Targeting educational initiatives

The nursing education department of a large teaching hospital faced the challenge of prioritizing the delivery of staff education programs after reductions in personnel and resources. Patient population data were used to guide curricula development. Results included improved clinical practice in a cost-effective manner.     

Obedience and Evil: From Milgram and Kampuchea to Normal Organizations

Obedience: a simple term. Stanley Milgram, the famous experimental social psychologist, shocked the world with theory about it. Another man, Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge, showed how far the desire for obedience could go in human societies. Milgram conducted his experiments in the controlled environment of the US psychology laboratory of the 1960s. Pol Pot experimented with Utopia in the totalitarian Kampuchea of the 1970s. In this article, we discuss the process through which the Khmer Rouge regime created an army of unquestioningly obedient soldiers – including child soldiers. Based on these two cases, we advance a framework on how obedience can be grown or countered.     

Are Relationally Transparent Leaders More Receptive to the Relational Transparency of Others? An Authentic Dialog Perspective

Journal of Business Ethics - Using a sample of 114 leaders (described by 516 team members), we show empirically that the association between leader relational transparency and leader receptiveness...     

Feedback effects of brand extensions on the brand image of global brands: a comparison between Spain and Norway

Abstract

Global brands often attempt to increase their sales through the launch of brand extensions. Such a strategy may, however, dilute existing brand beliefs at an international level, as two sets of data from Norway and Spain indicate. This paper illuminates how the attitude towards a brand extension affects the image of a parent brand. The extension attitude is mainly determined by the degree of perceived fit between the extension and the parent brand image. In the Spanish sample, it is also determined by the degree of familiarity with the parent brand and the perceived fit at the product category level. After analysing these relationships, the paper focuses on the moderating role of two dimensions of consumer innovativeness: hedonist innovativeness (tied to need for stimulation) and social innovativeness (tied to need for uniqueness). Finally, the cultural orientation of the origin country is analysed as a moderating factor.     

Ambidextrous leadership,paradox and contingency: evidence from Angola

Abstract

The study departs from two assumptions. First, it considers that organizations, their leaders and the HRM function are inherently paradoxical and that, in that sense, dealing with paradox is a necessary component of the leadership process which requires ambidexterity capabilities. Second, it explores whether the paradoxes of leadership may manifest differently in different contexts. We explore the emergence of paradox in the leadership of Angolan organizations. Angola is an economy transitioning from a centrally planned to a market mode, and this makes it a rich site for understanding the specificities of ambidextrous paradoxical processes in an under-researched, ‘rest of the world’, context. The findings of our inductive study led to the emergence of four interrelated paradoxes and highlight the importance of ambidextrous paradoxical work as a HRM contingency.     

Changes in Public Service Delivery in the EU Countries

In the 1990s, a number of EU countries adopted New Public Management (NPM) techniques to restructure their public sectors. Countries have been widely 'deconcentrating' (moving delivery away from the centre) and 'externalizing' (using the private sector, either totally or in part) their public services. The authors chart the extent of this change and highlight some of the problems—for example the difficulty countries are experiencing in developing value for money audits. The article questions whether current methods of delivery and audit are appropriate for 21st–century public services.     

The Effect of Word of Mouth on Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Products and Their Purchase Probability

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of word of mouth on consumers’ attitudes toward the product and its purchase probability. Furthermore, we examine the moderating influence of susceptibility to interpersonal influence, which is a personal characteristic of the receiver of word of mouth information. A quasi experiment was conducted, in which subjects were asked to evaluate a product, while being subjected to positive or negative word of mouth. Our results indicate that negative word of mouth has an impact on consumers’ attitudes and purchase probability, while the influence of positive word of mouth was not significant. Interestingly, susceptibility to interpersonal influence does not play a moderating role. While the experimental design with an unknown word of mouth source and fictitious brand allowed the comparison of results for the positive, negative, and control group, such conditions do not correspond to an actual market setting.     

METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS IN EFFICIENCY EVALUATION OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS

The specific characteristics of the public health care sector prevent the normal working of the market and the trend toward the efficient provision of services. The present study was carried out to offer the Audit Office of the Basque Country and Navarra an objective point of reference from which to measure the efficiency of clinical services. This study consists of an evaluation of the efficient production and utilization of the resources—intermediate services—that hospitals provide to medical staff for carrying out the diagnosis and treatment of patients, together with the efficient use of these intermediate services by the aforementioned medical staff.