Search results

This chapter discusses what the working practices and professionalism of sports lecturers can tell us about the challenges of professionalism in further education (FE). This chapter draws on Jake's doctoral research in which he interviewed five sports lecturers working in FE colleges in England, about their identities and practices. In this chapter, Jake talks about his own experiences as a sports lecturer in FE and how his increasing disillusionment with his role led him to undertake doctoral research in this field. We explore constructions of professionalism within FE, and we show that through a process Jake identified and labelled as ‘competitive mediation’, the sports lecturers he interviewed used their experiences as elite sports people to navigate the highly performative environments in which they were working. The positives and negatives of using this strategy for them, their learners and wider society are explored in this chapter. We suggest that although Jake's research focused specifically on sports lecturers in FE settings, his insights can be applied more widely, we reflect on the importance of considering the impact our own diverse lived experiences may have on our sense of professionalism as researchers and practitioners.

Addresses the implementation of business process re‐engineering (BPR) programmes in 33 public and private organisations wishing to improve performance. By reviewing the existing literature, the research presented here began by identifying ten dimensions along which BPR projects might be measured. This research then uses these dimensions to investigate two research questions. Uses factor analysis based on quantitative data to address these questions. The factor analysis identified three independent aspects of BPR implementation: strategy, process and cost. These terms were then used in labelling three characteristic approaches, strategic BPR, process‐focused BPR and cost‐focused BPR. To investigate causality we re‐visited seven of the original organisations which had been in the early stages of implementation. Preliminary results indicate that managers might avoid the naturalistic tendency towards slow or stalled BPR maturity by intervening in a strategic sense at an earlier stage of implementation, thus bringing an organisation to a mature BPR programme more quickly.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main organizational factors that contribute to the successful implementation of business process reengineering (BPR) in the Egyptian banking sector. These factors include management commitment, information technology (IT) infrastructure, people management, change readiness, centralization and formalization.

The key organizational enablers were identified through an extensive literature review. Then, statistical analysis was carried out based on data collected, using a questionnaire instrument, from 184 managers employed in 38 banks operating in Egypt.

The results of the study indicate that management commitment, IT infrastructure, people management, change readiness and organizational structure with a low degree of formalization are critical enablers for implementing a successful BPR program within the Egyptian banking sector.

The results may support managers of banks in identifying and assessing the influence of integrating organizational factors that facilitate or hinder the successful implementation of BPR.

Since 2004, the Egyptian banking system has involved in major reform programs and many BPR efforts. Much research effort is required to investigate the BPR projects within the Egyptian banks in order to develop a concrete base of knowledge and understanding of the nature of BPR and factors that support its successful implementation. Moreover, there is an insufficiency of empirical studies regarding the implementation of BPR within the Egyptian service sector. The current study fills this gap by exploring and examining the main organizational factors affecting BPR implementation in a developing country.

The growing numbers of terminally ill and dying in prison has high economic and moral costs as global correctional systems and the society at large. However, to date little is known about the extent to which palliative and end-of-life care is infused within global prison health care systems. The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature by reviewing and critically appraising the methods and major findings of the international peer-reviewed literature on palliative and end-of-life care in prison, identify the common elements of promising palliative and end-of-life services in prison, and what factors facilitate or create barrier to implementation.

A content analysis was conducted of the existing peer-reviewed literature on palliative and end-of-life care in prison. English-language articles were located through a comprehensive search of peer-reviewed journals, such as Academic Search Premier Literature databases using differing combinations of key word search terms, “prison,” “palliative care,” and “end-of-life care.” A total of 49 studies published between 1991 and 2013 met criteria for sample inclusion. Deductive and inductive analysis techniques were used to generate frequency counts and common themes related to the methods and major findings.

The majority (n=39) of studies were published between 2001-2013 in the USA (n=40) and the UK (n=7). Most were about US prison hospice programs (n=16) or barriers to providing palliative and end of life care in prisons (n=10). The results of the inductive analysis identified common elements of promising practices, which included the use of peer volunteers, multi-disciplinary teams, staff training, and partnerships with community hospices. Obstacles identified for infusing palliative and end-of-life care in prison included ethical dilemmas based on custody vs care, mistrust between staff and prisoners, safety concerns, concern over prisoners’ potential misuse of pain medication, and institutional, staff, and public apathy toward terminally ill prisoners and their human rights to health in the form of compassionate and palliative care, including the use of compassionate release laws.

Implications for future research that foster human rights and public awareness of the economic and moral costs of housing the sick and dying in prisons. More research is needed to document human rights violations as well as best practices and evidence-based practices in palliative and end-of-life care in prisons. Future studies should incorporate data from the terminally ill in prison, peer supports, and family members. Future studies also should employ more rigorous research designs to evaluate human rights violations, staff and public attitudes, laws and policies, and best practices. Quantitative studies that use experimental designs, longitudinal data, and multiple informants are needed. Qualitative data would allow for thick descriptions of key stakeholders experiences, especially of the facilitators and barriers for implementing policy reform efforts and palliative care in prisons.

This review provides a foundation on which to build on about what is known thus far about the human right to health, especially parole policy reform and infusing palliative and end-of-life care for the terminally ill and dying in prisons. This information can be used to develop or improve a new generation research, practice, policy, and advocacy efforts for that target terminally ill and dying in prison and their families and communities.

There are significant social implications to this review. From a human rights perspective, the right to freedom from torture and cruel and unusual punishment is a fundamental human right along with prisoners’ rights for an appropriate level of health care. These rights should be guaranteed regardless of the nature of their crime or whether they are in a prison placement. The information provided in this review can be used to educate and possible transform individual's and society's views toward the terminally ill and dying who are involved in the criminal justice system.

This paper extends the extant literature by using both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods to organize, summarize, and critically analyze the international literature on palliative care and end of life care in prison. This review is designed to increase awareness among the international community of the pain and suffering of the terminally ill in prison and the facilitators and barriers to providing them compassionate care while in custody.

The purpose of this paper is to assist organizations in the assessment of both information technology (IT) and human factors required to support their business processes (BPs) by taking into account the interdependence and alignment of these factors, rather than considering them independently.

A design science research methodology was followed to build a maturity model (MM) enabling this assessment. The proposed design process is composed of four steps: problem identification, comparison of 19 existing MMs in business process management (BPM), iterative model development, and model evaluation. The last two steps were specifically based on three research methods: literature analysis, case studies, and expert panels.

This paper presents a MM that assigns a maturity level to an organization’s BPs in two assessment steps. The first step evaluates the level of sophistication and integration of the IT systems supporting each BP, while the second step assesses the alignment of human factors with the technological efforts.

The research was conducted with SMEs, leading to results that may be specific to this type of organization.

Practitioners can use the proposed model throughout their journey toward process excellence. The application of this model leads to two main process improvement scenarios: upgrading the sophistication and integration of the software technologies in support of the processes, and improving the cohesion of the resources the organization already owns (human and IT resources).

The proposed MM constitutes a first step in the assessment of the interdependence between the factors influencing BPM.

Using 12 case studies, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of business analysis techniques in BPR. Some techniques are used more than others depending on the fit between the technique and the problem. Other techniques are preferred due to their versatility, easy to use, and flexibility. Some are difficult to use requiring skills that analysts do not possess. Problem analysis, and business process analysis and activity elimination techniques are preferred for process improvement projects, and technology analysis for technology problems. Root cause analysis (RCA) and activity-based costing (ABC) are seldom used. RCA requires specific skills and ABC is only applicable for discrete business activities.

This is an exploratory case study analysis. The author analyzed 12 existing business reengineering (BR) case studies from the MIS literature. Cases include, but not limited to IBM Credit Union, Chase Manhattan Bank, Honeywell Corporation, and Cigna.

The author identified eight business analysis techniques used in business process reengineering. The author found that some techniques are preferred over others. Some possible reasons are related to the fit between the analysis technique and the problem situation, the ease of use-of-use of the chosen technique, and the versatility of the technique. Some BR projects require the use of several techniques, while others require just one. It appears that the problem complexity is correlated with the number of techniques required or used.

Small sample sizes are often subject to criticism about replication and generalizability of results. However, this research is a good starting point for expanding the sample to allow more generalizable results. Future research may investigate the deeper connections between reengineering and analysis techniques and the risks of using various techniques to diagnose problems in multiple dimensions. An investigation of fit between problems and techniques could be explored.

The author have a better idea which techniques are used more, which are more versatile, and which are difficult to use and why. Practitioners and academicians have a better understanding of the fit between technique and problem and how best to align them. It guides the selection of choosing a technique, and exposes potential problems. For example RCA requires knowledge of fishbone diagram construction and interpreting results. Unfamiliarity with the technique results in disaster and increases project risk. Understanding the issues helps to reduce project risk and increase project success, benefiting project teams, practitioners, and organizations.

Many aspects of BR have been studied but the contribution of this research is to investigate relationships between business analysis techniques and business areas, referred to as BR dimensions. The author try to find answers to the following questions: first, are business analysis techniques used for BR project, and is there evidence that BR affects one or more areas of the business? Second, are BR projects limited to a single dimension? Third, are some techniques better suited for diagnosing problems in specific dimensions and are some techniques more difficult to use than others, if so why?; are some techniques used more than others, if so why?

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology which defines best strategic practices for business process redesign (BPR).

A total of 29 best practices are studied and evaluated from the literature. The philosophy of TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method is applied in recognizing the alignment of best practices with the organization strategy. The indicators of cost, time, quality and flexibility are used as the criteria to measure the degree of alignment of best practices with organization strategy. The proposed method is tested in a case study of the registration process at a university.

The recent investment failures in BPR projects show that the relation between best practices and organization strategies should be highly considered. It is indicated that process redesign can meet organization strategies through recognizing and implementing best strategic practices.

Considering the fact that pundits working in the field of BPR are not accessible, the previous published findings and results have been used in this research.

Owing to the limitations on budget and time, organizations are able to consider only those best practices which play a critical vote in helping them to achieve their goals. Best strategic practices list provides managers and business analysts with a precious resource in BPR projects.

This paper presents a new methodology for introducing best strategic practices for BPR. A strategic best practice is a new term in the BPR literature.

Despite the increased adoption and reported benefits of kaizen event (KE) programs, there is a lack of empirical research documenting their design, implementation and outcomes, as well as what designs may be more vs less effective. This paper aims to present an empirical study describing the characteristics, including outcomes achieved, program attributes, and implementation problems, of 16 established KE programs. Although this study is primarily exploratory and descriptive, the goal is to identify areas for future research, including attributes that appear to support or detract from program success, and the outcomes and implementation problems experienced.

Using semi‐structured interviews, qualitative data were collected to characterize established KE programs in 16 manufacturing, service, and government organizations. The data were examined using content analysis to identify the most frequent codes for each characteristic, which were then compared to KE program characteristics synthesized from a systematic review of published KE sources. Based on this, a set of propositions were identified to guide future research on KE programs.

The majority of the 16 organizations reported successful programs, although there was noted variation in organization success. The organizations also neglected to measure many aspects of program success which they considered to be highly important, in particular, human resource outcomes. In addition, the organizations appeared to struggle with sustainability and believe that sustainability problems could threaten long‐term KE program viability. Other potentially influential factors include the types of processes targeted, event types, catalysts for events, and KE resources. The findings were used to develop propositions for future research in these and other specific areas.

The study provides a better understanding of the characteristics of established KE programs, as well as common areas in need of improvement even in these programs, and can be used by practitioners in establishing or improving their KE programs.

By documenting established KE programs across organizations and comparing actual practices to published sources, this study contributes to the development of KE theory and also provides direction for future empirical research.

The purpose of this paper is to propose how to minimize the risks of implementing business process reengineering (BPR) by measuring readiness. For this purpose, the paper proposes an assessment approach for readiness in BPR efforts based on the critical success and failure factors.

A relevant literature review, which investigates success and failure indicators in BPR efforts is carried out and a new categorized list of indicators are proposed. This is a base for conducting a survey to measure the BPR readiness, which has been run in two companies and compared based on a diamond model.

In this research, readiness indicators are determined based on critical success and failure factors. The readiness indicators include six categories. The first five categories, egalitarian leadership, collaborative working environment, top management commitment, supportive management, and use of information technology are positive indicators. The sixth category, resistance to change has a negative role. This paper reports survey results indicating BPR readiness in two Iranian companies. After comparing the position of the two cases, the paper offers several guidelines for amplifying the success points and decreasing failure points and hence, increasing the rate of success.

High‐failure rate of BPR has been introduced as a main barrier in reengineering processes. In addition, it makes a fear, which in turn can be a failure factor. This paper tries to fill the gap in the literature on decreasing risk in BPR projects by introducing a BPR readiness assessment approach. In addition, the proposed questionnaire is generic and can be utilized in a facilitated manner.

Despite its popularity, business process management (BPM) is not unequivocally defined, but obtains different forms with varying specifications. This paper presents a critical overview of BPM, as it appears within four dominant management paradigms: total quality management, standardized management systems, business process reengineering and Six Sigma. The purpose of this paper is to explore BPM specifications and compare the BPM implementation potential under each paradigm.

This is based on the analysis of a large number of highly cited scholarly publications. In order to identify the nature of BPM within each paradigm, a common framework for comparison is first established and then, for each paradigm, BPM is analyzed according to the main parameters of this framework.

Many differences among various BPM forms are paradigm driven. So, the approach adopted by each paradigm (i.e. individual-process or systemic approach) affects the scope and role of BPM. The principles of each paradigm directly affect the attributes assigned to BPM. Despite of important differences, the structure of BPM within all paradigms conforms to the stages of the classical BPM lifecycle. However, each paradigm assigns different weights to each stage and also displays different levels of BPM implementability.

The paper presents a first systematic comparison of BPM specifications for the dominant management paradigms primarily deployed. It thus explains why many attributes originating from the paradigms have crept into the general BPM specifications. This work can be considered as a step toward defining the core attributes of a paradigm-independent BPM model, thus enhancing its application scope as an invaluable management tool.