Search results

Public and private sector managers make investment decisions under uncertainty. Economic efficiency requires that managers who wish to maximize expected utility use NPV. A field test reports that a lower proportion of public managers (20%) utilize NPV than private managers (46%). This difference is significant at p = .01 in both logistic regression and chi-square tests for three competing, but not mutually exclusive, reasons. First, taxpayers are a primary source of capital. Taxation decisions are primarily political events and inefficiency is less likely to be disciplined by capital withdrawal. Second, it is more difficult to estimate expected benefits and costs. Third, investment decisions are often the result of political, not economic, processes. The objective may not be maximization of NPV.

Creating an effective work system entails linking executive strategy to operation objectives. Intranets can be that linking tool. Intranets have primarily been limited to information sharing, but they can be a powerful collaborative tool. New software makes it easier to use the Intranet to implement strategy by creating a management‐by‐exception (MBE) console. The Intranet, when combined with the proper groundwork and software, makes it easy for group members to see the results of their work and compare that to where they want to go. Rapid feedback, which the Intranet can deliver, encourages a flexible control that is the ideal for self‐directed work. When used properly, it can be used to give your organization a clearer picture of your group’s true priorities rather than some idealized managerial priorities.

DO you recall the June Editorial wherein we asked you to write to your MP protesting about the increased postal rates? And we, for our part, sent out over 600 copies of “Work Study” to MPs containing the Leader in question. So you might think some sort of action would be generated.

Has the recession been a significant factor in bringing about changes in the recruitment process? Have personnel managers taken advantage of it to alter their practices, make their procedures more rigorous, sharpen up or introduce tougher criteria? Alternatively has the recession taken the pressure off managers so that they no longer need to seek new and more effective ways of recruiting?

This paper aims to provide a history of relational perspectives in marketing practice from the nineteenth through to the twentieth century.

This paper engages in a systematic reading of published histories of retailing practice using the key attributes of transaction and relationship marketing as a conceptual framework to interrogate whether earlier practitioners were committed to either approach.

This paper supplements the studies conducted in other domains that undermine the idea that relational practices were rejected in favor of transaction-type approaches during the industrialization of the USA and Canada.

The content of this paper provides textbook authors with a means to fundamentally revise the way they discuss relationship marketing. It has a similar pedagogic utility.

This paper studies the writings of practitioners known to be pioneers of retailing to unravel their business philosophies, comparing and contrasting these to known attributes of relationship marketing. It deals with an historical period that has not previously been studied in this level of detail by marketing historians.

High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.

However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.

The purpose of this article is to discuss using the intranet to build teamwork.

The author provides a useful viewpoint on using the intranet to build teamwork.

Many organizations are attempting to use teams and allowing these employees to engage in self‐directed work. To be successful these teams must work in an integrated, collaborative fashion toward an organizational goal or vision. One of the keys to this success is having rapid, meaningful feedback about performance for all team members. It is argued that the intranet combined with current visualization software can provide not only such feedback but also help the team stay focused and become more integrated.

Provides a useful discussion on using the intranet to build teamwork.

Gallstone‐related illnesses are one of the most common reasons for emergency hospital admissions, often with serious complications. Standard treatment of uncomplicated gallstone‐disease is by laparoscopic cholecystectomy, which can be safely and cost‐effectively performed during a short hospital stay or as day‐case. This paper aims to evaluate the referral pattern of patients with gallstones, which treatment is given and whether patients admitted as emergency could have benefited from earlier elective referral. The management of these patients is examined in the context of payment by results to determine cost and potential savings.

The approach takens was prospective clinical audit and patient questionnaire in a district general hospital. Cost comparisons were made using secondary care income (NHS tariff) and estimated cost of hospitalisation, investigations and treatment.

Between May and July 2007, 114 patients were admitted with symptomatic gallstones, 62 (54.4 per cent) were emergencies. Cholecystectomy was performed in all 52 elective patients and performed or planned for 59/62 (95.2 per cent) emergencies. A total 17/62 emergencies (27.4 per cent) presented with complications of gallstones. 38/62 (61.3 per cent) had similar symptoms before, with 21/38 (55.3 per cent) diagnosed in primary care or by another hospital department. 11 (52.4 per cent) of these had not been referred for a surgical opinion; taking account of age, co‐morbidity and data acquired for elective admissions, the cost of their treatment could have been reduced by at least £16,194.

A large proportion of patients admitted with symptomatic biliary disease could have been referred earlier and electively. Such referral practice could improve the quality of care and reduce cost for the NHS both in primary and secondary care.