Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Public Healthcare: Changes Introduced When Implementing E-Procurement, Tommaso Federici

Federici Tommaso

The large and growing size of the healthcare public spending for goods and services worries the institutions of many European countries, including Italy, and asks for rationalization initiatives. In parallel, e-procurement solutions spread into Public Administrations (PA's) and introduce innovative processes, primarily in the purchasing phase.

In this scenario, e-procurement has the potential to enable significant efficiency improvements in the public healthcare sector, with the reduction of purchasing and administrative costs. However, most e-procurement initiatives met difficulties and did not fully delivered the expected benefits so far. This is mainly due to the healthcare procurement complexity, specific characteristics and peculiar …

Leader-Member Exchange In Scripture: Insights From Jesus, Noah, And Abraham, Jennifer Dose

Business Educator Scholarship

Although much has been written about leadership from a Christian perspective, Christian principles have greater potential to be integrated into the academic research literature than has yet been realized. Leadership theory and practice is one area in which Scripture can contribute significantly, leader-member exchange theory (LMX) being one example. LMX states that leaders have limited personal, social, and organizational resources (e.g., time, energy, personal power); thus, rather than interacting similarly with each follower, leaders have different relationships with different followers. Some followers receive a higher degree of social exchange including increased levels of information sharing, interaction time, mutual support, and …

Leadership In Higher Education--Its Evolution And Potential: A Unique Role Facing Critical Challenges, Bryan L. Smith, Aaron W. Hughey

Counseling & Student Affairs Faculty Publications

Leadership is a key ingredient in the ultimate success or failure of any organization. In this article the authors review the research on leadership in general and then focus on how leadership in the academic world is similar to, yet distinct from, leadership in the private sector. Included in this discussion are a description of how leadership in colleges and universities has evolved, the characteristics that are unique to higher education together with their implications for effective leadership, and consideration of the immense challenges academic leaders face as they attempt to keep higher education responsive to the needs of business …

Maine State Government's Worksite Wellness Program, William C. Mcpeck

William C. McPeck

This is an unpublished report I wrote for Maine Governor John Baldacci to share with the National Governor's Association. The report reflects the history and current initiatives of Maine State Government's employee wellness program.

Teams In Library Technical Services, Jack G. Montgomery Jr., Contributor, Rosann Bazirjian, Editor, Rebecca Mugridge, Editor

DLTS Faculty and Staff Book Gallery

Whether because of budget and staffing concerns or issues with productivity and output, technical services teams have come into being in many organizations. In Teams in Library Technical Services, editors Rosann Bazirjian and Rebecca Mugridge present research and case studies demonstrating what these reasons are and how the use of teams has been and should be applied to libraries. Everything from describing the various types of teams and how to manage them—especially in academic libraries—to exploring recurring themes on the relationships between professional and support staff, the changing roles of librarians, and how managers and teams address issues such …

Readiness For Change: Implications On Employees' Relationship With Management, Job Knowledge And Skills, And Job Demands, Duane Miller, Susan R. Madsen, Cameron John

Susan R. Madsen

This article addresses how employees' readiness/willingness to change is influenced by three workplace factors-management/leader relationship, job knowledge and skills, and job demands. Statistical analyses were completed based on a two-part survey given to 464 employees from four companies. The research findings indicated that all three of these workplace factors had an influence on employees' readiness for change. But employees' relationship with their managers was the strongest predictor of readiness for change. This paper reports the results of a new study that used Hanpachern's framework but made extensive changes in the test instrument, sample size, and other methodology techniques to increase …

Evaluating Support Services For African American Females At A Historically Black College, Sabrina Ferguson Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effectiveness of the Women’s Resources Assistance Program (WRAP), a support service for African American females attending a historically black college or university (HBCU). The study included 230 participants. The purpose of the study was to gauge, through the use of surveys, each participant’s knowledge and level of participation in the WRAP.

The participants were issued questionnaires and interview forms to complete during the study. The questionnaires contained 11 closed-ended questions that were designed to determine the participating students’ attitude towards WRAP as well as their level of participation. Similarly, oral interviews were conducted to ascertain the …

Project Management Issues In It Offshore Outsourcing, Kathy Schwaig, Stephen Gillam, Elke M. Leeds

Faculty and Research Publications

Global partnerships are forming to take advantage of the cost savings associated with offshoring as well as other strategic benefits. Not all information technology offshoring projects, however, are successful. Cost overruns, increased complexity and defective code cause organizations to rethink their offshoring strategy and their methods for managing these projects. In this paper, project management issues associated with offshore information technology outsourcing projects are identified and specific recommendations for addressing these issues are presented.

Is Support For Strategic Flexibility, Environmental Dynamism, And Firm Performance, Michael J. Zhang

WCBT Faculty Publications

Increasingly, strategic flexibility has been viewed as a critical organizational competency that enables firms to achieve and maintain competitive advantage and superior performance. In this study, the relationship between IS support for strategic flexibility and the bottom-line performance of firms is investigated, as well as the moderating effects of environmental dynamism on that relationship. Using both survey and archival data, IS support for strategic flexibility was positively associated with profitability and labor productivity only when there was a high degree of environmental changes and uncertainty.

Cognitive Asymmetry In Employee Emotional Reactions To Leadership Behaviors, Marie Dasborough

Marie T Dasborough

This article is predicated on the idea that leaders shape workplace affective events. Based on Affective Events Theory (AET), I argue that leaders are sources of employee positive and negative emotions at work. Certain leader behaviors displayed during interactions with their employees are the sources of these affective events. The second theoretical underpinning of the article is the Asymmetry Effect of emotion. Consistent with this theory, employees are more likely to recall negative incidents than positive incidents. In a qualitative study, evidence that these processes exist in the workplace was found. Leader behaviors were sources of positive or negative emotional …

The Influence Of Relation-Based And Rule-Based Regulations On Hiring Decisions In The Australian And Hong Kong Chinese Cultural Contexts, Marie Dasborough

Marie T Dasborough

Investigation of the cultural factors that may influence the employment decisions of managers is of increasing importance in the global business environment. The purpose of this research is to examine whether particularistic ties based on friendship influence hiring practices in relation-based (Hong Kong Chinese) and rule-based (Australian) cultural contexts. Three studies were conducted to examine this research question. Results indicate that friendship-based particularistic ties, specifically guanxi and mateship, can influence hiring decisions in both relation- and rule-based cultural contexts. The results of the studies have implications for human resource managers with regards to staffing organizations operating in different cultural contexts.

Consequences Of Employee Attributions In The Workplace: The Role Of Emotional Intelligence, Marie T. Dasborough

Marie T Dasborough

We present a theoretical model of attributions and emotions, and the behavioral and psychological consequences of these in the workplace.Expanding on Weiner’s (1985) framework, we argue that emotional intelligence plays a moderating role in the attribution-emotion-behavior process. Specifically, the emotional intelligence dimensions of perception, facilitation, and understanding emotion are posited to moderate the relationship between outcome-dependent affect and attribution formation. Further, the emotion management dimension of emotional intelligence is argued to moderate the relationship between attributions and subsequent emotional responses. These emotional responses are then argued to influence behavioral, motivational, and psychological consequences in the workplace.