Marketing: The key to organizational effectiveness

The aim of this paper is to make clear the difference between the marketing concept and marketing strategy. It advocates that not only should the former be used by all structures of business organizations, but that it is necessary to do so. It is the marketing strategy chosen by the firm that is dependent upon the organizational structure and not the concept.     

BOCOG's outsourcing contracts: The vendor's perspective

To date, most research on outsourcing is modeled from the client's perspective. In this paper, we approach the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) outsourcing contracts from the vendors’ perspective. Since a vendor always has the option to accept or not accept an outsourcing contract, we use the theory of options to analyze the vendor's decision making, i.e., the trigger point, which coincides with the optimal profit level, of the vendor's decision to pursue an outsourcing contract. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the model and its potential benefits for vendors’ decision making.     

Value managed relationships: The key to customer retention and profitability

The authors argue that customer satisfaction and retention are vital and can be improved by the technique which they call a Value Managed Relationship (VMR). A VMR is a collaborative, communicative partnership between suppliers and the supplier's customers, and it works by reducing system costs. Buchanan and Gillies point to examples in British industry where VMRs have been of great benefit.     

Tioxide: Computerization—The key to the future in financial planning

As the capability of new computer systems becomes increasingly sophisticated, so does the application of computer techniques to financial and strategic planning become more relevant to management. Planning and practically all forms of decision-making are concerned with the future, which necessarily is uncertain and therefore difficult to plan for. Forecasting methods, however, can suggest trends and it is possible to reduce the number of possible futures to a manageable number, in effect, creating scenarios. But the viewing of multiple scenarios in a manual accounting system is impractical, given the sheer volume of work, and this is where the facilities offered by computerization can assist decision-making greatly. The case study illustrated here concerns a multinational company with production facilities in seven different countries, using a sophisticated financial software packege for strategic and financial planning applications. The article traces the development of Tioxide's association with a financial modelling package, Planmaster, from initial use on a time-sharing basis to the changes in hardware manufacture which made it possible to run what is essentially a mainframe program on the desk-top microcomputer of the planning department.     

Benchmarking: the key to influencing physicians

Managing physicians to achieve cost reductions can seem impossible, especially when managed care penetration is low. Physicians feel little pressure to change when asked merely to cut costs, especially when their boat is not rocking. But physicians will respond to benchmarking data on CPT-coded procedures that are directly comparable to their own practices. When surgeons see that others take less time to perform a procedure and/or use fewer and lower cost supplies, their competitive spirits are aroused. They become inquisitive about why this is so and then are eager to change by trying new methods and improving their techniques. Science is the key motivator, not savings. When benchmarking recommendations are implemented in a facility, better practice and substantial cost savings are the positive results.     

Physician executive contracts: negotiating the future

Once viewed as a matter of standard protocol, physician executive contracts have become as complex as the health care industry itself. Historically, hospital administration and physicians negotiated a few key points, then sent the ideas to an attorney for insertion of standard legalize and boilerplate. Today, physician executive contracts are an important part of the changes in health care. They not only cover traditional hospital and physician relations, but increasingly apply to new types of relations (such as employment) between hospitals and physicians, physicians and physicians, and health plans and physicians. In this article, we will explore both the "content" and the "context" of physician executive contracts. Content will deal with the specific provisions typically included in contracts. Context will address issues associated with preparing for and negotiating a contract.     

Learning how to learn: the key to CQI

All CQI/TQM efforts share a common purpose: to learn something that can correct past mistakes and/or to create better futures. Because learning is a dynamic circular process, the information about a problem or an opportunity will be limited unless four perceptions of the truth--each valid, and each incomplete--are accepted. These four types of learning styles or ways of perceiving are: abstract conceptualizers, active experimenters, concrete experiencers, and reflective observers. Unless all the stages of the learning process have been fully completed, unless all the strokes work in harmony, we cannot be confident that a CQI effort has added its full value. A CQI team's interpersonal process, the tools by which individually limited truths are forged into a consensual holistic truth, must ensure that the group's effort goes "around in circles."     

Leveraging psychological contracts as an HR strategy: The case of software developers

This article studies the management of software developers through the lens of the psychological contract and from the perspectives of employees and employers. Data were gathered through interviews with software developers and their human resources (HR) and/or direct managers in French high-tech companies. Our findings show the crucial role of HR and direct managers who shape a balanced professional psychological contract with developers as a specific HR strategy in order to respond to their job specificities and values. Specific HR practices (nature of the processes, involvement of developers in these processes, credibility of HR/direct managers and career development opportunities) and the working environment contribute to the development of trust and fairness, which form part of the content of the balanced contract.     

Leaders as change executors: The impact of leader attitudes to change and change-specific support on followers

Organizational change research has long regarded leaders as instrumental for the successful implementation of change. Leaders, however, are not always initiating change but rather executing it. In those cases, leaders may hold negative attitudes with regards to the change content or even resist change implementation while also being less effective in supporting their followers. This study tests whether, and to what extent, leader attitudes alongside leader change-specific support impact follower resistance to change. Using survey data from school principals and teachers in the public education sector in Germany, findings from multilevel linear regression show that leader resistance is positively related to follower resistance while leader attitudes to change content are unrelated to follower resistance. Leader change-specific support strengthens the relationship between follower attitudes towards change content and their resistance to change. Thus, this study raises awareness of the negative impact leaders can have on their followers when they are executors rather than initiators of change.     

Flexible strategies—The key to success in knitwear

This article examines the U.K. knitwear industry and discusses the strategic dilemmas facing managers in a particular, and vulnerable, area with strong international competition. Over the decade up to the mid 1980s many fundamental changes occured but the conventional ideas of stable, generic strategy fail to account for what happened. Through detailed analysis, alternative approaches are described that hold out more promise of a successful response to future challenges in the market.     

Physician executive promotes process for managing change. Building consensus for group plan is key to successful transitions.

Thrust into a leadership position after years in solo practice demanded quick thinking for one physician executive. Faced with a need for change, he developed his own process for turning an individual's idea into a plan of action for an entire group. Learn the steps he took to build consensus and ease resistance to change.     

Transfer from expatriate to local contracts: a multiple case study of an unexpected career transition

The transfer of company-assigned expatriate employees from balance sheet expatriate contracts to local contracts is an alternative international assignment compensation strategy increasingly adopted by global corporations. Despite its growing popularity, there is a significant lack of research on the impact (both professional and personal) of transferring employees from expatriate to local contracts. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate this emerging international HR trend, with specific focus on exploring the experiences of career transition of company-assigned long-term expatriates (delayed localization) to local contracts at multinational organizations located in Sweden and America. Eight individual cases were analyzed. Findings revealed that localization was an unexpected career transition, a negative type of career shock, characterized by limited support from employers, mentors, and local colleagues. The findings further indicated that localization was a type of career transition rather different from other previous career transitions experienced by participants; it represented a major career and life transition. Based on the findings, we proposed HRD interventions to assist expatriates during the transition from expatriate to local contracts. Areas for future research are also suggested.     

MSOs: key to PHOs and community-based health care systems

In the '50s and '60s, as you drove through the United States, you could not help but notice the large number of mom and pop businesses--gas stations, groceries, restaurants. The same ride in the '70s and '80s is remembered because of the large number of these businesses that had closed their doors. In the '90s, this could very well begin to happen to doctor's offices and small clinics as medicine comes to look more and more like a business. This decade has already seen a shift in medicine from fee-for-service to more managed types of insurance and payment programs and the beginning of larger physician groups. Proposed health reform initiatives can only serve to accelerate these trends. Those in medicine prepared for changes will survive and perhaps even thrive. The others will wither on the vine. One of the key strategies that will enhance survival is cooperation and organization among the different players--hospitals, insurance companies, and providers. An extremely valuable tool for survival, along with the independent practice arrangement, the integrated delivery system, etc., will be the management service organization.     

General return contracts for style goods: expected utility approach

A return policy is commonly used by retailers to hedge for overstock risk. A number of research studies have developed models to identify when the manufacturer should accept returns. However, few of these studies consider the risk attitude of the decision maker, that is, existing papers assume that both the manufacturer and retailer are risk-neutral. Rather than ignore the risk attitude of the retailer and manufacturer, this paper relaxes this assumption and constructs a general returns model through the expected utility approach. An inventory theoretic model is developed and a menu of discount-return combinations is designed for the feasible solutions of a wholesale price discount and buyback price. It is shown that the decision to join a returns contact considerably depends on the utility functions for both the retailer and manufacturer. That is, the risk attitude is a core factor for the retailer and manufacturer to decide if to sign a returns contact, and without considering the factor in the model, the decision may be biased.     

Strategy—The key to planning in the public corporation

The distinctive features and constraints of planning in the nationalized industries as compared with large firms in the private sector deserve more attention than they have received. The development of corporate planning in these industries has tended to take a different route, starting from the need for long term physical planning. Planning in nationalized industries with complex production systems has a good deal in common with planning in large integrated firms (as opposed to conglomerates). But the difficulties arising from present methods of government control might be eased by placing greater emphasis on the need for stable agreement with the government on the industries' broad strategies.     

From resistance to attraction: a different approach to change

How can physician executives interested in promoting change be more effective at the task? This article explores how to create an attraction towards change, as opposed to viewing change as overcoming resistance. Learning to recognize naturally occurring change, identify attractors, explore the rationality of others' points of view, and reduce risk are clear and constructive insights from research and emerging systems science. Other ideas to consider are: Understand the issues of those you wish to change, create changes that are "exothermic," produce system changes, accept responsibility, learn from failed efforts, and focus on building relationships of trust.     

Preparing to tack: when physicians change careers

Because of the progressive health care revolution that gives all the power to the managed care insurance companies, the usurpation of physician autonomy, and the replacement of the physician-patient relationship with HMO policies, doctors are looking at other career choices. Many doctors have never considered life after medicine and have made no plans for that time in their future. Despite their ample education, some doctors say, "I don't know how to do anything else. I am trapped in this system, and I can't get out. If I knew what else I could do, I would definitely change careers." Many doctors feel that it is too late in their lives to make such a change. However, it is becoming more and more acceptable to switch or modify a medical career. A number of physicians have switched careers successfully without disgrace and have discovered that there is indeed a life after the first career choice. It isn't always easy, but it can be done.