Assessment of a computerized medical record system: disclosing scripts of use

In the last two decades, empirical studies adopting a critical sociological approach to technology have shown how innovations are socially shaped, and how their introduction into human practices is often problematic. This paper describes how the Actor–Network Theory (ANT) can contribute to the evaluation of information technology. Results of the evaluation of a computerized medical record system implemented in four Quebec (Canada) hospitals are presented. The distribution of skills and tasks among nurses, physicians and managers (as implied by the design), and the use of the computerized medical record system proved highly problematic since they radically modified clinical practices. Theoretical and practical implications of using ANT as an evaluation framework are discussed.     

Global boundary work tactics: managing work and family transitions in a 24–7 global context

ABSTRACT

This study addresses how today’s global managers navigate their work and family transitions through employing various boundary work tactics in a global context. Interviews with 25 global travelers or international business travelers in dual-career families uncovered how they handle global workflows and protect family time when working domestically or abroad. Patterns emerged across a typology of temporal, communicative, behavioral and physical boundary work tactics. A key contribution is that workplace flexibility in addition to technology allows global managers to maintain connectivity beyond spatial or temporal boundaries. Moreover, technology was perceived as an integral tool by global managers, with few cases of tensions reported from a blurring of boundaries. The research contributes to the nascent literature on work-life balance among global managers. It also provides evidence of how mobile and telepresence technologies are being used in performing global work. Companies are encouraged to foster flexibility among their global managers around viewing time and using communication techniques and technology to manage role transitions. Results suggest that global work approached in this manner can be sustainable as well as beneficial to the individual, his/her family, and the organization.     

Challenges to care coordination posed by the use of multiple health IT applications

Coordinating care for hospitalized patients requires the use of multiple sources of information. Using a macroergonomic framework (i.e. the work system model), we conducted interviews and observations of care managers involved in care coordination across transitions of care. When information is distributed across multiple health IT applications, care managers experience a range of challenges, including organizational barriers, technology design problems, skills and knowledge issues, and task performance demands (i.e. issues related to individual information processing and management and sharing of information). These challenges can be used as a checklist to evaluate the proposed IT infrastructure that will allow the integration of multiple health IT applications and, therefore, support coordination across transitions of care.     

Narratives of ICT and Organizational Change in Public Administration

In the last decade the implementation of computerized technology and advanced information systems in public administration has gathered speed. The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which these changes might be gendered by analysing different narratives of digitalization and organizational change in public administration. The empirical findings indicate that resistance to information and communication technology is explained away by managers as reflecting women's low computer maturity, while the narratives of the case‐workers themselves reflect their resistance to deskilling and simplified work specifications, as well as their experience of a shift in the work object — from working with human beings to working with electronic information. The findings indicate that the increased use of information technology genders resistance to degradation as a feminized fear of technology and low computer maturity.     

Computerisation of the Looking After Children records: issues of implementation

Implementation of computerised versions of the Looking After Children materials raises wider questions concerning the difficulty of establishing common goals between information technology specialists and social work managers, the need to develop computer systems which are seen to benefit all parties involved and the importance of synchronising information requirements at national and local levels.     

Attracting Micro‐Enterprises To Learning

Micro‐enterprises, i.e. firms with less than 10 employees, are traditionally the hardest to engage in learning; they are also least likely to participate in such measures as business advice and guidance provision and initiatives to support information communication technology (ICT) adoption. Through a community‐based initiative initially targeting parents (unemployed or employed) to participate in ICT, 30 micro‐enterprises were attracted to learning for the first time. These companies had carefully avoided similar initiatives taking place locally, which emphasized business success and growth; they had only participated in this ICT skills training because of their children. The paper takes a case study approach to evaluate the reasons for participation, explores barriers and implications for those organizing similar activities, and calls for a more holistic view of owners and managers of small firms as fathers, mothers, etc. rather than just as ‘entrepreneurs’.     

Organizational Change,Politics, and the Official Statistics of Punishment

Most organizational researchers characterize politics as a force organizations experience from outside and administration as the practices managers adopt in response to the uncertain environment. To assess that approach, this paper examines a crisis that changed California criminal justice agencies' administrative practices and their communication of statistical information to outsiders. In 1976, managers and wardens supported conservative reform bills that effectively ended professional criminal rehabilitation and quantitative evaluation studies, and they shifted administration toward bureaucratic controls, using routine population counts. Changes in agency statistical activities clarify how members of government organizations act politically to maintain or change administrative practices.     

Procedures when young people leave care — Views of 111 Swedish social services managers

In western societies, there is a general tendency towards a protracted transition to adulthood for young people, who thereby may become increasingly dependent on support from family. Young people leaving a placement in out-of-home care often lack such support, and will thus have a disadvantageous position compared to their peers. With the purpose of looking into the procedures when young people leave a placement in out-of-home care, telephone interviews were performed with 111 managers of social service units in two Swedish regions (West Sweden, and Stockholm Region), using a structured interview schedule. Answering rate was 99.1%.Only 6% of the managers had information of the young people's whereabouts once they had left care. 86-88% had general support programmes for all young people concerning housing, employment etc. but only 2-4% had specific programmes for young people leaving care. A majority of the managers were attentive of the difficulties the young people leaving care may encounter, but displayed little awareness of the consequences of a prolonged transition to adulthood, and the need for continued support after leaving care. Several managers referred to the general support of the Swedish welfare state, meaning that young people leaving care had the same access to support as all other young people in Sweden. Consequently, young people leaving care are at risk of being invisible in the welfare system and facing a compressed transition to adulthood.     

A nonprofit manager's guide to online volunteering

As access to the Internet expands, volunteer managers have the option of using this new technology to manage pools of volunteers online. Online volunteering can appear deceptively simple: post an opening, select a volunteer, and then manage them by e‐mail. However, our evaluation of an active online volunteering service used by more than three hundred organizations and ten thousand potential volunteers indicates that additional planning and management are frequently needed. Through an analysis of two years of quantitative data and interviews with more than forty volunteers and managers, we have extracted suggested practices and programmatic implications for managers in the areas of program design, volunteer selection, training, ongoing operations, and evaluation.     

Understanding the Management of Sports Events Volunteers Through Psychological Contract Theory

This paper juxtaposes the expectations of event managers and sports event volunteers in a case study organisation. These are understood within the theoretical framework of the psychological contract. Results show the distinctive contribution volunteers can make to events but also the distinctive challenges they present to event managers. For event managers, volunteers bring: enthusiasm, a good relationship and empathy with the public, and they provide a cheaper labour force. But a major concern is ensuring their reliability. For volunteers, important expectations include: flexibility of engagement, the quality of personal relationships, recognition for their contribution, and a clear communication of what they are expected to do. The juxtaposition of event manager and volunteer perspectives illustrates the need for a different approach to managing volunteers in comparison to paid employees. This reflects both volunteers’ expectations and the recognition that they have greater autonomy; not being tied to a contract by financial rewards or a related career progression. More generally the results illustrate the use of the theoretical framework provided by the psychological contract but that in using this it is valuable to compare the perspectives of managers and volunteers, using a qualitative approach to understand this social relationship.     

The communication grid: an introduction of a model of four communication strategies

Increasing numbers of professionals in public relations consider themselves to be strategic managers and consultants. Surprisingly, they have difficulty in making clear what it really is that they manage and what their consultations truly represent, what aims they have and what strategies they use. In this article I present a model consisting of basic communication strategies, derived from communication theory and rooted in described public relations approaches in the Netherlands.     

美国青少年色腥问题及法律规制

电讯技术的进步,同时带来许多社会风险,青少年色腥即是一个显著的例子。美国似乎迎来了一个由中高年级学生始作俑的色腥高潮,不经意间对青少年自身乃至社会造成危害,至今,已有两名少女因此而自杀身亡。应对色腥当然应该采取多样化的手段,除了教育之外,法律规制也不可少。然而,利用儿童色情法来起诉青少年色腥与立法的旨趣相左,而且有过苛之嫌,宜修正儿童色情法,与时俱进地应对科技时代信息技术迅猛发展的挑战。     

Professional discretion and length of work experience: what findings from focus groups with care managers in elder care suggest

ABSTRACT

Research has explored how care managers in elder care – who often function as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ – regard professional discretion. The way in which length of work experience affects care managers’ use of professional discretion remains, however, unexplored. This article present findings from 12 focus groups with 60 care managers. By bringing attention to how care managers experience the needs assessment process, this article sheds light on how these ‘street-level bureaucrats’ struggle when they try to balance their clients’ needs against institutional frameworks and local guidelines. Length of work experience seems to play a role in how care managers claim to use professional discretion. Experienced care managers describe how they deviate from the guidelines at times in order to create an increased scope of action in their decision-making process. Those with less time in the profession describe greater difficulties in this respect. Findings suggest that research should explore if length of work experience plays a role in the actual way in which care managers assess needs and make decisions. As such, they contribute to our understanding of how needs assessment processes are navigated by professionals while also pointing towards the nature of professional discretion in gerontological social work.     

阿拉伯国家现代信息技术的发展与挑战

以计算机、互联网和卫星通讯为代表的现代信息技术自20世纪七十年代开始在全球飞速发展。信息全球化正改变着人们以往的生产和生活方式，发达国家凭借信息技术优势优先享有信息全球化带来的诸多裨益，而处于先天弱势的发展中国家如何面对信息不对称竞争已成为所在国文化安全战略的重要考量。同样，阿拉伯国家虽然与发达国家在该领域存在差距，但为了建立符合本国利益的信息化社会，这些国家正加大对信息技术的投入，一些依托自身优势条件发展信息产业的阿拉伯国家已崭露头角。     

Old Dreams,New Means: an Exploration of Visions and Situated Knowledge in Information Technology

The aim of this article is to explore the tensions and ambivalences of new and old technology and political visions of keeping viable, quality care and services for elderly citizens through the use of new information technologies. The visions of politicians and social service managers of keeping alive the welfare state and retaining its ability to offer quality care and services for elderly citizens are compared with the experiences of female care assistants and their expectations of technology. A feminist figure — the cyborg — will be used in this exploration. We consider how care assistants are integrated in networks of socio‐technical relations between humans and non‐humans, and the extent to which gender or asymmetrical power relations between women and men intervene in their stories.     

Berufliches Handeln in Dilemmasituationen — Führungskräfte zwischen Pflichterfüllung und Eigenverantwortung

Taking decisions and acting in non-standard situations — which are not described in company guidelines and procedures — is part of a manager′s role and responsibilities. As part of an empirical study 158 managers as well as potential management candidates have been put into dilemma situations in which they have to choose between strictly following company policies or alternatively taking own initiative and choosing a self-responsible action path with more risks and conflict potential. To explain the decisions taken different background information is used such as the organizational culture, the manager′s personal goals and a scale describing self-responsibility as a part of the individual′s self-concept. The preference of organizations is described in relation to the organization′s culture: Following guidelines and ′doing one′s duty′ was the most favored solution from the organization′s point of view. Managers and management candidates choose self-responsible acting with low conflict potential when they feel in harmony with their organization. Managers only choose self-responsible acting with high conflict potential if they have a strong tendency for taking own initiative and are ready to take responsibility for their actions. The results are discussed focusing on self-responsibility levels and on consequences for organizations.     

Dutch top managers and work-life arrangements in times of economic crisis

This paper investigates the considerations of top managers regarding work-life arrangements. A dynamic and contextual approach is taken, using data from 26 semi-structured interviews with top managers from 13 organizations in 2008, before the economic crisis began, and again in 2011, when the ensuing recessions were well under way. Analysis shows that work-life arrangements are increasingly perceived by top managers as integrated into their organizations. However, they indicate that such arrangements should benefit both the employees and the organization. If the consequences of work-life arrangements are perceived by top managers to be negative for their organization, they establish conditions for their use by employees so as to reduce the effect on the organization, rather than refrain from providing the arrangements altogether. During the economic crisis, top managers grew more cost-aware and expressed more concern about negative consequences for their organization. Government regulations are perceived as ‘only normal,’ but in the end top managers wish to remain in control of arrangements. If the law leaves room for interpretation, the Dutch top managers in this study used this freedom to bend the arrangements to suit their own ideas.     

The embeddedness of social relations in inter-firm competitive structures

Collaboration with direct competitors is a valuable, yet risky, strategy that might pave the way for competitive advantages. Thus far, we have lacked a detailed understanding of how competitive relations between firms shape collaborative relations between their managers, and consequently the structural interdependencies at both levels. The primary objective of this study is to understand the multi-level structure underlying the ambiguous relationship of coopetition, a state of simultaneous collaboration and competition. Hence, we investigate the influence of perceived inter-firm competition on interpersonal knowledge flows among managers within three high-tech clusters by applying multi-level exponential random graph models to network data. Our results reveal that the interpersonal exchange of advice and information depends strongly on the inter-firm competitive structure and that competitive structures shape these interpersonal exchanges in different ways. Thereby, our research demonstrates that managers utilize asymmetries by means of perceived competitive relations to seek work-related advice and information from their competitors and that stronger forms of competition are significant, but not insuperable, obstacles to the exchange of knowledge.     

Resistance to change as issue selling in multinational firms

Abstract

Strategic change is a challenge because it tends to have repercussions for the organization as well as its members. Existing literature promotes a view that resistance to change is detrimental to an organization, especially during strategic change processes. However, resistance to change can alternatively be viewed as a beneficial factor. Given that middle- and operating-level managers are close to customers and markets and therefore have access to a different source of information than top managers, this article develops ideas about resistance to change as issue selling presents a conceptual model, and proposes a series of testable propositions.     

Civicness in Organizations: A Reflection on the Relationship Between Professionals and Managers

As they deliver services, organizations have to deal with conflicts over competing and sometimes irreconcilable values, especially at a time when they are facing competitive pressure and diminishing resources. The civicness of organizations expresses itself in how they enable positive interaction over such conflicts between their members. This paper focuses specifically on the relationship between professionals and their managers. By infusing social behaviour with civil values, organizations can contribute to a wider culture of citizenship.