Gerard F. Carvalho and David P. Kirch
Ohio University’s MBA program is designed accord‐ing to the principals of problem‐based learning. The curriculum has no courses. Rather, it is organized around problems like those…
Abstract
Ohio University’s MBA program is designed accord‐ing to the principals of problem‐based learning. The curriculum has no courses. Rather, it is organized around problems like those the students will encounter after graduation. Pre‐ and post‐program assessments are used to measure changes in knowledge and skills. Students are required to complete a program assignment in a foreign country. The paper describes the process by which Ohio University made the change from a traditional curriculum to a problem‐based curriculum, includes examples of problems, and includes lessons learned during the past decade.
Details
Keywords
The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive…
Abstract
The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.
This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.
The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.
This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.
Details
Keywords
Katarzyna Piwowar-Sulej and Qaisar Iqbal
Based on the social exchange theory, the aim of the present study is to examine the effects, both direct and indirect (through sustainability-oriented innovative behaviors…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the social exchange theory, the aim of the present study is to examine the effects, both direct and indirect (through sustainability-oriented innovative behaviors [SIBs]), of sustainable project leadership (SPL) on sustainable project performance (SPP). Project management approaches (PMAs) (traditional, hybrid and agile) were examined as conditional factors in the “SPL–SIBs” relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs structural equation modeling based on data collected from 197 software engineering project team members working in the financial industry in Poland.
Findings
The study revealed that SPL significantly, positively affected SPP. It also provided evidence for the significant mediating impact of SIBs in the relationship between SPL and SPP and the conditional effect of agile and hybrid PMAs on the “SPL–SIBs” relationship.
Originality/value
The novelty of this work lies in introducing sustainable leadership into project management research, proposing and testing a unique and complex research framework, designing valid scales for measuring SPL and SPP, and suggesting many theoretical and empirical implications.
Details
Keywords
Rania Albsoul, Muhammad Ahmed Alshyyab, Baraa Ayed Al Odat, Nermeen Borhan Al Dwekat, Batool Emad Al-masri, Fatima Abdulsattar Alkubaisi, Salsabil Awni Flefil, Majd Hussein Al-Khawaldeh, Ragad Ayman Sa'ed, Maha Waleed Abu Ajamieh and Gerard Fitzgerald
The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of operating room staff towards the use of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist in a tertiary hospital…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of operating room staff towards the use of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist in a tertiary hospital in Jordan.
Design/methodology/approach
This was a qualitative descriptive study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 21 healthcare staff employed in the operating room (nurses, residents, surgeons and anaesthesiologists). The interviews were conducted in the period from October to December 2021. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.
Findings
Three main themes emerged from data analysis namely compliance with the surgical safety checklist, the impact of surgical safety checklist, and barriers and facilitators to the use of the surgical safety checklist. The use of the checklist was seen as enabling staff to communicate effectively and thus to accomplish patient safety and positive outcomes. The perceived barriers to compliance included excessive workload, congestion and lack of training and awareness. Enhanced training and education were thought to improve the utilization of the surgical safety checklist, and help enhance awareness about its importance.
Originality/value
While steps to utilize the surgical safety checklist by the operation room personnel may seem simple, the quality of its administration is not necessarily robust. There are several challenges for consistent, complete and effective administration of the surgical safety checklist by the surgical team members. Healthcare managers must employ interventions to eliminate barriers to and offer facilitators of adherence to the application of the surgical safety checklist, therefore promoting quality healthcare and patient safety.
Details
Keywords
THE old trouble caused by local authorities levying rates on Public Libraries has been coming to the fore in several places lately. There is usually a great deal of discussion…
Abstract
THE old trouble caused by local authorities levying rates on Public Libraries has been coming to the fore in several places lately. There is usually a great deal of discussion, but little is done to clear the ground. It has been decided that Public Libraries are liable to be assessed for local rates, and no amount of talking will alter that position at present. But something can be done to try to induce the local authorities to abandon their present endeavour to “bring everything into line” (as some of them have it) by making Public Libraries pay full rates. While it is perfectly legal to make Public Libraries pay these rates, yet it does not seem to be understood clearly that the local assessment committees have full discretion in the application of this legal power. They have the power to assess fully, nominally, or not at all. We put this emphatically because some of the statements we have seen indicate that there is a belief in certain districts that the rates must be levied. Now the payment of full or any large proportion of local rates is a serious item in the limited expenditure of a Public Library; and at the same time it is a negligible addition to the general income of a locality. In other words, this sum of money is a mere drop in the bucket to the locality as a whole, while it may mean all the difference between efficiency and stagnation to the Public Library. From a purely business point of view it seems somewhat futile to levy a certain limited amount of money for the maintenance of a Public Library, and then to cripple that institution by diverting a portion of that money in the direction of sewers, roads, or any of the other departments of municipal activity, none of which is similarly limited in its expenditure. What has to be done therefore, is to emphasize the permissive nature of powers of the local assessment committees, and to try and obtain either exemption from rates, or at most a nominal assessment.
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights toward the potential of lean healthcare organization for environment sustainability and develop propositions for future studies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights toward the potential of lean healthcare organization for environment sustainability and develop propositions for future studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper to study the inbuilt capacity of lean healthcare organization to mitigate environmental footprint. As a result, lean compatibility with environmental sustainability (ES) has been explored in areas like manufacturing, supply chain, aviation, construction, etc. The lean philosophy, lean culture and lean tools were analyzed to identify their contribution to ES in the context of healthcare organizations.
Findings
Based on the analysis of lean philosophy, culture and tool, this paper theorizes that lean healthcare organizations have huge potential to mitigate environmental footprints. Lean healthcare organizations need not to do any extra effort for ES albeit it is inbuilt in it. Lean philosophy provides a vision to the healthcare organization for ES whereas lean culture bestow healthcare with an epistemology for the same.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides insight that ES is embedded in lean healthcare organizations. Lean healthcare organizational culture is ideal for application for constructivism theory where employees construct a new knowledge from their experiences to minimize the waste that eventually help in ES.
Originality/value
Major contributions of the study include a new approach for mitigating the environmental footprints by adopting lean in healthcare organization.
Details
Keywords
Muhammad A. Alshyyab, Rania A. Albsoul, Frances B. Kinnear, Rami A. Saadeh, Sireen M. Alkhaldi, Erika Borkoles and Gerard Fitzgerald
Patient safety culture is a vital element to create patient safety in healthcare organisations. Emergency department (ED) professionals operate in unstable conditions that may…
Abstract
Purpose
Patient safety culture is a vital element to create patient safety in healthcare organisations. Emergency department (ED) professionals operate in unstable conditions that may pose risk to patient safety on day-to-day basis. The aim of this study was to assess the status of patient safety culture and to quantify the dimensions of safety culture in the ED setting.
Design/methodology/approach
This was a descriptive cross sectional study that used a validated questionnaire distributed to the staff working in the nominated EDs . Perceptions on various dimensions of safety culture were reported and the frequency of positive responses for each dimension was calculated.
Findings
“Teamwork” is the only dimension that rated positive by over 70% of participants. Other dimensions rated below 50%, except for “Organisational learning–continuous improvement” which rated 51.2%. Areas that rated the lowest were “Handover and transitions”, “Staffing”, “Non-punitive response to error” and “Frequency of event reporting” with average positive response rate of 15.4%, 26%, 26.8% and 27.6%, respectively.
Originality/value
This study displayed a concerning perceptions held by participants about the deficiency of patient safety culture in their EDs. Moreover, it provided a baseline finding giving a clearer vision of the areas of patient safety culture that need improvement.