A transparency and accountability framework for high-value inpatient nursing care

Transparency and accountability are terms that typically refer to activities aimed at measuring and holding providers responsible for their performance through such vehicles as public disclosure of comparative results. Today, transparency and accountability policies are widely accepted strategies to drive quality improvement and stimulate consumer choice. Yet nursing, the single largest health care profession, has not yet been engaged in these policy directions nor considered in their design or implementation. The framework reported here offers nurses and their professional organizations a model for which to advocate for policy change. Hospital and health system executives who have the freedom to establish institutional policies might implement this framework to achieve higher value. This framework provides both the context and components of a system that, if implemented, would measure, report, and reward hospital nursing's contributions to high value.     

The need for documenting validation transactions: a qualitative component of the testing validation process

Validation is an argument for the interpretation of test scores. It is often the case that the validators do not formally consider how the various interactions that take place during the process of test item development, for example with the subject-matter experts (SMEs), may be influencing the results obtained. . . Every effort should be undertaken to more fully understand the impact the validator has on the validation process through the documentation of qualitative evidence regarding how the transactions between and among the validators and SMEs influence the data collection effort upon which interpretations of test scores are made.     

An exploratory study on the returns management process in an online retailer

The returns management process is gaining increasing importance both in academia and among supply chain professionals, not only as a tool in the practice of sustainability, but also for its strategic role in many economic sectors. Several studies show how efficiently returns management can reduce costs and provide a competitive advantage to companies. Likewise, electronic commerce, or e-commerce, has shown significant growth in many countries and, due to its very nature, it presents much higher return rates than traditional trade. However, despite the importance of returns management operation for electronic commerce, few studies explore this theme in the literature. The aim of this paper is to describe the process of returns management of the largest online retailer of the Brazilian market, showing its evolution and analysing its performance, as well as identifying its main shortcomings. We conclude with suggestions for improvements and the implementation of a more efficient system.     

Metaphors,social practices,and economic life: ASE presidential address

Our lived experiences of the economy shape the metaphors that we use to describe the economy. Yet, any particular metaphor can only provide a partial perspective. There are two ways our conceptual frameworks have reflected partial perspectives. The first is historical: our conceptual frameworks tend to build upon ideas developed during the factory age. A machine metaphor, grounded in the industrial age, focuses on the transformation of resources into outputs, but it obscures other aspects of economic life. Second, economic concepts and metaphors are affected by our personal standpoints and our social identities. As social economists, we recognize that our economy is embedded in society, a society in which social identities such as class, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality shape our standpoints. To fully understand the continuities and changes in how social provisioning is organized, we need to be attentive to these social identities and how they are constituted and transformed through social practices.     

The impact of proposals to develop the king's cross railway lands

If the British Rail proposal for the King's Cross Railway Lands is approved, the scheme will go ahead just as the latest round of local authority legislation begins to bite. By the time builders are on site, new laws and regulations governing the provision of housing, education, services, local authority finance and land use controls will all be in place. In this context, the King's Cross scheme will act as a great Trojan horse unleashing huge changes in a highly concentrated form on a community whose guardians have already been disarmed. This article describes some of the likely effects of this unequal contest —on the local authority involved (Section I) and on the surrounding local communities (Section II). It argues the need for other local authorities to rethink their conceptual and corporate approach to future large-scale planning applications well in advance of their arrival at the Town Hall.     

Human Resources Management Innovation

Guided by a general manager's perspective of human resources management (HRM), this paper identifies key factor affecting the introduction of HRM innovations in organizations. Because the essence of market and technological leadership is the development of the organizational capacity to carry out inventive ideas, it is critical to understand the main forces influencing HRM innovation. Following a definition of HRM innovation, six propositions are discussed using current and historical examples. Since HRM innovation also involves change in the social system of the organization, the adoption and diffusion of these innovations can be attributed not only to external environmental forces but also to social processes.     

Options in Valuing Equity Compensation Benefits

Arguments over whether to recognise or disclose equity compensation benefits (ECBs) have been so intense that the importance of the choice of measurement date has tended to be overlooked. To provide adequate coverage, an accounting standard needs not only to prescribe when ECBs are to be valued but also clearly identify from the options available how they are to be valued and what is to be included.     

Contextual content analysis

This article suggests one way to systematically code textual data for research. The approach utilizes computer content analysis to examine patterns of emphasized ideas in text as well as the social context or underlying perspective reflected in the text. A conceptual dictionary is used to organize word meanings. An extensive profile of word meanings is used to characterize and discriminate social contexts. Social contexts are analyzed in relation to four reference dimensions (traditional, practical, emotional and analytic) which are used in the social science literature. The approach is illustrated with five widely varying texts, analyzed with selected comparative data. This approach has been useful in many social science investigations to system-atically score open-ended textual information. Scores can be incorporated into quantitative analysis with other data, used as a guide to qualitative studies, and to help integrate strengths of quantitative and qualitative approaches to research.     

International patent analysis as a tool for corporate technology analysis and planning

New, techniques of international patent anabsis are illustrated and resultsfrom preliminary validity tests of these techniques are presented. Indicators of technological activity, technological significance and commercial potential are constructed, and used to analyze fiber-based opto-electronic couplers and monoclonal-antibody-based diagnostic kits at the levels o f the technology, nation and firm. The international patent indicators are found to be closely correlated with R&D expenditures, scientific publications and new product introductions. They also relate to these indicators in ways that moke sense as specified in simple regression models of the innovation process. Comparisons of patent analysis results with expert opinion (for two process technologies) reveal that technology-level analyzes conform quite well with expert opinion, but national - and firm-level analyes vary from a low to a modest correlation with expert opinion. The authors conclude that the techniques can provide important information for corporate technology management, but that studies of additional technologies and further validity tests are needed.