The importance of an internal marketing orientation in social services

• The current research takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the role of emotions in the successful delivery of social services. Survey data collected from 533 frontline social service providers were subjected to regression analyses. Findings reveal that emotional intelligence mediates the relationship between emotional labor and job stress, which in‐turn impacts job performance. The findings suggest that an internal marketing orientation is needed to better match the organization's products (i.e., jobs) with its internal customers (employees), and in‐turn improve the quality (job performance) of its offerings to its external customers.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining transformational leadership,job satisfaction,organizational commitment and organizational trust in Turkish hospitals: public servants versus private sector employees

Leadership, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and trust have become important processes for healthcare management in recent years. One of the contemporary human resource management functions in the organizations involves engaging in leadership development, improving organizational trust and organizational commitment and increasing job satisfaction. Considering the rapidly changing healthcare technology and higher levels of occupational complexity, healthcare organizations are increasingly in need of engaging in leadership development in any given area of expertise to address ever-changing nature of the industry and the delivery of quality of care while remaining cost-effective and competitive. This paper investigates the perceptions of both public servants and private sector employees (outsourcing) on transformational leadership, organizational commitment, organizational trust and job satisfaction in Turkish healthcare industry. Additionally, the paper analyzes the predictability of organizational commitment based on employee – both public servants (physicians, nurses, administrative personnel and other healthcare professionals) and private sector employees (outsourcing) (auxiliary services such as administrative assistants, security personnel, kitchen, laundry and housekeeping employees) – perceptions of transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust. Using a survey instrument with items adopted from the transformational leadership inventory (TLI) [Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Moorman, R. H., & Fetter, R. (1990). Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Leadership Quarterly, 1, 107–142], the organizational commitment questionnaire [Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the organizational trust inventory (OTI) [Cummings, L. L., & Bromiley, P. (1996). The occupational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. In R. Kramer & T. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research (pp. 302–330). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage] and job satisfaction survey (JSS) [Spector, P. E. (1985). Measurement of human service staff satisfaction: Development of the job satisfaction survey. American Journal of Community Psychology, 13, 693–731], this quantitative study was conducted among 2108 healthcare employees (public servants and private employees) in two large government hospitals in Turkey. The study findings indicate a significant difference between the public servants and private sector employees in terms of their perceptions on two dimensions of transformational leadership (being an appropriate model, providing individualized support), overall transformational leadership and one dimension of job satisfaction (communication). The two dimensions of job satisfaction – operating procedures and communication – as well as organizational trust were the significant predictors of organizational commitment of public servants, whereas the two dimensions of leadership – individualized support and fostering the acceptance – as well as the two dimensions of job satisfaction – promotion and contingent rewards – and organizational trust were the significant regressors of organizational commitment of private sector employees. In addition, there is a significant difference between the predictors of the dimensions of organizational commitment (transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust) in terms of public servants versus private sector employees. Finally, organizational trust has a significant effect on overall organizational commitment as well as its three dimensions for public servants and private employees.     

The relationship between HRM practices and service behaviour in South African service organizations

This paper reports on findings from research conducted in South African service organizations that frontline employees' perceptions of HRM practices have a direct influence on their service behaviour. Specific HRM practices have more impact than others and this was attributed to the influence of external factors such as the socio-political situation and national culture and to internal factors linked to the way managers implemented the HRM practices in the organization. Organizational commitment was found to play a mediating role in the relationship between frontline employees' perceptions of HRM and their service behaviour.     

The role of celebrity in endorsing poverty reduction through international aid

• ‘Celebrity endorsement’ is a strategy that is gathering increasing momentum in attempts to develop public awareness of the plight of the poor. 1
• 1 We say below the goal of endorsement is not necessarily donations but political commitment.
Understanding of public perceptions is clearly important for international organizations seeking to make use of celebrity in furthering their causes. This paper reports the results of a preliminary survey conducted among 100 members of the Irish public to evaluate levels of awareness of celebrity involvement in international development work and the public's opinions about such involvement. The survey instrument was semi-structured with some open-ended questions. The focus was on respondents' ability to identify celebrities associated with such work, and to elicit their opinions on those celebrities' perceived aims, knowledge of international development, and influence upon the respondent. It also requested opinions of the value of celebrity involvement more generally. The results suggest that respondents are generally able to distinguish between celebrities and their various causes. Most found their involvement to be valuable in raising the profile of charities, though only a small number claimed to be personally influenced by such activity. The respondents were fairly cynical as to the motives of most celebrities, whose involvement they felt served their own aims—namely publicity—first and foremost.
• Most respondents were more likely to be influenced by their perceptions of the character of the celebrity rather than their causes. They respected celebrities they felt were genuinely committed to the causes they espoused, but paradoxically, they felt such commitment was best demonstrated by the celebrity keeping a low profile and not actively seeking publicity. Long-term commitment to a given cause was also highly regarded. The results are discussed with regard to theories of social persuasion and the dilemma's facing celebrities who get involve in endorsement of charity aid or campaigns. More research is necessary to substantiate and further develop our findings.

Copyright ©2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhancing the commitment to service quality through developmental and rewarding systems: CSQ consistency as a moderator

This research integrated value congruence and person–environment fit theories into a validation of the effects of developmental and reward-based interventions on frontline service employees' commitment to service quality (FLSE CSQ). Based on a dyad survey conducted in 36 Starbucks stores in Taipei, the results reveal that formal training, coaching and rewards have positive relationships with FLSE CSQ. Moreover, FLSE CSQ is positively related to job satisfaction, commitment to the organisation, job performance and organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). The associations of development interventions and rewards with FLSE CSQ and the relationships of FLSE CSQ with job performance and OCBs are significantly stronger when the consistency of CSQ is high.     

Hospital service quality evaluation with IVIF-PROMETHEE and a case study

Measuring satisfaction of patients and understanding their perceptions are important for the hospital management to respond to customers' growing demands for acceptable quality of healthcare services. The main purpose of this paper is to present a methodology that can be used in the healthcare service quality evaluation. IVIF-PROMETHEE method is applied for service quality evaluation based on patients' views in a real-life case study of a public hospital in Istanbul and the results are compared with the results from IVIF-TOPSIS method. Interval Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IVIF) set is considered an appropriate tool because of the complexity and vagueness of the evaluation of healthcare services. The evaluation of the quality level of the healthcare service provides detailed information about the effects of considered criteria as well as creates opportunities in implementing effective procedures to overcome service quality problems via analysing the patients' views. The proposed methodology can be a useful tool for hospital management.     

The effects of re‐branding large UK charities on staff knowledge,attitudes and behaviour

• Despite the costs of charity re‐branding, there is little research in the public domain of its effect on staff. This study addresses that gap in knowledge by evaluating the effects of re‐branding large UK charities on staff knowledge, attitudes and behaviour.
• A quantitative survey of 465 charity staff was carried out in 10 large UK charities. The study shows that knowledge has benefited most from re‐branding although unevenly across different levels of seniority. Length of service has no effect on levels of knowledge but level of support was positively correlated.
• The impact of re‐branding on attitudes proved positive with staff at all levels feeling more motivated, involved and valued as a consequence. However, the study also demonstrates that not all staff feel engaged with the re‐branding process for the organisation to capitalise fully on enhanced staff performance.
• Behaviour was less affected by re‐branding with the exception of a very positive impact on staff retention. The report discusses the practical implications for charity managers.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creativity,job performance and their correlates: a comparison between nonprofit and profit-driven organizations

• This study explores a research model concerning creativity, job performance, and their correlates in the nonprofit organization setting. The findings of this study suggest that a set of differences in the areas of creativity, job performance, and their correlates exists between the marketers in nonprofit organizations and the marketers in profit-driven organizations. These findings reveal the need for contingency theories in this area, with emphasis centered on environmental differences. It is hoped that this study will draw the attention of many researchers toward topics concerning organizational creativity in the nonprofit organization setting.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Goals,Strategic Planning,and Performance in Government Agencies

Abstract

The setting of clear goals and strategic planning are characterized as critical roles of public managers that are closely related to the measurement and enhancement of organizational performance. This study investigates the effects of goal properties and strategic planning capacity and their interacting effects on government agency performance, an aspect which has rarely been explored in the public administration field. For this analysis, we use the hierarchical linear modelling method with data from the 2005 Merit Principle Survey and the 2005 Program Assessment Rating Tool. The dependent variable is perceived organizational performance at the individual level. The main independent variables are three types of goal properties – job-goal commitment, job-goal specificity, and mission specificity, measured at the individual level – and strategic planning capacity, measured at the agency level. The results suggest that in the data these goal-related attitudes and activities can make crucial contributions to the enhancement of organizational performance with no interacting effect.     

Affective commitment within the public sector: antecedents and performance outcomes between ownership types

How to generate affective commitment and realize its performance potential is deemed critical to public management. But in the context of service outsourcing, does ownership type influence its antecedents and performance outcomes? Drawing on postal survey data for English leisure providers, we find training is an antecedent across public and private ownership types; performance appraisal is an antecedent for private ownership only; while performance-related pay carries an insignificant effect. Affective commitment holds business and customer performance outcomes for public ownership, but insignificant effects are observed for external ownership types. Implications of this contextual variation for public management theory are discussed.     

The impact of primary service and servicescape on customer satisfaction in a leisure service setting: an empirical investigation among theatregoers

• This paper investigates the effects of perceived primary service and perceived servicescape on customer satisfaction in theatres. According to a questionnaire study, among n = 2897 theatregoers in 12 German‐speaking theatres, factors pertaining to the perceived primary service are most influential on customer satisfaction (in particular, the perceived artistic quality, followed by visitors' emotional and cognitive response to the performance). Contrariwise, factors pertaining to the perceived servicescape (i.e. seating and view; other customers' behaviour) are only of minor relevance for customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the influence of both perceived primary service quality and perceived servicescape quality on customer satisfaction is subject to moderating individual factors, such as visitors' theatrical competence and their motivation for attending a theatre performance.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The final gift: targeting the potential charity legator

• Although legacy income is of enormous importance to many of the UK's fundraising charities, little reliable information exists to assist practitioners in targeting potential legators with appropriate messages. In particular, the motives for making a legacy gift and the differences between those doing so and the general supporter base are unknown. This makes segmentation and the subsequent development of strategy problematic.
• This exploratory study seeks to address these issues and compare the motives of individuals who support charities during their lifetime with the motives of individuals who, in addition, pledge a legacy. The authors conclude that fundraisers looking to increase legacy income should target their older supporters, particularly those in their mid to late 60s', as well as users of their services. The findings also suggest that communications to these groups should stress organizational performance and service quality commitments.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unit-level linkages between employee commitment to the organization,customer service delivery and customer satisfaction

Service profit chain and service climate research identifies the importance of employee attitudes and employee service behavior as mediating between organizational practices and customer satisfaction. While the importance of employee attitudes and customer service performance are acknowledged, there are calls to more precisely specify proximal mediators between employee attitudes and customer satisfaction. We propose a model in which the relationship between unit-level organizational commitment and customer attitudes is not direct but mediated via employees' customer service delivery including queuing time, serving time and service quality. We conducted a longitudinal unit-level analysis (N = 39) aggregating employee (N over 893) organizational commitment and customer (N over 1248) satisfaction data, and customer service behavior drawn from organizational records. Our model received reasonable support from basic tests of the predictive associations between unit-level organizational commitment, customer-relevant employee behaviors and customer satisfaction; however, organizational commitment was not found to be an important predictor in more rigorous change analyses. The findings as a whole therefore suggest that organizational commitment is a feature of units delivering fast, quality service, but its causal role is as yet unclear.     

Does Austerity Work? Theory and Evidence

• A number of factors underpin the Coalition's fiscal strategy, the most important being the use of rules (for the structural current deficit and net debt) and the creation of a new “institution”, the OBR, to monitor it. According to the Chancellor, this combination would ensure the government's “credibility and avoid elevated sovereign default premia and foster sustainable recovery.” 1
• It is already clear that the limited degree of independence for the OBR is a major shortcoming but there is another, more serious, problem in the Treasury's belief that the deficit ratio can be reduced by making spending cuts as clear failures by the government to achieve its fiscal targets on the deficit have shown. Such a failure is consistent with the results of research over the last decade which gives strong support to the view that fiscal multipliers are much larger than unity.
• The length of the downturn, the repeated large failures to hit deficit reduction targets and now the source and nature of the recovery show that his plan is failing. The former was predictable from the evidence just noted. In turn, the recovery relies on the surge in consumer demand following the easing of credit conditions for house purchase and points to a switch to a “Plan B”. It also demonstrates that the Chancellor could have brought about recovery very much earlier had he stimulated demand on taking office not reducing it with his self‐imposed austerity measures. He could even have stimulated demand to a much more constructive long‐term effect by increasing public investment.

     

Metafrontier efficiency analysis for hospital pharmacy services using dynamic network DEA framework

Medication management is a complex but critical process within the healthcare delivery system. The pharmacy department in healthcare facilities is responsible for acquisition, distribution and dispensing of medication to patients that involves a series of network process. This process can be categorized into two main subprocesses: i) pharmacy store and ii) patient services (i.e., ambulatory and inpatient pharmacy). The objective of this study was to investigate the relative efficiency level of the two subprocesses of pharmacy services in Malaysia's public hospitals. We used a nonconvex metafrontier technology to estimate technical efficiency of hospital pharmacies between specialist and nonspecialist hospital categories under the dynamic network data envelopment analysis (DNDEA) framework. For overall efficiency, both specialist and nonspecialist categories had similar mean efficiency scores. However, when measuring the efficiency level according to pharmacy store and patient services separately, the nonspecialist category had a higher mean efficiency score in pharmacy store, whereas for patient service efficiency, both categories had similar results. The patient service efficiency level was lower consistently over time, suggesting that the overall inefficiency of hospital pharmacy is greatly influenced by the inefficiency of the patient service. This suggests that systematic improvements in patient service efficiency should be a higher priority than pharmacy store efficiency to further increase the overall efficiency level. We believe that our findings will provide valuable information to policymakers towards achieving an efficient public healthcare service.     

Discretionary HR practices and proactive work behaviour: the mediation role of affective commitment and the moderation roles of PSM and abusive supervision

Proactive work behaviour may drive public employees to proactively improve public service quality. This research seeks an insight into the role of discretionary human resource (HR) practices in fostering proactive work behaviour among public employees through the mediation mechanism of affective commitment. The data for the research variables were harvested from public employees and their direct managers from local governments at the district level in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam. The research results shed light on the positive association between discretionary HR practices and public employees’ proactive work behaviour, which was mediated by affective commitment. The research results also supported the role of public service motivation (PSM) as an intensifier and abusive supervision as a negative moderator for the effect of discretionary HR practices on affective commitment and proactive work behaviour. Our research model integrates discretionary HRM and proactive work behaviour research streams into public management literature.     

Relational Co-ordination and Stigma at Work: How Frontline Employees Compensate for Failures in Public Health Systems

Co-ordinating collective work and communicating a shared understanding of tasks is necessary to accomplishing organizational goals. Stigma could exacerbate co-ordination challenges between public and private organizations by further widening differences in goals and incentives among employees. Using relational co-ordination theory, we explore how stigma can influence employee behaviour in the context of healthcare delivery. We study healthcare professionals and frontline workers involved in the fight against AIDS in India to examine how public health systems fail due to a lack of communication and co-ordination, and that these failures are worsened by stigma. When stigma is present, relationships between employees become strained due to misaligned work routines, lack of information sharing and cooperation failure. Our findings reveal emergent responses from frontline employees that mitigate co-ordination failures through: (1) role adaptation to improve predictability of tasks; (2) social purpose identification to promote a common understanding and engage stigmatized clients; and (3) affective attachment that encourages extra-role behaviours and task ownership. We draw implications for relational co-ordination and stigma, as well as public-private co-ordination in public health systems.     

An applied stochastic model of the quality–quantity trade-off in the public health care sector

It is a striking feature of the many of the developing country public service sectors that the sectors in question often overproduce the quantity of services but underproduce the quality. This feature, which is exemplified in this paper, is rooted in a wide spectrum of economic and sociological factors ranging from the economic and sociological profile of the service receiving people to the asymmetric density of service-receiving population across their regions. This feature, we conjecture, is a source of a considerable degree of suboptimality in some of the developing countries. If our conjecture is correct, correcting such suboptimalities is likely to yield significant welfare improvements that could help speed up the process of development in the underdeveloped regions of the world. To analyze the supoopimalites in question, we will first develop a concept (and a model) of optimal quality in the public service sector, which indicates the level of quality that maximizes expected public satisfaction subject to available resources. Resources are used in an efficient manner to produce the service in question. The concept and the model in the paper make a needed contribution to the quality discourse by presenting a way of determining the quality improvements (or adjustments) necessary to achieve optimum in the public service sector. The paper presents an application (a case study) of this new concept in the public healthcare sector in Turkey, and explores the differences between the actual and optimal quality in the sector in question. It turns out that there is a considerable difference between the actual and optimal levels of quality (as well as those of quantity) in the Turkish public healthcare sector in an overpopulated city (Istanbul), indicating a significant overproduction of quantity and underproduction of quality. Thus, to achieve the optimal levels, the sector should increase quality and reduce quantity by a considerable margin. The quantified differences (gaps) between actual and optimal levels point out a considerable room for welfare improvement. Optimum-seeking adjustments closing these gaps could be shown to lead to considerable satisfaction and welfare gains, the measurement of which is worthy of future research.     

Benchmarking the fundraising performance of UK charities

• The cost of fundraising and its effectiveness are issues of increasing importance in the UK nonprofit sector. Measuring fundraising effectiveness properly is critical to organisations on two fronts. From a financial stewardship perspective, charities need to ensure that their fundraising is as efficient as possible. From a public relations perspective they need to be able to demonstrate this to donors and our other stakeholders. There are many problems to be overcome in objectively judging a charity's performance relative to other nonprofit organisations. There are significant methodological barriers to be overcome to produce valid and meaningful comparisons. The well established Fundratios study shows that it is feasible to construct a methodology for robust benchmarking underpinned by good quality data which charities can use as a tool to inform the management of their fundraising activities.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stale in the pulpit? Leader tenure and the relationship between market growth strategy and church performance

• Taking a strategic choice perspective, the current study examines leader tenure and the growth implications of pursuing a market penetration versus market development strategy in a church setting. Using cross-sectional time series regression analyses of 1415 church organizations over a period of 6 years, study findings demonstrate the influence of leader tenure on both financial and non-financial church performance, but provide minimal evidence supporting the argument that the selected market strategy matters to organizational performance outcomes in churches.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.