To examine hospital leadership team effectiveness, analyses theresponses of 540 randomly sampled board chairmen of US hospitals.Reports findings regarding board chairmen′s…
Abstract
To examine hospital leadership team effectiveness, analyses the responses of 540 randomly sampled board chairmen of US hospitals. Reports findings regarding board chairmen′s evaluation of their hospitals′ productive outputs and of the adequacy of their communications with the CEO and medical staff president (MSP) in their hospitals. Notes that over one‐quarter of board chairmen found communications with the MSP to be only sometimes productive and notes means whereby positive communications are promoted. Offers suggestions for board chairman recruitment.
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Elizabeth Rainsbury, Sidney Weil and Peter Oyelere
This paper reports on a study of the efficacy of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand's (the Institute) Professional Accounting School (PAS) programme in…
Abstract
This paper reports on a study of the efficacy of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand's (the Institute) Professional Accounting School (PAS) programme in developing a set of competencies in candidates. The study surveyed Institute candidates' perceptions of their competence levels for 16 specified skills at the commencement and conclusion of the 1999 PAS programme. The findings indicate that candidates perceived their levels of competence, for both cognitive and behavioural skills, to have been significantly improved by the PAS programme. Tests of two secondary hypotheses in the study indicate certain gender‐ and firm‐based differences in the perceived level of competence of candidates. The results of the study provide the Institute with feedback on the PAS programme and facilitate the further development of the programme. Other professional accounting bodies may consider replicating this study using data collected on similar programmes. The results of such studies may then be compared to enhance the existing knowledge of competency development in professional accounting education.
Joyce Weil, Gwyneth Milbrath, Teresa Sharp, Jeanette McNeill, Elizabeth Gilbert, Kathleen Dunemn, Marcia Patterson and Audrey Snyder
Integrated transitions of care for rural older persons are key issues in policy and practice. Interdisciplinary partnerships are suggested as ways to improve rural-care…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrated transitions of care for rural older persons are key issues in policy and practice. Interdisciplinary partnerships are suggested as ways to improve rural-care transitions by blending complementary skills of disciplines to increase care’s holistic nature. Yet, only multidisciplinary efforts are frequently used in practice and often lack synergy and collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to present a case of a partnership model using nursing, gerontology and public health integration to support rural-residing elders as a part of building an Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland/O’Sullivan framework to examine the creation of an interdisciplinary team. Two examples of interdisciplinary work are discussed. They are the creation of an interdisciplinary public health course and its team-based on-campus live simulations with a panel and site visit.
Findings
With team-building successes and challenges, outcomes show the need for knowledge exchange among practitioners to enhance population-centered and person-centered care to improve health care services to older persons in rural areas.
Practical implications
There is a need to educate providers about the importance of developing interdisciplinary partnerships. Educational programming illustrates ways to move team building through the interdisciplinary continuum. Dependent upon the needs of the community, other similarly integrated partnership models can be developed.
Originality/value
Transitions of care work for older people tends to be multi- or cross-disciplinary. A model for interdisciplinary training of gerontological practitioners in rural and frontier settings broadens the scope of care and improves the health of the rural older persons served.
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This comparative book review is concerned with two recent studies of essential workers in Germany: Jana Costas’ Dramas of Dignity and Peter Birke’s Grenzen aus Glas [literally…
Abstract
This comparative book review is concerned with two recent studies of essential workers in Germany: Jana Costas’ Dramas of Dignity and Peter Birke’s Grenzen aus Glas [literally ‘borders made from glass’]. While Costas is interested in studying how individual cleaners preserve their sense of dignity despite their widely believed stigmatizing work roles, Birke is interested in the power resources migrant workers can potentially mobilize for improving their working conditions despite the multi-dimensional (inter-sectional) precarity they confront in their life situation. In the context of German industrial and organizational sociology, both studies represent comparatively rare exemplars of detailed qualitative and ethnographic work that illuminate the labour process from taking a workers’ perspective. Using different approaches to fieldwork, both studies reveal the precarious nature of being an essential worker in areas such as meat packing, warehouse work, and cleaning. This general observation gives rise to some concluding speculations about the emancipatory potential of ethnographic research, in labour studies and beyond.
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Joyce Weil and Elizabeth Smith
Traditional definitions of aging in place often define aging in place specifically as the ability to remain in one’s own home or community setting in later life. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
Traditional definitions of aging in place often define aging in place specifically as the ability to remain in one’s own home or community setting in later life. The purpose of this paper is to reframe aging in place and show how narrowly defined aging in place models can be potentially negative constructs that limit options for older adults. The authors propose a paradigm shift, or a re-framing of, the popularized idea of aging in place. The authors challenge mainstream and literature-based beliefs that are deeply rooted to the idea that aging in place ideally happens in the home in which a person has lived for many years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews common concepts and constructs associated with aging in place as well as gaps or exclusions, and US-based aging in place policy initiatives favoring the aging in place model.
Findings
An expanded definition of aging in place embraces heterogeneity in residence types and living options. A realistic assessment of person-environment fit, matching an older person’s capabilities to his or her environmental demands, allows for the development of additional aging in place options for those living across the continuum of care.
Social implications
Aging in place should be moved from the personal “success” or “failure” of an older individual to include the role of society and societal views and policies in facilitating or hindering aging in place options. The authors demonstrate that these options, in facilities within the continuum of care, can be thought of as appealing for older persons of all levels of physical and cognitive functioning.
Originality/value
Research about aging in place tends to stress the value of one place (one’s home) over other living settings. This limits the ability of people to age in place and curtails discussion of all the items necessary to maintain place.
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Electric cars represent the most energy efficient technical option available for passenger cars, compared to conventional combustion engine cars and vehicles based on fuel cells…
Abstract
Electric cars represent the most energy efficient technical option available for passenger cars, compared to conventional combustion engine cars and vehicles based on fuel cells. However, this requires an efficient charging infrastructure and low carbon electricity production as well. Combustion engine cars which were converted to electric cars decreased lifecycle CO2-equivalent emissions per passenger-km travelled down to one third of before, when powered by green electricity. However, through an analysis of 78 scientific reports published since 2010 for life cycle impacts from 18 aggregated impact categories, this chapter finds that the results are mixed. Taken together, however, the reduced environmental impacts of electric cars appear advantageous over combustion engine cars, with further room for improvement as impacts generated during the production phase are addressed. When it comes to battery components, Cobalt (Co) stands out as critical. Assessing the impact of electric cars on the local air quality, they are not ‘zero emission vehicles’. They emit fine dust due to tyre and brake abrasion and to dust resuspension from the street. These remaining emissions could be easily removed by adding an active filtration system to the undercarriage of electric vehicles. If electric cars are operated with electricity from fossil power plants nearby, the emissions of these plants need to be modelled with respect to possibly worsening the local air quality.
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This article presents new evidence on anticompetitive practices in the franchise sector. Drawing from a corpus of Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs) filed by 3,716 franchise…
Abstract
This article presents new evidence on anticompetitive practices in the franchise sector. Drawing from a corpus of Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs) filed by 3,716 franchise brands in years 2011–2023 (partial), I report new information on franchise brands' use of interfirm nonsolicitation (“no poach”) clauses barring recruitment between firms, no hire clauses barring employment, and franchisor requirements that franchisees use employee noncompete clauses barring workers from joining competitors. Regulatory actions that restricted the enforceability of anticompetitive clauses began to appear in FDDs in 2018. While nonsolicitation and no hire clauses have declined in use, the use of noncompetes remained stable over time. While prior evidence on anticompetitive practices largely draws from individual complaints, survey data, and limited hand-coded samples, this article spotlights new methods for finding barriers to worker mobility in large, unstructured text corpora.
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Lawton Robert Burns, Jeff C. Goldsmith and Aditi Sen
Researchers recommend a reorganization of the medical profession into larger groups with a multispecialty mix. We analyze whether there is evidence for the superiority of these…
Abstract
Purpose
Researchers recommend a reorganization of the medical profession into larger groups with a multispecialty mix. We analyze whether there is evidence for the superiority of these models and if this organizational transformation is underway.
Design/Methodology Approach
We summarize the evidence on scale and scope economies in physician group practice, and then review the trends in physician group size and specialty mix to conduct survivorship tests of the most efficient models.
Findings
The distribution of physician groups exhibits two interesting tails. In the lower tail, a large percentage of physicians continue to practice in small, physician-owned practices. In the upper tail, there is a small but rapidly growing percentage of large groups that have been organized primarily by non-physician owners.
Research Limitations
While our analysis includes no original data, it does collate all known surveys of physician practice characteristics and group practice formation to provide a consistent picture of physician organization.
Research Implications
Our review suggests that scale and scope economies in physician practice are limited. This may explain why most physicians have retained their small practices.
Practical Implications
Larger, multispecialty groups have been primarily organized by non-physician owners in vertically integrated arrangements. There is little evidence supporting the efficiencies of such models and some concern they may pose anticompetitive threats.
Originality/Value
This is the first comprehensive review of the scale and scope economies of physician practice in nearly two decades. The research results do not appear to have changed much; nor has much changed in physician practice organization.