Altmann Peter and Engberg Robert
High technology innovation performance relies on a skilful utilization of human resources. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of interpreted outcome and…
Abstract
High technology innovation performance relies on a skilful utilization of human resources. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of interpreted outcome and process uncertainties on the effective management of human resources for technology innovation. This is achieved through an insider-outsider based case study approach of three medical device innovations with varying degrees of radicalness. Findings suggest that uncertainties in process and outcome strongly influence what constitutes effective management of human resources for technology innovation. Findings also offer insights into when certain innovation theories hold, and suggestions on how to manage human resources and technology innovation under various conditions of uncertainty.
Robert Engberg, Sven-Åke Hörte and Magnus Lundbäck
– The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of the link between human capital and strategy across hierarchies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of the link between human capital and strategy across hierarchies.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data on personality traits as a proxy for strategy implementation success, empirical data included 1,738 Operational Personality Questionnaire personality traits assessments in one large multinational firm. Respondents spanned from top-management to white-collar employees. Besides personality traits, measures include employment level and employment status. In addition, a total of 43 interviews were performed on the employee-level, with middle managers, with senior managers, and with executive-level managers.
Findings
After a strategic shift, successful implementation of a human resource management (HRM) strategy decreased down through the hierachies. This has implications for a firm trying to realign its resources to a new strategy. If the strategic shift is large, this will pose a great problem as human capital further down in the hierarchy will not be aligned to the new strategy, but rather be aligned to the old strategy.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are discussed using the concept of the strategic centre of gravity. The authors elaborate on the concept in terms of the origin, mass, and inertia of the strategic centre of gravity.
Practical implications
A successful strategic shift in this sense will to a great extent depend on how successful the implementation is at lower levels of hierarchy, thus pointing to the importance to considering this when designing and pursuing strategic change.
Originality/value
The research contributes to the HRM literature by furthering the understanding of aligning human capital on different organizational levels to strategy and by developing the concept of the strategic centre of gravity.
Details
Keywords
Beginning in 2003, Walter Allen co-convened and codirected an international consortium of scholars dedicated to examining the “Implications, Challenges and Lessons from Increased…
Abstract
Beginning in 2003, Walter Allen co-convened and codirected an international consortium of scholars dedicated to examining the “Implications, Challenges and Lessons from Increased Student Diversity in Higher Education” (http://choices.gseis.ucla.edu/21stcentury/). The larger group includes 35 scholars from fourteen different nations and five continents who are concerned with diversity in higher education. For our purposes, diversity is broadly defined to encompass not only race/ethnicity but also gender, language, citizenship, social class, culture, and region as significant in each national system of status hierarchy. The inaugural meeting of the consortium was held at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy.
Robert Weech-Maldonado, Akbar Ghiasi, Justin Lord, Ganisher Davlyatov, Larry Hearld, Ferhat Devrim Zengul and Kent Rondeau
Nursing homes experience high nursing staff turnover. Nursing staff in nursing homes is comprised of gray and blue collar workers that include registered nurses (RNs), licensed…
Abstract
Nursing homes experience high nursing staff turnover. Nursing staff in nursing homes is comprised of gray and blue collar workers that include registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and certified nurse assistants (CNAs). The relationship between human resource management (HRM)practices, organizational culture, and nursing staff turnover is examined in underresourced (high Medicaid) nursing homes. Survey data from 348 nursing home administrators (NHAs) of USA high Medicaid (85% or higher) facilities were merged with secondary data sources for 2017–2018. The dependent variables (nursing staff turnover rates) consisted of the percentages of RNs, LPNs, and CNAs that had voluntarily quit the organization during the past year. The independent variables were: (1) HRM practices (employee-centered and high involvement practices); and (2) organizational culture: clan, market, hierarchical, and non-dominant. Organizational and market variables were controlled for. Data were modeled using Poisson log-linear regression, and propensity score weights were used to adjust for potential survey non-response bias. Results show high involvement HRM practices and having a clan culture are associated with lower RN, LPN, and CNA staffing turnover. Study findings suggest that organizational culture and HRM practices may be instrumental in reducing nursing turnover in underresourced nursing homes.
Details
Keywords
Capacity development in fragile environments in Africa has often proven to be a complex undertaking. This has largely been because of existing knowledge gaps on what exactly…
Abstract
Capacity development in fragile environments in Africa has often proven to be a complex undertaking. This has largely been because of existing knowledge gaps on what exactly causes fragility of states, the economy and society. The liberal peace development model that generally informs post‐conflict reconstruction and capacity development has a limited conception of fragility by narrowly focusing on the national dimensions of the problem, promoting donor‐driven solutions, emphasizing minimal participation of beneficiary actors in the identification and prioritization of capacity development needs, and by subcontracting the design and management of projects and programs. The resulting capacity development impact has generally been disappointing. In the absence of homegrown strategic plans, stakeholder participation and ownership, international development partners have all too often addressed capacity gaps by financing training, supply of equipment and professional exchanges of parliamentarians and parliamentary staffers. These efforts usually achieved their presumed number targets but tended to ignore addressing the larger issues of political economy within which capacity development take place. However, the recent re‐conceptualization of parliamentary capacity development as a development of nationally owned, coordinated, harmonized, and aligned development activities seems to be gaining growing attention in Africa. As the experience of Rwanda eloquently demonstrates, capacity development is essentially about politics, economics and power, institutions and incentives, habits and attitudes – factors that are only partly susceptible to technical fixes and quantitative specifications. These structural factors have to be negotiated carefully and tactfully.
Details
Keywords
Olga Acosta Price, B. Heidi Ellis, Pia V. Escudero, Kristen Huffman-Gottschling, Mark A. Sander and Dina Birman
Purpose – This chapter discusses the promise of and challenges to providing effective and culturally responsive trauma-focused mental health services to immigrant and refugee…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter discusses the promise of and challenges to providing effective and culturally responsive trauma-focused mental health services to immigrant and refugee youth and their families within school settings.
Design/methodology/approach – This chapter utilizes “practice-based evidence” to outline successes and address the barriers associated with the implementation of school-based, trauma-focused, evidence-based interventions in four immigrant or refugee-dense cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Boston.
Findings – Making cultural adaptations to identified trauma interventions that were consistent with community priorities, cultural norms, and values resulted in more accessible programs and greater engagement in treatment services.
Practical implications – The strategies tested in these real-world settings contribute to the development of culturally competent trauma-informed services for immigrant and refugee youth and their families. Mental health providers and program developers will better understand the need for multilevel engagement strategies and for culturally driven modifications when employing evidence-based programs with immigrant and refugee youth.
Originality/value – This chapter adds to the scarce evidence about useful methods to engage immigrant and refugee youth and families in treatment and to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes.
Details
Keywords
What is the role of the state in gendering transnational migration? Although a central question to studies of the migration–gender nexus, Pessar and Mahler (2003) maintain that…
Abstract
What is the role of the state in gendering transnational migration? Although a central question to studies of the migration–gender nexus, Pessar and Mahler (2003) maintain that our existing knowledge concerning this relationship is still rudimentary (cf. Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2003). In the few studies that have sought to uncover this dynamic, the investigative focus has been on the role of sending countries. For instance, in Goldring's (2001) classic study, we learned that Mexican state policies/programmes have contributed to biasing political representation of the two sexes in favour of men in transnational spaces. Similarly, Tyner (1999) uncovered the importance of national policies in gendering migration from the Philippines. He reported that the government's decision to pursue an economic strategy premised on export of labour has effectively ensured that its citizens fulfilled the gendered roles specified by foreign demands (i.e. men for construction in the Middle East, and women for domestic work in Asia) (Tyner, 1999, pp. 683–684).1
Emil Lucian Crisan, Diana Maria Chis, Eniko Elisabeta Bodea and Robert Buchmann
This paper reviews existing research to understand when, how and with what results robotic process automation (RPA) is implemented by organizations.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reviews existing research to understand when, how and with what results robotic process automation (RPA) is implemented by organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have identified 84 sources across eight databases and have analyzed them through the lens of a context–intervention–mechanism–outcomes framework (CIMO). The CIMO analysis maps the contextual drivers, intervention approaches and value related outcomes associated with RPA implementation.
Findings
The result of the analysis is the identification of four mechanisms explaining the approach organizations take to implement RPA: digitizing business processes, performing knowledge work together with humans, replacing outsourcing with RPA robots and developing a new business model. Therefore, in this paper, in order to reduce RPA literature fragmentation, the authors take into account the digital transformation (DT) perspective, by considering RPA as one example of digital technology.
Practical implications
This study sensitize organizational adopters to the different mechanisms they can deploy to conduct RPA implementations to achieve different desired outcomes in response to different drivers. Moreover, having a clear picture of the key enablers and associated barriers to the realization of these alternative paths serve as a useful map to guide the implementation process.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to DT research by conceptualizing these mechanisms through which organizations deploy automation tools—such as RPA.
Details
Keywords
Kris Siddharthan, Melissa Ahern and Robert Rosenman
Estimates a total effects cost function using a national 1994 health maintenance organization (HMO) data set to examine and update findings related to HMO efficiency. The cost…
Abstract
Estimates a total effects cost function using a national 1994 health maintenance organization (HMO) data set to examine and update findings related to HMO efficiency. The cost function controls for ownership characteristics (profit status and ownership), size, enrollment diversity, regional location, product diversity, model type, payment characteristics, and years of operation. While not explicitly controlling for quality or acuity, measures of plan and enrollee diversity help control for acuity and quality. Results show that most of the difference in cost efficiency between HMOs is explained by factors specific to the HMO, including efficiencies of scale and scope, lower levels of Medicare patients, and efficient levels of capital. The study also shows that for‐profits are more efficient than non‐profits because they rely less on withhold pools to control costs. Limitations of the study include weak controls for quality of care, and limited data related to payment characteristics.
Details
Keywords
Karthik Kumar Santhanaraj, Ramya M.M. and Dinakaran D.
The rousing phenomenon of the ageing population is becoming a vital issue and demanding fulminant actions. Population ageing is a resultant of the enhanced health-care system…
Abstract
Purpose
The rousing phenomenon of the ageing population is becoming a vital issue and demanding fulminant actions. Population ageing is a resultant of the enhanced health-care system, groovy antibiotics, medications and economic well-being. Old age leads to copious amounts of ailments. Aged people, owing to their reduced mobility and enervating disabilities, tend to rely upon caretakers and/or nursing personnel. With the increasing vogue of nuclear families in the society, the elderly are at the risk of being unveiled to emotional, physical and fiscal insecurities in the years to come. Caring for those seniors will be an enormous undertaking.
Design/methodology/approach
There is a dire need for an intelligent assistive system to meet out the requirements of continuous holistic care and monitoring. Assistive robots and systems used for elderly care are studied. The design motivation for the robots, elderly–robot interaction capabilities and technology incorporated in the systems are examined meticulously.
Findings
From the survey, it is suggested that the subsystems of an assistive robot revamped for better human–machine interactions will be a potential alternative to the human counterpart. Affirmable advancements in the robot design and interaction methodologies that would increase the holistic care and assistance for aged people are analyzed and listed.
Originality/value
This paper reviews the available assistive technologies and suggests a synergistic model that can be adopted for the caring of the elderly.