Stuart Barson, Robin Gauld, Jonathon Gray, Goran Henriks, Christina Krause, Peter Lachman, Lynne Maher, M. Rashad Massoud, Lee Mathias, Mike Wagner and Luis Villa
The purpose of this paper is to identify five quality improvement initiatives for healthcare system leaders, produced by such leaders themselves, and to provide some guidance on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify five quality improvement initiatives for healthcare system leaders, produced by such leaders themselves, and to provide some guidance on how these could be implemented.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-stage modified-Delphi process was used, blending the Delphi approach of iterative information collection, analysis and feedback, with the option for participants to revise their judgments.
Findings
The process reached consensus on five initiatives: change information privacy laws; overhaul professional training and work in the workplace; use co-design methods; contract for value and outcomes across health and social care; and use data from across the public and private sectors to improve equity for vulnerable populations and the sickest people.
Research limitations/implications
Information could not be gathered from all participants at each stage of the modified-Delphi process, and the participants did not include patients and families, potentially limiting the scope and nature of input.
Practical implications
The practical implications are a set of findings based on what leaders would bring to a decision-making table in an ideal world if given broad scope and capacity to make policy and organisational changes to improve healthcare systems.
Originality/value
This study adds to the literature a suite of recommendations for healthcare quality improvement, produced by a group of experienced healthcare system leaders from a range of contexts.
Details
Keywords
Stuart Barson, Fiona Doolan-Noble, Jonathon Gray and Robin Gauld
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contextual factors contributing to the sustainability of healthcare quality improvement (QI) initiatives.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contextual factors contributing to the sustainability of healthcare quality improvement (QI) initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Themes from semi-structured interviews with international healthcare leaders are compared with Kaplan and Provost et al.’s (2012) model for understanding success in quality (MUSIQ). Critical success factors within these themes are shown in detail.
Findings
The interviews provide a rich source of information on critical success factors. The themes largely correspond with MUSIQ, reinforcing its robustness. An important factor emerging from the interviews was the importance of engagement with patients and families in QI, and this needs consideration in seeking to understand context in QI.
Research limitations/implications
Interview participants represent a limited set of western countries and health systems. Their experiences may not hold true in other settings.
Practical implications
The detail on critical success factors provides QI practitioners with guidance on designing and implementing sustainable initiatives.
Originality/value
Including consideration of contextual factors for engagement with patients and families in frameworks for context in QI appears to be an original idea that will add value to such frameworks. Researchers in patient engagement are starting to address contextual factors and connections should be made with this work.
Details
Keywords
Jeffrey Braithwaite, Kristiana Ludlow, Kate Churruca, Wendy James, Jessica Herkes, Elise McPherson, Louise A. Ellis and Janet C. Long
Much work about health reform and systems improvement in healthcare looks at shortcomings and universal problems facing health systems, but rarely are accomplishments dissected…
Abstract
Purpose
Much work about health reform and systems improvement in healthcare looks at shortcomings and universal problems facing health systems, but rarely are accomplishments dissected and analyzed internationally. The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap by examining the lessons learned from health system reform and improvement efforts in 60 countries.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 60 low-, middle- and high-income countries provided a case study of successful health reform, which was gathered into a compendium as a recently published book. Here, the extensive source material was re-examined through inductive content analysis to derive broad themes of systems change internationally.
Findings
Nine themes were identified: improving policy, coverage and governance; enhancing the quality of care; keeping patients safe; regulating standards and accreditation; organizing care at the macro-level; organizing care at the meso- and micro-level; developing workforces and resources; harnessing technology and IT; and making collaboratives and partnerships work.
Practical implications
These themes provide a model of what constitutes successful systems change across a wide sample of health systems, offering a store of knowledge about how reformers and improvement initiators achieve their goals.
Originality/value
Few comparative international studies of health systems include a sufficiently wide selection of low-, middle- and high-income countries in their analysis. This paper provides a more balanced approach to consider where achievements are being made across healthcare, and what we can do to replicate and spread successful examples of systems change internationally.
Details
Keywords
Jonathon Mackay, Albert Munoz and Matthew Pepper
The purpose of this paper is to construct a typology of a disaster that informs humanitarian-relief supply chain (HRSC) design across the stages of disaster relief.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to construct a typology of a disaster that informs humanitarian-relief supply chain (HRSC) design across the stages of disaster relief.
Design/methodology/approach
In addition to an interdisciplinary review of pertinent literature, this paper utilises a typology construction method to propose theoretically and methodologically sound dimensions of disasters.
Findings
Whilst semantic arguments surrounding the concept of a “disaster” are ongoing, the authors propose three typologies based upon six dimensions that serve as interdependent variables informing resultant HRSC design considerations. These are speed of onset, time horizon, spatial considerations, affected population needs, perceived probability of occurrence and perceived magnitude of consequence. These combinational and independent relationships of the variables offer insight into key HRSC design-making considerations.
Research limitations/implications
The study improves conceptual knowledge of disasters, distilling the concept to only the dimensions applicable to HRSC design, omitting other applications. The typologies provide empirical cell types based on extant literature, but do not apply the models towards new or future phenomena.
Practical implications
This paper provides HRSC practitioners with normative guidance through a more targeted approach to disaster relief, with a focus on the impacted system and resulting interactions’ correspondence to HRSC design.
Originality/value
This paper provides three typological models of disasters uniquely constructed for HRSC design across the various stages of disaster relief.
Details
Keywords
Arieh Riskin, Peter Bamberger, Amir Erez and Aya Zeiger
Incivility is widespread in the workplace and has been shown to have significant affective and behavioral consequences. However, the authors still have a limited understanding as…
Abstract
Incivility is widespread in the workplace and has been shown to have significant affective and behavioral consequences. However, the authors still have a limited understanding as to whether, how and when discrete incivility events impact team performance. Adopting a resource depletion perspective and focusing on the cognitive implications of such events, the authors introduce a multi-level model linking the adverse effects of such events on team members’ working memory – the “workbench” of the cognitive system where most planning, analyses, and management of goals occur – to team effectiveness. The model which the authors develop proposes that that uncivil interpersonal behavior in general, and rudeness – a central manifestation of incivility – in particular, may place a significant drain on individuals’ working memory capacity, affecting team effectiveness via its effects on individual performance and coordination-related team emergent states and action-phase processes. In the context of this model, the authors offer an overarching framework for making sense of disparate findings regarding how, why and when incivility affects performance outcomes at multiple levels. More specifically, the authors use this framework to: (a) suggest how individual-level cognitive impairment and weakened coordinative team processes may mediate these incivility-based effects, and (b) explain how event, context, and individual difference factors moderators may attenuate or exacerbate these cognition-mediated effects.
Details
Keywords
Kristine M. Kuhn, Jeroen Meijerink and Anne Keegan
This work examines the intersection between traditional human resource management and the novel employment arrangements of the expanding gig economy. While there is a substantial…
Abstract
This work examines the intersection between traditional human resource management and the novel employment arrangements of the expanding gig economy. While there is a substantial multidisciplinary literature on the digital platform labor phenomenon, it has been largely centered on the experiences of gig workers. As digital labor platforms continue to grow and specialize, more managers, executives, and human resource practitioners will need to make decisions about whether and how to utilize gig workers. Here the authors explore and interrogate the unique features of human resource management (HRM) activities in the context of digital labor platforms. The authors discuss challenges and opportunities regarding (1) HRM in organizations that outsource labor needs to external labor platforms, (2) HRM functions within digital labor platform firms, and (3) HRM policies and practices for organizations that develop their own spin-off digital labor platform. To foster a more nuanced understanding of work in the gig economy, the authors identify common themes across these contexts, highlight knowledge gaps, offer recommendations for future research, and outline pathways for collecting empirical data on HRM in the gig economy.
Details
Keywords
Martin Götz and Ernest H. O’Boyle
The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and…
Abstract
The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).
Details
Keywords
Samantha A. Conroy and John W. Morton
Organizational scholars studying compensation often place an emphasis on certain employee groups (e.g., executives). Missing from this discussion is research on the compensation…
Abstract
Organizational scholars studying compensation often place an emphasis on certain employee groups (e.g., executives). Missing from this discussion is research on the compensation systems for low-wage jobs. In this review, the authors argue that workers in low-wage jobs represent a unique employment group in their understanding of rent allocation in organizations. The authors address the design of compensation strategies in organizations that lead to different outcomes for workers in low-wage jobs versus other workers. Drawing on and integrating human resource management (HRM), inequality, and worker literatures with compensation literature, the authors describe and explain compensation systems for low-wage work. The authors start by examining workers in low-wage work to identify aspects of these workers’ jobs and lives that can influence their health, performance, and other organizationally relevant outcomes. Next, the authors explore the compensation systems common for this type of work, building on the compensation literature, by identifying the low-wage work compensation designs, proposing the likely explanations for why organizations craft these designs, and describing the worker and organizational outcomes of these designs. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research in this growing field and explore how organizations may benefit by rethinking their approach to compensation for low-wage work. In sum, the authors hope that this review will be a foundational work for those interested in investigating organizational compensation issues at the intersection of inequality and worker and organizational outcomes.
Details
Keywords
Lillian T. Eby, Melissa M. Robertson and David B. Facteau
Interest in employee mindfulness has increased dramatically in recent years, fueled by several important conceptual articles, numerous studies documenting the benefits of…
Abstract
Interest in employee mindfulness has increased dramatically in recent years, fueled by several important conceptual articles, numerous studies documenting the benefits of mindfulness for employee outcomes, and the adoption of mindfulness-based practices in many Fortune 500 organizations. Despite this growing interest, the vast majority of research on employee mindfulness has taken an intrapersonal focus, failing to appreciate the ways in which mindfulness may enhance work-related relational processes and outcomes. The authors explore possible associations between mindfulness and relationally oriented workplace phenomena, drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship examining mindfulness in romantic relationships, child–parent relationships, patient–healthcare provider relationships, and student–teacher relationships. A framework is proposed that links mindfulness to three distinct relationally oriented processes, which are expected to have downstream effects on work-related relational outcomes. The authors then take the proposed framework and discuss possible extensions to a variety of unique workplace relationships and discuss critical next steps in advancing the relational science of mindfulness.
Details
Keywords
Allison S. Gabriel, David F. Arena, Charles Calderwood, Joanna Tochman Campbell, Nitya Chawla, Emily S. Corwin, Maira E. Ezerins, Kristen P. Jones, Anthony C. Klotz, Jeffrey D. Larson, Angelica Leigh, Rebecca L. MacGowan, Christina M. Moran, Devalina Nag, Kristie M. Rogers, Christopher C. Rosen, Katina B. Sawyer, Kristen M. Shockley, Lauren S. Simon and Kate P. Zipay
Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being…
Abstract
Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being. Missing from this discussion is how – from a human resources management (HRM) perspective – organizations and managers can directly and positively shape the well-being of their employees. The authors use this review to paint a picture of what organizations could be like if they valued people holistically and embraced the full experience of employees’ lives to promote well-being at work. In so doing, the authors tackle five challenges that managers may have to help their employees navigate, but to date have received more limited empirical and theoretical attention from an HRM perspective: (1) recovery at work; (2) women’s health; (3) concealable stigmas; (4) caregiving; and (5) coping with socio-environmental jolts. In each section, the authors highlight how past research has treated managerial or organizational support on these topics, and pave the way for where research needs to advance from an HRM perspective. The authors conclude with ideas for tackling these issues methodologically and analytically, highlighting ways to recruit and support more vulnerable samples that are encapsulated within these topics, as well as analytic approaches to study employee experiences more holistically. In sum, this review represents a call for organizations to now – more than ever – build thriving organizations.