Developing an effective project: Planning and team building combined

In this article, the process of developing the project plan and the project planning and control (PP&C) is analyzed and compared to the process of developing the project team to identify opportunities for integrating these actions to produce more successful projects. Results of structured research across some 137 different organizations and representing a wide range of approaches to establishing projects are reported. The results of this cross‐organizational research strongly support the proposed integration of project planning, PP&C development, and project team building. A recommended process for accomplishing this integration is proposed.     

MARCH MADNESS: NCAA TOURNAMENT PARTICIPATION AND COLLEGE ALCOHOL USE

While athletic success may improve the visibility of a university to prospective students and thereby benefit the school, it may also increase risky behavior in the current student body. Using the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, we find that a school's participation in the NCAA Basketball Tournament is associated with a 47% increase in binge drinking by male students at that school. Additionally, we find evidence that drunk driving increases by 5% among all students during the tournament. (JEL I12, I23, Z28)     

Nurses as implementers of organizational culture

Drawing from both theory and case-study data, the role of nurse leaders in implementing constructive organizational cultures is discussed. Constructive cultures create high-performance work environments, increasing both employee and patient satisfaction, and ultimately affecting economic performance. Nursing administrators aspiring to implement a constructive culture should emphasize people-centered values through a collective mission, strategic human resource management practices, and a patient service-oriented philosophy. Furthermore, constructive organizational cultures create successful high-performance work environments when nurses have positive colleague interactions and approach tasks in a manner that helps them experience self-actualization, while at the same time achieving organizational goals.     

Reconsidering gaps between perceived and real discrimination: commentary on the Galak and Kahn 2019 Academic Marketing Climate Survey

Marketing Letters - Understanding and mitigating factors that adversely affect an institution’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have moved to the forefront of many industries,...     

A case for complements? Location and attendance in Major League Soccer

As Major League Soccer (MLS) continues to award expansion franchises throughout North America, the league must be considerate of how new clubs may impact attendance levels at nearby clubs. Regardless of whether new MLS clubs are awarded to cities with strong North American Soccer League histories, league officials must be mindful of the effect that geographically close competitors can have on attendance. Perhaps stemming from the limited number of clubs in competition, MLS teams currently appear to operate as strategic complements to one another, increasing season-long attendance as teams locate closer to one another.     

Accelerating the culture change!

Exide Electronics, a major supplier of uninterruptible power system equipment, embarked on a journey of changing a culture to improve quality, enhance customer responsiveness, and reduce costs. This case study examines the evolution of change over a period of seven years, with particular emphasis on the most recent years, 1992 through 1995. The article focuses on the Raleigh plant operations and describes how each succeeding year built on the successes and fixed the shortcomings of the prior years to accelerate the culture change, including corrective action and continuous improvement processes, organizational structures, expectations, goals, achievements, and pitfalls. The real challenge to changing the culture was structuring a dynamic approach to accelerate change! The presentation also examines how the evolutionary process itself can be created and accelerated through ongoing communication, regular feedback of progress and goals, constant evaluation and direction of the process, and measuring and paying for performance.     

The Long Run Problem of Financing the Social Security System

Abstract . The Social Security Amendments of 1972 radically altered the Social Security System (SSS) by including, among other things, provisions whereby the taxable wage base would thereafter rise with increases in the average U.S. wage level and benefits would rise with increases in the Consumer Price Index. These provisions, in fact, have so affected the magnitude of present and potential future social security benefit payments that today, in spite of the restoration of short-run financial viability, the very financial solvency of the system over the long run is at issue. In an attempt to understand this financial solvency problem, three questions are examined: 1) how are social security benefits calculated today; 2) how have the underlying principles of the SSS changed recently; and 3) what does the future of the SSS look like? The results of that examination leave little doubt that the SSS must again be changed significantly if its long run financial solvency is to be restored, but President Carter's recent recommendations for change appear to be only a temporary solution to a long run problem.