Differences In Organizational Contexts Research Articles

Prioritization of Best Practices in the Implementation of Model‐Based Systems Engineering

AbstractModel‐based systems engineering (MBSE) is a form of systems engineering that is reported to lead to many benefits; yet few companies have successfully implemented MBSE, partly due to a predominance of guidance for adoption that does not recognize differences in organizational context. This paper uses a combination of a literature review and semi‐structured interviews to evaluate the hypothesis that the applicability of best practices varies on a case‐by‐case basis due to factors such as company size, industry, and location. A list of best practices is compiled from existing works and validated with interviews, ultimately resulting in a more complete and accurate list of best practices, along with a recommendation that each company should uniquely assess their circumstances and prioritize this list of best practices accordingly. The findings presented in this paper provide improved guidance towards the use of best practices for successful MBSE implementation.

Organizational Context in General and Special Education: An Exploratory Investigation to Describe the Perspective of School Leaders

Organizational context (e.g., climate, culture, resources) can impede or enhance implementation of evidence-based practices in general education settings or special education settings serving students with autism spectrum disorder. We examined the relations between organizational context and individual (i.e., implementation leadership, administrator- or service provider-role) or school (i.e., enrollment size, public/nonpublic school type) characteristics. Participants were administrative or service providing leaders (n = 34) from 11 schools in one state on the East Coast of the United States. School leaders’ average ratings of the organizational context were generally more positive for special education than general education; however, greater culture stress was reported for special education. Correlation analyses indicated being an administrator and implementation leadership were positively associated with implementation climate in both education settings. Being an administrator was also positively associated with cultural effort (i.e., how hard people work towards achieving goals) in special education, but negatively associated with culture stress in general education. In special education, nonpublic schools had better climates (both learning and implementation), but more culture stress. Additionally, school enrollment size was negatively related to available resources and implementation climate in special education. Investigating the similarities and differences in organizational context across educational settings is needed in future research.

Assessing the level of institutionalization of donor-funded anti-retroviral therapy (ART) programs in health facilities in Uganda: implications for program sustainability

ABSTRACTBackground: In the context of declining international assistance for ART scale-up in Sub-Saharan Africa, the institutionalization of ART programs through integrating them in the organizational routines of health facilities is gaining importance as a program sustainability strategy.Objective: The aims of this study were; (i) to compare the level of institutionalization of ART programs in health facilities in Uganda and (ii) to explore reasons for variations in the degree of program institutionalization.Methods: In Phase One, we utilized Level of Institutionalization Scales developed by Goodman (1993) to measure the degree of institutionalization of ART interventions in 195 health facilities across Uganda. The 45-item questionnaire measured institutionalization based on four sub-systems (production, maintenance, supportive, managerial) theorized to make up an organization assessed against two levels of institutionalization; routines (lowest) niche saturation (highest). In Phase Two, four health facilities were purposively selected (2 with the highest and 2 with the lowest institutionalization scores) for a multiple case-study involving semi-structured interviews with ART clinic managers(n = 32), on-site observations and document review.Results: The two highest scoring health facilities had a longer HIV intervention implementation history of between 8 and 11 years. The highest scoring cases associated intervention institutionalization with sustained workforce trainings in ART management, the retention of ART-trained personnel and generating in-house ART manuals. The turnover of ART-proficient staff was identified as a barrier to intervention institutionalization in the lowest-ranked cases. Significant differences in organizational contexts were identified. The two highest-ranked health facilities were well-established, higher-tier hospitals while the lowest scoring health facilities were lower-level health facilities.Conclusions: The level of institutionalization of ART interventions appeared to be differentiated by level of care in the Ugandan health system. Interventions aimed at strengthening program institutionalization in lower-level health centers at the level of human resources for health could enhance ART scale-up sustainability.

Organizational Context and Capabilities for Integrating Care: A Framework for Improvement.

Background:Interventions aimed at integrating care have become widespread in healthcare; however, there is significant variability in their success. Differences in organizational contexts and associated capabilities may be responsible for some of this variability.Purpose:This study develops and validates a conceptual framework of organizational capabilities for integrating care, identifies which of these capabilities may be most important, and explores the mechanisms by which they influence integrated care efforts.Methods:The Context and Capabilities for Integrating Care (CCIC) Framework was developed through a literature review, and revised and validated through interviews with leaders and care providers engaged in integrated care networks in Ontario, Canada. Interviews involved open-ended questions and graphic elicitation. Quantitative content analysis was used to summarize the data.Results:The CCIC Framework consists of eighteen organizational factors in three categories: Basic Structures, People and Values, and Key Processes. The three most important capabilities shaping the capacity of organizations to implement integrated care interventions include Leadership Approach, Clinician Engagement and Leadership, and Readiness for Change. The majority of hypothesized relationships among organizational capabilities involved Readiness for Change and Partnering, emphasizing the complexity, interrelatedness and importance of these two factors to integrated care efforts.Conclusions:Organizational leaders can use the framework to determine readiness to integrate care, develop targeted change management strategies, and select appropriate partners with overlapping or complementary profiles on key capabilities. Researchers may use the results to test and refine the proposed framework, with a focus on the hypothesized relationships among organizational capabilities and between organizational capabilities and performance outcomes.

Interview With Wayne M. Lerner, DrPH, FACHE, Past President and Chief Executive Officer, Holy Cross Hospital

Wayne M. Lerner, DrPH, FACHE, was president and CEO of Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, from 2006 to 2013. He spent the first 17 years of his career at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, where he rose to the position of vice president for administrative affairs and chair of the Department of Health Systems Management. During the early 1990s, Dr. Lerner served as president of Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri, and as a senior executive officer within the BJC Health System, where he was a key executive behind the merger of Jewish and Barnes hospitals as well as the creation of the BJC Health System. From 1997 to 2006, Dr. Lerner was president and CEO of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, an organization distinguished by its designation as the best rehabilitation hospital in the United States since 1991 by U.S. News & World Report. In 2006, Dr. Lerner became interim president and CEO of Holy Cross Hospital, an inner-city, faith-based, disproportionate-share hospital in Chicago. In 2007, he assumed the role on a full-time basis and stepped down from that position in 2013. Dr. Lerner is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and MHA and DrPH degrees from the University of Michigan. In 2013 he was the recipient of ACHE's Gold Medal Award in the healthcare delivery organization category. The Gold Medal Award is the highest honor bestowed by the American College of Healthcare Executives on outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions to the healthcare profession. Dr. O'Connor: Congratulations on receiving the 2013 Gold Medal Award! The variety of organizations (academic medical center; rehabilitation facility; large, integrated system; inner-city, faith-based hospital) in which you have worked and the breadth of activities you have managed are noteworthy. Similarly, you have filled many different types of leadership roles. How have you been able to adapt to the different role demands and differences in organizational context, culture, governance, resources, and so on, as you moved among these various settings ? What did you learn from working in these different types of organizations and roles? Dr. Lerner: First, we should establish a contextual baseline for this question. The delivery system roles were important, but so were the many external roles in which I also participated. I always tell people that I've had an atypical career, in that it has not followed any type of linear trajectory. I have always been motivated by opportunities that are intellectually demanding and professionally exciting. If an opportunity meets those criteria, then I tend to say yes. Those are the qualities that have driven me to follow a career path not considered to be the norm for someone with my background. I'm not sure I have a great secret here. I first became a hospital president when I was about 40 years old. It was the biggest transition I had ever made. I tell students that the best job you will ever have is when you're number two or three in an organization, because you can be yourself, you don't have ultimate responsibility for the direction of the institution, and you can relate to people on a more humanto-human basis than you can in a higher position. When you become number one, you assume a role for which you may have been prepared but you're not really ready for, as it can be very isolating in terms of personal interrelationships. People look to you to provide the last word on whatever is going on in the institution. I finally realized the true implications of being a CEO when I understood the need to change my approach slightly. I had to modify my sense of humor, and in general I didn't feel free to relate to people in exactly the same way I had previously--I began playing the role of president. That adjustment included acknowledging that now I'm responsible for, say, 10,000 lives, 1,200 staff, 100,000 people in my community, and the strategic direction of the organization. …

A University–Agency Mental Health Research Collaboration: A Case Example

There is significant documentation in the literature of barriers that may prevent research results from being utilized by agencies to inform and impact practice and policy. Such barriers pertain to several factors as follows: (a) those related to the nature of the research enterprise itself (b) those related to differences between the producers and consumers of research, and (c) barriers arising from the differences in organizational contexts of researchers and case management and supported employment agency staff. This article discusses a collaborative relationship between university researchers and agency practitioners in the context of a research project studying the implementation of supported employment, an evidence-based practice. As a case example, it provides an exemplar of the problems and issues of conducting mental health research with community-based agencies and offers strategies and case examples that address these issues.

Innovating or Doing as Told? Status Differences and Overlapping Boundaries in Offshore Collaboration

Increasingly, firms source more complex and strategic as well as harder to codify IT projects to low cost offshore locations. Completing such projects successfully requires close collaboration among all participants. Yet, achieving such collaboration is extremely difficult because of the complexity of the context - multiple and overlapping boundaries associated with diverse organizational and national contexts separate the participants. These boundaries also lead to a pronounced imbalance of resources among onshore and offshore participants giving rise to status differences and inhibiting collaboration. This research adopts a practice perspective to investigate how differences in country and organizational contexts give rise to boundaries and associated status differences in offshore application development projects and how these boundaries and status differences can be renegotiated in practice to establish effective collaboration. To illustrate and refine the theory, a qualitative case study of a large financial services firm, which sourced a variety of high-end IT work to its wholly owned subsidiaries (captive centers) and to third party vendors in multiple global locations (e.g., India and Russia), is presented. Using a grounded theory approach, the paper finds that differences in country contexts gave rise to a number of boundaries that inhibited collaboration effectiveness, while differences in organizational contexts were largely mediated through organizational practices that treated vendor centers and captive units similarly. It also shows that some key onshore managers were able to alleviate status differences and facilitate effective collaboration across diverse country contexts by drawing on their position and resources. Implications are drawn for the theory and practice of global software development and multi-party collaboration.

Innovating or doing as Told? Status Differences and Overlapping Boundaries in Offshore Collaboration

Increasingly, firms source more complex and strategic as well as harder to codify information technology projects to low-cost offshore locations. Completing such projects successfully requires close collaboration among all participants. Yet, achieving such collaboration is extremely difficult because of the complexity of the context: multiple and overlapping boundaries associated with diverse organizational and national contexts separate the participants. These boundaries also lead to a pronounced imbalance of resources among onshore and offshore contributors giving rise to status differences and inhibiting collaboration. This research adopts a practice perspective to investigate how differences in country and organizational contexts give rise to boundaries and associated status differences in offshore application development projects and how these boundaries and status differences can be renegotiated in practice to establish effective collaboration. To illustrate and refine the theory, a qualitative case study of a large financial services firm, which sourced a variety of high-end IT work to its wholly owned subsidiaries (captive centers) and to third party vendors in multiple global locations (in particular, to India and Russia), is presented. Using a grounded theory approach, the paper finds that differences in country contexts gave rise to a number of boundaries that inhibited collaboration effectiveness, while differences in organizational contexts were largely mediated through organizational practices that treated vendor centers and captive units similarly. It also shows that some key onshore managers were able to alleviate status differences and facilitate effective collaboration across diverse country contexts by drawing on their position and resources. Implications are drawn for the theory and practice of global software development and multiparty collaboration.

Performance Measure Properties and the Effects of Incentive Contracts

Using data from a third-party survey on compensation practices at 151 Dutch firms, we show that less noisy or distorted performance measures and higher cash bonuses are associated with better-directed effort and improved employee selection. Specifically, 1) an increase in the cash bonus increases the selection effects of incentive contracts, but does not independently affect the effort that employees deliver, and 2) performance measure properties directly impact both effort and the selection functioning of incentive contracts. These results hold after controlling for an array of incentive contract design characteristics and for differences in organizational context. Our estimation procedures address several known problems with using secondary datasets.

Performance Measure Properties and the Effect of Incentive Contracts

Using data from a third-party survey on compensation practices at 151 Dutch firms, we show that less noisy or distorted performance measures and higher cash bonuses are associated with improved employee selection and better-directed effort. Specifically, (1) an increase in the cash bonus increases the perceived selection effects of incentive contracts, but does not independently affect the perceived amount and direction of effort that employees deliver, and (2) performance measure properties directly impact both effort and the selection functioning of incentive contracts. These results hold after controlling for an array of incentive contract design characteristics and for differences in organizational context. Our estimation procedures address several known problems with using secondary datasets.

Technology Usability and Utility Issues in a State Government Voice Mail Evaluation Survey

This paper summarizes results of a user evaluation survey of computer-based telephone messaging ("voice mail") technologies. A mail survey of the population of voice mail users in state government agencies (approximately 3000 users) yielded 1072 user responses. Survey analyses tested hypotheses regarding how voice mail evaluations are influenced by user characteristics, system use and experience, task and situation factors, and differences in organizational context and operations. Highlights of the results include findings relating both endogenous (age and gender) and exogenous (reported length of experience and average weekly use) user characteristics to ratings of the voice mail interface. Participating organizations reported mean differences in ratings of the interface and situation-based voice mail appropriateness. The findings emphasize the importance of a systems approach to integrate user-centered design and functional, situational, and organizational contexts in order to enhance the success of implementing voice mail and other telecommunications technologies.

A Comparison of Laboratory and Field Research in the Study of Electronic Meeting Systems

:Research into the use of Electronic Meeting Systems (ems) has rapidly increased over the past few years. However, ems laboratory experiments have often drawn very different conclusions about the effects of ems use than have ems field studies—conclusions that at first appear inconsistent. By examining the differences in the design of prior ems studies, we attempt to better understand the factors that affect the use of ems technology. It is our contention that these differences in findings are not inconsistent, but rather they reflect different situations that researchers have studied. We identify 24 potentially important differences in organizational contexts, group characteristics, tasks, and ems environments. In planning future research, ems researchers need to make explicit design decisions for each of these aspects, and to consider how those choices may affect research results. An analysis of these differences suggests several approaches to enhance the design of future laboratory experiments and field studies.

The context of university departments: Differences between fields of higher and lower levels of paradigm development

This study demonstrates that the concept of paradigm development can explain differences in organizational contexts of university departments. Departments from high-paradigm fields are embedded in a context with clearly identifiable and distinguishable dimensions. In contrast, departments representing lower levels of paradigm development have unclear contexts where major dimensions like size and technology cannot be distinguished from one another. The implications of these results are discussed and elaborated.