paper argues that strategists and marketers failing to understand the impact of the internet and the consequences of customer empowerment on their markets suffer from “Digital Myopia” that could endanger the survival of their business in the future.