David Conrad, Amit Ghosh and Marc Isaacson
Motivation is a widely explored topic and numerous studies have been done to determine motivation importance and implementation. However, no studies have been identified that…
Abstract
Purpose
Motivation is a widely explored topic and numerous studies have been done to determine motivation importance and implementation. However, no studies have been identified that investigate what motivators are most important to physicians and if physician leaders agree with the importance physicians place on specific motivational aspects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this missed management learning opportunity.
Design/methodology/approach
A fully inclusive sampling of all (n=2,547) public-practice physicians and physician leaders (clinic and hospital employed, non-private practice) in Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota was conducted in the summer and fall of 2013. The surveys were sent in a link via a web survey software program by the study researchers. The surveys were anonymous and minimally intrusive, asking only for perspectives regarding the most important motivational elements by physicians and physician leaders.
Findings
Generally, the responses were surprisingly similar between physicians and physician leaders. The two statistically different motivators – interesting work and job security – were ranked as more important by physicians than the physician leaders. This suggests that leaders should be more attentive to ensuring variety, challenge, and engagement is an active part of the physicians’ work. This also suggests that managers should emphasize and reinforce the fact that – if it is the case – jobs are secure and that staffing stability is a key goal for management. As Kovach (1987) suggests, as employees’ income increases, money becomes less of a motivator and as employees get older, interesting work becomes more of a motivator.
Research limitations/implications
Conclusions and generalizations can be made about the population sampled.
Practical implications
The two statistically different motivators – interesting work and job security – were ranked as more important by physicians than the physician leaders. This suggests that leaders should be more attentive to ensuring variety, challenge, and engagement is an active part of the physicians’ work. This also suggests that managers should emphasize and reinforce the fact that – if it is the case – jobs are secure and that staffing stability is a key goal for management.
Social implications
As this study reveals, physicians have clear preferences when it comes to workplace motivation. It is not unreasonable then to determine that the more satisfied the employee, the better he or she will perform. Accordingly, the environment that managers create for their employees must be one that is constructive to positive energy. If employees feel happy when they are working, then they will be naturally encouraged to work, thus producing improved quality healthcare for patients.
Originality/value
What are the most important motivators for physicians and do physician leaders understand what motivators are to enhance physician productivity, well-being, and morale? Answers to this question may be beneficial to designing leadership education that enhances the understanding of the impact effectively identified and effectively applied motivation techniques may have on employee behavior and attitudes. Insights will also benefit the design of motivational structures and methods in the healthcare workplace.
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Both the collapse of the financial system and the recent child protection scandals in the UK illustrate the limitations of the contract model for regulating social interactions…
Abstract
Both the collapse of the financial system and the recent child protection scandals in the UK illustrate the limitations of the contract model for regulating social interactions. This article argues that the economic orthodoxy that has dominated recent public policy in the affluent Anglophone countries is now discredited, and that the social value derived from communications and exchanges within cultures of empathy, respect and inclusion should supply criteria for evaluating interventions, and should replace contracts as means of sustaining quality in many aspects of services.
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Nadia Smaili, Paulina Arroyo and Faridath Antoinette Issa
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether large blockholders are associated with financial statement fraud at their companies. Although a substantial body of prior…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether large blockholders are associated with financial statement fraud at their companies. Although a substantial body of prior studies has focused on chief executive officers’ motivations to manipulate financial statements, the correlation between majority shareholders and financial statement fraud has received little attention. This paper aims to fill this gap by investigating whether the sample firms have controlling shareholders or executives (i.e. blockholders vs management) and whether financial statement fraud schemes, motivations and consequences differ between blockholder- and management-controlled firms.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a clinical approach, the authors Study 12 Canadian financial statement fraud cases uncovered by the Ontario Securities Commission between 1997 and 2020.
Findings
First, the authors find blockholder control in six cases. These findings infer that these large shareholders received private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. The comparative analyzes suggest that fraudulent firms controlled by blockholders go bankrupt more often than those controlled by managers. The authors also find that improper disclosure is the most common fraud scheme in blockholder-controlled firms.
Originality/value
The authors conduct a deep analysis of financial statement fraud cases to examine the of blockholder control on the likelihood of financial statement fraud. This paper adds new insights to the research on financial crime by investigating whether large shareholders affect the probability of fraud and the extent to which they might do so.
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General and Historical Works, Nevins, Allan. The Gateway to History. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963.
Purpose – To explore the ideological effects and social control potential of diagnostic biopsychiatry and encourage the sociology of diagnosis to retain key insights of early…
Abstract
Purpose – To explore the ideological effects and social control potential of diagnostic biopsychiatry and encourage the sociology of diagnosis to retain key insights of early medicalization scholarship.
Methodology – As the sociology of diagnosis emerges from medicalization, it is imperative that the new sub-specialty retains the critical edge of the early scholarship. With this in mind the paper reviews key aspects of the medicalization thesis, emphasizing the links between medical definitions and social control processes (e.g. Conrad, 1992; Conrad & Schneider, 1992; Zola, 1972). Based on this review scholars are urged to be mindful of the “diagnostic imaginary” -- a way of thinking that conceals the presence of the social in diagnoses, and which closes off critical analysis of the existential-connectedness and political nature of diagnoses.
Findings – The paradigm shift from dynamic to diagnostic psychiatry in DSM-III opened the door to a new biomedical model that has enhanced American psychiatry's scientific aura and prestige. With the increased presence and ordinariness of diagnoses in everyday life, an illusory view of diagnoses as scientific entities free of cultural ties has emerged, intensifying the dangers of medical social control.
Social implications – By illustrating that diagnoses are cultural objects imbued with political meaning, the ideological effects and social control potential of diagnostic biopsychiatry may be mitigated.
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Researchers have found many career and technical education administrators are not fully prepared for the unique challenges found in the administrative domain of career and…
Abstract
Researchers have found many career and technical education administrators are not fully prepared for the unique challenges found in the administrative domain of career and technical education (CTE). Tools for identifying specific needs of CTE administrators are lacking, thus prompting the development of the CTE Administrator Self- Efficacy (CASES) survey instrument. The CASES survey instrument can identify professional development and instructional training necessary for enhancing the CTE administrator’s leadership and management abilities. CTE administrators will benefit from the CASES self-assessment by identifying their strengths and weaknesses. CASES will affect change within the field of CTE, as it will set the stage for training and professional development needed to assure the success of CTE administrators as sound leaders of their school communities. CASES is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License and can be accessed at the following URL: https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/faculty/22/
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the many techniques used by physicians and psychiatrists to diagnose patients involved external and highly public…
Abstract
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the many techniques used by physicians and psychiatrists to diagnose patients involved external and highly public examination. Typically conducted as a lecture to other medical experts and students, the patient was placed in the center of a round room with onlookers arranged in tiered seating to guarantee an unobstructed view. As the lead physician detailed the list of symptoms, using the patient's body as an illustration, observers witnessed the behavioral signs for themselves and discussed the possible underlying conditions or pathologies. This process of consultation and naming worked to increase the relative reliability among experts and bolster the professional reputations of medicine and psychiatry alike (Conrad & Schneider, 1992; Gillis, 2006; Grob & Horwitz, 2010). As researchers have noted (Aronowitz, 2001; Foucault, 1973), this change from focusing on disparate, idiosyncratic symptoms as expressions of individual illness to a system that recognized disease states comprised of symptom clusters marks a historical turning point in the history of medicine. The shift toward a classification scheme that linked medicine with science and technology bolstered medical authority and the power of physicians. In addition to professional credentials, accumulated knowledge, and institutional legitimacy, the authority of modern medicine both rests on and is expressed by medicine's decisive power to name and categorize through diagnosis (Jutel, 2009). Even as medical prestige has eroded, ceding some of its power to other entities,1 physicians remain the final arbiter of official medical categories (Pescosolido, 2006), judges of what is, and what is not, a “real” diagnosis. In the diagnostic process, one looks within to reveal the nature of disease from without – empirical observation becomes immutable fact. Of course, as critical perspectives on medicine have long pointed out (Conrad & Schneider, 1992; Zola, 1972), the scientific “fact” of one time and place is the mythology or ignorance of another. Diagnosis, as both category and process (Blaxter, 1978), is infused with all manner of things social, historical, and cultural. This volume explores some of these infusions. In so doing, it aims to clarify and contribute to the emerging sociology of diagnosis – an endeavor first called for by Brown (1990), but more recently revived by Jutel (2009).
Purpose – To examine debates within the transgender rights movement over the GID diagnosis in order to demonstrate how diagnosis can be resisted as a source of stigma and social…
Abstract
Purpose – To examine debates within the transgender rights movement over the GID diagnosis in order to demonstrate how diagnosis can be resisted as a source of stigma and social control at the same time that it is embraced as a means of legitimating experience and gaining access to resources, including medical services.
Methodology/approach – This chapter draws on qualitative data from: in-depth interviews with transgender rights activists and advocates, participant observation in transgender health care and activism settings, and content analysis of print and web-based materials on transgender health.
Findings – Transgender rights activists and advocates overwhelmingly reject the pathologization of gender variance. However, some actors advocate complete demedicalization, while others advocate diagnostic reform. Actors' advocacy for each position is influenced by the perceived costs versus benefits of diagnosis.
Social implications – The findings of this research shed light on the multiple and often contradictory effects of diagnosis. Diagnoses can both normalize and stigmatize. They can function to allow or deny access to medical services and they can support or act as barriers to legal rights and protections. Understanding these contradictory effects is essential to understanding contests over diagnosis, including the contemporary debate over GID.
Originality/value of paper – Through examination of an intra-constituent contest over diagnosis, this research demonstrates the need to distinguish medicalization from pathologization and illustrates the importance of examining the multiple and contradictory effects of diagnosis, both in and outside of medical settings.