Stanley J. Smits, Dawn E. Bowden and James O. Wells
The healthcare system in the USA is undergoing unprecedented change and its share of unintended consequences. This paper explores the leadership role of the physician in…
Abstract
Purpose
The healthcare system in the USA is undergoing unprecedented change and its share of unintended consequences. This paper explores the leadership role of the physician in transforming the present culture of healthcare to restore, refine and preserve its traditional care components.
Design/methodology/approach
The literature on change, organizational culture and leadership is leveraged to describe the structural interdependencies and dynamic complexity of the present healthcare system and to suggest how physicians can strengthen the care components of the healthcare culture.
Findings
When an organization’s culture does not support internal integration and external adaptation, it is the responsibility of leadership to transform it. Leaders can influence culture to strengthen the care components of the healthcare system. The centrality of professionalism in the delivery of patient services places a moral, societal and ethical responsibility on physicians to lead a revitalization of the care culture.
Practical implications
This paper focuses on cultural issues in healthcare and provides options and guidance for physicians as they attempt to lead and manage the context in which services are delivered.
Originality/value
The Competing Values Framework, the major interdependent domains and five principal mechanisms for leaders to embed and fine tune culture serve as the main tenets for describing the ongoing changes in healthcare and defining the role of the physician as leaders and advocates for the Patient Care Culture.
Details
Keywords
Stanley J. Smits and Niveen Ezzat Ally
Even highly competitive, successful organizations face crisis, defined as “a low‐probability, high‐impact event that threatens the viability of the organization and is…
Abstract
Even highly competitive, successful organizations face crisis, defined as “a low‐probability, high‐impact event that threatens the viability of the organization and is characterized by ambiguity of cause, effect, and means of resolution, as well as by a belief that decisions must be made swiftly” (Pearson & Clair, 1998; p. 60.). This paper describes the challenges facing leaders and managers attempting to prepare their organizations to engage in effective crisis management. The paper contends that when behavioral readiness is absent, crisis management effectiveness is a matter of chance. The behavioral model draws salient contributions from role theory, learning theory, and multilevel theory and applies them to the body of crisis management theory developed over the past two decades by Mitroff and his associates as well as the recent work of Pearson and Carr (1998). Five propositions are developed and implications for research and practice are presented.
Stanley J. Smits, Dawn Bowden, Judith A. Falconer and Dale C. Strasser
– This paper aims to present a two-decade effort to improve team functioning and patient outcomes in inpatient stroke rehabilitation settings.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a two-decade effort to improve team functioning and patient outcomes in inpatient stroke rehabilitation settings.
Design/methodology/approach
The principal improvement effort was conducted over a nine-year period in 50 Veterans Administration Hospitals in the USA. A comprehensive team-based model was developed and tested in a series of empirical studies. A leadership development intervention was used to improve team functioning, and a follow-up cluster-randomized trial documented patient outcome improvements associated with the leadership training.
Findings
Iterative team and leadership improvements are presented in summary form, and a set of practice-proven development observations are derived from the results. Details are also provided on the leadership training intervention that improved teamwork processes and resulted in improvements in patient outcomes that could be linked to the intervention itself.
Research limitations/implications
The practice-proven development observations are connected to leadership development theory and applied in the form of suggestions to improve leadership development and teamwork in a broad array of medical treatment settings.
Practical implications
This paper includes suggestions for leadership improvement in medical treatment settings using interdisciplinary teams to meet the customized needs of the patient populations they serve.
Originality/value
The success of the team effectiveness model and the team-functioning domains provides a framework and best practice for other health care organizations seeking to improve teamwork effectiveness.
Details
Keywords
Dawn E. Bowden and Stanley J. Smits
As healthcare has become more scientifically based and far more sophisticated in terms of technology, it has become more fragmented in terms of care‐giving, and less personal. The…
Abstract
Purpose
As healthcare has become more scientifically based and far more sophisticated in terms of technology, it has become more fragmented in terms of care‐giving, and less personal. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenging task of leading and managing in the gap between the existing and emerging cultures of healthcare.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper considers the literature on culture, how it exists at many levels and in multiple forms, and the impacts it has on the US healthcare system. Further, the paper explores foundations of the current healthcare culture and attempts to forecast features of the emerging culture, incorporating examples of advances in scientific knowledge and technology.
Findings
System change will continue to be problematic until leaders and change agents find ways to operate effectively in the gap between the existing cultural tenets and those emerging as the result of scientific and technological advancements.
Originality/value
Punctuated equilibrium theory serves as a main tenet for describing how changes will continue to push the USA towards a cultural tipping point. This paper contends that leaders and managers can succeed only by understanding and respecting both cultures and calls for improved theory development and research to help find creative ways to advance the new culture without trampling the old.
Details
Keywords
Martin Götz and Ernest H. O’Boyle
The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and…
Abstract
The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).
Details
Keywords
Rico Baldegger, Pascal Wild and Patrick Schueffel
Today, newly founded businesses are inevitably driven to start in a digital form from day 1. Moreover, most existing businesses conceive digitalization as an important part of…
Abstract
Today, newly founded businesses are inevitably driven to start in a digital form from day 1. Moreover, most existing businesses conceive digitalization as an important part of their strategic orientation by developing and improving their digital assets and digitalizing their processes. By taking account of this development, this chapter investigates how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) affects a small firm’s proclivity to both digitization and internationalization and their performance that comes from it. Internationalization has been a key topic for many small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) over the past decades. As digitization is currently taking over the helm from internationalization as the most pressing topic affecting business, we carried out research among SMEs to understand the interplay of these factors influencing business performance. The focus of the research was on the precursory factors inducing firm performance as well as on their interrelationships. Using a sample of 357 SMEs, EO is found to be significantly closely associated with an SME’s degree of digitization as well as with its overall performance. In contrast, EO does not affect the SME’s level of internationalization. This result is surprising considering that proactive and risk-taking firms tend to be more inclined to enter foreign and distant markets.
Details
Keywords
Pinaz Tiwari, Hugues Seraphin and Vanessa Gowresunkar
COVID-19 impacted the tourism sector, and its ripple effect is equally evident in tourism academia at all levels. Since innovation in tourism pedagogy is considered an epicentre…
Abstract
Purpose
COVID-19 impacted the tourism sector, and its ripple effect is equally evident in tourism academia at all levels. Since innovation in tourism pedagogy is considered an epicentre of quality education, this study proposes an integrated model to identify the degree of pedagogical innovation adapted by tourism educators. The model is an amalgamation of innovation indicators in teaching practices developed by Sigala (2021), a futurist model developed by Wassler and Fan (2021) and a model of innovation developed by Brooker and Joppe (2014).
Design/Methodology
The study is exploratory, and an online qualitative survey was used to collect data. Data were analysed using the Nvivo 12 software and three themes were drawn: Painters, Artists and Artisans.
Findings
The study found that the majority of the tourism educators are painters as they adopted minor changes in their pedagogy. They follow the conventional methods of teaching by incorporating ICT into their pedagogy. Whereas a smaller group of tourism educators introduced innovative tools to encourage and equip students with professional skills (artists/artisans).
Practical Implications
The study suggests practical implications for tourism educators to embrace and innovate their pedagogy to become ‘artists/artisans’. The support of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and industry professionals are equally crucial for bringing innovation in tourism pedagogy and academia, in general, artisans.
Originality
Given that tourism education has scantly been discussed following the breakout of COVID-19 (Sigala, 2020), the study addresses that resurrection of tourism pedagogy through an integrated model.
Details
Keywords
Braam Lowies, Graham Squires, Peter Rossini and Stanley McGreal
The purpose of this paper is to first explore whether Australia and the main metropolitan areas demonstrate significant differences in tenure and property type between…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to first explore whether Australia and the main metropolitan areas demonstrate significant differences in tenure and property type between generational groups. Second, whether the millennial generation is more likely to rent rather than own. Third, if such variation in tenure and property type by millennials is one of individual choice and lifestyle or the impact of housing market inefficiencies.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs a comparative research approach using secondary data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to consider housing tenure and type distributions across generations as well as through cross-city analysis.
Findings
The results show that home ownership is still the dominant tenure in Australia, but private rental is of increasing significance, becoming the tenure of choice for Millennials. Owner occupation is shown to remain and high and stable levels for older generations and while lower in percentage terms for Generation X; this generation exhibits the highest growth rate for ownership. Significant differences are shown in tenure patterns across Australia.
Originality/value
The significance of this paper is the focus on the analysis of generational differences in housing tenure and type, initially for Australia and subsequently by major metropolitan areas over three inter-census periods (2006, 2011 and 2016). It enhances the understanding of how policies favouring ageing in place can contradict other policies on housing affordability with specific impact on Millennials as different generations are respectively unequally locked-out and locked-in to housing wealth.