44 research outputs found
Green and social process patterns for sustainable businesses: lessons learned from Italian Benefit Corporations
No full textIn the last decades the attention of citizens and companies on sustainability issues has increasingly grown. Today companies are asked to consider economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability to operate in ways that secure long-term economic performance by avoiding detrimental social and environmental behaviour.
Such a growing attention towards sustainability has led to the introduction of new methods, approaches, and organizational models to consider sustainability within business. As to methods and approaches, in the present work, those offered by Sustainable Business Process Management are examined. As to the new organizational models, the attention is focused on Benefit Corporations.
Sustainable Business Process Management (S-BPM) – the managerial discipline that provides organizations with methods, approaches, and techniques to embed sustainability in the management of business processes – has recently emerged as a research stream of Business Process Management. In addition to traditional performance (i.e. time, quality, cost, and flexibility), in the case of S-BPM, the environmental and social performance are considered to properly manage business processes along their entire life cycle.
Benefit Corporations – innovative hybrid form of businesses that purse both profits and common benefit objectives – have also been established to mitigate negative externalities attributed to the enterprises’ narrow focus on profit maximization that has characterized the capitalism model. Such a model has generated prosperity and improved the quality of life, but not without undesirable, in many cases harmful, social and environmental consequences.
The dissertation aims to identify sustainable (green and social) process patterns that companies may adopt to undertake a sustainable transformation of their business processes. A sustainable process pattern provides reusable and practice-based solutions to environmentally and socially analyse, design and redesign a business process. By adopting the theoretical lens of process theory and a pragmatist qualitative research design, a qualitative content analysis of Benefit Corporations’ sustainability reporting documents has been conducted to systematically and objectively identify sustainable practices that Benefit Corporations implement to achieve their sustainability goals. Such sustainable practices have constituted the practical basis for the derivation of a set of thirty sustainable process patterns.
The dissertation has theoretical and practical implications. By analysing sustainable practices adopted by Benefit Corporations to achieve sustainability goals, it contributes to advance academic knowledge on Benefit Corporations and address some literature gaps. By providing a set of sustainable process patterns, it contributes to advance academic knowledge in the field of Sustainable Business Process Management. As to practical implications, the dissertation provides a handbook of sustainable practices (in the form of sustainable process patterns) that companies and process analysts may adopt to analyse, design, and redesign business processes, and make them more environmentally and socially sustainable
Digital Transformation Models for the I4.0 Transition: Lessons from the Change Management Literature
No full textThe growing diffusion of digital technologies, especially in production systems, is leading to a new industrial paradigm, named Industry 4.0 (I4.0), which involves disruptive changes in the way companies organize production and create value. Organizations willing to seize the opportunities of I4.0 must thus innovate their processes and business models. The challenges that companies must face for the transition towards I4.0 paradigm are not trivial. Several digital transformation models and roadmaps have been lately proposed in the literature to support companies in such a transition. The literature on change management stresses that about 70% of change initiatives—independently of the aim—fail to achieve their goals due to the implementation of transformation programs that are affected by well-known mistakes or neglect some relevant aspects, such as lack of management support, lack of clearly defined and achievable objectives and poor communication. This paper investigates whether and to what extent the existing digital transformation models (DTMs) and roadmaps for I4.0 transition consider the lessons learnt in the field of change management. To this aim, a Systematic Literature Review to identify existing models and roadmaps is carried out. The results obtained by the review are discussed under the lens of the change-management literature. Based on that, the shortcomings and weaknesses of existing DTMs are pinpointed. Extant DTMs mainly focus on digital transformation initiatives carried out in manufacturing companies; they do not cover all the phases of the digital transformation process but rather focus on the definition of the I4.0 vision, strategy and roadmap. Little attention is devoted to the implementation and consolidation of digital change. Change management lessons are considered to a limited extent, based on which, some suggestions for better dealing with digital transformation initiatives are discussed. The paper contributes to advancing knowledge on models and approaches to support organizations in managing digital transformation. The identification of change management activities that a digital transformation initiative should involve as well as the suggestions on how to effectively deal with it can be used by managers to successfully lead the I4.0 transition journey in their organizations
Innovating the patient care process: the case of multiple sclerosis at Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza
No full textIn this paper, ambidextrous BPM, supported by Soft System Methodology, was adopted to analyze and redesign the care process of patients affected by multiple sclerosis (MS). An integrated ecosystem of technologies, including eHealth and mHealth technologies, was developed and the process innovatively redesigned so as to make it more responsive to medical staff and patient needs and more efficient
Dysphagia in Huntington's disease: Correlation with clinical features
No full textHuntington's disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder characterised by motor impairment, cognitive decline and psychiatric disorders. Dysphagia is a pathologic condition that increases morbidity and mortality of the affected people. Our aim was to evaluate dysphagia in a group of HD patients in view of motor, cognitive and functional decline. Thirty-seven genetically confirmed HD patients were submitted to clinical evaluations of swallowing. Bedside Swallowing Assessment Scale (BSAS) was used. Dysphagia Outcome and Severity Scale (DOSS) was applied for a preliminary classification of swallowing difficulties. All patients were also evaluated by the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS). A group of 39 controls comparable for sex and age were recruited for BSAS scores normalisation. The BSAS scores indicated that in our HD cohort, 32.4% presented relevant or severe dysphagia. The DOSS levels were significantly correlated with main clinical features, such as age, disease duration and motor impairment, with special regard to lingual protrusion ability, dysarthria and bradykinesia. The total functional capacity (TFC) and cognitive scales did not show significant correlation with DOSS levels. The results of clinical examination of swallowing indicated that dysphagia is a prevalent motor symptom of HD
Exploring the use of text mining to identify firms' green business process patterns
No full textThe vast amount of unstructured textual data on firms’ sustainability efforts poses major analytical challenges for sustainability researchers. Text mining techniques offer promising solutions to overcome the limitations of manual coding, enabling analysis on a larger scale. This study compares keyword-based searches against Large Language Models (LLMs) applications to extract and map sustainable business process patterns from firms’ sustainability reports. Results show that integrating LLMs with manual coding improves precision and accuracy over automated or keyword-based approaches alone. However, challenges persist, including variability in LLM outputs, extraction errors, and hallucinations, underscoring the limitations of relying solely on automated methods
Reshaping care in the aftermath of the pandemic. Implications for cardiology health systems
No full textIn the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably changed everyday life and significantly reshaped the healthcare systems. Besides the direct effect on daily care leading to significant excess mortality, several collateral damages have been observed during the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic led to staff shortages, disrupted education, worse healthcare professional well-being, and a lack of proper clinical training and research. In this review we highlight the results of these important changes and how can the healthcare systems can adapt to prevent unprecedented events in case of future catastrophes
Department of Dental Hygiene Class of 1992
No full textFirst row (left to right): Barbara Gonzalez, Assistant Professor; Pamela Bumpurs, Clinical Coordinator; Diane Huntley, Associate Professor; David May, Supervising Dentist; Margaret Minneman, Assistant Professor; Denise Maseman, Assistant Professor; Mary Jo Nigg, LecturerSecond row (left to right): Karla Tinkler, President; Susan Dwyer, Vice President; Jill M. Nuzzi, Secretary/Treasurer; Whitney Herring, Social ChairmanThird row (left to right): Angela Adkins, Cynthia Amrein, Sherri Bass, Becky Bornhorst, Stacey Cook, Kim EckFourth row (left to right): Robin Ellsbury, Kristi Goyer, Christine Kalcic, Karen Kimple, Kim Lange, Laurie Lester, Karen Lowery, Jayna Marten, Barbara MorganFifth row (left to right): Rusty Pyles, Nancy R. Sanchez, Pam Solomon, Brenda Sperry, Terri Tharp, Terri Watson, Sandra Weve, Keena WhartonDigitized by University Libraries' Technical Services Institutional Repository & Digitization group.Personal and non-profit use only
Hiring for Mission, Religious Formation, and the Catholic Elementary School Lay Principal's Spiritual Leadership
No full textThis study examined the extent hiring for mission and personal religious formation play a role in a Catholic parochial elementary school lay principal’s spiritual leadership. This study also examined the relationship between a principal’s personal and professional demographics and a principal’s spiritual leadership. Ciriello (1993) was used to form the spiritual leadership framework and Breslin (2000), Caruso (2002), and Murray (2011) were used to form the hiring for mission framework. The personal religious formation framework was formed using Nuzzi (2012), and Smith and Nuzzi (2007), and D’Antonio et al. (2007) and Smith and Nuzzi (2007) formed the demographic framework. The study’s data was obtained from 191 Catholic parochial elementary school lay principals from randomly selected (arch) dioceses from each of the seven National Catholic Educational Association regions. Study participants completed an anonymous online 90 question survey that was created by the researcher. The survey data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, correlation coefficients, multiple regression, and analysis of variance. The study’s major findings include: incorporating mission into the entire principal hiring process is a significant factor in the principal exhibiting spiritual leadership in the areas of faith development, building Christian community, moral and ethical development, and Catholic history and philosophy; principals who reported a strong personal religious formation manifested in faith beliefs and spiritual practices are likely to advance the school’s religious mission through spiritual leadership in the areas of faith development, building Christian community, moral and ethical development, and Catholic history and philosophy; principals who take four or more theology courses in college or graduate school and/or study or major in Catholic educational leadership in college or graduate school are likely to exhibit spiritual leadership in the areas of Catholic history and philosophy and faith development. This study’s information could be used by (arch) diocesan officials, pastors, and principal search committees to develop a Catholic parochial elementary school lay principal hiring process that will support hiring principals who are prepared to serve as the school’s spiritual leader.Educational leadershipCatholic, Elementary, Hiring, Principal, Religious Formation, Spiritual LeadershipEducationDegree Awarded: Ph.D. Education. The Catholic University of Americ
IRF4 dysregulation in chronic myelomonocytic leukemia: another brick in the wall of myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms
No full textIRF4 dysregulation in chronic myelomonocytic leukemia: another brick in the wall of myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasm
