A virtual and anonymous, deliberative and analytic participation process for planning and evaluation: The Concept Mapping Policy Delphi

Integrating knowledge and values across a range of stakeholders and experts is a common goal of, and challenge in, forecasting and planning processes across numerous decision-making domains. In this paper we present a virtual and anonymous, deliberative and analytical participatory group process which we applied in a planning study. The process was a combination of concept mapping and a policy Delphi. The Concept Mapping Policy Delphi offers an iterative process that is meant to foster critical, dissensus-based thinking by a group about an evaluation problem. In particular, it offers a platform on which to structure the group brainstorming of ideas, integrates knowledge and values, and creates a shared conceptual framework for addressing evaluation problems. We discuss the merits and limitations of this process and compare it with other public engagement mechanisms for decision-making. We argue that the use of a Concept Mapping Policy Delphi is relevant in forecasting and decision-making processes that aim to integrate information which is from various disparate points of view in order to clarify arguments and values, democratize and mediate public participation, and/or provide strategic advice about scenarios or planning options, while mitigating the problematic aspects of face-to-face group processes.     

A grant rationing model for a health care system.

Most public health programs are created through a political process and the health administrator's resource allocation decision is influenced not only by the relative performance of the subunits but also by political considerations. This paper presents a goal programming model for rationing available grants to competing health care subunits on the basis of performance subject to resource and political constraints. Performance is defined in terms of output adjusted for non-compliance on the identified quality of care and administrative efficiency criteria. The quality and efficiency criteria are those specified by the Federal agency as amended by local funding authorities and subunit administrators through a Delphi process. The model has the advantage of flexibility and can be easily adapted to suit prevailing financial and political conditions. In particular, it can be used as a viable analytical tool in health care and other public service agencies where political considerations are important in resource allocation decisions.     

Moderation by goal commitment of the feedback–performance relationship: Theoretical explanation and preliminary study

This paper presents goal commitment as one stage of a multidimensional goal striving process that affects feedback acquisition, processing, and use during the achievement of performance goals. Specifically, this paper argues that higher goal commitment leads to more effective acquisition, processing, and use of feedback that in turn fosters higher performance than does lower goal commitment. To provide a preliminary test of this proposition, data from an earlier field study conducted by the author and colleagues [J. Occup. Organ. Psychol. 72 (1999) 107] were used to examine the moderating effects of goal commitment on the relationship between perceived task feedback amount and work performance of 196 rehabilitation counselors. Results were consistent with this proposed interaction, as perceived task feedback amount had a positive linear relationship with work performance for higher goal commitment rehabilitation counselors and a negative linear relationship with performance for lower goal commitment counselors. The discussion urges researchers to broaden their views of goal commitment beyond the goal difficulty–performance relationship and to devote more attention to moderators of the feedback–performance relationship. Directions for future research and practical implications are also discussed.     

Modes of Interaction and Performance of Human Service Networks

Governments everywhere are engaged in self-conscious projects of administrative and managerial improvement. Scholars of public management thus confront a fascinating array of talk, conjectures, and facts on administrative and managerial change that can be assembled from myriad sources. There are as well stylized facts, stories, conjectures, and ideological glosses – these might be termed ‘theory substitutes’ – that may or may not be consistent with actual developments worldwide and which are provocative in their implications. Our goal as scholars of governance and management must be to penetrate appearances to ascertain whatever lessons and meanings might lie beneath. A variety of theoretical frameworks ranging from conceptual classifications to synoptic speculations to causal accounts of state building are available for this intellectual work.     

Corporate implementation of socially controversial CSR initiatives: Implications for human resource management

An organization's success in recruiting, selecting, and retaining employees can be attributed, in part, to reactions to a firm's CSR activities. Today, organizations appear to be more frequently pursuing CSR initiatives that are related to social issues. Unlike CSR initiatives which are unrelated to social issues, those that are attached to social causes are more likely to be perceived as controversial. Consequently, how individuals view such actions can impact their perceptions of the firm and may lead to changes in individual behavior. Grounding this work in social identity theory, we explore the effect controversial CSR actions can have on HRM functions. The goal of this effort is to explore and delineate how this shift in CSR may alter the nature of the CSR-HRM relationship and to examine the potential implications for HRM practice. Future directions for research and HRM practice are discussed.     

Relative educational poverty: conceptual and empirical issues

Quality & Quantity - This paper’s goal is to discuss implications for the empirical study of low educational status arising from the use of the concept of educational poverty in research....     

Robbing Peter to pay Paul: Feedback environments and enacted priorities in response to competing task demands

In this article, we present a model of how the feedback that surrounds performers as they do their work affects their attention and effort allocation in multiple goal situations. Differences in the frequency, specificity, and source of feedback for the multiple goals that performers hold are posited to affect attention and effort allocations. By differentially allocating their efforts in response to the feedback environment, performers often enact priorities that may or may not match the assigned priorities of the organization. These attention and effort allocations are posited to affect relative performance on the goals performers hold (or are assigned). Practical implications for performance management in organizations are addressed.     

Using goal programming to determine interest group disutility for public policy choices

Within this paper a framework is developed for incorporating into the process of social choice both interest group preferences for social goals and the efficient allocation of limited resources. The social welfare function is adopted as the foundation for the framework and the goal programming algorithm is used to approximate the utility of the interest groups for their optimal policy choice. A function is defined which measures the disutility experienced by a social unit when a policy other than its optimal choice is selected. A surrogate measure of this disutility involving imposed preference weight changes for social goals is determined and its implications for use in developing the social welfare function are examined.     

Economic explanations for concurrent sourcing

Concurrent sourcing is a phenomenon where firms simultaneously make and buy the same good, i.e. they simultaneously use the governance modes of market and hierarchy. Though concurrent sourcing seems to be widespread, few studies of sourcing have focused on this phenomenon. This paper reviews different economic explanations for why firms use concurrent sourcing. The distinctive features of the explanations are compared, and it is discussed how they may serve as a springboard for research on concurrent sourcing. Managerial implications are also offered.     

CONCEPTUALIZING THE GOAL AND SYSTEM MODELS OF ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS —IMPLICATIONS FOR COMPARATIVE EVALUATION RESEARCH

The lack of comparative evaluation research on organizational-effectiveness models is the primary focus of this discussion. Problems in conceptually and operationally defining evaluation models, such as those in the goal and system model classes, are the proposed reason for this lack of comparative research. In this paper, goal and system models are formally defined in terms of their historical origins, underlying criteria and differing methods of application. A goal and system model classification continuum is also presented. Five comparative evaluation research questions are proposed and their implications for research are discussed. From a theoretical perspective this paper attempts to go beyond the sound foundation laid by Campbell (1977) in his discussion of these two schools of thought on organizational effectiveness.     

Is Competition Engaging? Examining the Interactive Effects of Goal Orientation and Competitive Work Environment on Engagement

Contemporary work environments are growing increasingly competitive. However, some employees may “fit” with such environments better than others. This study examined how the relationship between employees’ goal orientations (learning, proving, and avoidance) and engagement is influenced by the competitive environment of their workplace. By investigating the interactive effect of goal orientation and competitive work environment, this research expands our understanding of factors leading to engagement. We tested our model using a sample of 345 working adults from a variety of organizations across several different industries. Results indicate that learning goal orientation was positively related to engagement while avoidance goal orientation was negatively related to engagement. Competitive work environment (CWE) interacted with learning orientation and proving orientation to predict engagement. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for human resource management. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A Delphi study on the supply risk-mitigating effect of additive manufacturing during SARS-COV-2

Procurement has faced major challenges due to the collapse of global supply chains in the course of the SARS-COV2 pandemic, and non-critical items have become critical bottlenecks. Additive manufacturing (AM) is an emerging technology that serves as a local supply source and can mitigate some of these bottlenecks. For example, it was possible to source medical spare parts and protective equipment via AM, even when the globally arranged traditional (formative or subtractive manufacturing) supply sources failed. To that end, this research examines how supply risks change when sourced via an AM supply source rather than through supply sources that use traditional manufacturing (TM). This study assesses supply risk using a Delphi study from July to October 2020. The findings were further explored using discriminant analysis. A mix of TM supply sources with AM (‘hedging’) can minimise the overall supply risks. The discussion conceptualises a portfolio model to determine whether to source demands via TM, AM, or by hedging. The implications of hedged manufacturing are linked to the modern portfolio theory.     

People consultation to construct the future: A Delphi application

This work presents the Delphi method, in its Policy Delphi variant, as an efficient mechanism for carrying out consultations regarding regulatory actions that affect professional bureaucracies, and also, in the last analysis, for forecasting and constructing their future. The Delphi application presented here incorporates some specific characteristics which are aimed at making the plurality of opinions in the organisation under analysis visible, facilitating reasoned debate, minimising the risk of manipulation by study leaders, and maximising the generalised acceptance of the results by the whole collective.This study was performed on the university community of the Basque Country, prior to the enactment of the Act which was to organise the Basque university system. Its results, which were accepted as being representative of the real dissensus existing in the community, constituted a valuable input for the final drawing up of the Act, and for its acceptance without conflict.This Delphi application cannot be classified within its traditional field of exploratory forecasting, but it can be situated within the normative sphere, geared towards the construction of a desired future.     

Organizational tenure and mastery-avoidance goals: the moderating role of psychological empowerment

Mastery-avoidance (MAv) goals are recognized to be detrimental as they arouse counterproductive work-related behaviors. In the current literature, MAv goals are assumed to be more predominant among newcomers and longer-tenured employees. The alleged relationship provides important implications but yet has received scant empirical attention. In response, this study examines the proposed U-shaped curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and MAv goal orientation. In addition, the potential moderating role of psychological empowerment on this curvilinear relationship is investigated. Based on data from 655 certified accountants, the results support the existence of the hypothesized curvilinear relationship. Also, it revealed that for employees who experience higher levels of psychological empowerment, the U-shaped relationship between organizational tenure and MAv goal orientation becomes flattened. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Can we expect institutional investors to improve corporate governance?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way institutional investors use information for equity-investment purposes, and to discuss the implications that this may have for the role of these investors as owners of public companies. On the basis of an empirical study, the paper reports that institutional investors tend to use very little of the available information regarding listed companies, and to simplify their forming of expectations. They managed this by setting a priori limitations on the investment alternatives, by relying on highly trusted external advisors, and by overemphasising the quarterly updating of the spreadsheet model. It is argued in the paper that if institutional investors are assigned a leading role in corporate governance, their heavy dependence on external advisors and their over-emphasis on quarterly financial information, may have negative implications for the management of listed companies.     

Organizational downsizing as convergence or reorientation: Implications for human resource management

This article proposes that there are two basic approaches to organizational downsizing. Downsizing as reorientation is the proper approach when organizations undertake major downsizing programs. In this approach, many elements of the organization are questioned and changed simultaneously. The goal is a fundamentally different, not just smaller, organization. Downsizing as convergence is part of continuous improvement, and its goal is to refine and streamline all ongoing organizational processes. Each of these approaches to downsizing involves a particular pattern of downsizing tactics, implementation processes, and organizational changes. Thus, each approach to downsizing generates different implications for human resource management.     

Human resource metrics and decision support: A classification framework

Human resource information systems and analytics have transformed the delivery of HR services and the role of HR within organizations. In spite of the complexity of HR and the different roles HR plays, there has been limited research which helps inform the selection, application and use of HR metrics and analytics to the operational, managerial, and strategic levels that HR occupies. Therefore, the goal of this article is to provide a framework that describes the data needs, decision characteristics, and HR metrics to these different levels of HR activity and decision-making. We provide a number of research propositions and implications of the model. We finish the paper with a discussion of the implications that this framework has for how HR decisions are made, the types of data used in support of these decisions, and the metrics used.     

Do Hybrid Goals Pay off? Social and Economic Goals in Academic Spin-Offs

New ventures often pursue both economic and social goals, known as goal hybridity. Yet, we know less about how organizational goal hybridity influences the performance and governance of new ventures. Goal hybridity is common among academic spin-offs (ASOs) seeking to commercialize scientific research from universities. We hypothesize that ASOs’ goal hybridity influences their subsequent performance and their governance structure. We also hypothesize that ASOs who enrol multiple stakeholders with investment goals aligned with their hybrid goals outperform the ASOs who do not. By combining several data sources, we follow Norwegian ASOs longitudinally and find that goal hybridity explains their subsequent performance differences, such that ASOs relying on both economic and social aspects of their business when formulating their goals outperform those who rely purely on economic or social goals. We also find that ASOs with hybrid goals outperform when they enrol multiple stakeholders who are aligned with their hybrid goals. Our findings have implications for theorizing in hybridity, stakeholder enrolment, and the organizational goals literatures. We also provide a fuller understanding on performance heterogeneity of ASOs, and we offer a set of practice and policy implications to academic entrepreneurship and public-private partnership literatures.     

Online business development services for entrepreneurs: an exploratory study

This paper addresses the use of the Internet to provide business development services such as training, consulting, counselling and networking. Using a Delphi study of experts from around the world, the possible uses of the Internet as well as criteria for successful implementation are presented. Three critical success factors for providing online services are identified. First, an effective use of online resources requires that the inherent strengths of the Internet be exploited. Using online tools when they are perceived to be a ‘second-best’ mode of communication is inefficient and can be counterproductive. Second, personal contact is still very important and can complement online services. Third, successful online services require an effective Internet site and program management. The study also shows that the specific nature of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs must be carefully considered when developing online services. The entrepreneur is more concerned about his/her problems and is less concerned with the problems of others. However, he or she is willing to participate in a small learning network if the benefits go beyond that of just learning together. Similarly, online training for entrepreneurs should be complemented by a face-to-face component. An efficient/effective pure online training program for entrepreneurs would be very difficult if not impossible to develop and implement.