Business Commons^™

Handwashing Behaviors In Food Service Establishment Restrooms: An Observational Study, Jaemin Cha Ph.D., Carl Borchgrevink Ph.D., Seunghyun Kim Ph.D.

Great Lakes Hospitality & Tourism Educators Conference

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified poor handwashing as a main factor in foodborne illness outbreaks (ServSafe, 2009). They suggested that failure to wash hands, or inadequate washing of hands, contributes to almost 50% of all foodborne illness outbreaks. We conducted an observational study of diners’ handwashing behaviors in restaurant restrooms in terms of gender, handwashing signage, sink cleanliness conditions, and time. Our goal was to explore predictors of proper handwashing behaviors to promote better handwashing compliance.

Consumer Perception Of Boutique Hotel: A Pilot Study, Jellna Chung, Seunghyun Kim Ph.D.

Great Lakes Hospitality & Tourism Educators Conference

In most situations, consumers purchase or use built-in products and services; however, it is sometimes necessary to customize products to satisfy consumers’ needs and desires. In the hotel industry, for instance, customers have begun to prefer unique experiences. The newest concept in the hotel market today is the boutique (Hartesvelt, 2006). Boutique hotels are upscale, luxury properties that tend to be smaller than conventional hotels, are frequently located in urban areas or city centers, have historical or other interesting aspects, and individually designed for the delivery of personal service (Lim & Endean, 2008). The primary purpose of this study is …

Using Excel To Teach Hospitality Financial Statement Analysis, George R. Conrade

Great Lakes Hospitality & Tourism Educators Conference

This presentation demonstrated the use of Excel to help individuals understand how to prepare and analyze lodging industry financial statements. It focused on an Excel-based interactive exercise that requires a user to prepare some key lodging industry statements, calculate ratios, and then analyze what the numbers mean. It is this last element that is the most important part of financial statement analysis – users must think about what a line account value or a ratio is telling them. It is from this focus on listening to what a number says about an operation that the exercise derives its name – …

2010 M&A Update, Carol M. Sanchez, Christina Seeber, Stephen R. Goldberg

Peer Reviewed Articles

Most of 2009 was slow for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), due to financial turmoil and economic uncertainty that carried over from late 2008. But the deal market rebounded in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 2010 appears to be much better for M&A than 2009. Yet while the global economy shows signs of recovery, and many buyers and sellers are flush with cash, M&A activity may begin slowly in the United States in 2011 due to uncertainty about the business outlook and potential tax changes. In this article, we briefly review M&A activity in the first half of 2010, and …

The Spirit Of Family Business: A Comparative Analysis Of Anglo, Germanic And Nordic Nations, Vipin Gupta, Nancy M. Levenburg, Lynda Moore, Jaideep Motwani, Thomas V. Schwarz

Peer Reviewed Articles

Using GLOBE classification and findings, this paper compares the family characteristics and work cultures of family businesses in Anglo, Germanic, and Nordic cultures. Results indicate differing patterns in terms of the involvement of the family in the family business and other key organizational dimensions. While all three regions share their weak family orientation, the Nordic and Germanic regions share stronger future orientation and uncertainty avoidance. The Anglo and Germanic regions share stronger performance orientation and the Nordic region stands out for its low power distance and low assertiveness. Overall, the characteristics of family businesses in the three regions may be …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Attitudes Toward Women Managers In China, Chile, And The United States, Carol M. Sanchez, Robert Scherer, Rajshekhar G. Javalgi, Lorena Pradenas Rojas, Victor Parada Daza, Chi-En Hwang, Wu Yan

Peer Reviewed Articles

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine if stereotypical perceptions of women as managers existed among men and women in three cultural settings: the U.S., China and Chile. Based on the extant literature, hypotheses were developed and tested.

Design/Methodology Approach : Participants in our study were students enrolled in degree programs. The data was collected from the U.S., China and Chile. Using the women as mangers scale (WAMS), the study explores attitudinal dimensions. Further, gender and country effects were identified at both multivariate and univariate levels.

Findings: The findings show that stereotypical perceptions of women as mangers exist …

Forging Theatre And Community: Challenges And Strategies For Serving Two Missions, Dan L. Balfour

Peer Reviewed Articles - Public, Nonprofit, and Health Administration

At the age of personal computers, the Internet, cell phones, video games, and I-pods, how can individuals be enticed to emerge from their electronic silos and actually engage others in meaningful discourse as members of a community with common interests and problems? One organizational response to this challenge is the activities of community-based organizations. Such organizations are widely recognized for their ability to promote and facilitate creative face-to-face human interactions that serve as a counterweight to the forces of individuation and declining trust in public institutions, while playing a niche role in the process of building and sustaining community solidarity. …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

The Real-Time Evaluation Memo: A Tool For Enabling Evaluative Thinking And Learning In Foundations And Nonprofits, Melanie Hwalek, Mary Grcich Williams

The Foundation Review

· Real-time evaluation memos provide data-based feedback in a timely manner to inform decision making.

· Memos must be concise and include both data and expert synthesis and interpretation.

· The foundation must have a learning culture if the memos are to most useful; there must be time to reflect on the content and implications.

· The balance between data quality and timeliness must be managed and will be dependent on the topic.

· While useful for program management, these memos do not provide the kind of summative information that board members and other stakeholders may require.

The Quest For Quality: Lessons From A Certification Pilot Project For College Access Providers, Tania Jarosewich, Nushina Mir

The Foundation Review

· Certification programs can provide a way for nonprofits to ensure adherence to generally accepted standards.

· The KH2GO Certification Pilot Project, supported by the Lumina Foundations, developed a set of standards for high-quality college access services, including standards for programming, operations, and organizational effectiveness.

· The project was implemented in two states with an evaluation designed to assess the quality of the assessment tools and the ease and rigor of implementation.

· The more clarity that applicants had about the goals of the process, potential benefits, and details about procedures, the more benefits they perceived.

· Many applicants felt …

Embedded Foundations: Advancing Community Change And Empowerment, Paula Allen-Meares, Larry Gant, Trina Shanks

The Foundation Review

· Embedded funders are foundations that have made long-term commitments to the communities in which they are located or work.

· Foundations have a long history in funding community development, often with few concrete results.

· Political conditions, the increasing divide between rich and poor, inaccessibility of education, lack of housing, and continued segregation and racial discrimination are issues that need be addressed concurrently and resources need to be drawn from a variety of sources, particularly the neighborhoods themselves. This complexity has created an impetus for embedded philanthropy.

· Embedded funders work participatively with the community and frame evaluations in …

Beyond The Grant: How The W. K. Kellogg Foundation Went Beyond Grantmaking To Contribute To A Major Early Childhood Initiative, Stephen Greeley, Beth Greeley

The Foundation Review

· The seven-year SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) initiative, created by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), aimed at systemically linking the pre-K and kindergarten worlds as a way to position vulnerable children for greater success in the early grades.

· At the foundation, the initiative served as a departure point for WKKF to move from its traditional grantmaking role to a changemaker role.

· To create change, a foundation must articulate – and commit to – a point of view about how change can occur. A theory of change can be a powerful tool to guide ongoing …

Evaluative Tools For Articulating And Monitoring Foundation Strategy, Helen Davis Picher, Sandra Yetman Adams

The Foundation Review

· Research shows that while foundation leadership and staff value strategy and foundations largely perceive themselves as strategic, they often struggle to articulate, implement, and track strategy. The William Penn Foundation has developed a collection of tools to articulate and assess its progress toward strategic goals.

· Each tool employs a structured format to promote standardization; flexibility, though, is encouraged in the application of each tool to ensure that form does not dictate function. Each tool provides a template for organizing information that should be tweaked as needed.

· The speed and breadth of adoption of each tool varies and …

Editorial-Open Access, Teresa Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Funding Cultural Adaptations To Promote Effective And Efficient Mental Health Service Provision, Lynda E. Frost, Rick Ybarra

The Foundation Review

· Given the changing demographics of the U.S. and documented racial and ethnic health disparities, behavioral health service providers must look at adapting their services to better meet the needs of their diverse client populations.

· Grantees implemented three types of cultural adaptations: sociocultural/organizational, structural/ service delivery, and clinical.

· Most adaptations were not directly related to the specific evidence-based practice and would be relevant in many service-provision settings.

International Programming, Local Development, And Youth: An Experience In Northeast Brazil, Frances Hansford, Andrés Thompson

The Foundation Review

· The W. K. Kellogg Foundation funded a 10-year program of local development work in selected geographic areas in Northeast Brazil from 1997 – 2007.

· This article reports on program achievements and difficulties, and examines the ways in which the practices of the foundation facilitated and obstructed advances in the local development initiatives.

· Two main strategies were used: direct funding granted to organizations in the targeted regions and the creation of a comprehensive support system (e.g., youth projects funds, capacity-building in leadership and evaluation, and transfer of expertise from organizations).

· A team of foundation staff and consultants …

Trends In Global Philanthropy Among U.S. Foundations: A Brief Review Of Data And Issues, Anne C. Petersen, Gail D. Mcclure

The Foundation Review

· International grantmaking has increased dramatically in the past two decades, at a rate faster than domestic grantmaking.

· The increase in international grantmaking, stimulated by increased interest in global issues, was fueled by increased foundation assets and especially by new foundations created since 1990.

· While many of the issues confronting international grantmaking exist with domestic grantmaking, they have special aspects and increased importance because of the global context.

· Many foundations have now accumulated information about how best to work in partnership with other foundations, governments, and business; these lessons would benefit all foundations.

· Thoughtful collective action …

Peer Networking And Community Change: Improving Foundation Practice, Thomas E. Backer, Ralph Smith

The Foundation Review

· This article brings together the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 15 years of experience with peer networking— examining through two research studies the process of peer networking and its impact, both with community-based and funder groups.

· Peer networking helps people with common interests to exchange information, disseminate good practices, and build a leadership structure for work they do together, such as a community change initiative.

· Casey’s research identified 10 good practices for effective peer networking, as well as 10 challenges that can affect its success; a four-level model was created to provide context for these findings.

· The …

Learning From An Adaptive-Consultative Approach: One Foundation’S Experience In Creating Systems Change In Education, Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Hallie Preskill

The Foundation Review

· This article describes a creative relationship between the Ball Foundation and the Rowland Unified School District. The approach was adopted by the Ball Foundation when they observed that grantees who had a closer relationship with them were more successful than those who had a more traditional relationship with them.

· Based on the concept of “adaptive leadership,” the relationship allows for flexibility and a more collaborative approach between the foundation and grantee.

· This approach requires both the funder and the grantee to be committed to learning and adapting strategies as needed to respond to both results and changing …

Leveraging Social Networks In Direct Services: Are Foundations Doing All They Can?, Katya Fels Smyth

The Foundation Review

· Social networks are critical to physical and mental health, and they shape how people see themselves and their possible futures.

· Social networks represent an under-leveraged resource in social services’ efforts to alleviate poverty and other social challenges.

· Foundations may be unintentionally creating barriers to practice that leverages social networks by incentivizing individually-focused, highly specific services delivered in standardized, replicable ways.

· “Network-oriented” practice can help craft a new way forward that threads the needle between everything-is-different-for-everyone and everything- is-the-same-for-everyone.

· By focusing funding on efforts that build and support social networks, foundations can deepen and sustain the …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Developing Foundation-University-Grantee Collaboratives As A Model For High-Impact Philanthropy, Michelle B. Nayfack, Priscilla Wohlstetter

The Foundation Review

· This article reports on results from the Weingart Foundation’s Urban School Districts Reform Initiative. The goal of the initiative was to improve urban education, and ultimately raise student achievement, by supporting sustainable reforms in school districts educating high numbers of low-income students.

· The Weingart Foundation determined the scale and scope of the effort, and set forth specific goals and timelines; the districts were invited to propose projects that were organic and integrated into their own strategic plans.

· Based on research conducted by an intermediary, potential grantees were identified; six grantees were interviewed about their strategic plan priorities …

Expanding Organizational Advocacy Capacity: Reflections From The Field, Annette Gardner, Sara Geierstanger, Lori Miller Nascimento, Claire Brindis

The Foundation Review

· Organizational advocacy capacity is an increasingly important area of inquiry, raising questions about the opportunities (and limits) for achieving and sustaining policy change.

· The California Endowment implemented the Clinic Consortia Policy and Advocacy Program to expand grantee advocacy capacity to support the policy and operational needs of California’s community clinics.

· In-person meetings with decision-makers and developing working relationships were among the key advocacy activities undertaken by 19 grantees. Grantees secured several policy wins through a variety of strategies, including mobilizing member clinics to be potent advocates.

· The “return on investment analysis” indicates that grantees secured policymaker …

Assessing Nonprofit Networks Prior To Funding: Tools For Foundations To Determine Life Cycle Phase And Function, Patricia Zerounian, Janet Shing, Kristi D. Hanni

The Foundation Review

· Foundations and other funders can use life cycle analysis tools to determine a nonprofit network’s stage of development and functional characteristics as a precursor to funding network activities. Characteristics that determine a network’s readiness for funding include network cohesion (trust and communication), cooperation (mutual purpose and goals), and capacity for externally focused action.

· Network Mindset Survey analysis can help determine a network’s readiness for funding by measuring members’ understanding of the power and utility of networks; degree of membership engagement; identification of specific, common concerns; and readiness for productive action.

· Three networks that received foundation support for …

Exposing Real World Philanthropy To The Next Generation Of Social Work Leaders, Yoko Crume, Edgar Villanueva

The Foundation Review

· This article describes a method for instructing social work students in the art of enhanced collaboration with foundations, shifting the focus from “writing a winning proposal” and “finding alternative funding sources” to “developing collaborative partnerships for sustainable community development and social change.”

· The program consists of four major steps: charitable foundation review and case presentation, self-guided review of real-world proposals, mock grant proposal development, and side-by-side proposal review.

· Student proposals were rated similarly by the instructor and the foundation program officer, even though different criteria were used, suggesting that well-written proposals are also likely to clearly address …

Lessons (Not Yet) Learned, Marilyn J. Darling, Jillaine S. Smith

The Foundation Review

· Despite a significant influx of charitable dollars over the last 10 to 20 years, solutions to complex social problems remain elusive, while philanthropy has been facing growing pressure to account for its tax-free dollars; to demonstrate, replicate, and scale success; and to be transparent about failed social investments.

· When foundations and their nonprofit partners ignore a failure and move on, whether it is to protect their own reputation or the reputations of valued partners or simply because of the pressure to keep going, it is too easy to toss out the baby with the bathwater – to toss …

Promoting Community Leadership Among Community Foundations: The Role Of The Social Capital Benchmark Survey, Doug Easterling

The Foundation Review

· Faced with increased competition for donors and calls for measurable impact, many community foundations (CFs) are adopting a more proactive, strategic approach to philanthropy – one that has come to be known as "community leadership."

· Community leadership has proven challenging for many CFs. In theory, community assessment is a useful tool allowing CFs to identify strategic issues where leadership activities are warranted. This article examines the effect of a large, coordinated assessment project, the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Survey (SCBS), conducted by Robert Putnam and the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard University.

· Of the 34 CFs that participated …

Community Philanthropy: How The Delta Region Revives, Embraces, And Promotes The Spirit Of Giving, Charlotte L. Williams, Sherece West, Joanna Klak

The Foundation Review

· Community philanthropy is the giving of time, talent, and treasure that when invested locally is characteristic of positive change and lasting development.

· This article reports on a survey of 31 small Arkansas communities of 5,000 to 15,000 in population using open-ended descriptive questions. Responses were compared across communities to assess variation in giving/fundraising, civic engagement, and leadership.

· Data confirm that giving/fundraising was substantial, particularly in communities with populations of 8,000 or less.

· Findings show that people are giving not only their money, but also their services, time, and skills – especially in times of emergency response. …

The Best Of The Humanistic And Technocratic: Why The Most Effective Work In Philanthropy Requires A Balance, Paul M. Connolly

The Foundation Review

· As a more technocratic approach to philanthropy has emerged over the past 15 years, it has been seen as the opposite of humanistic philanthropy.

· Rather than a dichotomy, these approaches are on a continuum.

· The best tools from each approach can and should be brought to bear, including the wellthought out and disciplined strategies and results orientation of technocrats and the values base, intuition, responsiveness, and flexibility of the humanists.

· Staff and board leaders at foundations should articulate the humanistic-technocratic blend they desire, deliberately distill it into the organizational culture and everyday practices, and hire staff …