The purpose of this paper is to examine different processes four organizations use to achieve best practices. There is an apparent contradiction between projects designed to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine different processes four organizations use to achieve best practices. There is an apparent contradiction between projects designed to create innovation and rigid rule following used for productivity. While both contribute to best practices this study describes a third source. Employees disobeyed rules and, in some cases, the results became best practices. This study identifies three management responses to deviant employee behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a multi-case field study design built upon organizational theory in the area of work structures. It uses qualitative methods based on grounded theory. Interviews, observations and archival data were used to triangulate findings. Four firms were selected to participate. One global and one regional accounting firm were compared and contrasted with one global and one regional manufacturing firm.
Findings
The paper provides insights about how change occurs not only from intentional innovation but also from disobeying rigid rules designed to enhance productivity. It also highlights three specific management responses to deviant behavior and the conditions under which each is selected.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the chosen research approach, this research may not be easily generalized. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to further test the proposed conclusions. The paper expands organizational routine theory to examine how improvisation may change the structure of a formal work process.
Practical implications
The paper includes management implications. It suggests that rigid conformance to rules may inhibit a possible source of best practice innovation and gives management potential reasons to rethink imposed constraints.
Social implications
Relationships of supervisory action to employee performance and productivity become more important when innovation and efficiency are sought in an organization. These relationships should be examined with a specific outcome in mind. There may be a choice between control and discovery that will require further consideration by management.
Originality/value
Many studies look at processes, procedures and organizational routines, most assuming that what is designed is implemented. Others consider deviant behavior usually in a negative light. This paper provides insights into non-conforming actions by employees and the positive unexpected results that can occur, taking into consideration the studies that took this approach to innovation.
Details
Keywords
Hettie A. Richardson, Allen C. A mason, Ann K. Buchholtz and Joseph G. Gerard
Despite its strategic importance, researchers have given little attention to when CEOs are willing to delegate decisions to top management team members. Prior studies and…
Abstract
Despite its strategic importance, researchers have given little attention to when CEOs are willing to delegate decisions to top management team members. Prior studies and conventional wisdom suggest that CEOs will be more willing to delegate in times of good performance. Drawing from prospect theory, we suggest an alternative view: that CEOs will be risk‐averse and, therefore, less willing to delegate when their firms have performed well. Our findings provide support for both perspectives.
Economic ideas are the product of contemplation, but also of our economic lives. In the history of ideas, Gérard Debreu’s shining book of 1959, Theory of Value, represents the…
Abstract
Economic ideas are the product of contemplation, but also of our economic lives. In the history of ideas, Gérard Debreu’s shining book of 1959, Theory of Value, represents the pinnacle of purity in contemplating economic life. Rather than contextualizing this oeuvre through his intellectual life, as is usually done, this essay describes his axiomatic analysis by contextualizing it through his economic life. What do we learn about Debreu’s axioms on consumption when thinking of his own consumption? What do we learn about his theory of value when thinking of his own values? Historiographically, this approach permits the use of a widely neglected source in the history of economics: anecdotes. Epistemologically, blending axioms and anecdotes offers a description of how axioms regulate an economic discourse. Finally, this essay offers a language for the material dimensions of economic life that are so underexposed in Debreu’s own work.
Details
Keywords
Maiju Kyytsönen, Marco Tomietto, Moona Huhtakangas and Outi Kanste
The purpose of this study is to review research on hospital-based shared governance (SG), focussing on its core elements.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to review research on hospital-based shared governance (SG), focussing on its core elements.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review was conducted by searching the Medline (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), Medic, ABI/INFORM Collection (ProQuest) and SveMed+ databases using SG and related concepts in hospital settings as search terms (May 1998–February 2019). Only original research articles examining SG were included. The reference lists of the selected articles were reviewed. Data were extracted from the selected articles by charting and then subjected to a thematic analysis.
Findings
The review included 13 original research articles that examined SG in hospital settings. The studied organizations had implemented SG in different ways, and many struggled to obtain satisfactory results. SG was executed within individual professions or multiple professions and was typically implemented at both unit- and organization-levels. The thematic analysis revealed six core elements of SG as follows: professionalism, shared decision-making, evidence-based practice, continuous quality improvement, collaboration and empowerment.
Practical implications
An SG framework for hospital settings was developed based on the core elements of SG, the participants and the organizational levels involved. Hospitals considering SG should prepare for a time-consuming process that requires belief in the core elements of SG. The SG framework can be used as a tool to implement and strengthen SG in organizations.
Originality/value
The review resumes the tradition of systematically reviewing SG literature, which had not been done in the 21st century. General tendencies of the research scene and research gaps are pointed out.
Details
Keywords
Lemos&Crane has conducted a national survey of action to tackle racial harassment, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Two hundred and fifty organisations in the sixty‐seven…
Abstract
Lemos&Crane has conducted a national survey of action to tackle racial harassment, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Two hundred and fifty organisations in the sixty‐seven local authority areas in which the majority of black and minority ethnic people live were interviewed. The report has proposed a new framework for tackling racial harassment, with the intention of going beyond an acknowledgement of the problem to a truer understanding, not just of the extent of racist attacks, but also of their impact.
IN the less‐than‐a‐century in which children's literature has developed, many types of books have emerged, and perhaps one class—the moral story—has disappeared (or if not…
Abstract
IN the less‐than‐a‐century in which children's literature has developed, many types of books have emerged, and perhaps one class—the moral story—has disappeared (or if not entirely so, at least it is cold‐shouldered by modern young people). But the new literature has not displaced the fairy tale, one of the oldest forms, and still a favourite of children with imagination. A volume which should be added to the home bookshelf alongside Andersen, Grimm and Perrault, is Christina Hole's recently reprinted collection of tales from many lands entitled Folk Tales of Many Nations (H. Joseph, 10/6). They are related in a pleasant, straightforward style which presents no difficulties, and they are just long enough to hold the attention of young readers. In Norwegian Fairy Tales (Muller, 5/−) G. Strindberg has chosen old traditional folk legends about trolls, hulders, and other fairy people, and she has illustrated them herself. The Golden Treasury of Fairy Tales (Gulliver, 6/−) contains abridged and retold versions of childhood favourites by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Andersen, Frances Browne, and others. On the production side, the printing is rather lifeless and badly spaced. An interesting collection of tales handed down from father to son in the remote parts of the Irish countryside has been made by Gerard Murphy in Tales from Ireland (Browne and Nolan, 7/6). The volume is attractively produced and illustrated and will appeal to rather older boys and girls. Tom Scarlett's The Gnome and the Fairy and other Stories (Muller, 6/−) is in the modern vein and recounts the adventures of everyday people with fairies, wizards, birds and animals. Hettie Roe's simple line drawings are almost too tempting for children with a box of crayons.
The archives of François Perroux deposited at IMEC bear witness to the fact that he has devoted, beyond his scientific production, great energy to the most material aspects of…
Abstract
The archives of François Perroux deposited at IMEC bear witness to the fact that he has devoted, beyond his scientific production, great energy to the most material aspects of research: setting up and maintaining networks to publicize his work and that of other economists, either directly or through the institutes and the journals he headed; organize seminars and symposiums; take care of relations with colleagues and the press; create collections and journals; and so on.
In this chapter, we concentrate our attention on the archives relating to the management of the institutes, those attesting to the lines and themes of the producer’s research, and those concerning his important correspondence.
Thanks to the archives deposited at IMEC, it is possible to follow the development of the theoretical work of François Perroux by contextualizing it. They also show the itinerary of a Christian intellectual, whose attachment to social Catholicism constitutes a guiding thread and is reflected in all his activities. Finally, the archives illuminate his substantial role in the institutionalization of research in economics in the France of the twentieth century.
Details
Keywords
Robert Smith and Gerard McElwee
The purpose of this reflective paper is to discuss and reflect and in the process celebrate the development of a qualitative research stream which continues to interrogate the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this reflective paper is to discuss and reflect and in the process celebrate the development of a qualitative research stream which continues to interrogate the unusual topic of illegal rural enterprise. The authors discuss how a common interest in rural entrepreneurship and rural criminology led to a very productive and continuing research collaborations.
Design/methodology/approach
To discuss, reflect and evaluate several qualitative methodologies arising out of a research stream into illegal rural enterprise.
Findings
The findings are tentative and subjective in nature but the authors strongly believe that writing qualitatively over a number of related topics and over several published articles legitimises the use of niche qualitative research methods and methodologies. Ultimately it will help develop robust methodologies. The authors agree that just as there is no single, universally applicable theorisation of entrepreneurial behaviours, actions and antics there is no single qualitative methodology that provides constant explanations.
Research limitations/implications
This reflective paper being a subjective and emotive rhetorical piece has obvious limitations in that the advice proffered may be strongly disputed by research managers and heads of department trying to build an orthodox research output. Also the understanding of qualitative research may differ from that of other scholars. This is surely cause for celebration! This will help the authors better understand the heterogeneity of entrepreneurship.
Practical implications
By discussing and celebrating a qualitatively driven research stream rather than discussing individual qualitative publications in isolation this reflection makes a contribution. The professional and institutional pressures to conform to productive mainstream research topics capable of publication in top tier journals poses a danger to the practice of conducting qualitative research which exist at the margins of individual disciplines. It is hoped that this discussion will act as an inspirational beacon to others to pursue research agendas for which they have a passion.
Originality/value
This reflective piece identifies and discusses an under researched area of entrepreneurship research namely how to craft and develop a unified qualitative research stream at the margins of entrepreneurship research.
Details
Keywords
Looks at the shift in emphasis in Australia, from a historical perspective and examines the growing fears in the community that citizens may become disenfranchised as a result…
Abstract
Looks at the shift in emphasis in Australia, from a historical perspective and examines the growing fears in the community that citizens may become disenfranchised as a result. Argues that a slavish adherence to efficiency through technological advance risks undervaluing the complementarity of information in the community. Concludes that focusing on efficiency and quantification moves away from noting the constitutional and democratic scope of telecommunications.