The increasing interest in NHS Support Services as areas where costeffectiveness and improved provision of value for money can beintroduced has led to the Hotel Service concept in…
Abstract
The increasing interest in NHS Support Services as areas where cost effectiveness and improved provision of value for money can be introduced has led to the Hotel Service concept in recent years. The Government′s review of the NHS will have a major impact on the quality of hotel services in hospitals and there will be increased incentives for managers to engage in personal development programmes which will benefit the individual and the organisation.
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Examines the ′perceptual blueprinting technique′, a standardised method used to encourage service quality and effectiveness by identifying the organisation′s service delivery…
Abstract
Examines the ′perceptual blueprinting technique′, a standardised method used to encourage service quality and effectiveness by identifying the organisation′s service delivery system and any failure points it may have. Describes the research method used to generate perceptual blueprinting and provides a case example of its use in hotel services within National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the United Kingdom.
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Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of total quality managementefforts in service industries. An essential prerequisite in achievingthis goal is the detection and…
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Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of total quality management efforts in service industries. An essential prerequisite in achieving this goal is the detection and prevention of problems which the customer encounters in the service consumption process. Outlines the fundamental methodological approaches into the principles and methods of detection and prevention of service problems. Demonstrates, by a case study, how these approaches have been integrated in a systematic planning and communication tool that involves customers, management and front‐line employees in service quality improvement opportunities.
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Beth Sundstrom, Rowena Lyn Briones and Melissa Janoske
The purpose of this paper is to explore a postmodern approach to crisis management through the lens of complexity theory to understand six non-profit organizations’ communication…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore a postmodern approach to crisis management through the lens of complexity theory to understand six non-profit organizations’ communication responses to anti-abortion terrorism.
Design/methodology/approach
Researchers conducted a qualitative content analysis of publicly available documents from six non-profit organizations, which included 62 news releases and statements on organization web sites, 152 tweets, and 63 articles in national and local newspapers.
Findings
A history of violence and rituals of remembrance emerged as important pieces of organizational, personal, and social history surrounding anti-abortion terrorism. The process of self-organization facilitated calling publics to action and combating the “terrorism” naming problem. The non-profits’ dynamic environment exemplified the importance of coalition building to construct digital attractor basins, or networks extending beyond permeable boundaries, through a variety of strategies, including new media. Twitter served as a strange attractor, where the concept of interacting agents emerged as a key component of relationship building.
Research limitations/implications
Findings provide opportunities to expand complexity theory.
Practical implications
Findings suggest practical implications for anti-abortion counterterrorism and crisis management, and provide opportunities to develop communication counter measures.
Originality/value
Applying a complexity lens to the study of anti-abortion counterterrorism builds on the growing emphasis of the postmodern approach to crisis management and answers the call for further inquiry into the application of complexity theory to crisis situations. Furthermore, this study fills a gap in the study of crisis management by investigating how multiple organizations handle a crisis.
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Lyn M. van Swol and Paul Hangsan Ahn
Groups have the ability to create something new and novel that does not exist at the individual level. This chapter examines group communication as the driver of this creation…
Abstract
Groups have the ability to create something new and novel that does not exist at the individual level. This chapter examines group communication as the driver of this creation process, using the input–process–output model. Group processes are often understudied and consigned to a “black box” between inputs and outputs. How advances in methodology and analysis software have increased the ability to study group communication processes and emergent states within this black box is highlighted. Four different areas of research are then briefly reviewed to showcase ways to focus on process. These four areas include structuration, shared mental models, transactive memory, and collective intelligence. The chapter concludes with a focus on future trends and a call for more interdisciplinary research with a theoretical focus.
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Steve McDonald, Amanda K. Damarin, Jenelle Lawhorne and Annika Wilcox
The Internet and social media have fundamentally transformed the ways in which individuals find jobs. Relatively little is known about how demand-side market actors use online…
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The Internet and social media have fundamentally transformed the ways in which individuals find jobs. Relatively little is known about how demand-side market actors use online information and the implications for social stratification and mobility. This study provides an in-depth exploration of the online recruitment strategies pursued by human resource (HR) professionals. Qualitative interviews with 61 HR recruiters in two southern US metro areas reveal two distinct patterns in how they use Internet resources to fill jobs. For low and general skill work, they post advertisements to online job boards (e.g., Monster and CareerBuilder) with massive audiences of job seekers. By contrast, for high-skill or supervisory positions, they use LinkedIn to target passive candidates – employed individuals who are not looking for work but might be willing to change jobs. Although there are some intermediate practices, the overall picture is one of an increasingly bifurcated “winner-take-all” labor market in which recruiters focus their efforts on poaching specialized superstar talent (“purple squirrels”) from the ranks of the currently employed, while active job seekers are relegated to the hyper-competitive and impersonal “black hole” of the online job boards.
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LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central…
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LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.