Suchergebnisse

Purpose. Conducting projects to improve a company's business processes is of utmost importance in all industries and countries. Many companies have installed specific organizational units to develop guidelines for process design, to document and maintain of these processes, and to further increase the processes' efficiency. Although these enterprises continually work on improving their processes, they often struggle to answer the question on the current status of the maturity of their processes. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to characterize the methodology, applicability, pitfalls and benefits of analyzing the maturity of processes. Design/Method/Approach. This work is based on mixed-methods research recently conducted in a medium-sized German bank. Findings. The paper defined the benefits of measuring the level of maturity of the company's processes clearly. This work identified the substantial theoretical drawbacks, such as, for example, the lack of considering of process innovation in the extant models of process maturity. Limitations. Naturally, a research limitation is the analysis of a specific company in the financial services sector. Theoretical implications. From a theoretical point of view it is critical to choose the appropriate model out of a variety of available process maturity models. In fact, the selection of the model influences the data, the subsequent interpretation of these data, and the conclusions to be drawn for the company. Originality/Value. The paper is novel as it presents-based on empirical data-the measurement of process maturity including the derivation of implications from both an academic and a practical perspective. In addition, the impact of process maturity on perceived process performance could be shown. Paper type - empirical.

<i>The methodology of environmental risk is becoming more common to assess the impact
of chemical pollution on human beings and the environment, providing information for
making environmental remediation decisions. This article examines the impact on human
health chemicals that penetrated into river water as a result of an accident at a military
ammunition depot. The river is the source of drinking water for the population. Assessing
the impact of chemicals on the health of adults, adolescents and children is carried out
in stages (tiers), from simple to complex. Assessment is carried out both for carcinogenic
and non-carcinogenic substances. The first tier is executed by a deterministic method –
a method in which all biological, chemical, physical, and environmental parameters are
assumed to be constant and can be accurately specified. Deterministic methods commonly
apply to either a "most likely" value for a parameter, or a conservative value. When the
obtained values are insufficient for making the decision, the second tier of a risk assessment
begins. The values in this case have the form of probability distributions that determine
their variability. Processing the risk model with the help of the one-dimensional Monte
Carlo method gives more accurate data in the form of risk distribution. However, the
method does not consider the lack of knowledge about the values of input variables, so, at
the third tier of a risk assessment, the two-dimensional Monte Carlo method is used. In this
case, the specifi ed values of risk look like trend charts and indicate the limits of probability
of risk for a certain percentage of the population.</i>

The article analyzes the development of J.M. Keynes's theory in the second half of the twentieth century due to the works within the new direction of economical science - Post-Keynesianism. It is shown that in free-market economy Keynesian school based of the original Keynesian methodology requires additional studies of state regulation principles and take into account the qualitative changes in the market mechanisms. It is shown that post-Keynesianism has had a significant impact on the subject of research and has taken into account the principles of free enterprise, market pricing, level of price dynamics. All this principles allow realizing the principle of self-regulation of the market mechanism. New approaches to the post-Keynesians role of the state and state regulation combined with the freedom of entrepreneurship are analyzed. Taking into account real changes and economic crises it is necessary to analyze the main directions of development of the Keynesian model of economic regulation with a view to their effective use in shaping economic policy. There are considered the basic directions of development of post-Keynesianism such as Neo-Ricardian theory of value and prices of goods based on direct costs of production in the framework of macroeconomic model by P. Sraffa, information theory of "fundamental" uncertainty of the future by R. Klauder and the theory of financial instability hypothesis by H. Minsky. Their differences within the framework of post-Keynesianism under the subject specialization are considered. It is noted that the development of PostKeynesianism allows to present the latest research in modern Keynesian school within an interdisciplinary approach to economical problems.

Purpose
A case study is reported of a relationship-based early intervention (EI) service for children with complex needs in New Zealand. The purpose of this paper is to explore parent and professional views and perceptions about the key characteristics of a relationship-based EI service.


Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study involved interviews and observations with 39 participants (10 children, 11 parents and 18 professionals).


Findings
Parents appreciated the knowledgeable, well-trained professionals who invested time in getting to know (and love) children and families and family practices, worked together in harmony and valued the contribution that parents made to their child's progress and achievement. Professionals described the key characteristics of the service in terms of the range of therapies offered by the service, the focus on a strengths-based and family-focussed approach, play-based assessments, acceptance and value of family practices (including responsiveness to Maori and bi-culturalism), appropriate and respectful places to meet and greet families and work with children, and recruitment and retention of humble professionals who identified with the ethos of the model. Observable social processes and structures within the delivery of the model include respectful professional interactions and relationships with children and families, integrated professional working, effective and timely communication between professionals and families, pedagogy of listening, waiting and personalisation, engaged families and actively participating children.


Originality/value
This case study emphasises the significance of professional love and relational pedagogy to EI services and the value of this to improving parent-child relationships and children's long-term outcomes.

Purpose
The older population is growing but there is too little housing being built and very little suits their needs. The purpose of this paper is to describe what is on offer now and looks at the viability of the chalet bungalow as a desirable, affordable option which could attract older people to downsize from a family house.


Design/methodology/approach
This is a viewpoint piece.


Findings
An age-friendly dwelling is one where all types of people can age in place. Traditionally the bungalow fulfilled this niche however as more pressure is put on land and its value the style has gone out of favour. Whereas at the top end of the market developers are offering large cottages with a reception room that can be used as a ground floor bedroom the less well off owner occupier is not catered for until they need care. The dwindling supply of suitable properties has led to older people feeling trapped in homes too big for their needs at a time when there is a chronic shortage of family houses. This leads to poor health and well-being and a later life move into expensive housing with care.


Originality/value
Mainstream developers have avoided building bungalows because single storey dwellings are "land hungry". This paper reviews a chalet bungalow solution which can be built to a greater density and is of a size and style that is age friendly, future proof and affordable. This message if more widely disseminated could help solve the housing crisis.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a high-level overview of a substantial body of research on the impact that negative attitudes towards ageing have on the health and wellbeing outcomes of people in later life and to highlight the need for a more interdisciplinary approach towards older people's wellbeing.


Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws from an initial analysis of over 70 peers reviewed and published studies on the psychosocial impact of negative stereotypes about ageing.


Findings
There is overwhelming evidence that the way in which people think about ageing can have a very significant adverse impact on a wide array of health and wellbeing outcomes. This research evidence is largely unknown, nor operationalised, within the field of health and social care policy or service development.


Practical implications
The fact that beliefs and attitudes can have such a profound impact on health and wellbeing outcomes suggests the possibility of psychosocial interventions to address them in order to improve older people's experience of later life. There is a need for a much more interdisciplinary research agenda to take these findings forward.


Social implications
The evidence suggests the need for a much more rigorous and comprehensive approach to addressing the effects of socially constructed ageist attitudes.


Originality/value
Whilst the research itself is not new, the originality of this paper is its attempt to bring data from a different discipline into the health and social care ambit and thereby extend the knowledge base and create the possible conditions for the development and application of new psychosocial interventions to improve the lives of older people.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for proper involvement of people with dementia and carers in policy making and to suggest practical ways to achieve this.


Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from personal experience derived from a long career in service development in health and social care, the author outlines the importance of recognising that people with dementia and family carers are experts by experience and the merits of involving people at an early stage.


Findings
The best ideas come from involved people. Without the insights gained through the lived experiences of people with dementia and family carers, policy makers and professionals run the risk of developing costly services that do not meet the needs of those who will be using them.


Practical implications
A number of key practical pointers are developed and summarised. Engagement and one-off consultations are not enough. Real involvement has to be part of everyday practice, at all levels. It requires investment to enable people with dementia and carers to have a seat at the table, speak about what matters to them and help professionals develop relevant services that meet their needs.


Originality/value
The author is able to draw on particular insights gained as Programme Lead for Dementia at the Department of Health during the development of the first English National Dementia Strategy and, more recently, experience of developing engagement strategies in various localities. This included supporting people with dementia and family carers before, during and after key events at which they shared their experiences with commissioners and service providers.

Purpose
The landscape of adult social care, and in particular of adult safeguarding, has shifted considerably over the last decade. Alongside policy changes in the responses to adult abuse, there have been shifts in professional and public understanding of what falls within the remit of this area of work. This results, arguably, in differing understandings of how adult safeguarding is constructed and understood. Given the increasing emphasis on multi-agency inter-professional collaboration, service user involvement and lay advocacy, it is important to consider and reflect on how both professionals and lay people understand this area of work. The paper aims to discuss these issues.


Design/methodology/approach
This study employed Augusto Boal's model of Forum Theatre to explore how a variety of professional and lay groups understood, related to and engaged with how the Care Act 2014 defines and describes "adult safeguarding".


Findings
Lay participants responded to the scenario in a variety of ways, upholding the construct validity of "adult safeguarding" and the authority of the social worker. Social care and health practitioners sought orderly, professionalised and sometimes ritualistic solutions to the "adult safeguarding" scenario presented, seeking carefully to structure and to manage lay involvement. Inter-professional collaboration was often problematic. The role of lay advocates was regarded ambiguously and ambivalently.


Originality/value
This paper offers a number of practice and research recommendations. Safeguarding practitioners could benefit from more effective and reflexive inter-professional collaboration. Both practitioners and service users could benefit from the more thoughtful deployment of the lay advocates encouraged within the Care Act 2014 and associated guidance.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to define supply chain information utilisation and explore how its antecedents impact shared information utilisation in information receiver's planning processes.


Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on a literature review and exploratory case study of three supplier dyads of original equipment manufacturers. This study presents a four-phase model of supply chain information utilisation, and identifies how information sharing, information quality, and intended information usage are antecedents of actual usage of information shared in supply chains. In the dyads, 35 potential information utilisation situations are analysed.


Findings
Inter- and intra-organisational factors are antecedents of information utilisation, by their effects on the four phases of utilisation. Composite information sharing, social network governance, human process involvement, and formal planning processes are important antecedents, which are not much emphasised in the literature.


Research limitations/implications
The study focusses on routinised sharing of formal demand-related planning information in supply chain dyads. The analysis is based on three case dyads which are chosen to be complementary in several respects, and where there is access to rich data.


Practical implications
Understanding phases and antecedents could support managers in developing information sharing strategies.


Originality/value
The literature does not explicitly consider information utilisation, or related antecedents or effects. However, by defining information utilisation and proposing a multi-phase utilisation model, this study can explain the performance effect of information sharing. In addition, the composite information variable is defined. This is the first attempt to conceptualise and explore antecedents of information utilisation in supply chains.

PurposeBy contrasting a contingency with a universal approach to business excellence models (BEMs), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of size on the use of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model by organizations that were officially "Recognized for Excellence" in Spain. It considers the potential differences between large organizations and SMEs on the level of adoption of EFQM criteria and on the impact that enablers-criteria may have on key performance measures.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses actual sub-criteria and criteria scores attained by organizations in their assessment for EFQM recognition. Scores of a population of 216 organizations are analyzed via analysis of variance, factor and structural equations models.FindingsAlthough there are some criteria in the EFQM model that appear to be universally adopted irrespective of size, the empirical analyses indicate that size may shape the adoption of other criteria and the impact that enablers can have on results, thus supporting a contingency perspective. Moreover, the findings call for the revision of the relationships embedded in the EFQM model.Originality/valueIn contrast to most previous research, which relied on surveys of managers' perceptions, this study uses the actual scores achieved by organizations in their assessment for EFQM recognition. It addresses the effect of size on the whole model, which so far has been neglected in the literature. All in all this study contributes to the literature on contingency approaches to best practices, and more specifically to BEMs. To the practitioner, it provides guidelines for addressing perceived performance gaps in their pursuit of recognition for excellence.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Amartya Sen's notion of adaptation and his views on identity politics by focussing on the issue of slavery and, more specifically, on the example of the happy or contented slave.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is text based. The methodological approach adopted is that of conceptual analysis, as is typical for work of this kind.FindingsThe paper concludes that the example of the happy or contented slave is indeed a fruitful one for those interested in exploring the relationship between Sen's views on "the adaptation problem" and his views on identity politics, especially in relation to the subjection of women. Here Sen's debt to the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill is particularly important.Research limitations/implicationsOne implication of the argument of the paper is that there is a need to consider more carefully the differences that exist between the views of Wollstonecraft and Mill, so far as the example of the happy or contented slave is concerned.Practical implicationsOne practical implication of the paper is that, hopefully, it establishes the continued relevance of the ideas of thinkers such as Wollstonecraft and Mill today, not least because of the influence that they have had on theoreticians such as Amartya Sen.Social implicationsThe paper addresses issues which are of considerable social and political significance, especially for women in underdeveloped societies today.Originality/valueThe example of the happy or contented slave has not received much discussion in the literature on Sen, although Sen himself has suggested that the distinction between happiness and contentment is an important one, which does merit further discussion.

ABSTRACT Purpose: This paper aims to analyze how features raised in the case studies in the field of social innovation, from the meta-synthesis methodology proposed by Hoon (2013), indicate factors that promote social innovation scalability Originality/gap/relevance/implications: The number of publications on SI, despite an increase perceived, is still limited. Consequently, researches dedicated to understand the scalability of the process of SI are still scarce, thus constituting a gap research. Key methodological aspects: To achieve the objective of this research, we followed the eight meta-synthesis steps proposed by Hoon (2013) which is an exploratory-inductive research design for synthesis of primary data collected through case studies whose primary purpose is to build theory. It was analyzed 66 articles identified in the Web of Science database, nine of them were selected to join this meta-synthesis. Summary of key results: The findings of this research can be summarized in the concept proposed "environment favourable to the scalability of a SI" with features of the internal environment, divided between aspects of the entrepreneur and the organization, and settings of the external environment, mediated (or not) by a bridge organization. Key considerations/conclusions: The findings of this study advance the SI literature in two main points: Concept proposition of "environment conducive to the scalability of a SI" and to draw attention to the field of study on the promoting factors of continuity and growth of a SI. As for the practical contributions, the results of the research can help social innovations managers in the expansion phase of its operations, suggesting some elements to consider.

Abstract

Background and purpose: The individual is exposed to ever more covert psychological violence or mobbing in workplace within companies. The aim of this study is to analyse the level and the types of psychological violence within a company in which the individual works in their daily lives.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Using systematic method current mobbing literature reviews were analysed. Based on a review and analysis of the literature, we recognised increasing amounts of workplace bullying. Then we used and extended Dilts' model and created a model in which we portrayed the different levels and types of bullying in a company. The presented model is a tool for identifying workplace violence within the company.

Results: At the company environment level, there is much bullying associated with social-demographic characteristics and working conditions. At the level of individual behaviour, the type of mobbing exists that is associated with the company's leadership styles. At the level of professional qualifications, a lack of confidence causes mobbing. At the level of values and beliefs, mobbing is present in attitudes and behavioural intentions. At the level of identity, we can observe mobbing according to sexual identity. At the level of organizational culture, we can recognize a type of mobbing called 'obsessive dedication' to working efficiency and organizational silence.

Conclusion: Based on the analysis of selected literature we exposed a range of types and levels of mobbing in company. The expanded Model on levels of mobbing in companies provides a framework for collecting information. The user can identify workplace violence and each strategic organizational level in the work organization

AbstractBackground and Purpose:The aim of the research was to find out how business partners from the field of tourism estimate the dimensions of the image of Bled and the marketing mix used to promote Bled. Further on we were interested in evaluating the influence of image and marketing mix on the scope of sales measured in overnights. The following dimensions of image were explored: perceived uniqueness of image as a whole, perceived uniqueness of attractions and experiences, perceived quality of the environment (cleanness), perceived feeling of safety, as well as the dimensions of the marketing mix: perceived quality of products (accommodation, culinary offer, transfers, etc.), perceived price of services, perceived manner of sales for the promotion of Bled, perception of promotional channels, perception of residents (politeness, friendliness, multicultural and religious openness, etc.) and a positive experience of visiting Slovenia.Design/Methodology/Approach:The survey was dispensed among 400 incoming agencies, foreign tour operators, tourist agencies and associations that promote the product of Bled. 235 units were received, 164 of them were completed. The respondents come from 30 countries from all over the world.Results:The findings disclose how service quality, tourist provider competencies and environmental factors are estimated. Safety at Bled has the highest arithmetic mean and the lowest standard deviation. The lowest ranking is linked to traffic and tolerance towards other religions. It is alarming to find the service quality, as the core of tourism business, rated poorly during the main season.Conclusion:Having overviewed the available literature it might be concluded that the analysis can be regarded as the first research of the tourist destination Bled performed in this manner and scope.

Abstract

Background/Purpose: Maintaining a balance between security and a positive user experience in mobile and Internet banking is becoming increasingly difficult for the providers of banking services. The goal of our research is to analyse user opinions about the current situation: how users perceive security and how the authentication methods they are using affect user experience.

Methodology: Data were collected using an online survey among the users of 15 banks operating in Slovenia, and statistical methods were applied to analyse them. Results of the users' study were evaluated and commented by a limited number of interviewed banking security experts.

Results: The results indicate that the use of mobile banking in Slovenia is relatively low, as only 30 percent of respondents use mobile banking along with Internet banking. Slovenian users perceive security to be the most important factor in mobile and online banking, closely followed by reliability. We also verified whether the users knew which authentication methods they were using: 69% of respondents selected the correct authentication method. The opinion of 88% of respondents was that authentication methods do not limit them when using mobile and Internet banking. Results of the study of user's opinions did not surprise the experts, although experts' views about the balance between security and usability diverged considerably.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that, in Slovenia, users of the Internet and mobile banking services regard security to be the most important element in mobile or Internet banking and find user experience less important while they absolutely do want products that are easy to use.