Speaking Up in the Operating Room: How Team Leaders Promote Learning in Interdisciplinary Action Teams

ABSTRACT This paper examines learning in interdisciplinary action teams. Research on team effectiveness has focused primarily on single-discipline teams engaged in routine production tasks and, less often, on interdisciplinary teams engaged in discussion and management rather than action. The resulting models do not explain differences in learning in interdisciplinary action teams. Members of these teams must coordinate action in uncertain, fast-paced situations, and the extent to which they are comfortable speaking up with observations, questions, and concerns may critically influence team outcomes. To explore what leaders of action teams do to promote speaking up and other proactive coordination behaviours – as well as how organizational context may affect these team processes and outcomes – I analysed qualitative and quantitative data from 16 operating room teams learning to use a new technology for cardiac surgery. Team leader coaching, ease of speaking up, and boundary spanning were associated with successful technology implementation. The most effective leaders helped teams learn by communicating a motivating rationale for change and by minimizing concerns about power and status differences to promote speaking up in the service of learning.     

Sources of Sectoral Growth in an Economy Wide Context: The Case of U.S. Agriculture

Growth in U.S. agriculture is linked to the non-farm economy through domestic terms of trade and factor market adjustments. With almost stable input growth, the relatively large contributions from growth in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) are passed on to intermediate and final consumers in the form of declining real prices for primary farm products. The resulting net growth in the real value of farm output (GDP) is relatively low (0.25% per annum). The decomposition of TFP suggests that public agricultural stock of knowledge and infrastructure are robustly associated with TFP growth, while spill-overs from private agricultural and economy wide research and development (R and D) are positive but, relatively small.     

Unlocking the potential of advanced manufacturing technologies

This research examines whether investments in advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) such as flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), computer aided design (CAD), computer aided manufacturing (CAM), robotics, etc., are more likely to lead to improved performance if they are supported by improvements in the manufacturing infrastructure of the company. This question is evaluated using data gathered from 202 manufacturing plants chosen from industries generally considered to have relatively high investments in technology.Multiple item scales are developed and adapted from sources in the literature to measure investments in technology, infrastructure, and the performance of the plant. Evidence supporting the reliability and validity of these scales is provided. Hierarchical regression is used to analyze the relationship between technology, infrastructure, and performance. The results suggest that there is an important interaction between the adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies and investments in infrastructure. Firms that invest in both AMTs and infrastructure perform better than firms which only invest in one or the other. Separate analyses on sub-samples of firms with the highest and lowest investments in AMTs show that infrastructural investments have a stronger relationship with performance in the high investment group. Thus, the data indicate that infrastructural investments provide a key to unlocking the potential of advanced manufacturing technologies.     

Effects of demographic,experiential, and attitudinal factors on occupational sex stereotypes

The purpose of this study was to (a) compare the occupational sex stereotypes of 366 college students with those reported by Shinar in 1975, and (b) examine the relationships between demographic, experiential, and attitudinal variables and these occupational sex stereotypes. The results indicated a significant difference in occupational ratings from Shinar's study, with females' perceptions shifting more than males' perceptions. In addition, subjects' gender, tenure with female managers, and attitudes toward women as managers, were shown to be significant predictors of occuptational ratings. The implications of these findings for both employees and managers are then discussed.     

Antonio Serra: A Neglected Herald of the Acquisitive System

A bstract . The spirit of capitalism arose not from a change in religion, as Max Weber claims, but from a break in the philosophic tradition that was initiated by Machiavelli , whose economic consequences were spelled out by the Neapolitan Antonio Serra in a path breaking treatise of 1613. Serra called for an active government promoting manufacturing enterprises that would enjoy ever advancing technology and indefinite declines in unit costs. A newly-structured market economy would guarantee an ever-growing consumer basket in an acquisitive system centered in self advantage, national and individual, pursued in independence of traditional moral restraints on avarice. Writing in jail, Serra advances his new and anti-scholastic ideas with great discretion for fear of persecution by political and ecclesiastical authorities who were, at the time, against innovation of all kinds.     

On the individual moving average inequality

Summary A very simple deduction of a recently treated inequality is presented and some variations on this proof, drawing together various properties, are discussed. Closure of moving average processes undermultiplication is also mentioned.     

Probenahme vom Band

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

An Integrative Framework for Measuring the Extent to which Organizational Variables Influence the Success of Process Improvement Programmes

abstract    Studies on the three types of process improvement programmes (Continuous Improvement, Reengineering and Benchmarking) have appeared many times in the literature. These studies suggest that certain organizational variables act as enablers and their presence or absence can significantly influence success rates. Such studies have tended to examine companies where a single programme has been implemented. In contrast, this paper examines a sample of companies who have experienced all three programmes. Our aim is to compare and contrast each programme's impact on firm performance and identify which organizational variables are common and which are programme-specific enablers of success. We build and test an integrative framework to support our analysis. Our study found that: (1) Reengineering delivered the greatest impact on performance; (2) executive commitment was needed to make this happen; (3) strategic alignment was the major influence on the success rate of Reengineering and Continuous Improvement programmes; and (4) employee empowerment was necessary for each programme to work effectively.