Stefan Hendriks, SeoYoon Sung and Rob F. Poell
The purpose of this study was to explore how customer-facing professionals (CFPs) created learning paths to adapt to changing customer needs in a digital environment.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore how customer-facing professionals (CFPs) created learning paths to adapt to changing customer needs in a digital environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Two groups of CFPs were created from a previous single-case study to examine the learning paths of the two groups. Both groups were digitally competent yet differed in their ability to adapt to the increased usage of digital technologies by their customers: adaptive or conservative CFPs. Research questions addressed perceived learning needs, learning strategies to meet needs and factors that helped or hindered success. Transcripts were coded based on the five elements of a learning path, described within the learning network theory (i.e. motives, learning themes, learning activities, social context and facilities), using the Dedoose coding software. Group findings were compared to identify similarities and differences in their learning path elements.
Findings
CFPs learning path elements varied individually and between adaptive and conservative CFPs. Individually, they varied in learning themes: digital or traditional customer-facing competencies and learning activities such as learning from experience, self-directed learning and learning from others. Drive and ambition emerged as a learning motive for several CFPs in both groups. Although small samples, adaptive CFPs saw a need for digital competencies and engaged in self-directed learning (e.g. solving problems and using digital technologies), more so than conservative CFPs. A positive work environment (e.g. healthy relationships and support from others) was perceived as necessary for success for both groups.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on how one’s approach toward technology influences the creation of one’s learning path. It shows the increased importance of digital competencies for CFPs in a digital world and how CFPs who embrace technology develop technological savviness, solve problems using online resources and experiment with technology and systems, strive for self-sufficiency and rely on self-directed learning.
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Maike Hiller, Hendrik Bracht and Stefan Schroeder
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way hospitals work. Strategies that were detached from the boundaries of departments and responsibilities in the COVID-19 pandemic have…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way hospitals work. Strategies that were detached from the boundaries of departments and responsibilities in the COVID-19 pandemic have proven themselves under extreme conditions and show a beneficial influence on patient flow and resource management as well as on the communication culture. The continuation of closer interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral co-operation in a “new clinical routine” could have a positive impact on personnel concepts, communication strategies, and the management of acute care capacities and patient pathways.
Design/methodology/approach
The aim of the paper is to critically discuss the knowledge gained in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic from the various approaches in patient flow and capacity management as well as interdisciplinary co-operation. More recent research has evaluated patient pathway management, personnel planning and communication measures with regard to their effect and practicability for continuation in everyday clinical practice.
Findings
Patient flows and acute care capacities can be more efficiently managed by continuing a culture change towards closer interdisciplinary and intersectoral co-operation and technologies that support this with telemedicine functionalities and regional healthcare data interoperability. Together with a bi-directional, more frequent and open communication and feedback culture, it could form a “new clinical routine”.
Originality/value
This paper discusses a holistic approach on the way away from silo thinking towards cross-departmental collaboration.
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This paper aims to offer a reflection on the alliance between accounting theory and social research in general, focussing on the conjunction of accounting theory and ethnography…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer a reflection on the alliance between accounting theory and social research in general, focussing on the conjunction of accounting theory and ethnography in particular.
Design/methodology/approach
The author builds on Stefan Hirschauer’s methodological reflections on ethnography and the “silence of the social” to briefly re-articulate some of the ideas the author had associated, in an earlier piece, with the investigation of tacit coordination in accounting.
Findings
Ethnography is an intrinsically theoretical practice and also a particular form of accounting. As such, it presents a paradigm case for how accounting theory builds on, and emerges from, social research in joint efforts of breaking the silence of the social. Ethnographic research, like the practice of accounting and social research more generally, is associated with a stewardship of silence and an “ethics of mattering” (Karen Barad), and accounting theory is an invitation to reflect on the underlying practices of (dis-)articulation.
Originality/value
The paper invites readers to engage with accounting practice as a topic of systematic theoretical interest in exploring how we put the world on the record, understand the choices we make in the process and the silences we let lie.
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Dieter Ahlert, Rainer Olbrich, Peter Kenning and Hendrik Schroeder
Eric Blaauw, Hendrik G. Roozen and Hjalmar G. C. Van Marle
About 4% of all prisoners can be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, but it is largely unknown how these prisoners function during imprisonment. The present study aimed to…
Abstract
About 4% of all prisoners can be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, but it is largely unknown how these prisoners function during imprisonment. The present study aimed to describe symptoms of psychotic prisoners during imprisonment and incidents caused by them as well as care provided to these prisoners. A total of 61 prisoners were observed for a maximum of 12 weeks. Results show that poverty of speech and blunted affect significantly decreased over time. The largest group of psychotic prisoners either did not suffer from positive psychotic symptoms or the encountered positive psychotic symptoms exhibited a steady or decreasing pattern during their imprisonment. Reasons for these findings still remain unclear.
Stefan Soeparman, Casper Geurtz and Gabriel van den Brink
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the different and competing demands on police, and how they affect the credibility of police performance. The paper also looks at a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the different and competing demands on police, and how they affect the credibility of police performance. The paper also looks at a possible way out of situations with competing claims.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a research project that focused on the interactions of police with their environment. In total, 40 qualitative, open‐ended interviews were obtained with people who had been in contact with the police in the previous 12 months. These interviews were transcribed and analysed with the help of qualitative data analysis software.
Findings
This analysis led to the discovery of four types of facets within these interactions which the authors labelled: situational, symbolic, institutional and professional. These are aspects of the horizontal relationships within the police environment, but at the same time police also have a vertical relationship (a “baseline”) with their superiors that is highly important.
Research limitations/implications
The paper explores these different and competing accountability claims on the police and looks at specific policing situations, in order to assess the influence of police performances on the credibility of the police. It is also a stepping stone for further research into the relationship between horizontal and vertical aspects of police performance.
Practical implications
The paper shows why police performances can easily lack credibility and is important because it analyses different facets that police need to keep in mind when interacting with civilians.
Originality/value
The paper looks at some of the innate tensions in contemporary police work, which causes a “credibility trap” that is almost impossible to avoid, but can have severe implications for the legitimacy of the police.
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David Lorenz, Stefan Trück and Thomas Lützkendorf
The purpose of this paper is to propose and discuss practical approaches on how to address risk and uncertainty within valuation reports, particularly when there is only…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose and discuss practical approaches on how to address risk and uncertainty within valuation reports, particularly when there is only insufficient comparable transaction evidence available.
Design/methodology/approach
A four stage approach to property valuation is proposed that can be particularly useful if there is insufficient comparable transaction evidence available: Identifying, measuring and expressing risk by making use of property rating approaches. Transforming risk into risk premia for calculating the yield on a risk free basis by partially making use of models of risk and return usually applied in finance. Simulating risk premia (since there is great deal of uncertainty involved in determining these premia) by making use of a statistical method commonly referred to as Monte Carlo Simulation. Using the derived yield's probability distribution in combination with further probability distributions for other valuation input variables (e.g. market rent) to calculate a range of possible outcomes of Market Value as well as a number of statistical measures that can be indicative of the valuer's perceived uncertainty regarding the valuation assignment.
Findings
The empirical part shows that due to data limitations determining idiosyncratic risk premia for property assets is not yet possible. This significantly hampers the development of robust yield pricing models and reinforces the need to create databases including information on both individual property returns and associated building characteristics.
Practical implications
The paper postulates that there are few (if any) rational reasons for valuers not to use rating and simulation approaches as an indispensable element of the valuation process.
Originality/value
A valuation approach that allows simultaneously addressing risk and uncertainty as well as sustainability issues within commercial property valuation practice is proposed.
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This chapter reviews the existing empirical evidence on how social insurance affects health. Social insurance encompasses programs primarily designed to insure against health…
Abstract
This chapter reviews the existing empirical evidence on how social insurance affects health. Social insurance encompasses programs primarily designed to insure against health risks, such as health insurance, sick leave insurance, accident insurance, long-term care insurance, and disability insurance as well as other programs, such as unemployment insurance, pension insurance, and country-specific social insurance programs. These insurance systems exist in almost all developed countries around the world. This chapter discusses the state-of-the art evidence on each of these social insurance systems, briefly reviews the empirical methods for identifying causal effects, and examines possible limitations to these methods. The findings reveal robust and rich evidence on first-stage behavioral responses (“moral hazard”) to changes in insurance coverage. Surprisingly, evidence on how changes in coverage impact beneficiaries’ health is scant and inconclusive. This lack of identified causal health effects is directly related to limitations on how human health is typically measured, limitations on the empirical approaches, and a paucity of administrative panel data spanning long-time horizons. Future research must be conducted to fill these gaps. Of particular importance is evidence on how these social insurance systems interact and affect human health over the life cycle.
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Discusses organisation, automation and performance measurementaspects of interlibrary loan department management, and developments incharging for and the preservation of ILL…
Abstract
Discusses organisation, automation and performance measurement aspects of interlibrary loan department management, and developments in charging for and the preservation of ILL items. Highlights the problems of ILL in developing countries, and changes and developments in the rest of the world. Considers electronic document delivery systems, the effect of technological advances on libraries and the “Burgundy effect”.