Elsmari Bergin and Carl Savage
Professionals in academic health centers (AMCs) face multiple obligations, such as those from research, teaching and clinical care. The purpose of this study is to explore and…
Abstract
Purpose
Professionals in academic health centers (AMCs) face multiple obligations, such as those from research, teaching and clinical care. The purpose of this study is to explore and develop an understanding about how well findings generated from two previous studies about the influence of multiple obligations on health care personnel fit those within health care associated with academic institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 11 professionals engaged in teaching, research, and clinical work were interviewed. Data from the open‐ended interactive interviews were transcribed and compared with findings from the two previous studies, using modified analytic induction.
Findings
Work at an AMC can entail balancing three tasks: research, education, and clinical care. These tasks as well as the different employers associated with them can be a source of conflict. For a group of committed professionals, these conflicts were accepted and balanced as long as they experienced stimulus, autonomy, and variation.
Research limitations/implications
Modified analytic induction, an uncommon analysis method, is useful for comparing findings from previous studies in another context and with different subjects.
Practical implications
Stimulation, autonomy, and variation could play a vital role as driving factors in coping and dealing with the unavoidable presence of multiple obligations in today's health care systems.
Originality/value
Although AMCs combine clinical care, research, and teaching, the intersection of all three has in contrast not been investigated so thoroughly at the individual level.
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Pamela Mazzocato, Johan Thor, Ulrika Bäckman, Mats Brommels, Jan Carlsson, Fredrik Jonsson, Magnus Hagmar and Carl Savage
The purpose of this paper is to explain how different emergency services adopt and adapt the same hospital-wide lean-inspired intervention and how this is reflected in hospital…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain how different emergency services adopt and adapt the same hospital-wide lean-inspired intervention and how this is reflected in hospital process performance data.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study based on a realistic evaluation approach to identify mechanisms for how lean impacts process performance and services’ capability to learn and continually improve. Four years of process performance data were collected from seven emergency services at a Swedish University Hospital: ear, nose and throat (ENT) (two), pediatrics (two), gynecology, internal medicine, and surgery. Performance patterns were linked with qualitative data collected through realist interviews.
Findings
The complexity of the care process influenced how improvement in access to care was achieved. For less complex care processes (ENT and gynecology), large and sustained improvement was mainly the result of a better match between capacity and demand. For medicine, surgery, and pediatrics, which exhibit greater care process complexity, sustainable, or continual improvement were constrained because the changes implemented were insufficient in addressing the higher degree of complexity.
Originality/value
The variation in process performance and sustainability of results indicate that lean efforts should be carefully adapted to the complexity of the care process and to the educational commitment of healthcare organizations. Ultimately, the ability to adapt lean to a particular context of application depends on the development of routines that effectively support learning from daily practices.
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Acting through its parent company the Satra Group, Ion Deposition Ltd has purchased the assets of Peatgrange IVD Ltd, its former competitor of Leeds. The negotiations were headed…
Abstract
Acting through its parent company the Satra Group, Ion Deposition Ltd has purchased the assets of Peatgrange IVD Ltd, its former competitor of Leeds. The negotiations were headed by the managing director, Raymond Palmer, for the purchase of Peatgrange IVD's assets from its parent company, the Cray Group.
Dong Hoang, Cathy Barnes and Olga Munroe
The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of the management of traditional retail markets (TRM) in the UK. TRM are indoor and outdoor markets located in town and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of the management of traditional retail markets (TRM) in the UK. TRM are indoor and outdoor markets located in town and city centres across the UK, selling food, household goods, clothing and the like.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a comparative analysis approach of multiple cases using an analytical framework drawn from place management and retail business management literature. The study investigates 11 retail markets in the UK, including 7 run by Local Councils, 2 privately run and 2 operated by Charity Trusts.
Findings
The paper identifies the management challenges of TRM lying at the intersect between its private-like business entity and the management overseen by local authorities, whose roles and functions are mainly on delivering public services. Although some council markets struggle, it remains a popular model for TRM because it offers social space and inclusion which other types of markets lack. The study also highlights that the environment within which TRM operate, such as policy, infrastructure, business and entrepreneurial aspects play an important role in influencing the performance of the markets.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the retail literature’s conceptual and empirical understanding of TRM management – the area which has been mostly neglected and under-researched. It offers an integrated analytical framework, including four dimensions of policy, infrastructure, business and entrepreneurial environment to advance the current limited understanding of this traditional form of retailing and sheds light on future research in this area.
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THE publication last month of the long‐anticipated Report of the Departmental Public Libraries Committee is, of course, the principal recent event. It is too long to allow us to…
Abstract
THE publication last month of the long‐anticipated Report of the Departmental Public Libraries Committee is, of course, the principal recent event. It is too long to allow us to give a full account of its arguments and conclusions, and in common with all who work for libraries we must return to it again and again in the future. It may be said, however, that it will allay the fears of those who thought that one result of the Committee's deliberations would be to support and to suggest the implementing of the Report of the Adult Education Committee of the lamented Ministry of Reconstruction, which would have handed over the public libraries of the country as a gift to the directors of education. This report does nothing of the kind; it even suggests that as public opinion is clearly opposed to such a course, the libraries should remain in the hands of those who made them an admitted success even under the adverse conditions of the limited rate. Thus the way is open to real progress, and the very confined conditions which would be a necessary result of the absorption of libraries in the official education machinery are not immediately to be dreaded.
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
Giorgio Agamben has used the notion of the state of exception to describe the United States’ detention camps in Cuba. Agamben argues that the use of the state of exception in the…
Abstract
Giorgio Agamben has used the notion of the state of exception to describe the United States’ detention camps in Cuba. Agamben argues that the use of the state of exception in the U.S. can be traced back to President Lincoln's suspension of the right of habeas corpus during the Civil War. This paper suggests that this argument obscures more relevant legal and political precedents that can be found in U.S. territorial legal history. Moreover, while Agamben's argument obscures conceptual distinctions between a state of emergency and a state of exception, his argument also provides resources that can expose the limits of liberal interpretations of the relationship between the State, the citizen, and the law.