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1 – 10 of 57Monique L. French and Richard Discenza
The key objective of the paper is to present the results of a survey that captured a wide‐ranging view of reuse practices in process industries with the intent of determining…
Abstract
Purpose
The key objective of the paper is to present the results of a survey that captured a wide‐ranging view of reuse practices in process industries with the intent of determining current practice and the key managerial issues for reuse in process industries. The paper discusses the sources of products and material for which re‐use decisions must be made in process industry environments. It offers managerial insights for companies that seek opportunities to reduce their operating costs by reusing products, cleaning agents, and ingredients that can become available through a reverse supply chain analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used an exploratory survey methodology with manufacturing plants randomly drawn from a professional organization where the members stated in their profiles that they were employed at a facility that was primarily involved with process manufacturing. Both internal and external returns were analyzed using descriptive statistics techniques.
Findings
The results indicate that reverse networks for external returns must consider storage conditions and timing due to degradability. Also, tracking systems are necessary to monitor the product once it has left the facility due to contamination potential. Additionally, managers could benefit from development of a decision model to facilitate re‐use decision‐making.
Originality/value
The emphasis is on exploring the nature of re‐use in process industry plants and on bringing managerial issues to the attention of companies that are handling these returns and seeking to improve their performance on returns.
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Monique L. French, Ying Fan and Gary L. Stading
This paper aims to develop a conceptual model for future theory building and provides guidance to emergency managers by identifying important organizational factors influencing…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a conceptual model for future theory building and provides guidance to emergency managers by identifying important organizational factors influencing emergency response performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is developed linking organizational characteristics and incident types to emergency response performance, focusing on the “prepare” and “respond” stages in emergency management. Archival data are used to test the framework, using ANOVA to analyze 12,057 incidents over a nine-year period.
Findings
The results indicate that organizational characteristics impact emergency response performance through Knowledge of Location. Several organizational factors impact Knowledge of Location, which then serves, with incident type, as a significant indicator for emergency response performance.
Research limitations/implications
Researchers are constrained by the data collected in the database used for the study; however, the use of this commonly collected data to operationalize our variables for model testing facilitates analysis of other emergency management organizations for validation. Future model extension is possible by identifying other important variables.
Practical implications
The analysis emphasizes the importance of area familiarization training in improving emergency response as well as the impact of organizational structure changes on response. Emergency managers should ensure clear lines of authority and communication during times of change.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies to use empirical data from a large-scale, real-world database to study emergency response performance. In contrast to previous modeling-based research, this study emphasizes organizational characteristics with an empirical perspective.
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Monique Combes-Joret and Laëtitia Lethielleux
After eight years of reforms, the French Red Cross (FRC) changed status from humanitarian association to nonprofit organization (NPO). This in-depth study of the organization’s…
Abstract
Purpose
After eight years of reforms, the French Red Cross (FRC) changed status from humanitarian association to nonprofit organization (NPO). This in-depth study of the organization’s recent past (2005-2013) aims to highlight several identity threats linked to the ongoing process of organizational rationalization and managerialization. The main contribution of this paper is based on the responses provided by this NPO to deal with it.
Design/methodology/approach
This communication has been produced as part of a three-year research contract (2010-2013) for the FRC. A total of 39 semi-structured interviews conducted between February and June 2013, participatory observation and documentary study. Of the 39 interviews, 29 were usable, and these were analyzed using ALCESTE software. This software enabled the authors to quantify and extract the strongest signifying structures.
Findings
The “Red Cross” meta-identity has so far enabled FRC to change its identity, not without difficulty, but without major organizational crises. In this case, the results confirm the Ravasi at Schultz model (2006) by underlining the difficulty to create a “giving sense process.” At managerial level, the choice of “self-regulated” professionalization seems to have made the most impact in changing the members’ identity understanding. In response to the threat of the fragmentation of social links, the implementation of an important internal communication policy around the idea of a “community of actors” has not had the expected results.
Research limitations/implications
This study is based on a unique case with unusual dimensions (18,025 employees and 56,136 volunteers).
Practical implications
The example of the FRC is indicative of what happens in the nonprofit sector. The answers provided by this extraordinary association may inspire other organizations facing an identity crisis.
Originality/value
This paper reveals two major contributions. First, it validates the appropriateness of the Ravasi and Schultz model (2006) for the study of identity change in social enterprises. Second, it assists managers through its analysis of the appropriateness of procedures and tools used to support identity change. From an international perspective, this paper also contributes by describing the evolution of NPOs in the French context.
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Monique Aubry and Sylvain Lenfle
The purpose of this paper is to revisit Christophe Midler's contribution through L'auto qui n'existait pas (The car that did not exist), first published in 1993. The paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit Christophe Midler's contribution through L'auto qui n'existait pas (The car that did not exist), first published in 1993. The paper summarizes and examines the main themes of the book based on current knowledge and ends with suggestions for future research opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is grounded in an in‐depth analysis of Midler's book and a one‐hour interview with him.
Findings
Midler argues that projectification is not a temporary managerial fashion; quite the contrary. At Renault, he witnessed a profound industrial transformation founded on collective learning. Central to this transformation was the establishment of project management as an engine of renewal within the permanent organisation.
Practical implications
Revisiting Midler's work on projectification generates new insights into understanding the current situation confronting organisations in all industries as they evolve in their approach to creativity and innovation.
Originality/value
Two original facets of Midler's seminal work still influence the field of project management. First, he provided a global understanding of the creative organisation. He described, analysed and explained how an organisation reinvents itself, not only in terms of project management, but more globally, from a permanent organisation perspective. Recent research developments focus on project‐oriented organisations, program and portfolio management, organisational project management, and others. Midler's work should be more widely known and referenced for its capacity to conceptualise what simultaneously happens in multiple, concurrent, organisational terms as a project is carried out (e.g. financial, commercial, technological and career development). Second, Midler conducted a study from within an organisation for four years. In this respect, he could be seen as a precursor of recent project management research practices.
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Stephanie Chasserio, Philippe Pailot and Corinne Poroli
This paper aims at exploring the dynamics of multiple identities of women entrepreneurs (WE). The paper analyse how WE do identity work in relation to specific identity…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims at exploring the dynamics of multiple identities of women entrepreneurs (WE). The paper analyse how WE do identity work in relation to specific identity regulations in the particular French cultural context. The objective is to understand how the entrepreneurial identity process of women is built through both confrontation and synergy with other social identities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for a qualitative and abductive methodological design. In total, 41 French WE from diverse business activities were interviewed. The empirical material was subject to thematic analysis.
Findings
The findings reveal the ability of these WE to deal with numerous and various identities. Their daily strategies to accommodate different roles depict how their entrepreneurial activity is intertwined with their personal and social life. The paper are far away from the picture of a monolithic entrepreneur without social dimensions. Given that, the findings broaden the too simplistic vision of WE as an homogeneous whole. Within this group of French WE, the analysis reveals that forms of identity work are along a continuum from accepting conventional norms and social expectations and integrating them in self-identity, or challenging them by accommodation or transformation, or, in turn, by redefining and proposing new norms. It also brings a nuanced understanding of complexity and multidimensionality of their daily life.
Originality/value
Finally by studying French WE, the paper identify new practices, new interactions between social roles which could be also relevant for men. In fact, the study challenges the traditional framework on entrepreneurship, which produces an incomplete view of entrepreneurs, by omitting historical and social variables. This disembodied vision of entrepreneur could not be applied to women and probably could not be applied to contemporaneous men either.
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Aurélie Schandrin, Delphine Capdevielle, Jean-Philippe Boulenger, Monique Batlaj-Lovichi, Frédérick Russet and Diane Purper-Ouakil
Adolescents and young adults’ mental health problems are an important health issue. However, the current organisation of the care pathway is not robust enough and transition…
Abstract
Purpose
Adolescents and young adults’ mental health problems are an important health issue. However, the current organisation of the care pathway is not robust enough and transition between child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and adult mental health services (AMHS) has been identified as a period of risk. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A retrospective survey was conducted in Montpellier University Hospital concerning transitions organised between CAMHS and AMHS between 2008 and 2009. The aim was to assess if transitions met four criteria identified in literature as warranting an optimal transition.
Findings
In total, 31 transitions were included. Transition was accepted by AMHS in 90 per cent of cases but its organisation was rarely optimal. Relational continuity and transition planning were absent in 80 per cent of cases. The age boundary of 16 often justified the triggering of the transition regardless of patient’s needs. Discontinuity was observed in 48 per cent of transition cases, with an average gap of three months without care. Psychiatrists reported difficulties in working together. Finally, at the moment of the survey (one to three years later), 55 per cent of patients were lost to follow-up.
Research limitations/implications
This is a retrospective study on a small sample but it reveals important data about transition in France.
Practical implications
Transition process should include collaborative working between CAMHS and AMHS, with cross-agency working and periods of parallel care.
Social implications
Transition-related discontinuity of care is a major socioeconomic and societal challenge for the EU.
Originality/value
Data related to the collaboration between CAMHS and AMHS services are scarce, especially regarding the transition in France.
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Presents the result of a study that was made within the frameworkof CEDEFOP′s information network in a transnational dossier on trainingand environment in Belgium, the Federal…
Abstract
Presents the result of a study that was made within the framework of CEDEFOP′s information network in a transnational dossier on training and environment in Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany and The Netherlands. The national synopsis on Belgium traces down in a systematic and structural way to what degree environment training supply exists and is developed. For every educational level, every large training operator and various training systems Other aspects dealt with, are the organizational framework, research concerning environmental training and the European dimension.
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For many years, science fiction has been perceived as “rayguns and rocket ships” boys' literature. Any number of impressionistic and statistical studies have identified the…
Abstract
For many years, science fiction has been perceived as “rayguns and rocket ships” boys' literature. Any number of impressionistic and statistical studies have identified the typical SF reader as male, between the ages of twelve and twenty and, in the case of adults, employed in some technical field. Yet I continually find myself having conversations with women, only to find that they, like myself, began reading science fiction between the ages of six and ten, have been reading it voraciously ever since, and were often frustrated at the absence of satisfying female characters and the presence of misogynistic elements in what they read. The stereotype of the male reader and the generally male SF environment mask both the increasing presence of women writers in the field of science fiction and the existence of a feminist dialog within some SF novels. This dialog had its beginnings in the mid‐sixties and is still going strong. It is the hope of the feminist SF community that this effacement can be counteracted.
The specific difficulty in my country to treat all the problematic links to the questions of diversity and segregation is due to the Republican Ideology, which is strong in France…
Abstract
The specific difficulty in my country to treat all the problematic links to the questions of diversity and segregation is due to the Republican Ideology, which is strong in France and includes no recognition of minorities in the public sphere. In addition, there is a lack of statistics and studies on racial representation. This fact, which my colleagues questioned, has to be understood as a first step to comprehending the state of diversity in higher education in France.