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Process improvement is a fundamental activity of the business process management (BPM) lifecycle. However, practitioners still lack concrete guidance and adequate objectives for process improvement. Moreover, improvement projects typically tie up considerable amounts of capital and are very risky. Thus, more guidance is needed on how to derive concrete recommendations for process improvement in a goal-oriented manner. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors propose a decision model that determines along which paths the instances of a process should be routed to maximize the value contribution of the process. To do so, the decision model requires a process model and a set of historical process instances as inputs.

The decision model builds on the idea that only the parameters of the process, i.e., the values according to which it is decided on which path an instance traverses the process, can be modified, without altering the structure of the process. The decision model determines the parameter setting that maximizes the value contribution of the process, which is measured in terms of the expected cash flow of the process. When determining the optimal parameter setting, the decision model considers that different instances and paths have different cash flow effects.

The authors prototypically implemented the decision model and report on the insights from a demonstration example that is based on the order verification process of an IT distributor.

The decision model complements existing approaches to process improvement as it reveals additional improvement potential by focussing on the decision points in a process without altering the structure of the process. The decision model also enables identifying an optimal parameter setting, as a concrete recommendation for process improvement, in line with the principles of value-based BPM.

Dennis Beach is a Reader in Education Sciences (Pedagogy) who is currently employed at the Department of Education, Göteborg University. His research interests lie in the field of the sociology of education, the sociology of teachers’ work and the problems of education change. He has authored or co-authored three books and a number of articles and chapters in these subject fields and has also supervised several Ph.D. projects. At present he is head of two major national research projects in the fields mentioned, both of which are financed by the Swedish Research Council, and collaborates in two large European projects.Marie Carlson Ph.D. in sociology 2002, Göteborg University, Sweden. Her earlier studies were in social anthropology, Swedish for immigrants, and ethnicity and migration. Her main research interests are cultural studies and sociology of education. The wider project of which this chapter is a part focuses on Swedish language courses for immigrants as a social and cultural construction in the Swedish knowledge arena. It deals with questions regarding the impact of social and cultural practices on conceptions of knowledge and education. (e.g. Carlson, M., 2001) “Swedish Language Courses for Immigrants – Integration or Discrimination?” in Ethnography and Education Policy (Ed.) Geoffrey Walford, Oxford: Elsevier.) Marie Carlson also lectures on courses in ethnicity and migration, and is tutoring within the fields of “Language & culture,” “Islam” (Muslim women) and “Ethnicity.” Currently she is engaged in a project “Competing Ideas in the Renewal of SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) – An Investigation of Discursive Practices in SFI-education during Re-structuring” (financed by The Swedish Research Council). The project is carried out in corporation with Dennis Beach, Department of Education, Göteborg University.Marianne Dovemark was formerly a teacher at a comprehensive school in Sweden for over 20 years. She is in the process of completing a Ph.D. (in Educational Sciences) supervised by Dennis Beach and is currently employed as a lecturer on the pre-service Teacher Education Programme at the University College of Borås where she also does researches in the field of Sociology of Education. Her research stresses the new aims of comprehensive education in a re-structured school in Sweden with a special focus on the possibility of free choice within the school.Caroline Hudson is a Research Consultant whose company is called Real Educational Research Ltd. Caroline’s research interests encompass adult learning, literacy, family structure, offending and education, and issues related to social exclusion. Caroline is currently evaluating three literacy, language (ESOL) and numeracy developmental projects in the National Health Service (NHS), with the National Research and Development Centre (NRDC) for adult literacy and numeracy. She is also researching the impact of use of a PC tablet on the writing skills of young people who offend, for Ecotec Research and Consultancy on behalf of the Youth Justice Board (YJB). Caroline has worked as Basic Skills Advisor in the Home Office National Probation Directorate, and as an English teacher both in the United Kingdom and abroad.Bob Jeffrey has worked with Professor Peter Woods and Geoff Troman at the Open University since the early 1990s researching the effects of reform on teachers and young people in primary schools using ethnographic methods. In particular he has focused on the how the reforms have affected the creativity of teachers and more recently he has concerned himself with young people’s perspectives of their learning experiences in a project involving ten European countries. He has also contributed to the development of Ethnography in Education by publishing regular articles on methodology, editing books in this area, co-ordinating an international email list as well the Ethnography network for the European Educational Research Association and is currently co-organising the annual Oxford Conference for Ethnography in Education.Janet Donnell Johnson is a clinical lecturer and doctoral student in English Education at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. A former English teacher at an alternative high school, her research interests include the interconnectedness of student identity, agency, and resistance, and literacy as a social practice in and out of classrooms. Janet is currently researching and writing a critical qualitative study based on how non-mainstream students use language to take up certain subject positions and how those positionings create opportunities for literacy learning in and out of school. In her role as clinical lecturer, she teaches writing, methods of teaching English, and coordinates partnerships between Indiana University’s English Department, Language Education Department, and teachers in the schools. She also works closely with secondary and college teachers on incorporating critical literacy and teacher research in their classrooms.Jongi “Mdumane” Klaas is currently completing a Ph.D. in Education at the University of Cambridge. The study examines the perceptions and experiences of learners and teachers vis-à-vis the processes of racial integration in two South African secondary schools. Jongi obtained a Bachelor of Pedagogics degree majoring in English Literature and History at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. He taught History for two years at Gwaba Combined School in South Africa before taking a Fulbright Scholarship to study a Masters degree in Comparative Education at the University of Oklahoma, USA. Jongi is married to Nocwaka Sinovuyo Klaas.Jerry Lipka is a full professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He has worked in cross-cultural education for the past 22 years. During this time, he has developed a long-term relationship with a group of Yup’ik Eskimo teachers and elders. This collaborative relationship has resulted in numerous publications. Most recently, this work has developed a culturally-based math curriculum; research on its effectiveness has shown that rural Yup’ik Eskimo students outperform their counterparts in math understanding.Gerry Mitchell is a Research Student at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion and member of the Social Policy Department at the London School of Economics. She is in the final year of an ESRC funded Ph.D. researching the New Deal for Young People’s Voluntary Sector Option in London. The work is divided into three: It focuses on methodology – what is gained from applying ethnographic methods to social policy evaluations? Secondly, it analyses delivery of the New Deal at ground level and lastly explores the construction of identities around work in the narratives of young unemployed people. Recent Publications: “Choice, Volunteering and Employability: Evaluating Delivery of the New Deal for Young People’s Voluntary Sector Option” Benefits (2003), 11(2), 105–111.Farzaneh Moinian was formerly a teacher at different comprehensive schools in Iran and in Sweden. She is a doctoral student in pedagogy at Stockholm Institution of Education. Her research areas are linked to ethnography in education as well as the exploration of childhood in its historical and current manifestations. Her doctoral project includes children’s perception of morality, self-concept, values and goals as well as children’s life world from their own point of view. Her project would draw on a range of theoretical perspectives from inter-disciplinary Childhood studies, and would employ mainly qualitative methodologies, including ethnography. The various research projects carried out by Farzaneh Moinian focus on understanding the ways in which children percept and interpret their lives as well as how they communicate with other children about it.Ruth Soenen is research assistant (Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders) at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of The Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Her work concerns ethnographic research into everyday relationships in urban settings. Research was carried out in schools and in collective city spaces (e.g. public transport and shops) within the reflection on intercultural matters, learning, community and public domain. She wrote a book in Dutch on intercultural education, research reports for Flemish Government (Educational and City Policy) and made several contributions in leading Flemish journals and books. In English she made a contribution to “Debates and Developments in Ethnographic Methodology. Studies in Educational Ethnography Vol. 6.” Other English publications are forthcoming.Geoff Troman is a Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the Open University. Geoff taught science for twenty years in secondary modern, comprehensive and middle schools before moving into Higher Education in 1989. Throughout his time in schools he carried out research as a teacher researcher. His Ph.D. research was an ethnography of primary school restructuring. He is currently conducting research on teachers’ work and lives and focusing on the educational policy context and primary teacher identity, commitment and career in performative cultures of schooling. Among other publications in the areas of qualitative methods, school ethnography and policy sociology, he co-authored Primary Teachers’ Stress with Peter Woods and Restructuring Schools, Reconstructing Teachers, with Peter Woods, Bob Jeffrey and Mari Boyle. Geoff is a joint co-ordinator of the Ethnography Network for the European Educational Research Association and is currently co-organising the annual Oxford Conference for Ethnography in Education.Geoffrey Walford is Professor of Education Policy and a Fellow of Green College at the University of Oxford. His books include: Life in Public Schools (Methuen, 1986), Restructuring Universities: Politics and power in the management of change (Croom Helm, 1987), Privatization and Privilege in Education (Routledge, 1990), City Technology College (Open University Press, 1991, with Henry Miller), Doing Educational Research (Routledge, editor, 1991), Choice and Equity in Education (Cassell, 1994), Doing Research about Education (Falmer (Ed.), 1998), Policy, Politics and Education – sponsored grant- maintained schools and religious diversity (Ashgate, 2000) and Doing Qualitative Educational Research (Continuum, 2001). Within the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Oxford, he is Director of Graduate Studies (Higher Degrees), has responsibility for the M.Sc. in Educational Research Methodology course, and supervises doctoral research students. He was Joint Editor of the British Journal of Educational Studies from 1999 to 2002, and has been Editor of the Oxford Review of Education from January 2004. His research foci are the relationships between central government policy and local processes of implementation, private schools, choice of schools, religiously-based schools and qualitative research methodology.Joan Parker Webster is an assistant professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where she teaches courses in multicultural and cross-cultural education, children’s and young adult literature, reading theory and language acquisition, and ethnographic research methodology. She has researched and published in the areas of literacy, language acquisition, indigenous language revitalisation issues and ethnographic methodology. Parker Webster is presently working with Yup’ik Eskimo teachers and elders on a literacy-based curriculum project using traditional Yup’ik stories.Anita Wilson is a Research Associate with Lancaster Literacy Research Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, U.K. She has spent almost 14 years undertaking ethnographic and collaborative inquiry with people in prison. Between 2001 and 2003 she held a Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the National Academy of Education, New York which she used to introduce her theory, method and approach to prisoners in America, making a transatlantic comparison of how policy and practice impacts on prison literacies as they are “lived out” on a day to day basis. Her doctoral thesis Reading a Library – Writing a Book: The Significance of Literacies for the Prison Community proposes that people in prison live in a “third space” community, socialising the institutional in order to retain their sense of personal rather than prison identity. She maintains a strong focus on the ethics of working in constrained and sensitive settings and considers issues around exploitation, equity and advocacy to be central to ethnographic work. She has published widely and shares her work with policy-makers, practitioners and prisoners around the world. At present she is undertaking research funded by the National Research and Development Centre which investigates the importance of education to the lives of young offenders.

This study aims to explore natural resources from a public sector accounting perspective, focusing on their definitions, classifications, recognition criteria and disclosure requirements provided by different standard-setters and regulators at both international and national levels.

By reviewing accounting frameworks for natural resources, this study extrapolates accounting dilemmas around the debate on natural resource accounting, using the dialogic accounting perspective as a theoretical framework.

Natural resources cannot be defined as a single category. Various categories have different characteristics, requiring different standards to recognize multiple orientations. This avoids monetary reductionism. Furthermore, uncertainty, both in existence and measurement, may disqualify some of these resources from being considered assets. Perhaps, concentrating on the flow of services derived from natural resources is better than focusing on their valuation. This may lead to a split-asset approach (flows and underlying assets) for certain resources. This study’s findings indicate that public-sector entities should consider preparing a separate non-financial report regarding the management of natural resources with the objective of maintaining inter-generational equity.

This study contributes to the debate on natural resources from an accounting and reporting perspective, highlighting the importance of holding public-sector entities accountable for the use of natural resources.

All too often creative projects are established by a charismatic worker and, despite winning golden opinions for their work, they remain essentially a jewel in their own locality rather than being replicated elsewhere. Not so with the well‐known ‘Feathers’ project which began in the vicinity of the pub of that name in downtown Greenwich, South East London. The project, which was originally set up by Ronnie Wilson and Caroline Furnivall, has been replicated in several different parts of the country. This account from Sheffield looks at the lessons for good practice from one experience of the replication process.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how coordination has evolved in humanitarian logistics (HL), what were the triggers for change and how have they been facilitated.

This paper applies a systematic literature review of academic journals.

This is the first paper to discuss the concepts of network orchestration and choreography in a humanitarian context. The research revealed that network coordination has moved on in the commercial sector to include orchestration and now, choreography concepts which have not been tested in HL literature. This reveals a lag exists between HL research and practice.

This paper represents an exploratory study and provides the basis for further research on the concepts of orchestration and choreography in HL. The paper sets a research agenda for academics.

This paper is the first to discuss the concepts of network orchestration and choreography in a humanitarian context.

The areas of orchestration and choreography have received limited consideration within the humanitarian aid logistics literature to date. This paper is designed to redress this shortfall. As a result, it is hoped that it will act as a catalyst for further research and to widen and deepen the resultant debate with a view to improving the outcome for those affected by current and future disasters.

The Dudley Beauty case illustrates a contemporary branding, management and marketing challenge facing many companies that are 50 plus years old. Movahhed (2016) highlights the six elements to consider during brand strategy: the target audience, the brand promise, brand perception (past, current and future), brand values, brand voice and brand positioning. The times have changed with changing macroenvironmental factors including political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and other environmental (PESTLE) changes that affect a business but which the business does not directly control.

The case is based upon an interview with Dudley Beauty CEO and President Ursula Dudley Oglesby and secondary sources.

The “A Makeover for Dudley’s Q+” case explores the challenges of a second-generation textured hair care and personal care company in the direct selling channel as it faces an aging market and changing business and economic environment. A Black-owned company, begun in 1967 by her parents, Dudley Beauty is led by the founders’ daughter, Harvard College and Harvard Law School-educated, Ursula Dudley Oglesby. At over 50 years old, the company has continually created new textured hair products and has high brand awareness among older Black consumers but has not adequately addressed changing hair trends and shifting communication preferences of younger consumers. The company is at a critical point needing to reach a younger, larger market to survive. The business situation supports marketing, management, strategy, and/or entrepreneurship undergraduate students in understanding how macroenvironmental forces and internal structures affect businesses.

This case is intended primarily for use by undergraduates in a variety of courses. It is suitable for courses in Principles of Marketing, Entrepreneurial Marketing, general Entrepreneurship and Marketing Strategy courses covering topics such as direct selling, the role of environmental factors in business, rebranding efforts using digital and social media marketing and women/minority business owners.

The aim of this study is to identify the relationship between employee-generated content (EGC) and firm-generated content (FGC) in the form of LinkedIn posts, employer brand perception, and the effect of employer's attractiveness and corporate reputation on this relationship.

This study comprises two phases. In phase 1, the focus was on stimuli selection through an online questionnaire on favourability. In phase 2, for the main study, data were gathered through an online survey from 214 information technology (IT) employees via a survey. Multiple linear regression and mediation analyses were conducted.

The results show that EGC and FGC have a positive influence on employer brand perception, and the relationship is positively mediated by employer attractiveness and corporate reputation. These findings suggest that organizations can strategically use their own as well as employees' LinkedIn accounts, and encourage employee advocacy initiatives to attract new talent, enhance attractiveness and corporate reputation.

The study covers two different categories of content – employer and employee-generated – and examines both content types' influence on employer brand perception. It adds to the body of literature regarding employee branding and paves the way for further research in employee advocacy.

Organisational culture (OC) shapes individuals’ perceptions and experiences of work. However, no instrument capable of measuring specific aspects of OC in community pharmacy exists. The purpose of this paper is to report the development and validation of an instrument to measure OC in community pharmacy in Great Britain (GB), and conduct a preliminary analysis of data collected using it.

Instrument development comprised three stages: Stage I: 12 qualitative interviews and relevant literature informed instrument design; Stage II: 30 cognitive interviews assessed content validity; and Stage III: a cross-sectional survey mailed to 1,000 community pharmacists in GB, with factor analysis for instrument validation. Statistical analysis investigated how community pharmacists perceived OC in their place of work.

Factor analysis produced an instrument containing 60 items across five OC dimensions – business and work configuration, social relationships, personal and professional development, skills utilisation, and environment and structures. Internal reliability for the dimensions was high (0.84 to 0.95); item-total correlations were adequate (r=0.46 to r=0.76). Based on 209 responses, analysis suggests different OCs in community pharmacy, with some community pharmacists viewing the environment in which they worked as having a higher frequency of aspects related to patient contact and safety than others. Since these aspects are important for providing high healthcare standards, it is likely that differences in OC may be linked to different healthcare outcomes.

This newly developed and validated instrument to measure OC in community pharmacy can be used to benchmark existing OC across different pharmacies and design interventions for triggering change to improve outcomes for community pharmacists and patients.