Search results

Notes the importance of continuous improvement as a concept to guide management and that this concept requires numerous components to make it work. Picks out the role of information management as a key area, citing factors such as the creation of an “information culture” as being of major importance. Looks at the path followed by some Trusts in pursuit of this “information culture” wherein staff gained an improved insight into the use of information as a management tool.

Presents a background to process understanding which offers potential benefits to the NHS. Considers the various business processes found in health care organizations, noting that the management of cross‐functional processes is an area in which improvements can be made. Outlines the kind of problems which can result from mismanagement of such processes and the potential benefits of process improvement.

Examine the critical success factors for human resources (HR) outsourcing.

Success factors have been identified following work with many clients and in‐depth industry knowledge of best practice in HR outsourcing.

Article outlines the critical success factors that companies should employ when implementing HR outsourcing to ensure they maximize return on investment. It also highlights the expected benefits of HR outsourcing.

Practical ideas are given for improving the client vendor relationship and management of the outsourcing partnership.

The article is of value to all HR professionals who are embarking on outsourcing any of their HR functions, as it outlines likely benefits and best practice in HR outsourcing.

What does a doctor need to acquire before entering the field of management. This article begins to explore the capabilities and qualities associated with successful managers and suggests that doctors interested in management need to review the way they are currently perceived and develop characteristics which will help them to move smoothly into the new roles which are being established for them.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study about how academic librarians can contribute to the interdisciplinary research endeavors of professors and students, especially doctoral candidates, through an intellectualized approach to collection development.

In the wake of protest movements such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, colleges and universities have begun to develop courses about these events, and it is anticipated that there will be much research conducted about their respective histories. Academic librarians can participate in those research efforts by developing interdisciplinary collections about protest movements and by referring researchers to those collections.

Through a case‐study approach, this paper provides a narrative bibliography about Southern Agrarianism that can help professors and students interested in the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movements to see their research endeavors from a new interdisciplinary perspective.

The value of this paper lies in presenting a concrete example of the way in which academic librarians can become active research partners through the work of building collections and recommending sources in areas that professors and students may not have previously considered.

This paper aims to trace the history of the BT‐Accenture e‐peopleserve joint venture, which provides HR services not only for BT but also for other clients.

Examines the changes to HR at BT post‐privatization, the factors that gave rise to the joint venture and the way in which it has developed. Describes some of the factors that need to be considered for an outsourcing deal to be successful.

Reveals that initially, costs went up, and that the transferred workforce took time to adjust to their role as a service provider. This has been addressed through self‐development and process improvement. By outsourcing, BT has rationalized its training catalogue by 50 percent, reduced training waiting lists by 26 percent and saved $2.2 million in time and money lost because of sickness. It has also increased employee‐satisfaction ratings across training and counseling. Other benefits of the deal include: one telephone number for BT staff to contact HR; a single Peoplesoft HR information system that provides enhanced HR reporting capability and employee self‐service; and a company‐wide learning‐management system.

Emphasizes that, while outsourcing might seem to be a simple cost‐reduction option, there are significant challenges to getting it right.

Reveals that BT now has one HR specialist to every 200 employees, which is well ahead of the benchmarks in its sector.

There is a large literature about crisis entrepreneurship, spanning from necessity, natural disaster and long-term conflict entrepreneurship. This paper situates pandemic entrepreneurship as a unique form of crisis entrepreneurship.

The authors utilize the Kirznerian and Schumpeterian theories of entrepreneurship to understand pandemic entrepreneurship. Using evidence from the US COVID-19 pandemic, the authors argue that pandemics impact both the “identification” and “action” moments of entrepreneurship.

The Kirznerian identification moment becomes much more uncertain for entrepreneurs because of fluctuating conditions, such as public health conditions, new potential variants of the virus causing the pandemic, shifting government mandates and rules and so forth. The Schumpeterian action moment becomes more challenging because of the necessity of physical distancing and because, generally, all crises raise the cost of entrepreneurial action. That said, the authors still document considerable entrepreneurship during pandemics as entrepreneurs adapt to the increased uncertainty and costs by rely upon local and customary knowledge.

This research finds that entrepreneurs, depending upon the crisis, face differing constraints. Specifically in times of pandemic, entrepreneurs face difficulty recognizing opportunities because of shifting conditions and acting upon opportunities because of financial and political constraints. This research thus implies that there are large opportunities for alleviation of such constraints if there were to be future variants or pandemics.

Practically speaking, this research affects how people study entrepreneurship. By recognizing the differing constraints that pandemic entrepreneurs face, the authors can better understand the last several years, and can also prepare better policy wise for future pandemics or further variants of COVID-19.

Socially, entrepreneurship can be a large factor in recovery from disasters and crises. By recognizing and perhaps alleviating constraints that pandemic entrepreneurs face, future crises could have better responses and recoveries.

Although several studies have examined entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic, the extant literature on pandemic entrepreneurship remains relatively underdeveloped and has not yet focused on what distinguishes pandemic entrepreneurship from other forms of crisis entrepreneurship. The authors highlight what pandemic entrepreneurship has in common with other forms of crisis entrepreneurship and pinpoint the various ways that is distinct.

To identify key lessons, trends and enduring challenges with global outsourcing of back office services.

The authors extract lessons, project trends, and discuss enduring challenges from a 20 year research program conducted by these authors and their extended network of co‐authors and colleagues.

The authors identify seven important lessons for successfully exploiting the maturing Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) markets. The lessons require back office executives to build significant internal capabilities and processes to manage global outsourcing. The authors predict 13 trends about the size and growth of ITO and BPO markets, about suppliers located around the world, and about particular sourcing models including application service provision, insourcing, nearshoring, rural sourcing, knowledge process outsourcing, freelance outsourcing, and captive centers. The authors identify five persistent, prickly issues on global outsourcing pertaining to back office alignment, client and supplier incentives, knowledge transfer, knowledge retention, and sustainability of outsourcing relationships.

The authors present some experimental innovations to address these issues.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how rural entrepreneurship engages with place and space. It explores the concept of “rural” as a socio-spatial concept in rural entrepreneurship and illustrates the importance of distinguishing between ideal types of rural entrepreneurship.

The paper uses concepts from human geography to develop two ideal types of entrepreneurship in rural areas. Ideal types constitute powerful heuristics for research and are used here to review and link existing literature on rural entrepreneurship and rural development as well as to develop new research avenues.

Two ideal types are developed: first, entrepreneurship in the rural and second, rural entrepreneurship. The former represents entrepreneurial activities with limited embeddedness enacting a profit-oriented and mobile logic of space. The latter represents entrepreneurial activities that leverage local resources to re-connect place to space. While both types contribute to local development, the latter holds the potential for an optimized use of the resources in the rural area, and these ventures are unlikely to relocate even if economic rationality would suggest it.

The conceptual distinction allows for engaging more deeply with the diversity of entrepreneurial activities in rural areas. It increases our understanding of localized entrepreneurial processes and their impact on local economic development.

This study contributes to the understanding of the localized processes of entrepreneurship and how these processes are enabled and constrained by the immediate context or “place”. The paper weaves space and place in order to show the importance of context for entrepreneurship, which responds to the recent calls for contextualizing entrepreneurship research and theories. In addition ideal types can be a useful device for further research and serve as a platform for developing rural policies.