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The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. Part (B) takes place three months into the original project plan. The project manager has just been fired and the management challenge is to find out what is wrong with the project and recommend fixes. In addition, the scope of the project has changed: the VP of marketing has an additional promotional bundle requirement. A&D High Tech (A) examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. Part (B) gives actual work done on each task three months into the project. Students must answer the management questions: Can the project be fixed and completed in time for the holiday season? Can the additional requirements be incorporated, and if so, what is the best approach? In order to answer these questions, earned value data can be extracted from Microsoft Project and analyzed. These data provide important insights into the root cause of problems with the project. The next step is to reduce the scope of the project and reassign resources. However, one must be aware that indiscriminately adding people can slow a project down, not speed it up. Finally, the additional promotional bundle requirement from the VP of marketing provides an important outsourcing management discussion. The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to analyze a project in trouble using Microsoft Project (or other project management software tool). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to manage a project in trouble by first accurately diagnosing the problems, then reducing scope where necessary, and finally replanning the project with reallocated resources. In addition, students will learn the tradeoffs of outsourcing to highly specialized professionals vs. average contractors.

The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. The A&D High Tech case examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. Specifically, data is given to build the project plan step-by-step and then analyze the plan using the Microsoft project management tool. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. The project plan that students construct from the data given in the case is fraught with risks, and students must apply risk management techniques to diagnose the plan. Ultimately, students must answer the management question: Will the project be completed for the holiday shopping season? This case is the first in a series; the second is the case entitled “A&D High Tech (B): Managing Scope Change.” The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to build a project plan in Microsoft Project (or other project management software tools). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to analyze a project plan and identify risks of the plan, and define strategies to mitigate these risks. Students learn that in the planning stage of any project the risks are highest, but this is the best opportunity for proactive management intervention.

Despite repeated policy initiatives, progress in improving patient safety in the National Health Service (NHS) in England over the past two decades has been slow. The NHS Patient Safety Strategy (NHS England and NHS Improvement, 2019), which is being implemented currently, aims to address this problem. The purpose of this study is to identify learning from the implementation of past patient safety policies and thereby suggest means of supporting the NHS in delivering the current policy initiative successfully.

The authors identified key health policies in the domain of patient safety, published since 2000, by searching the United Kingdom (UK) government website. Discussion papers from the research literature concerning these policies were collated and reviewed. The authors then used a thematic analysis approach to identify themes discussed within these papers. These themes represent factors that support the effective delivery of patient safety policy initiatives.

Within the discussion papers the authors collated, concerning 11 patient safety policies implemented between 2000 and 2017, five inter-related core themes of capability, culture, systems, candour and leadership were identified. By evaluating these themes and identifying composite sub-themes, a conceptual framework is presented that can be used to support the delivery of patient safety policy initiatives to maximise their impact.

The conceptual framework the authors illustrate, arising from this new contribution to the body of knowledge, can be translated into a novel self-assessment for individual NHS trusts to understand organisational development areas in the domain of patient safety improvement.

This chapter presents a theoretical reflection on the possible impact of politicians' positive Word of Mouth (pWOM) on the tourists' risk perception and destination image of Portugal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reflection is based on the collection of remarks or comments made by international politicians collected using Google as the search engine and subsequent manual textual content analysis. The results show five recurring themes in the politicians' pWOM: general praise, pandemic numbers, politician positioning, health care and population attitude. The discussion includes a reflection on the outputs of the channels used for the dissemination of the messages and the importance of the politicians' countries of origin to a market strategy that highlights Portugal as a tourism destination.

The purpose of this paper is to use firm-level data to examine whether the political cycle differentially relates to small vs large firms in New Zealand; a country that operates a unicameral political system has a short three-year political term and a right-of-centre stock market premium exists.

Using firm-level data from 1972 to 2010, the authors examine monthly returns during right-of-centre National governments and left-of-centre Labour governments. The authors apply Santa Clara and Valkanov (2003) regression analysis approach to examine the political cycle impact on firm returns.

Like in the USA, New Zealand’s political cycle premium is driven by small firms; however, the results are opposite. In New Zealand, periods governed by the right of the political spectrum produce significantly higher stock returns than those from the left and this finding is primarily driven by small firms who perform particularly poorly under left-of-centre governments.

Small firms were relatively heavily affected by the move to an open, deregulated economy; they were also less able to cope with tight monetary conditions, and periods of sharply falling inflation. New Zealand’s three-year political term may encourage newly formed governments to implement relatively fast moving shifts in policy where a more reasoned and steady approach would be warranted.

This is the first paper to use firm-level data outside of the USA to examine the political cycle impact.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the 2010 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), its 176th meeting, held February 18‐22, 2010 in San Diego.

Provides an overview of nine presentations as well as internet links (or bibliographic citations) of pertinent research, on each topic covered, for further understanding of the subject matter.

There is plenty of research on which to report.

The paper provides information on the latest research on: current technological advances relating to connectivity to the internet; key questions relating to the voluminous amount of data generated annually; and, how computational science, and its enabling cyberinfrastructure, is tackling some of the “grand challenges” facing science and society today.

The purpose of this research is to examine privacy risks for two groups of individuals for whom privacy is an important issue. Understanding the risks to vulnerable groups leads to the development of a prototype tool used to inform users about areas of potential harm in their online behaviour.

Data collection employed a number of qualitative approaches in order to best understand both the risks and the social context surrounding them. Semi‐structured interviews, focus groups and questionnaires were all utilised where appropriate. Subjects were selected from two groups of individuals for whom the abuse of personal information could lead to serious harm – teenagers and domestic abuse survivors.

The findings provide specific examples of risks posed to the two groups of individuals involved in the study and demonstrate the need for protection mechanisms that promote the awareness of potential risk among vulnerable internet users. These formed the basis of the requirements for the prototype.

This paper presents a contribution to the understanding of risks faced by individuals from technologies as well as considering the potential for harm in an online setting against traditional abuse theories. It also contributes to the body of knowledge considering the development of privacy‐enhancing technologies.

The first annual volume of Research in Organization Change and Development was published in 1987. Since then, ROCD has provided a special platform for scholars and practitioners to share new research-based insights.