Business Commons^™

Renewing Health Services Management Research: Redrawing The Citizen-Client In Irish Health Care Policy, Vivienne Byers

Conference Papers

Ireland has a history of health policy which is not explicit as to its aims and objectives. In light of this fact, this paper examines the position and direction of the Irish Health Services, five years on from the advent of the setting up of the Health Services Executive (HSE) and the restructuring of the health services. The Irish health system policy is guided by the Health Strategy of 2001; in that there should be equitable distribution of health services focused on the need of the citizen-client, and also by the Primary Care Strategy (2001:7); in that there should be …

A Reconceptualisation Of Ambidexterity: How Subsidiaries Can Use Their Capabilities And Knowledge To Build Subsidiary Bargaining Power, Marty Reilly, Pamela Sharkey Scott

Conference Papers

The literature on subsidiaries to date has focused largely on analysing autonomy, knowledge flows and firm specific advantages (Argote and Ingram 2000; Harzing and Noorderhaven 2006; Meyer, Wright and Pruthi 2009). An emerging stream of literature recognises the potential complexity of intra-organisational power within the MNC as warranting further investigation (Andersson, Forsgren and Holm, 2007; Bouquet and Birkinshaw, 2008; Mudambi and Navarra, 2004). It is held that as subsidiaries develop dynamic tacit capabilities which can be leveraged, their scope to exert influence and exercise subsidiary bargaining power increases concurrently. This raises some important questions for subsidiary managers, firstly can subsidiaries …

Developing A Framework For Measuring Outsourcing Performance, Margaret Farrell

Conference Papers

Purpose: The popularity and growth in outsourcing has resulted in many different outsourcing arrangements, from strategic and business process outsourcing to selective and tactical outsourcing, on a national or global scale. Outsourcing is frequently considered a vital ingredient to corporate restructuring and business improvement initiatives. However, it is often treated as a fixed discreet event such as a make or buy decision. As the rational and strategic implications of outsourcing vary, so too does the required outsourcing process and performance measures. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesis available empirical literature on outsourcing frameworks and performance management …

Middle Managers' Searching For Knowledge: The Repository-Interpersonal Dilemma, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

Conference Papers

Drawing on the organizational memory and strategy for managing knowledge literatures to develop a theoretical framework, we empirically examined the organizational memory contexts – interpersonal and repository logic - that set the broader conditions for middle managers’ knowledge searching. Contrary to most studies which examine knowledge storage processes, with the help of multiple case studies, we examined middle managers’ actual activities. Our findings reveal that in the interpersonal logic middle managers more actively engage in knowledge circulation and knowledge co-creation processes. In the repository logic instead, middle managers’ potential seemed to become confined because of cognitive inertia, leading to a …

Enhancing The Entrepreneurial Spirit In Apprenticeship Education To Develop Craft And Micro-Enterprises, Ray English, Katherine Collins

Conference Papers

Micro, small and medium–sized enterprises are considered to be the mainstay of the economy of the European Union, since they represent 99% of all EU enterprises. They are socially and economically important in that they provide 65 million jobs and contribute to innovation and entrepreneurship. However, a 2002 Eurobarometer survey found that EU citizens are less inclined to become entrepreneurs, and tend to be more risk adverse. In recognising this, the EU made entrepreneurship one of the main objectives of the Lisbon Agenda in 2000. The European Commission in 2003 drafted the Green Paper on Entrepreneurship in Europe to stimulate …

Dynamic Capabilities, Absorptive Capacity And Knowledge Sharing: A Research Agenda Into Explicating The Antecedent Factors Conducive To Subsidiary Bargaining Power, Marty Reilly, Pamela Sharkey Scott

Conference Papers

This research explores the relationship between relative absorptive capacity – a firm‟s proficiency at acquiring, assimilating, transforming and ultimately exploiting knowledge – and subsidiary bargaining power. In building upon the existing dynamic capabilities framework it is advanced that absorptive capacity, as a mediator, serves not only as a valid dynamic capability but also as an enabling mechanism and a vehicle by which subsidiary bargaining power can be achieved. The antecedent factors conducive to building relative absorptive capacity are critically evaluated and built upon in a subsidiary specific context. The contribution of these new factors provides insight into the enabling constructs …

The Servicescape And Behavioral Outcomes: Formative Versus Reflective Indicators, Daire Hooper

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Project Formation And The Motivations And Challenges Of The Principal Investigator Role In Publicly Funded Research, Paul O'Reilly, Conor O'Kane, James Cunningham, Agnes Maciocha, Vincent Mangematin

Conference Papers

The principal investigators (PI) of publicly funded research projects are the key actors charged with direct responsibility for directing the research, reporting to the funding agency, and completing the project. Since the beginning of the 1990s the requirements for academic research and the management of academic research have undergone important changes, with the principal investigator now operating in a more complex environment and moved onto centre stage of industrial policy. Despite this shift, we continue to have a poor understanding of the PI role at a micro level. Set in an Irish context, this research employs thirty in-depth interviews with …

Subsidiary Entrepreneurship, Strategy Development Processes And Strategic Initiatives, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons

Conference Papers

MNCs gain competitive advantage through leveraging initiatives generated by their subsidiary networks. Yet we continue to have limited understanding of the complex conditions which promote initiatives. By integrating the subsidiary entrepreneurship literature and strategy development theory, we argue that the subsidiary’s approach to strategy development mediates the relationship between entrepreneurship and strategic initiative generation. We test our propositions on data generated from surveying the total population of Irish subsidiaries of foreign MNCs. Our findings confirm that an entrepreneurial subsidiary’s engagement in formal strategy development makes it better at generating strategic initiatives. This evidences the need for headquarters to encourage both …

Students’ Perceptions Of Audio Feedback: An Examination Of Individual Differences, Daire Hooper

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Towards An Understanding Of Students’ Use Of Audio Feedback: An Exploratory Study, Daire Hooper

Conference Papers

iCERi2010, Madrid, Spain.

An Appraisal Of The Optimal Conditions For Successful Technology Transfer To A Low Technology Industry: The Case Of Publicly Funded Food Research In Ireland, Paul O'Reilly, Maeve Henchion

Conference Papers

Operating in an environment characterised by significant economic, political and social change, the requirement for scientific-based innovation is critical for the food industry. The current low level of R&D in the sector, and a growing recognition that companies need to look to knowledge sources outside as well as inside the firm to successfully innovate, brings the need for enhanced leveraging of publicly funded food research into focus. This paper presents the findings of a mixed methods approach. This consists of twenty case studies of completed publicly funded projects, ten of which had achieved technology transfer and ten which had failed …

The Current Global Financial Crisis: Do Asian Stock Markets Show Contagious Or Interdependency Effects?, Lucia Morales, Bernadette Andreosso-O'Callaghan

Conference Papers

In the framework of the current global economic crisis, a pertinent question is whether the world economies are suffering from contagion or interdependency effects. With its origins in the US sub-prime mortgage market crisis starting at the end of 2007, when a loss of confidence by investors in the value of securitized mortgages resulted in a liquidity crisis, hard-hitting the banking system and rapidly spreading into the financial markets, the effects of the crisis were automatically reflected in the rest of the world economies. These effects that become severe as the rest of the world has been facing its economic …

Revitalisation, Rigour And Relevance: The Citizen-Client And Planning In The Health Services., Vivienne Byers

Conference Papers

Whereas, in many OECD countries strategic planning in health care has been in evidence since the 1970s, in Ireland the emergence of strategic management processes in health care planning didn’t occur until the 1990s.

This paper reports on part of a comparative study of health services planning in Ireland and in Canada. How can the strategic management of the Irish health services in the form of service planning be implemented? The focus of this paper is the identification of two key stumbling blocks to success in this endeavour. These include the limitations of the control mechanism, the legislation, underpinning service …

Strategic Change In The Irish Health Services: Comparative Case Studies In Planning, Vivienne Byers

Conference Papers

This paper reports on a study of the implementation of service planning in the Irish health services in the context of significant organisational change. One of the central mechanisms of the Strategic Management Initiative (SMI) is the devolution of accountability and responsibility from the centre to executive agencies. Service planning in the Irish health care sector is seen as part of this strategic planning ethos.

This study in examining the function and implementation of the service plan in the Irish health care system drew comparisons with the Canadian experience. A multiple case study design was utilised. Key research questions were …

The Role Of The Middle Manager In The Strategy Development Process Of The Multinational Subsidiary, Donal O'Brien, Pamela Sharkey Scott

Conference Papers

As multinational corporations (MNC) strive for long term competitiveness in complex business environments the Strategic Development Process has emerged as a potential source of competitive advantage (Grant, 2003). Despite this recognition there is limited knowledge of the strategy development process and the contributors to strategy development at the subsidiary level of the MNC. The essence of strategy development is contributing to competitive advantage through management activities (Papadakis et al, 1998), but much of the focus of research up to this point has been on the strategic relationship between subsidiary top management and corporate headquarters with little attention being paid to …

Subsidiaries, Competencies And The Implementation Of Dynamic Capabilities, Marty Reilly, Pamela Sharkey Scott

Conference Papers

Practitioners are increasingly urged by popular press and academia to add value and develop their business units by building dynamic capabilities; but both the academic theory and press fail to give a comprehensive definition as to what constitutes a dynamic capability and how they can be developed. The purpose of this paper is to explore and ultimately build upon the current literature in addressing this need, thereby contributing to managerial and academic thinking on dynamic capabilities and then to discuss the potential managerial implications in a subsidiary context. This is in response to identifying the gap both theoretically and empirically …

Don’T Store It, Search For It: How Organizations Can Encourage Middle Managers To Search For Distributed Knowledge, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

Conference Papers

This qualitative study examined how middle managers, at the micro-level, search for distributed knowledge to resolve non-routine problems, and how the organizational context, at the macro-level, influences the knowledge search effectiveness. We find that middle managers proactively search organization wide knowledge resources, thus highlighting the significance of middle managers in integrating distributed knowledge. Further, our findings show the importance of the organization to provide supporting structures. In particular, we offer evidence that effective knowledge search does not rely on repositories but that organizational design aspects and a strategy for managing knowledge that emphasizes interaction opportunities, informality, and openness can promote …

Developing Subsidiary Contribution To The Mnc:Subsidiary Entrepreneurship And Strategy Creativity, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons Prof, Joseph Coughlan

Conference Papers

Despite its theoretical and managerial significance, subsidiary entrepreneurship and its effects on subsidiary contribution remain underexplored in the literature. We propose that subsidiary entrepreneurship encourages more creative strategic responses to escalating environmental change. We explore the direct and mediating effects of subsidiary entrepreneurship on subsidiary contribution to the MNC, particularly subsidiary strategy creativity. We use structural equation modelling to test our propositions on data generated from surveying the population of Irish subsidiaries of foreign MNCs, and find strong support for our theoretical predictions. The managerial implications of subsidiary entrepreneurship in generating creative strategy, prompting strategic initiatives and improving performance are …

Clarifying The Ambiguities Between The Servicescape And Service Quality: A Field Study, Daire Hooper, Joseph Coughlan, Michael R. Mullen

Conference Papers

Service quality is commonly described as a multi-dimensional concept under which a range of dimensions are subsumed. The number of these dimensions can vary widely with no consensus as to what should be considered as a service quality sub-construct. The American stream of thought has drawn heavily on Parasuraman (1991; 1985; 1988) and his colleagues’ SERVQUAL model which consists of five key dimensions. While replications of the dimensional structure have proven difficult (Babakus and Boller 1992; Cronin and Taylor 1992; Finn and Lamb 1991; Gagliano and Hathcote 1994) the tangibles dimension has appeared repeatedly in service quality studies and almost …

Analysis Of Assessment And Learning Strategies For A Logistics Undergraduate Education Programme, Margaret Farrell

Conference Papers

It is recognised that in today’s global competitive marketplace, where outsourcing continues to grow at an exponential rate, Logistics and Supply Chain Management (SCM) have grown in importance [1]. Research suggests that as logistics moves from being viewed as a stand alone discipline to one viewed as integrating the management of supply, the duties, managerial skills and knowledge of the Professional Logistician have changed [2] [3] . The challenge for logistics educators is to design and develop curricula, learning, teaching and assessment strategies that can support wide-ranging and integrative learning objectives. Research also states that universal logistics management skills must …

Analysis Of A Pilot Implementation Of Problem Based Learning Strategy For A Logistics Undergraduate Education Programme, Margaret Farrell

Conference Papers

Research findings suggest that a supply chain manager's job is complex and multidimensional, requiring both general management and logistics/supply chain specific knowledge, competencies and skills. The challenge for logistics educators is to design and develop curricula, teaching and assessment methodologies that can support wide-ranging and integrative learning objectives, which include team, people, project management and technological skills. Problem based learning (PBL) draws heavily on andragogical principles, requiring the student to be self directed and responsible for their own learning as they seek to solve a ‘real life’ problem, within a group. The paper presents the analysis of the teachers experience …

Rationales For Collaboration; Implications For The Irish Road Freight Industry, Eoin Plant, Jim Mcgovern

Conference Papers

The European Union has made a commitment to promoting sustainable mobility through advanced transport logistics. One of the principal areas yet to be addressed is that of the potential barriers to advanced transport logistics and the attitudes of industry to this advancement. This paper addresses some of these concerns and argues that competition for high-value contracts can be very tough, especially where the contracts are from large organisations that often prefer to develop a relationship with only one transport service provider. The paper attempts to put the research into a theoretical framework of Resource-Advantage Theory. Empirical evidence is presented from …

Reconciling External Legitimacy And Organisational Implementation: The Case Of Service Planning In The Irish Health Services, Vivienne Byers

Conference Papers

Whereas, in many OECD countries strategic planning in health care has been in evidence since the 1970s, in Ireland the emergence of strategic management processes in health care planning didn’t occur until the 1990s. The Strategic Management Initiative (SMI), as outlined in Delivering Better Government (1996), gives Government commitment to ‘the reform of our institutions at national and local level to provide service, accountability and transparency’ and forms the backdrop to the Irish public service reforms. One of the central mechanisms of the SMI is the devolution of accountability and responsibility from the centre to executive agencies. Service planning in …

Thermal Performance Of Low Approach Evaporative Cooling Systems In Buildings, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Conference Papers

Meteorological enthalpy analysis of temperate and maritime climates above 45˚N suggests that the water-side evaporative cooling technique has considerable unrealised potential with contemporary "high temperature" building cooling systems - such as chilled ceilings. As low approach conditions are the key to exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air, thermal performance at such conditions needs to be investigated. To address the research issues a test rig, based on an open cooling tower and plate heat exchanger and designed to maximise evaporative cooling potential, has been constructed at DIT. A combination of experimental measurement and analysis is used in the investigations. …

Strategy Development Processes And Subsidiary Contribution, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons

Conference Papers

Intensifying international competition, increasing volatility, and systemic technological and political transformations (Dunning, 1995; Hitt, Keats and DeMarie, 1998) constitute the current competitive landscape for organisational activities (Sampler, 1998). To successfully adapt to these challenges and find new ways to renew fast obsolescing firm-specific advantage (Buckley and Casson, 1976; 1998) a more holistic approach to organisational management is emerging. This involves the integration of the traditional strategic management or advantage seeking perspective with the more innovative or opportunity seeking dimensions of entrepreneurship (Hitt et al, 1998). Developing a culture of creating or identifying opportunities and exploiting them is fundamental to entrepreneurship …

Strategy Development Processes And Organisational Performance, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons Prof

Conference Papers

A recent resurgence in both academic and practitioner interest on strategy development processes and their influence on organisational performance highlights the absence of empirical studies in this area, particularly from an MNC perspective. This study attempts to fill this important gap by applying a multifaceted conceptualisation of the strategy development process to the subsidiary level of analysis. A broad perspective on the effectiveness of strategy making is adopted and measures of contribution examined include financial and market performance, international responsibility, initiative generation and strategy creativity.

Interesting insights into subsidiary behaviour and specifically into the strategy development styles of subsidiaries are …

Thermal Efficiency Characteristics Of Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Conference Papers

Recent developments in enhancing heat transfer in cooling towers, together with the success of chilled ceilings, have prompted a review of the evaporative cooling technique. in temperate maritime climates. The thermal efficiency of such systems is a key parameter, as a measure of the degree to which the system has succeeded in exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air. This paper presents the results of experimental research into the thermal efficiency of a water-side open indirect evaporative cooling test rig designed to achieve low (1-4 K) approach conditions. Secondary efficiencies in the range 0.24-0.76 have been achieved.

Energy Performance Of Indirect Evaporative Cooling In Chilled Ceiling Applications In Maritime Temperate Climates, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Conference Papers

Evaporative cooling has had limited application in maritime, temperate, climates due to the low levels of cooling water availability which result, when low temperature (5 to 8˚C), convection based, building cooling systems are used. However, the success of "high temperature" radiant cooling, in the form of chilled ceilings, has prompted a review of evaporative cooling in maritime, temperate, conditions. In order to maximize evaporative cooling availability, however, in this application, it is necessary to achieve low wet bulb temperature approach conditions, at viable levels of primary energy consumption. This paper presents the results of experimental research into the energy performance …

Evaporative Cooling Availability In Water Based Sensible Cooling Systems, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Conference Papers

Recent developments have prompted a review of evaporative cooling technology as an effective means of cooling modern deep plan buildings. Prominent among these developments is the success of high temperature sensible cooling systems, such as chilled ceilings, which require a supply of cooling water at 14 to 18°C. Crucial to the success of evaporative cooling technology, as a significant means of cooling in modern applications, is the ability to generate cooling water, in an indirect circuit, at a temperature which closely approaches the ambient adiabatic saturation temperature or wet bulb temperature. Recent research in this area has shown that it …