1,720,962 research outputs found
Does (professional) leadership matter for staff satisfaction? Evidence from a panel study of hospital boards
Full text linkGrounded in human capital theory, this study explores whether the presence of professional leaders, such as doctors on hospital governing boards, positively influences the organisational workforce. Drawing on eight years of data from the English NHS, the analysis finds no direct association between professional leadership and staff satisfaction. However, we identify a significant moderating effect attributable to two factors: the managerial experience of professional leaders and the degree of connectedness between board members. These findings highlight the importance of an emerging category of professional leader - the hybrid specialist - who can integrate depth of expertise with breadth of experience
Are public sector managers a "bureaucratic burden"? The case of English public hospitals
Full text linkAlthough managers are, globally, a central part of the new public management reform agenda, in recent years policy makers, the media and the general public have raised concerns about their effectiveness and contribution. In some countries, notably the UK and the US, this debate has been heavily influenced by Public Choice Theory (PCT), which depicts ‘bureaucrats’ as rent seeking, self-serving individuals. In this study, focusing on the case of acute care hospital trusts in the English National Health Service, we formally test whether public sector managers represent a ‘bureaucratic burden’. Using a longitudinal database spanning six years (2007-2012) and employing a dynamic panel data model, the findings reveal that, contrary to PCT assumptions, managers do not engage, in the main, in rent seeking behaviour and, crucially, appear to have a positive impact on organisational performance. Implications for theory, policy and practice are discussed
Corporatisation and the emergence of (under-managered) managed organisations: The case of English public hospitals
Full text linkAn enduring feature of new public management (NPM) in many countries has been the move to create more autonomous, ‘complete’ organisations such as universities, hospitals and social service agencies. Often referred to as ‘corporatisation’, this process is assumed to be leading to the emergence of new organisational forms with dedicated management functions and a greater focus on strategy. However, these assumptions remain largely untested and rely heavily on ‘technical’ accounts of organisational restructuring, ignoring the potential influence of institutional pressures and internal political dynamics. In this paper, we address this concern focusing on the case of acute care public hospitals that have undergone corporatisation (to become Foundation Trusts) in the English National Health Service. Using administrative data spanning six years (2007-2012), the analysis shows that corporatisation is having mixed effects. While it is associated with a shift in the focus of managers to strategic concerns, it has not led to an expansion of management functions overall. Both tendencies are found to be mediated by institutional pressures, in the form of media scrutiny, and, indirectly, by the involvement of clinical professions in management. These results advance ongoing debates about the emergence of new organisational forms in the public sector, highlighting the limitations of technical accounts of change and raising the possibility that corporatisation is leading to organisations that are both more managed and undermanagered at the same time
Clinical leadership and the changing governance of public hospitals: Implications for patient experience
Full text linkA growing evidence base suggests that increasing the involvement of clinical professionals on governing boards of hospitals has a positive impact on organizational performance. However, less is known about the wider conditions that influence this process and whether recent moves to restructure the governance of public hospitals, extending their formal autonomy, has made any difference to the outcome of clinical involvement on patient experience. Using four years of data and concentrating on the acute hospital sector in the English National Health Service, this study shows that clinical participation on hospital governing boards can significantly improve the patient experience of the care provided. Yet, whereas a more autonomous organizational form (Foundation Trust status) does not seem to produce positive effects on its own, patient experience appears to markedly improve in those organizations that have both higher levels of clinical involvement in their strategic apex and greater flexibility in decision-making
Corporatization, Administrative Intensity and the Performance of Public Sector Organizations
Full text linkThe process of corporatization in public services has led to the emergence of new, more autonomous organizational forms. However, while these reforms have been centrally about the development of management capabilities in public sector organizations, we know surprisingly little about what this process involves. To address this concern, we draw on the literature on administrative intensity (AI) to frame hypotheses about the likely relationship between corporatization and investments in management and administration, and the consequences of these investments for performance. As an empirical case, we then focus on the effects of Foundation Trust status on AI and efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness in the acute care hospital sector in the English NHS. Based on a database of nine years (2008/09-2016/17) and dynamic panel data regressions, the results show that corporatization leads to a leaner administration and improved organizational efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness. In addition, the analysis reveals that lower levels of AI positively mediate the relationship between corporatization and performance, although only in relation to the efficiency dimension. These findings highlight the crucial, but previously misunderstood, importance of lean administration as part of the corporatization reform package, with implications for theory, research and policy
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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