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Long waiting lists are of concern to policy makers, professionals and patients, and despite major initiatives to address the issue the problem remains. Suggests that one partial solution may be chronologically maintained common waiting lists for high‐volume routine surgical procedures at the departmental level rather than by individual consultants. Since case severity differences between the various surgeons in a team may mitigate against such a model a pilot study of two procedures: arthroscopic examination of knee and repair of inguinal hernia was undertaken. Describes the study. Little statistically significant difference was found in case severity between the patients belonging to the different general and orthopaedic surgeons in South Tees Health district, and a significant proportion of operations was undertaken by middle grade doctors. At present waiting times vary considerably depending on which consultant the patient is referred to by their general practitioner, thus creating inequity. The problem has been further exacerbated by the NHS reforms with fund‐holding general practitioners receiving preferential treatment, thus creating a two‐tiered service. Common waiting lists will ensure equitable provisions and may increase efficiency, and hence need serious consideration.

The past decade has seen an expansion of psychological treatments available to patients in the NHS. Research into the effectiveness of psychological treatments is also increasing, but this evidence is often not known or used by practitioners. This paper describes the development of a local clinical practice guideline from the research evidence to assist local GPs and psychological practitioners in selecting the most appropriate of three commonly available psychological treatments for adult patients — brief counselling, cognitive behaviour therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy. The steps of the guideline development process and difficulties encountered are outlined, and the local dissemination and implementation process described. A survey of GPs and practice counsellors conducted a month following distribution of the guideline found that most recipients reported it useful with many also reporting having used it already in clinical practice. The limitations as well as strengths of this local guideline development process are discussed.

Patients without spleens are at risk of septicaemia which is largely preventable by vaccination and prophylactic antibiotics as detailed in several recent guidelines. This study sought to identify all people, in one health district, with a previous splenectomy and treat them according to the guidelines on post‐splenectomy care. Patients without a spleen were identified by a variety of methods and targeted mailing, manipulation of the local press, opinion leaders, postgraduate meetings, peer pressure, disease‐ and patient‐specific reminders, feedback and patient empowerment were all used as dissemination and implementation strategies. The number of patients iden‐tified rose from 15 to 68. All were offered the opportunity to discuss their care, 80% took this opportunity and had pneumococcal vaccine, 77% were started on long‐term antibiotics, 75% discussed Hib and meningococcal vaccines and these were given to 54%. In summary the strategies used dramatically increased the numbers of patients identified and the improved care offered.

Building on the complementarity nature of extant dyadic and portfolio level alliance research, this paper discusses the role of alliance capability and relational quality as antecedents of alliance performance. Although prior research focused extensively on the influence of dyadic issues on alliance performance, more recent studies focus on firm-level capabilities to manage sets of alliances. We specify an integrated framework that merges these two previously separated streams of research and discuss how firm-level alliance capabilities affect dyadic level relational quality. The framework suggests that relational quality mediates between both alliance capability and alliance performance and provides a detailed discussion on how firm-level mechanisms improve the quality of dyadic relationships. We also discuss implications and options for future research.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate how opportunity for control and firm capability interact to moderate the amount of risk that managers associate with various international entry‐mode strategies. A secondary goal is to investigate how managers perceive the need to retain control over three core functional areas (marketing, production, and R&D) when making entry‐mode decisions.

A field experiment design was implemented in a sample of US business owner/executives. Using an online data collection method, the study asked a sample of small‐business owners and managers to assess the amount of risk they associated with three modes of entering the Japanese market: non‐ownership (export), equal partnership (50/50 joint‐venture), and sole‐ownership. They were also asked how much control they needed to retain over R&D, production, and marketing for the venture to be successful.

Ownership‐provided control interacts with capability to influence managerial risk perceptions. Managers in lower‐capability firms see the least risk in the non‐ownership entry mode while those in higher‐capability firms see the least risk in the equal‐partnership entry mode. Managers believe that for a new venture in a foreign market to be successful, control should be retained over the R&D function, regardless of entry mode.

The findings appear to reconcile some of the conflicting predictions of the transaction cost and resource‐based theoretical perspectives, because it appears that international managers consider both control (internationalization theory) and capability (resource‐based theory) when judging the perceived risk of an entry strategy.

For firms that are incapable of managing in an international context, a low‐control no‐ownership entry mode is perceived as the least risky approach; for firms that have some capability for international management, then a partial‐ownership mode such as a 50/50 joint‐venture is perceived as having lower risk than no‐ownership. In non‐ownership and joint‐venture type entry modes, managers are more apt to outsource the marketing function to an agent/partner, but not R&D. In contrast, managers believe that marketing needs to be maintained in‐house when utilizing a sole‐ownership entry mode.

By illustrating the role of perceived risk in foreign‐market entry‐mode decisions and demonstrating how capabilities interact with ownership‐provided control to moderate these perceptions, the paper's findings suggest that managers' risk perceptions may mediate the effects of firm‐specific factors, and thus contributes significantly to both theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences of Manchester Primary Care Trust (PCT) of driving improvement in quality and patient safety as commissioners in the English National Health Service (NHS). After the PCT's establishment in late 2006, considerable work was undertaken to develop and promote the role of Commissioner as the custodian of standards of services for its resident population. This required engagement with internal PCT stakeholders and a range of external stakeholders locally, regionally and nationally. The authors' experience should be of interest in the UK, and beyond given that many health systems have, or are moving towards, a commissioner: provider model.

This is a case study using self‐reported observational approach.

The authors' experience showed that commissioners can and should provide the leadership in driving quality improvements and patient safety, within their health systems. However, the challenges must not be underestimated, and the authors share some of the methods they used and lessons they learned.

There is a considerable interest in promoting quality through better commissioning of health care services. However, there is limited research into the impact and effectiveness of using commissioning as a lever. Given that in the NHS, and elsewhere in the world, commissioning is seen as the organising principle for health systems, such research and evaluation should be a priority.

This case study has valuable lessons for the new NHS and the findings are relevant to other health systems. There is a danger that the new NHS will repeat some of the mistakes of the past, and hopefully this case study can help avoid, or limit, the risks.

To the authors' knowledge there is no comparable piece of work, and the data/findings have not been published or reported comprehensively before. The paper should be of value to not just the NHS but to health systems generally, since commissioning seems to be the prevailing model for organising them.

This study aims to examine how and when digital platform capabilities drive technological innovation from a strategic information perspective, regarding information flow and information quality as mediators and business intelligence analytics as a moderator.

This study engaged corporate executives in surveys and obtained 182 firm data and then tested the hypotheses using linear regression models and the robustness using the structural equation model.

Digital platform capabilities drive corporate technological innovation through access to strategic information, i.e. strategic information mediates between digital platform capabilities and technological innovation. Business intelligence analytics increases the influence of strategic information on technological innovation.

This study underlines the importance for companies to construct digital platform capabilities to access strategic information to achieve technological innovation and the role of business intelligence analytics in processing strategic information.

This study finds a new perspective, strategic information, to explain the mechanisms by which digital platform capabilities drive firms’ technological innovation. In addition, the robustness of the resource-based view in understanding digital platform capabilities is stressed.

This paper aims to investigate the intersection between crowdfunding (CF), open innovation (OI) and responsible innovation (RI) and identify the emerging trends and gaps in research and new paths for CF research in the future. In addition, this paper proposes a conceptual framework and propositions.

This paper is structured in line with the systematic literature review protocol. After reading all the titles, keywords and abstracts, 172 papers focused on OI and RI were selected for this research. Finally, 27 papers that are based on dimensions related to responsible OI were selected for the study.

Due to CF's multidisciplinary nature, the scientific literature on the role of CF in endorsing responsible OI for shared value co-creation appears fragmented and redundant. Several emerging trends and gaps of research and new paths for CF research in the future arise regarding research methodology and theoretical perspective.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating the intersection between CF OI and RI.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether being a first‐mover into the Chinese market through strategic alliance with host companies provides competitive advantages to the foreign entrant. The aim is to understand the relevance of the first‐mover and internationalization process (incremental learning) for competitive advantage in China during environmental uncertainty. Thus, the author proposes that the first‐mover (foreign firm) would be able to deflect environmental uncertainty, such as the economic recession of 2008, by forming an alliance with Chinese enterprises earlier than its rivals.

Quantitative methods for data analysis were used in support of the proposition. The sample comprises 187 foreign multinational enterprises that entered into the Chinese market through strategic alliance with local partners. The dependent variable is return on assets (ROA) of the firm. The author used the timeline as the independent variable. The longer duration implies earlier entrants on the temporal scale. The author also used several controlled variables at the firm level, industry level and national level of the home country. The analysis was based on ordinary regression.

The result supports the main hypothesis in favour of the first‐mover advantage. Apart from the main effects in the hypotheses, there are some interesting alternative effects captured in the control variables. It appears that age of the firm tends to hamper firm performance. Industrial discretion is another control variable. The author predicted a positive coefficient. However, the result is not significant. The result shows competitive forces can lead to a better performance for the first‐mover. This observation is counterintuitive because monopoly is the source of performance, and competition reduces monopoly. It should be negatively correlated, but the result shows the opposite. In this sense, competition appears to be contributing to the firm's performance. A possible reason is that firms compete in the downstream of the industrial value china in established industries. Hence, the first‐mover advantage supports the early entrant in competitive conditions. Licensing mode of governance is negative. In comparison to alternative modes of governance, it appears that contractual mode such as licensing is less conducive for better performance. Firms that entered into IBA in China after her membership with WTO performed lower than those entered before WTO. Home country's R&D spending has not shown significant and positive influence on the performance.

The author proposes that cultural distance needs to be included in the research and analysis for a better understanding on the phenomenon of first‐mover advantage. Second, the research needs to be replicated in other contextual settings. China is indeed a big market. However, there are multiple different institutional systems in the world. Third, it will be interesting to identify the late‐mover's advantage so that policy decisions can be made in comparative terms.

This paper is different and novel in two ways. First, it reveals that companies that had entered into Chinese markets were able to deflect some of the losses caused by the global slowdown. It means that internationalization can be both positive and negative. It is negative because global crisis can adversely affect almost all economies. However, it can be positive when some economies are stable, and the firm has entered into that stable market earlier than others. Second, the research reveals that cultural and institutional distance can be a positive source during an economic crisis. The author can see today (in 2012) that similar economies of the west are still struggling to get out of the recession of 2008.

Reviews antenatal and early childhood screening programmes to assess the impact of guidance from the National Screening Committee (NSC). Develops methods to investigate local practice (questionnaires and telephone interviews) and summarises best practice guidance from authoritative sources. Reviews 23 antenatal and 15 early childhood programmes, of which 22 and eight respectively are in place locally. Different types of authoritative sources varied in the aspect of screening on which they commented. Guidance from authoritative sources differed and local practice variations reflected this. In three programmes these variations needed to be addressed. Elsewhere, the NSC’s “watch and wait” stance was confirmed. Limitations to local quality assurance were also identified. Programmes are for the most part following authoritative guidance, but variations in authoritative guidance are a significant issue. Robust audit is required to ensure that the local programmes are achieving optimal health gain.