CEO behavioral pattern expectations for physician executives

This is a report on the second part of a two-stage survey. The first part of the survey, reported in the Nov. 1994 issue of Physician Executive, dealt with physician executive behavior tendencies as viewed from the perspective of physicians, largely in hospitals. In the follow-up portion of the survey, the views of hospital CEOs on this subject were sought. CEOs were also asked for their views on the roles of physician executives and on what they were seeking in physician leaders. CEOs were asked to assess these issues in terms of the ideal physician executive, not the persons currently holding such positions in their organizations. Finally, this second report draws on the results of both parts of the survey in order to make comparisons between the views of the two groups of managers.     

Managing in the competitive environment

The purpose of this paper is to report, on the basis of limited personal experience, that enterprises operating in a competitive environment have been able to secure significant advantages where strategy and marketing are closely integrated. Results accrue as a consequence of the responses made by customers who pass judgment on corporate products or services.     

Honesty in intra-organizational reporting

In this experimental study we analyze the trade-off between the subjects’ preference for wealth on the one hand and their preference for honesty on the other hand. The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of communication medium on reporting behavior. We want to know whether situational cues, such as the communication method—digital (via computer) vs. hard-copy (via paper and pencil) matter, while considering deception. Furthermore, we are interested in the relationship between the social value orientation (SVO) and the reporting behavior. While the experimental evidence shows that participants in both treatments have a preference for truthful reporting and they avoid major lies, there are also remarkable differences between the treatments which we attribute to the reporting medium: computer treatment CT versus paper-and-pencil treatment PPT. Agents are willing to report more honestly via a hard-copy medium than via a digital medium. It seems like participants perceive the digital report more confidential and anonymous than the hard-copy report, and that is why they tend to misrepresent in the CT rather than in the PPT. Further, we found that the SVO influences reporting behavior.     

Organizational Silence and Whistle‐Blowing on IT Projects: An Integrated Model*

An individual's reluctance to report bad news about a troubled information technology (IT) project has been suggested as an important contributor to project failure and has been linked to IT project escalation as well. To date, information systems researchers have drawn from the mum effect and whistle‐blowing literature to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence bad news reporting. More recent theoretical work in the area of organizational silence offers a promising new conceptual lens, but remains empirically untested. In this research note, we integrate key elements of Morrison and Milliken's (2000) model of organizational silence, which has never been empirically tested, with the basic whistle‐blowing model adapted from Dozier and Miceli (1985) . Using a role‐playing experiment, we investigate how organizational structures/policies, managerial practices, and degree of demographic dissimilarity between employees and top managers create a climate of silence and how this climate, in turn, affects an individual's willingness to report. Our results show that all three types of factors contribute to a climate of silence, exerting both direct and indirect influence on willingness to report, as hypothesized. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

“年报”与“非典”的公告日效应:比较及含义

年报公告,是上市公司向投资者披露业绩和成长机会的重要事件。理论上讲,通过事件研究法应该可以检测出明显的"年报"公告日效应。但在中国证券市场上,有相当一些公司却不能检测出与逻辑期望相一致的公告日效应。对此,有人认为是由于投资者并不关心基本面的信息,因此不能及时对业绩信息做出反应,并在股票价格中有所体现。但我们猜测,也有可能是其它原因,比如年报信息的提前泄露。非典事件是一个没有信息泄露的事件,我们选择同一组样本,用非典事件做对照研究,试图找到有关信息泄露猜测的证据。     

The WHO/WTO Study on Trade and Public Health: A Critical Assessment

This article provides a brief critical examination of a 2002 report jointly issued by the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization on WTO law and public health. The author argues that the report is in many respects misleading as to the content of WTO law, as interpreted by the Appellate Body of the WTO, its final court. In particular, the WHO/WTO report systematically understates or underestimates the margins of regulatory autonomy that WTO member states have to make regulations that protect public health.     

DEVELOPING SOPHISTICATED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT APPROACHES THROUGH BUSINESS-ACADEME COLLABORATIONS: INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE

The pursuit of better performance has led to a number of business-academe collaborations. These collaborators have developed a number of sophisticated approaches that go far beyond such traditional simple methods as benchmarking against the best company, Ishikawa diagrams on feedback and control, Pareto diagrams, incentive systems based solely on output or quality, standard process control charts, and separate treatment of control charts and product inspection. The authors in this special issue report on approaches like benchmarking industrial performance through industry studies; the use of an artificial-intelligence statistical-tree growing method to analyze complex customer service data; an incentive system based on the total quality management (TQM) concepts of continuous improvement, teamwork, adaptation to change, and a focus on customer satisfaction; and integration of product inspection and process control. Because of the continuing widespread interest in TQM, there is an opportunity to take stock of how successful TQM initiatives have been and how we should consolidate and further extend the knowledge in TQM. Two of the papers report on the gap between what organizations espouse as TQM and what they actually implement and on the literature on TQM.     

Social information within the intellectual capital report

The objective of our work is to propose the integration of two complementary statements on financial information: the social report and the intellectual capital report. Both are statements of great importance in the current business context. The motive behind our proposal is that, in reviewing the current situation, we observed an overlap in the contents and goals of the two reports. For instance, information of a social nature is dealt with in the different blocks of analysis of intangibles in the intellectual capital report. Furthermore, these disclosures share the direct or indirect goal of improving the company's corporate image, which also reflects the links between the two types of reports. Hence, given the observed similarities and the greater flexibility and scope of the intellectual capital report, we propose incorporating the social report into the intellectual capital report. The benefits of this will be twofold: a reduction in the direct costs of preparing the report, and a simplification of the non-financial information for the different stakeholders.     

Do Reports on Drinking Water Quality Affect Customers' Concerns? Experiments in Report Content

The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 required U.S. utilities to report on drinking water quality to their customers annually, beginning in fall 1999, on the assumption that such reports would alert them to quality problems and perhaps mobilize pressure for improvement. A random sample of New Jersey customers read alternative versions of a water quality report, in an experiment on reactions to water quality information under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) rules. Experiment design was 2 x 3 + 1: two versions each--one with, one without, a violation of a health standard--of a report that was (1) Qualitative (without water quality numbers, thus not meeting USEPA rules); (2) Basic, with minimal information meeting the rules; or (3) Extended, adding reading aids and utility performance information; plus a control instrument without any hypothetical report. Results of ANOVA suggest the reports will have less effect than hoped or feared. These manipulations were successful: people reading the Qualitative versions were less likely to say that the report gave the amounts of substances found in the water, and those reading Violation versions were more likely to report a violation of a health standard. The main differences in responses to the report involved the judged adequacy of the information, and to a lesser extent responses on a Concern scale (constructed from measures of concern, judged risk, clean-up intentions, distrust of utility information, and doubt that the utility was doing all it could to improve water quality). Overall judgments of water quality and utility performance did not change, either relative to the controls or in before versus after responses. Qualitative reports performed worse than others, confirming the decision to have utilities report actual contaminant levels. Extended reports did only slightly better than the Basic versions on these measures. Many respondents had trouble identifying the presence or absence of substance amounts or violations, despite their seeming obviousness (e.g., in a "bottom line" summary on the front page of each report), suggesting many were not processing this information carefully. However, the pattern of responses for those who accurately identified the presence or absence of substance amounts or violations did not differ substantially from that for the group as a whole. Generic risk beliefs (serious local environmental problems; lack of control over risks to one's health) dominated demographic variables, attitudes toward utility water quality or trustworthiness, and the content and format of water quality reports in influencing concern about drinking water quality. Previous empirical and theoretical evidence for lack of change in public risk attitudes due to one-time or infrequent communications--e.g., role of personal experience, perseverance of prior trust or distrust--seems to be confirmed for annual water quality reports.     

Qualität in der Arbeit mit Freiwilligen Ein Management-Erfahrungsbericht

Developing quality in the co-operation with volunteers. A report on a management experience The contribution of volunteers has changed on a structural level in Germany during the last two decades. Treffpunkt Hilfsbereitschaft, the volunteer agency of Berlin, has developed and supported this phase through a new kind of quality policy and by taking over the role of a cultural change agent. As a kick off served the working out of criteria of quality following the perspective of clients to construct the co-operation with volunteers in a new way. Two components followed: focussed counselling for organisations co-operating with volunteers and the leading role in developing qualified networks on the county as well as the national level where volunteer agencies could qualify and gain competent profiles as partners in this process of change. Treffpunkt Hilfsbereitschaft finally offered a further education for volunteer management? and thereby aspires to establish new professional fields within the volunteer sector.     

A study of the scope of occupational health services

In order to define the scope of corporate occupational health services as they exist today, a questionnaire was designed and sent to members of the College's Society of Corporate Medical Services. Industries represented in the survey include manufacturing, utilities, transportation, communications, research and development, banking, insurance, and publishing. The emphasis in this report is on data indicating trends in the provision of services.     

Risk Analysis,Decision Analysis,Causal Analysis,and Economics: A Personal Perspective from More Than 40 years Experience

I entered the field of risk analysis forty years ago from a background in physics followed by doctoral training and experience in decision analysis. I came into the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) after participating as a committee member in the 1983 National Academies report, Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process. The insights and recommendations from this report, and successor reports from 1996 and 2008, merit revisiting on this 40th anniversary. Risk analysis includes risk assessment, a process of summarizing applicable science to inform decisions; and risk management, a process of making informed choices, usually involving multiple stakeholders. Inherent in both is the need to deal with complexity, uncertainty, and differing perspectives and goals. The lessons I have learned include the need for a conceptual separation of risk management from risk assessment, the benefit of an iterative dialogue between these activities, and the wisdom of articulating and assessing what we know, what we want, and what we can do as we seek to understand and manage risks affecting ourselves and those we advise.     

Capital views: highlights of perspectives in medical management 1994

Washington, D.C., where health policy is currently being debated, served as an appropriate backdrop May 4-7 for the College's annual "Perspectives in Medical Management" conference. Some of its federal buildings served as classrooms for those interested in learning the legislative process through participation in the "Health Policy Institute," which was held simultaneously. Although it is impossible to report on all that transpired during the four-day conference, this article will briefly describe the comments of a few of the speakers.     

Stress reactions after bank robberies: Psychological and psychosomatic reaction patterns

Within a broad investigation of 221 employees reporting psychological problems after experiencing robberies in banks, data were collected on the nature and distribution of different stress symptoms. This paper deals with a factor analysis of this material as well as with a study of possible differences concerning the ability of the employees to remember these symptoms. No such differences in memory could be found in terms of time elapsed since the robbery. However, women did report more symptoms than men. The factor analysis showed that the symptoms could be described by defined groups in such a way as to present the possibility of meaningful theoretical interpretations of those groupings.     

The Representation and Impact of Information System Reliability on Cost Variance Decisions*

Management does not directly observe cost variance processes from the production system; instead, management depends on a report from the cost variance information system as to whether a process is in control or out of control. Unfortunately, cost variance information systems are not always perfectly reliable. Accordingly, this paper extends the cost variance analysis model to include reliability of the cost variance information system. Reliability is introduced by distinguishing between the report from the information system and the actual cost variance. Although previous cost variance models do not include reliability, management is still likely to be aware of the lack of reliability in cost variance systems. To account for this lack of reliability, management is likely to use any of a number of heuristics. This paper demonstrates that ad hoc heuristics are unlikely to result in the same solutions suggested by the analytic model. In addition, it is shown analytically that not including reliability in cost variance models can lead to examining variances that do not require investigation and not examining variances that do require investigation.     

Actor-Relational Planning in Deprived Areas: Challenges and Opportunities in Luchtbal Antwerpen,Belgium

In this article, we report and discuss our experience with actor-relational approaches (ARA) in the regeneration of a postwar housing estate in Luchtbal, Antwerp, Belgium. ARA are informed by post-structuralist ideas of space, complexity theory, and actor network theory. Although ARA itself is not new, the application of ARA to deprived area's such as Luchtbal is novel. We report how the approach has been elaborated, its process and outcome. We conclude with our evaluation from an insider's perspective.     

公司会计年报中社会责任信息的价值研究——基于内容的专家问卷分析

在本研究中,我们选取了会计年报中有代表性特征的17条社会责任信息作为项目,对参加2006年中国会计学会学术年会的专业学者就会计年报中的社会责任信息的决策价值和公共关系价值进行了问卷调查,通过深入的分析我们得出了有意义的结论。本文为该调查的研究报告。     

Scheduling a transportation network

The objective of this article is to give a concise report on a project to achieve an optimal operation of a public transportation network by the application of modern mathematical programming methods and computing techniques. The paper delineates the formulation of a mathematical model of a general public transportation network, and sketches a procedure to determine the buses' departure times so as to optimize a desired performance index; specifically, the average waiting time of passengers.     

Arbeit mit dem „Inneren Team“ als imaginative Methode im Coaching

Vivid presentation as a coaching task? At first glance, this topic certainly is a classical training subject. This case report shows that in particular cases, however, coaching may be indicated: When training measures do not succeed and it can be suspected that mental barriers are the reason for this failure. In the actual coaching process, imaginative methods as well as a constellation of the “Inner Team” have been used in order to approach the more psychological dimensions of insufficient presentation competence.     

Mathematical Methods in Combatting Terrorism

This document is a preliminary report on the role that mathematical and statistical methods might play in the defense against terrorist attacks. In no way does this replace the efforts of law enforcement agencies or intelligence activities. The hope is that mathematical techniques can make their efforts more efficient. The ideas enumerated here utilize the notion of probabilistic risk analysis, which was developed for the purpose of assessing the safety of nuclear reactors, as well as randomization and game theory. More extensive work in these directions is contemplated for the future. The author is planning workshops to evaluate the ideas presented here and to elicit additional methodologies that may prove useful in this endeavor.