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Article
Publication date: 1 November 1997

Dorothy A. Forbes, Cathy Alberda, Betty Anderson, R. Denis Chalifoux, Susan Chandler, Judith Cote, Jean Collins‐Smith, Patricia Edney, Cindy Gerdes, Kathleen McIlveen, Carla Policicchio, Greg Ryan, Case Vink and Nese Yuksel

Notes that with health care reform moving at tremendous speed throughout Canada, a great deal of interest in outcomes research has been generated. States that the research team…

203

Abstract

Notes that with health care reform moving at tremendous speed throughout Canada, a great deal of interest in outcomes research has been generated. States that the research team consisted of 17 professional practice leaders from eight disciplines. Proposes, through the research, to identify from the perspective of former patients what results they hoped to achieve prior to discharge from hospital and what facilitated and hindered them in achieving these results. Reports that a representative sample was selected for the study. Forty‐one former patients each participated in up to two focus groups, with a total of 16 focus groups conducted. Hierarchical analysis revealed themes that fell within the framework of structure, process and outcomes. The findings will assist in ensuring that more appropriate and effective care is offered to patients by a variety of disciplines.

Details

International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, vol. 10 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0952-6862

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Article
Publication date: 12 March 2018

Anne Hilda Wiltshire

The purpose of this paper is to delineates workers’ labour turnover and considerations around work, in a context of informalisation of work, through a case study of temporary…

714

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to delineates workers’ labour turnover and considerations around work, in a context of informalisation of work, through a case study of temporary non-resident farm workers in the deciduous fruit sector in Ceres, South Africa.

Design/methodology/approach

The research design is a three-phase exploratory sequential mixed-methods strategy. Findings from 29 in-depth interviews were refined, verified and ranked in four focus groups. These informed grounded indicators in a survey of 200 farm workers employed in peak season and their 887 household members.

Findings

Considerations are informed by work-related insecurities, interpersonal workplace relationships and reproductive insecurity in the form of care of others, social linkages and residential insecurity, seemingly hierarchical. The least important considerations most thwart workers’ ability to complete fixed-term contracts and account for over 70 per cent of labour turnover in the form of resignations. In sum, workers experience constrained considerations around work arising from their material, social and economic conditions.

Originality/value

This is the first study on the labour turnover of farm workers in South Africa and the fifth globally. The research gives precedence to the voice of farm workers and is a thick description of workers’ considerations around work.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 38 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

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Article
Publication date: 4 December 2018

Josina Vink, Bo Edvardsson, Katarina Wetter-Edman and Bård Tronvoll

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation. Mental models are actors’ assumptions and beliefs that guide their…

4489

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation. Mental models are actors’ assumptions and beliefs that guide their behavior and interpretation of their environment.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper offers a conceptual framework for innovation in service ecosystems through service design that connects the macro view of innovation as changing institutional arrangements with the micro view of innovation as reshaping actors’ mental models. Furthermore, through an 18-month ethnographic study of service design practices in the context of healthcare, how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation is investigated.

Findings

This research highlights that service design reshapes mental models through the practices of sensing surprise, perceiving multiples and embodying alternatives. This paper delineates the enabling conditions for these practices to occur, such as coaching, diverse participation and supportive physical materials.

Research limitations/implications

This study brings forward the underappreciated role of actors’ mental models in innovation. It highlights that innovation in service ecosystems is not simply about actors making changes to their external context but also actors shifting their own assumptions and beliefs.

Practical implications

This paper offers insights for service managers and service designers interested in supporting innovation on how to catalyze shifts in actors’ mental models by creating the conditions for specific service design practices.

Originality/value

This paper is the first to shed light on the central role of actors’ mental models in innovation and identify the service design practices that reshape mental models.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

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Article
Publication date: 20 January 2020

Linda Alkire (née Nasr), Christine Mooney, Furkan A. Gur, Sertan Kabadayi, Maija Renko and Josina Vink

The purpose of this paper is to provide an interdisciplinary framework bridging service design and social entrepreneurship with transformative service research (TSR) to create…

4584

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an interdisciplinary framework bridging service design and social entrepreneurship with transformative service research (TSR) to create greater synergetic effects to advance wellbeing and drive social impact.

Design/methodology/approach

This research provides an interdisciplinary review and synthesis of literature to establish a basis for a conceptual framework advancing human wellbeing and driving social impact.

Findings

The overarching framework created incorporates various concepts, methods and tools across the three research domains. At the core of the framework is the ultimate goal of multilevel wellbeing and social impact. The core is subsequently supported by established social entrepreneurship concepts and strategies: prosocial motivation, hybrid identity, social bricolage, entrepreneurial thinking, community engagement, business model design and innovative delivery. The implementation of these concepts could benefit from the methods and tools used in service design, such as: design probes, service blueprints, appreciative inquiry, contextual interviews, actor maps, sustainable business model canvas and service prototyping.

Practical implications

The paper uses the refugee crisis as an illustrative example of how the proposed framework can be put into action by service organizations.

Originality/value

By bridging literature in TSR, service design and social entrepreneurship, this paper provides service managers with a framework to guide scalable systemic solutions for service organizations interested in advancing human wellbeing and driving social impact.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 31 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2005

Jacques Vink

Flex−buildings are buildings which are literally designed to change. A flex−building must be able to accept different infills and its users must be able to easily adapt their…

145

Abstract

Flex−buildings are buildings which are literally designed to change. A flex−building must be able to accept different infills and its users must be able to easily adapt their surroundings.

Flexibility is defined as the capacity of a building to undergo modifications and accept changes of function with limited structural interventions. More than 40% of the activities housed in a flex building can continue to function during modification.

Studies into flex−buildings (commissioned by the Dutch Government) have elicited a number of insights. These are not hard−and−fast conclusions but more in the region of statements and reminders for those involved with flex−buildings.

These studies show that it takes more than civil engineering to successfully realise such buildings. Aspects of use and management are at least as important. Besides, it requires designers who are willing to let go of their design after it is finished. For the result is not a completed ‘architectural’ product but a continually changing object.

Following insights (among others) will be illustrated with built and unbuilt projects in the Netherlands.

• The façade design, for example, figures prominently in designing flexible buildings. It makes special demands on the design’s presentation during the design process, as the building can assume different appearances over time. The double facade is a promising concept that allows for expressive and/or open facades in flexible buildings. It can also help to reduce a building’s energy consumption.

• Also by deliberately incorporating excessive space and construction a building has the necessary leeway to accommodate future developments. A building’s flexibility is enhanced by oversize in structure as well as space.

• A big multi−use building in Rotterdam (H. A. Maaskant / W. van Tijen (1951)) and recent projects of RUIMTELAB are presented as case−studies. These are an inspiration for architects and planners looking for design tools to help achieve an open architecture.

Details

Open House International, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0168-2601

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Article
Publication date: 14 April 2020

Kaisa Koskela-Huotari, Josina Vink and Bo Edvardsson

Service scholars are finding that institutions – enduring social structures, such as rules, norms, beliefs – are increasingly important in theorizing on service-related phenomena…

1070

Abstract

Purpose

Service scholars are finding that institutions – enduring social structures, such as rules, norms, beliefs – are increasingly important in theorizing on service-related phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to advance the use of institutional theory in service research by synthesizing the key insights from institutional theory that have been applied to service-related phenomena and developing a research agenda to guide the future use of institutional theory in service research.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is an integrative literature review covering 68 articles from major service research and marketing journals that adopt institutional concepts and frameworks to study service-related phenomena.

Findings

The paper maps the “institutional turn” of service research, that is, the increasing tendency to draw on institutional theory for theoretical insights within service research and builds a conceptual framework of the institutional stabilization and destabilization mechanisms that explain endurance and change in service phenomena. The paper also proposes a research agenda that outlines four previously ignored aspects of institutions that have important implications for service research.

Research limitations/implications

In addition to synthesizing insights and proposing directions for future research, the paper highlights specific theoretical and methodological considerations for the future use of institutional theory within service research. The literature review is limited to the 13 major service research and marketing journals.

Originality/value

This paper is the first literature review of the use of institutional theory in service research.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 34 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

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Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 October 2021

Daniela Leonardi, Rebecca Paraciani and Dario Raspanti

This study aims to investigate the role of relational asymmetries in influencing the coping strategies adopted by frontline workers to deal with the policy–client role conflict.

1518

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the role of relational asymmetries in influencing the coping strategies adopted by frontline workers to deal with the policy–client role conflict.

Design/methodology/approach

A comparative analysis of three different services highlights the role of the service relationships characteristics in explaining similarities and differences in the strategies adopted by street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). The research is based on the secondary analysis of three case studies conducted in Italy: the reception system for homeless people, the job brokerage service in the public employment service and the dispute settlement procedure in the labour inspectorate.

Findings

The results underline the interaction between the characteristics of the service relationship and the different coping strategies adopted to deal with the policy–client conflict.

Originality/value

The contribution of this study is threefold. Firstly, the authors focus on the influence of the characteristics of the service relationship in terms of agency resources over SLBs’ strategies to face with users’ expectations. Secondly, the authors intend to discuss these issues analysing SLBs not only as agents with individual preferences. Thirdly, the research design allows the authors to return to the street-level bureaucracy theory its comparative essence, proposing a comparative strategy with an explorative intent.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 13/14
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

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Publication date: 26 November 2014

Michael Briguglio

This chapter analyses the politics of bird hunting in relation to the empowerment of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in the European Union (EU), with specific…

Abstract

This chapter analyses the politics of bird hunting in relation to the empowerment of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in the European Union (EU), with specific reference to Malta’s first years of EU accession.

In particular, the analysis focuses on the activism of Maltese and International ENGOs – with special focus on Birdlife Malta and Birdlife International – on this issue, which is characterized by extensive EU legislation and by constant lobbying.

This chapter argues that ENGOs, both Maltese and European, were influential on State power in Malta, especially by resorting to the EU, and also being given prominence by the media. Yet the hunting lobby was influential too, and its influence on Malta’s main political parties is an overdetermining factor, which remained in place even after EU accession.

This chapter concludes that despite Malta’s EU accession, national political factors remain highly influential in the Maltese hunting issue, and that one can expect more antagonism in the years to come.

Details

Occupy the Earth: Global Environmental Movements
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-697-2

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Article
Publication date: 22 March 2022

Julia A. Fehrer, Jonathan J. Baker and Craig E. Carroll

Wicked problems require holistic and systemic thinking that accommodates interdisciplinary solutions and cross-sectoral collaborations between private and public sectors. This…

1301

Abstract

Purpose

Wicked problems require holistic and systemic thinking that accommodates interdisciplinary solutions and cross-sectoral collaborations between private and public sectors. This paper explores how public relations (PR) – as a boundary-spanning function at the nexus of corporate and political discourse – can support societies to tackle wicked problems.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper synthesizes literature on PR with a service ecosystem perspective. The authors use the service ecosystem design framework to structure the PR literature and develop a model of service ecosystem shaping for social change, which highlights the important role that PR can play in shaping processes.

Findings

The authors explicate how PR can (1) facilitate value cocreation processes between broad sets of stakeholders that drive positive social change, (2) shape institutional arrangements in general and public discourse in particular, (3) provide a platform for recursive feedback loops of reflexivity and (re)formation that enables discourse to ripple through nested service ecosystems and (4) guide collective shaping efforts by bringing stakeholder concerns and beliefs into the open, which provides a foundation for collective sense-making of wicked problems and their solutions.

Originality/value

This paper explains the complexity of shaping service ecosystems for positive social change. Specifically, it highlights how solving wicked problems and driving social change requires reconfiguration of the institutional arrangements that guide various nested service ecosystems. The authors discuss in detail how PR can contribute to the shaping of service ecosystems for social change and present a future research agenda for both service and PR scholars to consider.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 33 no. 4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

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