Stuart A. Green, Liz Evans, Rachel Matthews, Sandra Jayacodi, Jenny Trite, Anton Manickam, Rachel Evered, John Green, Joanna Williams, Ed Beveridge, Caroline Parker and Bill Tiplady
National and local policy supports the involvement of patients at all levels in the design, delivery and improvement of health services. Whilst existing approaches to support…
Abstract
Purpose
National and local policy supports the involvement of patients at all levels in the design, delivery and improvement of health services. Whilst existing approaches to support involvement have been described and disseminated, including the 4Pi National Involvement Standards, their application in quality improvement is rarely reported. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
A quality improvement initiative within a mental health trust was developed with a multi-disciplinary team, including those with professional experience of delivering or improving care and those with lived experience. The aim of the initiative was to improve the physical health of inpatients within an acute mental health unit. This case study aims to describe how the integration of concepts from the 4Pi National Involvement Standards (Principles, Purpose, Presence, Process and Impact) provided a framework for engaging and involving service users. The case study also aims to describe how co-design was included within the 4Pi approach and supported the development of a tool to aid improving physical healthcare.
Findings
The 4Pi National Involvement Standards provided a guiding framework for the involvement of service users within a quality improvement initiative. Value of the approach was realised through the co-design of a tool developed by service users, along with healthcare professionals, to facilitate discussion and support shared-decision making about inpatients’ physical health.
Practical implications
Identifying “ways that work” for service user involvement is crucial to move beyond the policy rhetoric or tokenistic involvement. Involvement in quality improvement initiatives can bring benefits both to services and the service users themselves.
Originality/value
Whilst the 4PI approach is recognised as a useful framework for involvement, few examples exist of its practical applications within a quality improvement setting.
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Stuart Green and Laurence Ferry
This paper considers the nature and effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices in three secondary schools in England. A close application of a developed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper considers the nature and effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices in three secondary schools in England. A close application of a developed model of Habermasian colonization provides a framing for both the ways in which accounting is implicated in organizational change and the effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative field studies at three secondary schools were used to gather empirical detail in the form of interview data and documentary evidence. A total of 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and bursars.
Findings
Accounting disturbances that were constitutive-transactional in nature had the greatest influence on organizational micro-practices. Behavioural responses to accounting disturbances can be organizationally ambiguous, subtle and subject to change over time.
Research limitations/implications
More field studies are needed, and there is scope to develop a longitudinal perspective to better understand the impact of accounting disturbances over time.
Originality/value
By framing the processes of accounting change using a developed model of Habermasian colonization, contributions are provided by illuminating aspects of both the processes of accounting colonization and the impact of accounting on organizational micro-practices. The findings also add to prior appreciations of reciprocal colonization, creative transformation of accounting disturbances and how accounting can be enabling.
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Laurence Ferry, Henry Midgley and Stuart Green
The study explains why Parliamentarians in the United Kingdom (UK) focused on accountability through data during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as on how data could be used to…
Abstract
Purpose
The study explains why Parliamentarians in the United Kingdom (UK) focused on accountability through data during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as on how data could be used to improve the government’s response to the pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Understanding the implications of accountability for COVID-19 is crucial to understanding how governments should respond to future pandemics. This article provides an account of what a select committee in the UK thought were the essential elements of these accountability relationships. To do so, the authors use a neo-Roman concept of liberty to show how Parliamentary oversight of the pandemic for accountability was crucial to maintaining the liberty of citizens during the crisis and to identify what lessons need to be learnt for future crises.
Findings
The study shows that Parliamentarians were concerned that the UK government was not meeting its obligations to report openly about the COVID-19 pandemic to them. It shows that the government did make progress in reporting during the pandemic but further advancements need to be made in future for restrictions to be compatible with the protection of liberty.
Research limitations/implications
The study extends the concept of neo-Roman liberty showing how it is relevant in an emergency situation and provides an account of why accountability is necessary for the preservation of liberty when the government uses emergency powers.
Practical implications
Governments and Parliaments need to think about how they preserve liberty during crises through enhanced accountability mechanisms and the publication of data.
Originality/value
The study extends previous work on liberty and calculation, providing a theorisation of the role of numbers in the protection of liberty.
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Scott Fernie, Stuart D. Green and Stephanie J. Weller
Requirements management (RM), as practised in the aerospace and defence sectors, attracts interest from construction researchers in response to longstanding problems of project…
Abstract
Requirements management (RM), as practised in the aerospace and defence sectors, attracts interest from construction researchers in response to longstanding problems of project definition. Doubts are expressed whether RM offers a new discipline for construction practitioners or whether it repeats previous exhortations to adopt a more disciplined way of working. Whilst systems engineering has an established track record of addressing complex technical problems, its extension to socially complex problems has been challenged. The dominant storyline of RM is one of procedural rationality and RM is commonly presented as a means of controlling dilettante behaviour. Interviews with RM practitioners suggest a considerable gulf between the dominant storyline in the literature and how practitioners operate in practice. The paper challenges construction researchers interested in RM to reflect more upon the theoretical debates that underpin current equivalent practices in construction and the disparity between espoused and enacted practice.
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This paper aims to retrieve relevant aspects of the work of idealist thinker T.H. Green to improve comprehension of, and policy responses to, various dilemmas facing contemporary…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to retrieve relevant aspects of the work of idealist thinker T.H. Green to improve comprehension of, and policy responses to, various dilemmas facing contemporary “information societies”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is an exercise in interdisciplinary conceptual research, seeking a new synthesis that draws upon a range of ethical, metaphysical, empirical and policy texts and ideas. It is an application of moral and political principles to post-industrial problems, part of an ongoing international effort to develop viable normative approaches to the emergent information society. The background research included in situ study of archival papers.
Findings
Green’s version of idealism illuminates current, technologically induced shifts in our understandings of important categories such as self, substance and space. The paper finds that Green’s doctrine of the common good, his alternative to the (still prevalent) school of utilitarian welfarism, combined with his famously “positive” theory of the state, is highly relevant as a normative template for applied philosophy and policy. The article demonstrates its applicability to three vital contemporary issues: freedom of information, intellectual property and personal privacy. It concludes that Green’s work provides exceptional resources for an original, anti-technocratic, theory of the information society as good society.
Practical implications
It is hoped that, as part of the wider rediscovery of the work of Green and other idealists, the paper will have some impact on public policy.
Originality/value
The paper contains a new scholarly interpretation of Green’s theories of the common good and of the state. In addition, it is believed to be the first major attempt to apply idealism to the information society and its problems.
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This paper aims to explore the gendered narratives of change management at Marks and Spencer (M&S) and uses them as a lens to consider the gendered nature of the change process…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the gendered narratives of change management at Marks and Spencer (M&S) and uses them as a lens to consider the gendered nature of the change process itself.
Design/methodology/approach
Two extant stories: Sleeping Beauty and the Trojan War are taken, along with the cultural archetype of the American West gunslinger to explore the gender aspects of change. The Marks and Spencer case is analysed using the corollary patriarchal narrative of Sleeping Beauty, a story whose organising logic is revealed as one of concern for patriarchal lineage, and legitimate succession. The paper, draws on the Marks and Spencer principals' memoirs and biographies.
Findings
Sleeping Beauty is shown as a narrative saturated in misogyny, aggression and violence. This violence, which is shown to characterise the Marks and Spencer case, is amplified in the second narrative, the Trojan War, in the highly personalised battles of the über‐warriors of The Iliad. The paper concludes that violent, hyper‐masculine behaviour creates and maintains a destructive cycle of leadership lionisation and failure at the company which precludes a more feminine and possibly more effective construction of change management.
Originality/value
Demonstrates how M&S, gendered from its birth, its development through the golden years, the crisis, its changes in leadership and its recent change management has attempted to respond to its changing environment.
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The purpose of this study is to show that corporations may resort to legal compliance instead of acting voluntarily towards abatement of environmental damages as a strategy for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to show that corporations may resort to legal compliance instead of acting voluntarily towards abatement of environmental damages as a strategy for improving their reputation.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the natural philosophy and postulate of business, theoretical models have been developed to justify the purpose of this paper. Financial impacts of Indian revenue law on environmental damage prevention by the polluting firms have been gauged mathematically.
Findings
Corporate environmental responsibilities have seemed to be more reputation-led than innovation-led or efficiency-led. Reputation-led environmental responsibilities can have ways to bypass innovations and some firms can simply comply with regulations at the society’s cost (may be to a sizeable extent). If penalty is imposed on companies in the form of taxation for damaging the environment, then companies get chances to pass the financial burden to the shareholders in the form of lower dividend pay-outs. Unless the capital market supports corporate green initiatives, there may be destruction of shareholder wealth.
Research limitations/implications
Extensive empirical analysis have not been conducted as the paper concentrates on developing theoretical understanding of the models of “green cost”.
Practical implications
The exploration and outcomes of this paper can offer several directions to the government, business and social activists in articulating green economic policy for the benefits of all.
Social implications
The civil society will understand better what the corporate environmental responsibility really means for them.
Originality/value
This paper has made a modest endeavour to develop theoretical models of both “green cost internalisation” and “green cost externalisation”. It has paved the path for further deliberations and research.
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Value engineering has recently made a significant impact in the UKconstruction industry. Many clients are insisting on its application inorder to ensure that the completed…
Abstract
Value engineering has recently made a significant impact in the UK construction industry. Many clients are insisting on its application in order to ensure that the completed building design represents value for money. Project managers are enthusiastically adopting the value engineering approach as a means of managing the early stages of design. The current state of development of value engineering in the UK construction industry is described.
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Tony Dundon and Dave Eva
Seeks to locate the role of trade unions in bargaining for vocational education and training (VET) within the context of workplace industrial relations. Drawing on the experiences…
Abstract
Seeks to locate the role of trade unions in bargaining for vocational education and training (VET) within the context of workplace industrial relations. Drawing on the experiences and findings of a TUC project aimed at improving union awareness of training initiatives, argues that any clear distinction between distributive and integrative bargaining ignores the complexity, dynamics and variation found at different workplaces. Further suggests that both policy‐makers and government agencies have misplaced the vital role which trade unions offer in formulating both a coherent labour relations and ultimately a training strategy which can utilise employee skill formation. Also suggests that a review of the voluntary employer‐led system is long overdue.
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This paper considers the relationship between value management and facilities management. The findings are particularly relevant to large client organisations which procure new…
Abstract
This paper considers the relationship between value management and facilities management. The findings are particularly relevant to large client organisations which procure new buildings on a regular basis. It is argued that the maximum effectiveness of value management can only be achieved if it is used in conjunction with an ongoing commitment to post‐occupancy evaluation. SMART value management is seen to provide the means of ensuring that an individual building design is in alignment with the client’s strategic property needs. However, it is also necessary to recognise that an organisation’s strategic property needs will continually be in a state of change. Consequentially, economic and functional under‐performance can only be avoided by a regular performance audit of existing property stock in accordance with changing requirements. Such a policy will ensure ongoing competitiveness through organisational learning. While post‐occupancy evaluation represents an obvious additional service to be provided by value management consultants, it is vital that the necessary additional skills are acquired. Process management skills and social science research techniques are clearly important. However, there is also a need to improve mechanisms for data manipulation. Success can only be achieved if equal attention is given to issues of process, structure and content.