Search results

This paper aims to draw conceptual links between the papers in this special issue, arguing that diversity and equality research is located within varying socio‐political, socio‐demographic and geo‐political contexts and should therefore be seen as fluid and subject to ongoing reformation.

This paper provides a thematic and analytical review of six papers from the Gender, Diversity and Management track of the European Academy of Management Conference, held at HEC, Paris in May 2007.

The paper draws out themes that transcend organisation and nation boundaries, showing how socio‐cultural and political location has an important bearing on gender and diversity work identities, constructions and ultimately, organisation development priorities.

The paper seeks to encapsulate contemporary thinking in the discipline of equality and diversity management with specific focus on its interaction with the externalities of region, power, politics and society.

The paper contributes to the developing discourse of employment‐based diversity research in the international arena. It highlights the limitations of a fixed perspective of identity and difference, stressing the need to account for positionality in scholarly research.

This case study of the State of Qatar examines government educational policy and economic development in Qatar’s strategy to diversify its oil and gas-based economy into knowledge production. Qatar presents a particularly interesting case since its substantial investments in the past decade in education, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), research and development (R&D), and coastal development and tourism are all highly intertwined both in practice and from a national policy perspective. Armed with billions of dollars of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) from its gas and oil industries, the government of Qatar has embarked on both domestic and overseas investment campaigns including education, sports, internet and telecommunications, healthcare, overseas land purchases (food security), cultural institutions and museums, increased desalinated water capacity, and coastal development and tourism projects. Education and research, most notably Qatar Foundation’s Education City, Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), and the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), stand at the heart of Qatar’s investment in human development and long-term economic and social sustainability. Despite large outlays in knowledge economy initiatives, the country, however, is facing significant challenges in rapid population growth, reliance on expatriate labor for its skilled labor needs, an underdeveloped education system, and an undiversified economy which revolves around hydrocarbon rents.

The White Paper, Working for Patients, and the 1990 GP Contract are designed to promote competition between general practitioners and to encourage greater choice for consumers of primary care. Considers the reforms in the light of established consumer behaviour literature in other services and suggests that there are likely to be particular problems for patients in making informed choices about GPs. As a result, patients are unlikely to make decisions unless circumstances force them to do so; which has implications for the way in which GPs are remunerated.

This is the second part in a paper which studied the dynamics of primary health care provision. This paper examines external factors related to the management of general practices. The study revealed that there are major problems at GP/FHSA interfaces involving poor communications, needs evaluation and understanding, and the lack of teamwork. The paper argues that attempts by FHSAs in terms of initiatives are so far failing and have not effectively been able to build strong partnerships between the parties concerned. The paper concludes by proposing a Model of Total Partnership for effective primary health care provision. The model suggests that structures need to be modified in a horizontal way, focusing on patients and building a collaborative way between FHSAs and GPs in a seamless fashion. The model is based on Total Quality Management (TQM) principles and is represented by the building of a customer‐supplier chain, the spirit of continuous improvement and synergy through teamwork with the ultimate goal of Total Patient Satisfaction.

Developed countries are demanding more quality assurance activities from their health care sectors. Briefly reviews the history of quality assurance in the health care sector and the reasons for the renewed demand for quality assurance. Discusses recent developments in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Forecasts that the demand for accountability and high standards will increase. Discusses the problems of resources and information needs, and the deficit of practical outcome measures.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a meta-analysis of existing research on gender discrimination/gender gap and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the UAE, specifically, and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in general because of very limited number of articles published on the subject. It will give future researchers insights into the topics, methodologies and findings of such research from 1999–2019.

This study conducts a meta-analysis of 72 articles using the Wildcard operator search method and the Boolean operator to perform an integrative literature search related to gender discrimination studies done in relationship to or specific to the UAE.

In total, 88 papers related to the UAE and gender gap and women were identified. The articles were narrowed down to the ones published in high-ranked or Scopus journals (72). The findings suggest a decreasing trend in gender discrimination, but the issue still persists, requiring efforts from policy-makers, society and government to ensure gender parity is achieved. Academic research on women in STEM/SET workplace, specific to the UAE and the region, continue to slowly advance, with very few articles published in the same.

The study provides insights into gender gap research done in the past ten years specific to the UAE national women and gender gap in general and their career choices and prospects in the STEM/SET domain.

There is a need to focus research on Emirati women in STEM careers to develop more insights into gender gap perceptions of Emirati women and identify challenges and methods to close the gender gap in STEM careers.

This paper brings a holistic perspective to the meta-analysis of research on the gender gap and women in the UAE’s STEM domain.

The study explores the linkage between environmental awareness, green practices, firm reputation and performance. Undeniably, very few studies have been conducted on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its effect on firms' performance.

In the current study, the data are collected from 404 firms located in Pakistan, and structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to validate hypotheses.

The results show that green practices are statistically significant to build a positive image of firms; also, these practices enhance firm performance. Furthermore, the results also confirmed that CSR practice “indirect support to the community” has an insignificant relationship with firm reputation due to mismanagement and corruption involvement on governmental levels.

This study suggests that the firms' management should spend money on CSR activities and concentrate on proper monitoring of CSR activities to utilize funds efficiently. The research is conducted in Pakistan's context, while future studies need to be conducted in other emerging economies to investigate the linkage between CSR, firm reputation and performance.

According to the researcher's best knowledge, very few studies have been conducted regarding the relationship between environmental awareness, green practices, firm reputation and performance in emerging economies like Pakistan.

This chapter address how critical feminist organization studies can shed light on the dominance of masculinist logics in TM theorizing in both theory and practice and open up opportunities to review TM systems that stress inclusion and equity. The exclusive approach is most worrisome given that contemporary events such as the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein the global ‘#metoo campaigns and the Sustainable Development Goals have highlighted the importance of equality agendas. We draw on transnationalism, intersectionality and postcolonialism approaches to illustrate how TM reinforces inequalities. Our contribution questions the elite logics, and the white Global North males that dominate both TM theorizing, and TM practitioners and denies many stakeholders voices and contributions to organization life. We also question the longevity of the elite mantra of MNCs’ HRM policy given that the Sustainable Development Goals are increasingly being advocated by the business community, and contradict entirely an organizational ethic premised on valuing the elite.

The rapid development of e-commerce has caused not only explosive growth of the express delivery industry, but also ever-greater operational pressures. Models from the sharing economy may provide new ideas for operational improvement. The purpose of this paper is to consider an optimization method that reduces costs and increases efficiency. The proposed method enables a shared distribution system based on revenue-sharing and cooperative investment contracts.

The authors design a two-echelon supply chain (SC) of the shared distribution system with one shared distribution company and N express companies. In this SC, the express companies provide only inter-city transportation, and they outsource internal-city transportation to a shared distribution company. This distribution system differs from that of the traditional express delivery industry. The traditional system of delivery requires large numbers of empty trips (with no load to deliver), because the operating mode of urban distribution has been the franchise. To offer greater efficiency and performance, the authors introduce the sharing economy mode of express delivery. The authors examine the potential of a joint optimal decision-making strategy that involves revenue-sharing and cooperative investment contracts based on an order flow proportion (OFP) and a revenue-sharing factor (RSF). In this shared distribution system, the most important innovation is that all of the express companies jointly invest in and establish a shared distribution company based on OFP or RSF principles.

The profitability of an SC with revenue-sharing contracts based on an OFP system is much higher than that of a decentralized SC, and it is very close to the profitability of a centralized SC. In SCs with revenue-sharing contracts that are based on RSFs, there are many possible combinations of RSFs that can increase the overall profitability. The analyses indicate that the OFP system offers the best solution in designing revenue-sharing contracts based on RSFs.

This study indicates that revenue-sharing contracts based on both OFP and RSF principles can increase overall SC returns by 0.21 to 0.44 percent. In sum total, this improvement could mean a 0.84 to 1.76bn Yuan increase in revenues for the 400+ bn-Yuan express delivery industry.

The authors find that a combination of equity investment and SC coordination contracts makes the cooperation between SC members much more stable. Through this kind of shared distribution system, the scale of economy can further reduce the costs and increase the efficiency of the express delivery industry.