Supplier transaction, TMT characteristics, and the persistence of earnings: do their relationship contribute towards sustainable performance of Chinese listed manufacturing sector firms?

The construction of supplier transaction is one of the strategic choices of many firms. However, the impact of business strategies on the persistence of earnings remains to be further investigated. The innovation of this paper lies in interpreting the impact of supplier transaction on earnings persistence from the perspective of characteristics of the top management team (TMT). We consider Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2012 to 2019 to examine the relationship between the supplier transaction and the persistence of earnings. Statistical results show that supplier transaction characteristics of the TMT have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between the supplier transaction and the persistence of earnings. This implies that the behavior of TMT can be vital to the firm in maintaining sustainable performance. The higher age level or longer average tenure of TMT can significantly improve the positive effect of the supplier transaction tenure heterogeneity of TMT that will significantly improve the negative effect. This paper expands the literature on supplier relationship, and corporate earnings from a new perspective that improves the empirical evidence of the upper echelons theory, and also provides evidence support for the construction of supplier relationship and TMT.

Development of a person-centered interdisciplinary plan-of-care program for dialysis.

BACKGROUND: Dialysis care often focuses on outcomes that are of lesser importance to patients than to clinicians. There is growing international interest in individualizing care based on patient priorities, but evidence-based approaches are lacking. The objective of this study was to develop a person-centered dialysis care planning program. To achieve this objective we performed qualitative interviews, responsively developed a novel care planning program and then assessed program content and burden. METHODS: We conducted 25 concept elicitation interviews with US hemodialysis patients, care partners and care providers, using thematic analysis to analyze transcripts. Interview findings and interdisciplinary stakeholder panel input informed the development of a new care planning program, My Dialysis Plan. We then conducted 19 cognitive debriefing interviews with patients, care partners and care providers to assess the program's content and face validities, comprehensibility and burden. RESULTS: We identified five themes in concept elicitation interviews: feeling boxed in by the system, navigating dual lives, acknowledging an evolving identity, respecting the individual as a whole person and increasing individualization to enhance care. We then developed a person-centered care planning program and supporting materials that underwent 32 stakeholder-informed iterations. Data from subsequent cognitive interviews led to program revisions intended to improve contextualization and understanding, decrease burden and facilitate implementation. CONCLUSIONS: My Dialysis Plan is a content-valid, person-centered dialysis care planning program that aims to promote care individualization. Investigation of the program's capacity to improve patient experiences and outcomes is needed.

Innovation in health service management: Adoption of project management offices to support major health care transformation.

AIM: To explore the characteristics that influence project management offices acceptance and adoption in healthcare sector. BACKGROUND: The creation of project management offices has been suggested as a promising avenue to promote successful organisational change and facilitate evidence-based practice. However, little is known about the characteristics that promote their initial adoption and acceptance in health care sector. This knowledge is important in the context where many organisations are considering implementing project management offices with nurse managers as leaders. METHODS: A descriptive multiple case study design was used. The unit of analysis was the project management offices. The study was conducted in three university-affiliated teaching hospitals in 2013-14 (Canada). Individual interviews (n = 34) were conducted with senior managers. RESULTS: Results reveal that project management offices dedicated to project and change management constitute an innovation and an added value that addresses tangible needs in the field. CONCLUSION: Project management offices are an innovation highly compatible with health care managers and their approach has parallels to the process of clinical problem solving and reasoning well-known to adopters. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: This knowledge is important in a context where many nurses hold various roles in project management offices, such as Director, project manager, clinical expert and knowledge broker.

Mandatory internal mobility in French hospitals: the results of imposed management practices.

AIM: To describe the impact of a mandatory internal mobility policy on nurses working in French state-funded health establishments. BACKGROUND: Public hospitals in France rely on the internal mobility of nursing staff to respond to organisational needs, to reduce costs and to increase productivity. However, there is very little data on the impact of such management practices on the nurses themselves. METHOD: A cross-sectional study, including 3077 nurses from 35 hospitals in the region of Paris, was conducted. Data were collected using a validated self-assessment questionnaire. RESULTS: Forty per cent of French nurses are required to work in different units. This mobility differs according to individual characteristics [age (P = 0.04), length of service (P = 0.017)] and type of environment [hospital (P < 0.0001), specialty (P < 0.0001)]. CONCLUSION: We can distinguish two types of approaches for implementing a mandatory staff nurse mobility policy. The first is an event that is regular, planned and lasts for several days. The second is an event that is irregular, short and organised the day before or the day of the change. Overall, while nurses are dissatisfied with all types of mandatory unit changes, this dissatisfaction is primarily a result of the irregular mobility events. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: This study demonstrates the importance of implementing a planned inter-unit mobility event and proposes recommendations for this type of implementation.

A Multidisciplinary Initiative to Increase Inpatient Discharges Before Noon.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of 2 hospital-wide interventions on achieving a discharge-before-noon rate of 40%. BACKGROUND: A multidisciplinary team led by administrative and physician leadership developed a plan to diminish capacity constraints by minimizing late afternoon hospital discharges using 2 patient flow management techniques. METHODS: The study was a preintervention/postintervention retrospective analysis observing all inpatients discharged across 19 inpatient units in a 484-bed, academic teaching hospital measuring calendar month discharge-before-noon percentage, patient satisfaction, and readmission rates. Patient satisfaction and readmission rates were used as baseline metrics. RESULTS: The discharge-before-noon percentage increased from 14% in the 11-month preintervention period to an average of 24% over the 11-month postintervention period, whereas patient satisfaction scores and readmission rates remained stable. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of the 2 interventions successfully increased the percentage of discharges before noon yet did not achieve the goal of 40%. Patient satisfaction and readmission rates were not negatively impacted by the program.

Why might regional vaccinology networks fail? The case of the Dutch-Nordic Consortium.

We analyzed an attempt to develop and clinically test a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for the developing world, undertaken by public health institutions from the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland: the Dutch Nordic Consortium (DNC), between 1990 and 2000. Our review shows that the premature termination of the project was due less to technological and scientific challenges and more to managerial challenges and institutional policies. Various impeding events, financial and managerial challenges gradually soured the initially enthusiastic collaborative spirit until near the end the consortium struggled to complete the minimum objectives of the project. By the end of 1998, a tetravalent prototype vaccine had been made that proved safe and immunogenic in Phase 1 trials in adults and toddlers in Finland. The planned next step, to test the vaccine in Asia in infants, did not meet approval by the local authorities in Vietnam nor later in the Philippines and the project eventually stopped.The Dutch DNC member, the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) learned important lessons, which subsequently were applied in a following vaccine technology transfer project, resulting in the availability at affordable prices for the developing world of a conjugate vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b. We conclude that vaccine development in the public domain with technology transfer as its ultimate aim requires major front-end funding, committed leadership at the highest institutional level sustained for many years and a competent recipient-manufacturer, which needs to be involved at a very early stage of the development.At the national level, RIVM's policy to consolidate its national manufacturing task through securing a key global health position in support of a network of public vaccine manufacturers proved insufficiently supported by the relevant ministries of the Dutch government. Difficulties to keep up with high costs, high-risk innovative vaccine development and production in a public sector setting led to the gradual loss of production tasks and to the 2009 Government decision to privatize the vaccine production tasks of the Institute.

Perceived safety management practices in the logistics sector.

BACKGROUND: Malaysia's progress on logistics has been slowed to keep pace with its growth in trade. The Government has been pressing companies to improve the safety of their activities in order to reduce society's loss due to occupational accidents and illnesses. Occupational safety and health is a crucial part of a workplace because every worker has to take care of his/her own safety and health. The main occupational safety and health (OSH) national policy in Malaysia is the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) 1994. Only those companies which have excellent health and safety care have good quality and productive employees. This study investigated safety management practices in the logistics sector. OBJECTIVES: The present study is concerned with the human factors to safety in the logistics industry. The authors examined the perceived safety management practices of workers in the logistics sector. The purpose was to identify the perception of safety management practices of Malaysian logistics personnel. METHODS: Survey questionnaires were distributed to assess logistics personnel about management commitment. The quantitative method using the availability sampling method was applied. The data gathered from the survey were analysed using SPSS software. The responses to the survey were rated according to the Likert scale type, with '1' indicating strongly disagree and '5' indicating strongly agree. One hundred and three employees of logistics functions completed the survey. RESULTS: The highest mean scores were found for fire apparatus, prioritisation of safety, and safety policy. CONCLUSIONS: The results from this study also emphasise the importance of the management's commitment in enhancing workplace safety. Specifically, companies should maintain good relations between the employer and the employee to help reduce workplace injuries.

Personality, relationship conflict, and teamwork-related mental models.

This study seeks to explore whether neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness moderate the influence of relationship conflict experienced in groups on changes in group members' evaluative cognitions related to teamwork quality (teamwork-related mental models). Data from 216 students, nested in 48 groups were analyzed using a multilevel modeling approach. Our results show that the experience of relationship conflict leads to a negative shift from the pre-task to the post-task teamwork-related mental models. Moreover, the results indicate that conscientiousness buffered the negative association between relationship conflict and the change in teamwork-related mental models. Our results did not support the hypothesized moderating effect of agreeableness and show that the detrimental effect of relationship conflict on the shift in teamwork-related mental models is accentuated for group members scoring low rather than high on neuroticism. These findings open new research venues for exploring the association between personality, coping styles and change in teamwork-related mental models.

Embarking on performance improvement.

Healthcare organizations should approach performance improvement as a program, not a project. The program should be led by a guidance team that identifies goals, prioritizes work, and removes barriers to enable clinical improvement teams and work groups to realize performance improvements. A healthcare enterprise data warehouse can provide the initial foundation for the program analytics. Evidence-based best practices can help achieve improved outcomes and reduced costs.

Performance evaluation of the suggestion system.

UNLABELLED: This cross-sectional research evaluated the suggestion system of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) using CIPP model. METHODS: The population consisted of all members of executive committee of suggestion system and the members of professional and general committee of IUMS; regarding to some limitations, sampling was not done. The tool of gathering data was a self-constructed questionnaire that its content validity approved by the professors' ideas, and calculating Cronbach's alpha confirmed its reliability. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS software. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Analyzed data showed that the average score of the performance of the mentioned system was 50.47 +/- 14.8; based on this result it can be claimed that most of the participants (about 91%) evaluated the performance of the system moderate. The comparison of the average score of the four dimensions of CIPP model showed that the input dimension had the highest score and process, product and context dimensions were next on the hierarchy. CONCLUSION: Planning some programs for paying awards, facilitating and accelerating the personnel's and notifying the procedures of the suggestion system implementation are some useful strategy that could be used to increase the staff's participants.

Value-based leadership. Is your hospital management team prepared for the future?

This foldout section looks at the seven steps to a value-structured hospital, 10 must-do strategies for thriving in the new health care era, and what new skills management, physicians and trustees should have.

Relationship between managerial skills and employees job stress in health centers.

BACKGROUND: Job stress is one of the important issues in the health sector and its high effect on workers' productivity. Managerial skills can help organizations to improve employees' effectiveness and reduce job stress. The present study investigated the relationship between employees' job stress and managers' professional skills. METHODS: This cross-sectional and correlation study was conducted in 2010.We selected 90 health workers of 13 Health and Treatment Centers in Razan Health Center, western Iran. All data were gathered using self-administered questionnaires. Employees' job stress levels were measured using the Eliot Stress Questionnaire and managers' professional skills were assessed using the standard Questionnaire with 40- items in Likert format. Data were analyzed u SPSS software and Pearson correlation coefficient and Kendall correlation tests. RESULTS: 87.7% of employees had mid- level of job stress. The professional skills level was high in 36.7% of health managers; moderate in 56.6%, and low in 6.7%. In addition the human skill was highest level among all managers' professional skills. A significant and negative correlation was found between job stress and managers' human, conceptual and design skills (P <0.005). CONCLUSION: The level of managers' professional skills was significantly related with employees' job stress, thus training and developing managerial skills especially human, conceptual and design skills in supervisors and managers of health centers can reduce job stress and enhance effective performance.

The challenge of innovation and the high-performance team.

PURPOSE: This paper describes the use of a high-performance team model in the leadership of a healthcare construction project with a vision of fostering innovation in the design and building process. This model facilitated the effective implementation of = Lean principles and a joint governance model combining stakeholders under a shared vision. BACKGROUND: The healthcare facility discussed is a California healthcare district in San Diego. Because of state seismic safety legislation, the district elected to build a replacement hospital for its tertiary care trauma facility. The organization's leadership decided to pursue a course that demanded innovation in both the design and construction process. The owner, architects, construction manager, and trade contractors adopted a high-performance team model to meet this challenge. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The governance and leadership of a construction project should reflect the design and ultimate intent of the facility. The vision of building the most innovative hospital under constrained resources required the implementation of an innovative approach to leading the construction process.

Autoeficacia para el Liderazgo Emprendedor. Adaptación y Validación de la Escala CESE en España / Entrepreneurial leadership self-efficacy. Adaptation and Validation of CESE Scale in Spain

Este estudio tiene como objetivo adaptar a nuestro idioma y validar la escala de autoeficacia para el liderazgo emprendedor (Corporate Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy Scale, CESE) en una muestra de más de doscientos directivos y mandos intermedios españoles. Esta escala fue desarrollada originalmente por Ehrlich, De Noble y Singh (2005) para medir las habilidades necesarias en el liderazgo y gestión de equipos, así como en la comunicación con los accionistas y grupos internos de interés para obtener apoyo y recursos de la organización para desarrollar nuevos proyectos innovadores. Los resultados obtenidos, a través de la técnica PLS (Partial Least Square), permiten confirman la validez y fiabilidad de la versión española de la escala CESE para evaluar las principales habilidades y actividades necesarias para liderar iniciativas emprendedoras dentro de la organización (AU)

This study aims to adapt and validate a Spanish-language version of the Corporate Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (CESE) scale in a sample of more than two hundred Spanish managers and middle managers. This scale was originally developed by Ehrlich, De Noble and Singh (2005) in order to measure the skills needed for leading and managing teams and communicating with internal stakeholders to obtain support and corporate resources to develop new innovative projects. The results obtained, using Partial Least Square (PLS) technique, allow confirming that the Spanish version of CESE scale has a high reliability and validity to measure the main skills and activities necessaries to lead entrepreneurial initiatives inside the organization (AU)

A survey tool for measuring evidence-based decision making capacity in public health agencies.

BACKGROUND: While increasing attention is placed on using evidence-based decision making (EBDM) to improve public health, there is little research assessing the current EBDM capacity of the public health workforce. Public health agencies serve a wide range of populations with varying levels of resources. Our survey tool allows an individual agency to collect data that reflects its unique workforce. METHODS: Health department leaders and academic researchers collaboratively developed and conducted cross-sectional surveys in Kansas and Mississippi (USA) to assess EBDM capacity. Surveys were delivered to state- and local-level practitioners and community partners working in chronic disease control and prevention. The core component of the surveys was adopted from a previously tested instrument and measured gaps (importance versus availability) in competencies for EBDM in chronic disease. Other survey questions addressed expectations and incentives for using EBDM, self-efficacy in three EBDM skills, and estimates of EBDM within the agency. RESULTS: In both states, participants identified communication with policymakers, use of economic evaluation, and translation of research to practice as top competency gaps. Self-efficacy in developing evidence-based chronic disease control programs was lower than in finding or using data. Public health practitioners estimated that approximately two-thirds of programs in their agency were evidence-based. Mississippi participants indicated that health department leaders' expectations for the use of EBDM was approximately twice that of co-workers' expectations and that the use of EBDM could be increased with training and leadership prioritization. CONCLUSIONS: The assessment of EBDM capacity in Kansas and Mississippi built upon previous nationwide findings to identify top gaps in core competencies for EBDM in chronic disease and to estimate a percentage of programs in U.S. health departments that are evidence-based. The survey can serve as a valuable tool for other health departments and non-governmental organizations to assess EBDM capacity within their own workforce and to assist in the identification of approaches that will enhance the uptake of EBDM processes in public health programming and policymaking. Localized survey findings can provide direction for focusing workforce training programs and can indicate the types of incentives and policies that could affect the culture of EBDM in the workplace.