Search results

This paper examines the nature of entrepreneurial dynamics in small business service firms. The past decade has seen a rapid growth in the number of small business service firms, with a corresponding increase in their importance in terms of employment and income generation. Despite the growing body of research on the impact that the entrepreneur has on the performance of small firms, very little of this research has focused on small business service firms. This paper reports findings from a study of the entrepreneurship process in a sample of 20 small business service firms based in the west of Scotland. Using a qualitative research design, evidence is found that entrepreneurs revise their motivations, objectives and strategies over time as a result of changes in market conditions or their own expectations. The most prevalent new objective is found to be business growth which was pursued as a means of increasing profitability, which in turn satisfies both pecuniary and non‐pecuniary intrinsic motivations.

Reports the findings from a study of entrepreneurial activity in the small hotel sector in a Scottish town, St Andrews. Applies bodies of theory on the small entrepreneurial firm, developed for other sectors of the economy, to an examination of small firm activity in the hotel sector. The central thesis is that small hotel entrepreneurs will have had to adopt a business‐oriented approach to ensure the success, or at least the survival, of their firms. Findings from a survey of the small hotel sector in St Andrews provide some evidence to support this thesis, and conflict with those of an earlier study of the small hotel sector in the Bournemouth area in the 1980s. Recommends that further research should consider the nature of entrepreneurial activity in the small hotel sector generally. If a significant proportion of the sector overall is representative of the small entrepreneurial firm, this may have positive consequences for local economic prosperity in many areas.

This paper examines the extent to which the softer or transferable skills that are apparently sought by firms are developed through work‐based learning. The study is a pilot study, as it is restricted to the experience of students and graduates of a single degree programme at Napier University, Edinburgh. However, the results indicate a positive contribution of work‐based learning to the development of the transferable skills of those involved in the programme. The paper concludes that these tentative positive results drawn from the pilot study need to be tested across a broader sample of students and graduates from a wide range of programmes and institutions. This would enable an effective evaluation of the role of work‐based learning in skilling the firm.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between psychiatry and occupational therapy in Ireland through a case study of the development of the occupational therapy department in St. Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, from 1935 to 1969. Patronage by psychiatrists was an important factor in the professionalisation of occupational therapy internationally.

Documentary sources and oral history interviews were analysed to conduct an instrumental case study of occupational therapy at St. Patrick’s Hospital from 1935 to 1969.

The research identified key individuals associated with the development of occupational therapy at St. Patrick’s Hospital, including psychiatrist Norman Moore, occupational therapy worker Olga Gale, occupational therapist Margaret Sinclair, and social therapist Irene Violet Grey. Occupational therapy was considered by the hospital authorities to be “an important part in the treatment of all types of psychiatric illness” (Board Meeting Minutes, 1956). It aimed to develop patient’s self-esteem and facilitate social participation. To achieve these objectives, patients engaged in activities such as dances, arts and crafts, and social activities.

This study has highlighted the contributions of key individuals, identified the links between occupational therapy and psychiatry, and provided an insight into the development of the profession in Ireland prior to the establishment of occupational therapy education in 1963. Occupational therapy practice at St. Patrick’s Hospital from 1935 to 1969 was congruent with the prevailing philosophy of occupational therapy internationally, which involved treatment through activities to enhance participation in society.

This paper reports on the development of a questionnaire designed to measure the process aspects of the board as a working group. This initial study has been conducted among senior management teams due to the difficulty in gaining access to a sufficiently large sample of board teams at this development stage. The questionnaire was designed as one part of an investigation into standards of competence of boards of directors (Dulewicz et al. 1995; Institute of Directors, 1995). The questionnaire was distributed to the members of 54 “top teams”. A factor analysis of the response identified 12 main dimensions of group process. Reliability measures of these dimensions, which proved to be acceptable, are also reported. Finally, results of correlations between these 12 measures and three measures of group performance, derived from the team performance questionnaire, showed that the 12 process measures are significantly related to performance, and so have some validity.

Examines the changing approach to implementing computer systems in organizations. The methodological problems involved are analysed from the original technically dominated approaches to the more recent behaviourally motivated ideas. The hypothesis is that in today′s much more complex world of business, a wider range of paradigms needs to be used to improve the potential success of systems and implementation.

Little is known about how and why pilots are useful in the context of organisational change. There has similarly been little attention to processes of distributed leadership in organisational change. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical argument relating to how key aspects shaping organisational change can be addressed by distributed change leadership through the mechanism of pilots.

The paper contribution is to review extant literature on change management and distributed leadership to build a model of distributed change leadership.

The paper outlines how the model of distributed change leadership can be applied through a pilot strategy to help engender commitment and learning, as well as contextualising the change to cope with the complexities of the situation.

The paper concludes with a discussion on the opportunities distributed leadership through pilots can bring to the effectiveness of organisational change interventions. The paper identifies a series of research propositions to help guide future directions for research. Finally the paper explores practical implications of the suggestions.

There is an absence of discussion on distributed leadership within the context of change management. Further the mechanism of pilots shaped by distributed leadership has not been explored. This paper is intended to provide a stimulus for exploring this important area in terms of shaping thinking and designs for organisational change to enhance effectiveness.

Change literature emphasizes the significance of aligning change at a systemic level for sustained effectiveness of strategic change initiatives. While this body of literature emphasizes the significance of psychological and process dimensions of managing change, research on an integrated and strategic approach to deploy, track, measure and sustain large‐scale changes has been limited and inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the literature to propose a holistic conceptual framework for identifying, formulating, deploying, measuring, aligning and tracking strategic changes in organizations.

Specifically, core concepts drawn from scholarly literature and practitioner writings from distinct fields of change management and strategy deployment tools, primarily the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as proposed by Kaplan and Norton, are reviewed, synthesized and critiqued, to inform and advance the integrated framework proposed.

The suggested approach draws significantly from the BSC framework and focuses on the use of formal steps such as developing change themes and results, setting change objectives, developing lead and lag performance measures for measuring strategic change objectives. Furthermore, the proposed framework also provides directions on how to track the progress of change initiatives with respect to the desired objectives, for evaluating the effectiveness of change deployment efforts, all through applying cause and effect linkages.

Although the focus on individual change arose to support technical deployment of change, over the years the strategic deployment process itself has not received the desired focus in the change strategy literature. The proposed framework extends the current literature on strategic change to offer academics fresh insights on the significance of a strategic approach to change deployment. An application of the framework in the context of large‐scale transformational changes in organizations can provide further evidence related to the validity of the proposed approach.

A total of 70 percent of all change efforts fail. While some fail due to incomplete diagnoses, others fail due to gaps in deployment or measurement. However, there is uncertainty about how to prevent change failure, with no one having explicitly articulated the same. A rigorous and practical approach to systematically deploy change with a continuous focus on strategic alignment has specifically been found missing in the literature. The proposed framework fills this gap to offer managers and organizational decision makers a holistic and practical tool to successfully navigate the complexities of their strategic change efforts by measuring strategic alignment in a step‐wise manner throughout the change process.

Mention of the need to use integrated and strategic performance management tools, such as the BSC proposed by Kaplan and Norton, to measure and review change and to manage the change process has been found in recent literature. However, no studies have yet provided any direction on “how” to use such integrated and strategic tools throughout the change process, to deploy measure and ensure continuous strategic alignment during transformational changes. The paper addresses this gap to propose a systematic, integrated and holistic approach for aligning change deployment.

The purpose of this article is to describe how an Improvement Engine methodology, based on self‐assessment and everyone's involvement, can be used in order to stimulate change and what experience and results it can generate.

This article describes how an Improvement Engine was developed and used at Sahlgrenska University Hospital to stimulate change and what experience and results it generated. The principles behind the methodology were everyone's involvement, self‐assessment, incremental change and learning. The data were collected in interviews and analysed using a content analysis approach. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were analysed and mapped to context, content, process and output.

The evaluation shows that the Improvement Engine methodology has advantages concerning involvement and dialogue but needs improvement in terms of information about the project.

Examples of how the Improvement Engine can be applied are discussed.

The intention is to shed light on what kind of issues managers must deal with when they try to stimulate change in a healthcare setting. The Improvement Engine methodology developed and used shows that the empowerment approach is a promising avenue for change in healthcare.

The prime function of the advertising appropriation is of course to act as a profit reservoir into which money may be pumped in good times and from which money may be tapped in hard times. However, a useful by‐product of the advertising appropriation can be increased sales of the company's products and much effort is expended towards this by‐product. It has been established reasonably clearly in the last few years that the major contribution towards the effectiveness of the advertising appropriation lies in the content of the advertisements. Nevertheless, since such large sums of money are involved, improvements in the way in which it is spent are worth making. This paper addresses the technicalities of the most important element in this latter process and suggests that current practice may not be the best possible practice.