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The National Health Service (NHS) is the largest employer in the UK and has a diverse workforce with many different professional groups. This can make introducing a planned…
Abstract
The National Health Service (NHS) is the largest employer in the UK and has a diverse workforce with many different professional groups. This can make introducing a planned programme of change a complex and difficult task. Examines the process in the shape of Investors in People (IIP) within a public sector context. The findings come from a case study of a successful IIP project in a combined acute and community trust hospital. Drawing largely on direct experience of managing an IIP project, interview, survey and documentary evidence, the paper concludes by exploring the question of whether the IIP standard can be used as a tool for managing change and if it is sophisticated enough to reach a diverse workforce.
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Paul Smith, Nicola Poppitt and Jonathan Scott
The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of academics, senior university managers and employer representatives on the design and implementation of an innovative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of academics, senior university managers and employer representatives on the design and implementation of an innovative work‐based learning (WBL) programme in UK higher education.
Design/methodology/approach
The research project draws upon case study research and utilizes data from semi‐structured interviews and documentary analysis of policy papers. The experiences of university staff and employer representatives were analysed methodologically using the organisational story‐telling framework.
Findings
The paper exposes voices which are rarely heard in the public domain and provides insights into the challenges involved in introducing new practices within higher education. The themes that have emerged are: the intensity of the learning experience; tensions amongst academics delivering the programme; and, academic support for students, particularly in relation to the importance of face‐to‐face contact.
Originality/value
The paper addresses key gaps in the WBL literature, most notably a dearth of critical accounts of practice within WBL programmes from the perspective of university staff and employer representatives. This type of research is also needed given the increased priority by governments in relation to forging links between business and higher education.
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Paul Smith, Libby Hampson, Jonathan Scott and Karen Bower
The aim of this paper is to examine the introduction of innovation as part of a management development programme at a primary care organisation, a legal form known as a Primary…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to examine the introduction of innovation as part of a management development programme at a primary care organisation, a legal form known as a Primary Care Trust (PCT), in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on experience of managing a successful management development programme for a PCT. The report of the case study analyses the key events that took place between 2008 and 2010, from direct observation, surveys, discussion and documentary evidence.
Findings
The Northern PCT has partnerships with a number of educational providers to deliver their leadership and management development programmes. A close working relationship had developed and the programme is bespoke – hence it is current and of practical use to the UK's National Health Service (NHS). In addition, there are regular meetings, with module leaders gaining a firsthand understanding of the organisation's needs and aspirations. This has resulted in a very focused and personalised offering and a genuine involvement in the programme and individuals concerned.
Research limitations/implications
The research was conducted among a relatively small sample, and there is a lack of previous literature evidence to make significant comparisons.
Practical implications
The paper identifies key implications for practitioners and educators in this area.
Originality/value
This paper is one of few to investigate innovation and improvement in the NHS, and is unique in that it uses the lenses of a management development programme to explore this important, and under‐researched, topic.
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Jill Allen, Jessi L. Smith and Lynda B. Ransdell
As universities grapple with broadening participation of women in science, many ADVANCE funded institutions hone in on transforming search committee practices to better consider…
Abstract
Purpose
As universities grapple with broadening participation of women in science, many ADVANCE funded institutions hone in on transforming search committee practices to better consider dual-career partners and affirmative action hires (“opportunity hires”). To date, there is a lack of empirical research on the consequences and processes underlying such a focus. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how two ADVANCE-recommended hiring practices, dual-career hiring and affirmative action hiring, help or hinder women’s participation in academic science.
Design/methodology/approach
In two experiments, the authors tested what happens to a science candidate’s evaluation and offer when that candidate reveals he or she has a dual-career partner (vs is a solo-candidate, Experiment 1) or if it is revealed that the candidate under review is the dual-hire partner or is a target of opportunity hire (vs primary candidate, Experiment 2). A random US national sample of academic scientists provided anonymous external recommendations to an ostensible faculty search committee.
Findings
Evaluators supported the job offer to a primary candidate requiring a heterosexual partner accommodation. This good news, however, was offset by the results of Experiment 2, which showed that support for the partner or affirmative action candidate depended on the evaluator’s gender. Taken together, the research identifies important personal and contextual features that sometimes do – and sometimes do not – impact hiring perceptions of women in science.
Originality/value
The authors believe the effects of such an emphasis on opportunity hires within ADVANCE funded institutions may be considerable and inform changes to policies and practices that help bring about gender equality.
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Muhammad Nizam Zainuddin and Dzulkifli Mukhtar
The purpose of this study is to examine postgraduate students' reflexive narratives about their entrepreneurial passion (EP) experience as a result of their direct participation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine postgraduate students' reflexive narratives about their entrepreneurial passion (EP) experience as a result of their direct participation in a series of hand-selected experiential learning events within the curated identity workspace (IW) of a cross-disciplinary postgraduate entrepreneurship education programme.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative exploratory design using interpretative phenomenological analysis with a group of graduate students from a cross-disciplinary postgraduate entrepreneurship education program at an entrepreneurial university.
Findings
This study discovers that students’ EP experience is developed through the internalisation of an entrepreneurship learning activity into their personal identity through the harmonisation and reorganisation of their competing micro-identities of professional and entrepreneurial identity, prompting them to create a new identity that enables them to act entrepreneurially without relinquishing their existing professional identity.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates how entrepreneurial education programmes function as an IW and posits a theoretical model illustrating the hidden connections between entrepreneurial activity, personal identity and entrepreneurial learning experience that collectively influence individuals' entrepreneurial behaviour.
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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.