Institutional Heritage Research Articles

Large scale training of oncology providers and staff to improve care delivery.

e18282 Background: UT MD Anderson Cancer Center began participating in the Press Ganey survey in 2014, and the initial feedback was disappointing. Imaging outpatient services scores were lower than expected, and a difference of opinion between providers and patients was believed to be a contributing factor. Imaging providers defined “care” as the technical quality of the study and the accuracy of the report, while patients associated the term “care” with their healthcare experience. Methods: To improve the patient and family experience and better equip the staff and providers, the Service Excellence Academy (SEA) was created. This ten-hour, three-module program was developed at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in collaboration with UNLV and MGM Resorts. The program combined didactic and interactive education by leveraging clinical examples and role-playing. A train-the-trainer format was used, including Institutional and Departmental leaders to facilitate the classes. Over 800 participants completed the SEA over 9 months. Questionnaires were administered to the participants before and after the sessions. Results: Since launching the SEA June of 2015, the outpatient Press Ganey scores have improved, and continue their upward trend. All metrics show percentile improvement ranging from 9% to 34%. Additionally, participants felt a greater connection with the institutional mission, vision, and heritage, were more comfortable making decisions, felt more empowered, and had developed greater empathy and skills to meet the needs of others. Conclusions: Large scale training of oncology providers and staff is possible and effective. Implementation of a Service Excellence Academy demonstrated both objective and subjective improvement of patient and employee satisfaction.

Heritage branding orientation: The case of Ach. Brito and the dynamics between corporate and product heritage brands

The notion of heritage branding orientation is introduced and explicated. Heritage branding orientation is designated as embracing both product and corporate brands and differs from corporate heritage brand orientation which has an explicit corporate focus. Empirical insights are drawn from an in-depth and longitudinal case study of Ach. Brito, a celebrated Portuguese manufacturer of soaps and toiletries. This study shows how, by the pursuance of a strategy derived from a heritage branding orientation, Ach. Brito – after a prolonged period of decline – achieved a dramatic strategic turnaround. The findings reveal how institutional heritage can be a strategic resource via its adoption and activation at both the product and corporate levels. Moreover, the study explains how the bi-lateral interplay between product and corporate brand levels can be mutually reinforcing. In instrumental terms, the study demonstrates how heritage can be activated and articulated in different ways. For instance, it can reposition both product and/or corporate brands; it can be meaningfully informed by product brand heritage and shape corporate heritage and can be of strategic importance to both medium-sized and small enterprises.

Run(a)way bureaucrats? When a National Civil Aviation Authority meets global and European regimes

This case study of a national civil aviation authority focuses on how global and European regimes for aviation safety regulation impact the administrative behaviour of national-level agency officials when they apply aviation legislation. The organizational differences between the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union are reflected in the behaviour of national officials. Formally, the European Union enforces application of law through binding regulations and inspections, but enforcement is also informal. Although the International Civil Aviation Organization lacks the capacity to follow up in the same way, it also participates in and hosts many relevant activities. Using an organizational perspective, this article ascribes these differences to factors such as capacity, specialization, and demography. At the same time, empirical findings show similarities in contact patterns among important stakeholders when officials apply law. Institutional theory relates similarities in contact patterns to national authorities’ institutional heritage.

Percival Kirby’s wax cylinders: elegy on archiving a deaf spot

This study intends to trace and think through a particular sequence of loss involved in creating and keeping phonographic historical records. As a piece of writing, it attempts to “uncontain” the waxen Ediphone and Dictaphone cylinders that form part of the Kirby Collection at the University of Cape Town. In this process of scratching for the sounds on these shells, and sounding out some of the vicarious and ulterior meanings invested in appraising ethnographic sound recordings in the archive, even the activity of listening will sometimes stand in the way of seeing sense here: while the cylinders are indeed tangible in the archive, they are and do no longer sound as they were intended to. They might be deemed technically unworthy of archiving, but the legacy of colonial and apartheid state power echoing through archives of institutional and national heritage in South Africa can complicate making judgements on cassation to a point of indefinitely suspended indecision. Non-sounding or excessively noisy sound carriers comprise archival items that are almost mysteriously tangible and can be read as a powerful metaphor for a postcolonial condition in which an ideological apparatus pursuing information retrieval threatens to mechanically and institutionally perpetuate itself. Might these cylinders’ very lack of usefulness in this regard serve to memorise those subaltern, sounding bodies that were sacrificed in the project of modernising Africa?

Conservation and management of sacred groves, myths and beliefs of tribal communities: a case study from north-India

Traditional and indigenous communities in India are of the religious belief that medicinal groves and plants are sacred in nature. Sacred groves (SGs) are patches of trees on forest land that are protected communally with religious zeal and connotations. These forest areas have been protected since ages by traditional societies and indigenous communities with their socio-cultural and religious practices. Sacred groves as a rule are treated piously. Sacred trees are prohibited from cutting and not axed except when wood is needed for the religious purposes like construction and repair of temple buildings or in cases like worshiping, death ceremonies and temple rituals. Thus, SGs carry direct and everlasting pious status and assist in maintaining social fabric of the society. From the present study it is concluded that, religious identification of medicinal plants and practices have influenced the folklore towards a sense of selfless services in the name the Gods. However, during the course of modernization, mechanization and globalization in the recent past has transformed and weakened both cultural and biological integrity. Changes in social belief, modernization and erosion of cultural practices are some of the major factors contributing towards degradation of the ancient institutional heritage which need to be looked into. The present study is, therefore intended to propose management and conservation as an alternative strategy towards the sustainability of forests around human settlements and also an attempt to explore the role of SGs in conservation and management of different ecosystem services.

Patrimoni e territori

This essay reflects on the relationships between heritage and place amid the current radical transformations involving, in particular, a new conception of the residents and the users of an area. In contrast to the pure conservation policies that often underpin institutional heritage projects, an individual and collective assumption of responsibility is required from the community that has developed it or that uses it, as several participatory-management experiences show. Indeed, only in this way, through a transformative effort with sensitivity to its affective value and cultural significance, can (material but also immaterial) heritage become an active resource for local development, in a framework of social, environmental and economic sustainability.

China’s welfare reform: An ambiguous road towards a Social Protection Floor

China’s recent efforts in extending social protection resonate with the goals of the Social Protection Floor, even if Chinese policy-makers have not explicitly incorporated the Floor in the reform process. However, as this review of developments in the fields of social assistance, unemployment insurance, pensions, and health insurance suggests, major challenges persist, namely inadequate and declining benefit levels, funding issues, and fragmentation of the system, which to some degree have perpetuated existing inequalities. These challenges reflect a strong institutional heritage from the pre-reform era, which poses the biggest obstacle to the development of a coherent national social protection system.

Results of aperture area comparisons for exo-atmospheric total solar irradiance measurements

Exo-atmospheric solar irradiance measurements made by the solar irradiance community since 1978 have incorporated limiting apertures with diameters measured by a number of metrology laboratories using a variety of techniques. Knowledge of the aperture area is a critical component in the conversion of radiant flux measurements to solar irradiance. A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System (EOS) sponsored international comparison of aperture area measurements of limiting apertures provided by solar irradiance researchers was performed, the effort being executed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in coordination with the EOS Project Science Office. Apertures that had institutional heritage with historical solar irradiance measurements were measured using the absolute aperture measurement facility at NIST. The measurement technique employed noncontact video microscopy using high-accuracy translation stages. We have quantified the differences between the participating institutions' aperture area measurements and find no evidence to support the hypothesis that preflight aperture area measurements were the root cause of discrepancies in long-term total solar irradiance satellite measurements. Another result is the assessment of uncertainties assigned to methods used by participants. We find that uncertainties assigned to a participant's values may be underestimated.

Autonomy delegation to foreign subsidiaries: An enabling mechanism for emerging-market multinationals

Current theory on foreign subsidiary autonomy is insufficient to examine a situation where a multinational lacks experience to organize global operations, and yet intends to compete extensively with established multinational enterprises (MNEs) from advanced economies. By building on theoretical perspectives developed for emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs), we advance the idea that foreign subsidiary autonomy is a strategic mechanism to overcome the EMNE’s weaknesses in managing globally dispersed businesses and their home-country disadvantages after foreign entry. Subsidiary autonomy delegation assists in performing the learning functions necessary for overcoming resource and capability voids, as well as for distancing the subsidiary administratively from the parent’s negative home-country institutional heritage. Analyses of survey data collected from headquarter senior executives of 240 Chinese MNEs suggest that subsidiary autonomy delegation is higher among firms relying on foreign markets as a springboard to acquire strategic assets, whose top managers at the headquarters perceive high domestic institutional constraints, and which do not count on government assistance to expand internationally. Further, we demonstrate that these relationships are strengthened with greater inward foreign direct investment cooperative experience, and with the use of merger and acquisition entry modes. These findings have important implications for theories on subsidiary autonomy.

Housing Welfare Policies in Scandinavia: A Comparative Perspective on a Transition Era

(Received December 18, 2012 / Revised April 29, 2013 / Accepted April 29, 2013)ABSTRACTIt is commonplace to refer to the Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland as a distinctive and homogenous welfare regime. As far as social housing is concerned, however, the institutional heritage of the respective countries significantly frames the ways in which social housing is understood, regulated and subsidized, and, in turn, how housing regimes respond to the general challenges to the national welfare states. The paper presents a historical institutionalist approach to understanding the diversity of regime responses in the modern era characterized by increasing marketization, welfare criticism and internationalization. The aim is to provide outside readers a theoretically guided empirical insight into Scandinavian social housing policy. The paper first lines up the core of the inbuilt argument of historical institutionalism in housing policy. Secondly, it briefly introduces the distinctive ideal typical features of the five housing regimes, which reveals the first internal distinction between the universal policies of Sweden and Denmark selective policies of Iceland and Finland. The Norwegian case constitutes a transitional model from general to selective during the past quarter of a decade. The third section then concentrates on the differences between Denmark, Sweden and Norway in which social housing is, our was originally, embedded in a universal welfare policy targeting the general level of housing quality for the entire population. Differences stand out, however, between finance, ownership, regulation and governance. The historical institutional argument is, that these differences frame the way in which actors operating on the respective policy arenas can and do respond to challenges. Here, in this section we lose Norway, which de facto has come to operate in a residual manner, due to contemporary effects of the long historical heritage of home ownership. The fourth section then discusses the recent challenges of welfare criticism, internationalization and marketization to the universal models in Denmark and Sweden. Here, it is argued that the institutional differences between the Swedish model of municipal ownership and the Danish model of independent cooperative social housing associations provides different sources of resistance to the prospective dismantlement of social housing as we know it. The fifth section presents the recent Danish reform of the governance model of social housing policy in which the housing associations are conceived of as ‘dialogue partners’ in the local housing policy, expected to create solutions to, rather than produce problems in social housing areas. The reform testifies to the strategic ability of the Danish social housing associations to employ their historically grounded institutional relative independence of the public system.Key words: Housing Welfare, Social Housing, ScandinaviaLHI Journal (2013) 4(2):133-144 http://dx.doi.org/10.5804/LHIJ.2013.4.2.133http://lhi.lh.or.kr

Heritage as a basis for creativity in creative industries: the case of taste industries

The aim of this paper is to focus on the specificities of the creative processes in taste industries: industries that have connected the artistic and industrial dimensions to supply goods and services—demand for which derives not from the logic of needs and necessity, but from the logic of pleasures, tastes, ethic preferences and hedonism. These taste industries belong to the creative industries but, unlike scientific and technological production, they work not on the basis of cumulative knowledge (replacing goods by better quality amenities over time) but through the creation of ideas, drawings, recipes, goods and services which pass through time, and which constitute heritages. Thus, creativity works on the basis of heritages: that is, past and accumulated creativity. The paper considers how the different types of heritage (craftsmanship knowledge, creative knowledge, tastes, institutional heritage and common cultural heritage) contribute to creative process. It concludes on the double-edged effect of heritages, which while bestowing competitive advantages and favouring the development of creativity, do orient development along a given path, promoting a certain kind of creativity that may lead to lock-in effects, and build obstacles in the way of development.

Heritage Protocol at Florida State University

The mission of the Florida State University Heritage Protocol program is to identify, acquire, catalog, and preserve items related to the institutional history and cultural heritage of Florida State University (FSU) and its predecessor institutions. FSU Heritage Protocol was established by alumni, current and former faculty and staff, and friends of the university who wanted the school to do more to document and preserve its history. Jointly sponsored by the Alumni Association, University Relations, and University Libraries, it functions as a unique hybrid archival entity, serving as a public relations tool for each of those three units, as well as for the FSU Foundation and various academic departments, schools, and colleges. Hired in 2007, the Heritage Protocol Archivist was given the latitude to adopt some of the recent trends in outreach, collection development, and access and usage, all of which served to redefine the role of the traditional university archivist to some extent. This article chronicles the first 6 years of the archives, including the implementation of some of those new initiatives, as well as its attempts to refocus collection development with an emphasis toward alumni and their memorabilia in an effort to document the student experience at the school. This new emphasis has the added value of getting alumni involved and invested in the program and ultimately making them stakeholders in its overall success.

ARE THE BRIC ECONOMIES ENTREPRENEUR-FRIENDLY? AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

How conducive are the institutional environments in the BRIC countries to support entrepreneurship? We employ the Busentiz et al. (2000) survey instrument on a sample of 490 business students from Brazil, Russia, India and China to compare the perceived favorability of their regulatory, cognitive, and normative environments to entrepreneurship. We find no significant differences in the perceived favorability of the regulatory environment, but significant differences in the perceived favorability of the cognitive and normative environments. While the cognitive dimension of the institutional environment in Russia and China is perceived as more conducive to entrepreneurship compared to Brazil and India, the normative dimension in China, India, and Brazil is perceived as more favorable compared to Russia. These differences reflect the wide divergence in the BRIC countries' cultural norms and values, traditions, and institutional heritage and have important implications for future research, managerial practice, and public policy.

Some thoughts on implementing U.S. physics doctoral education in Japanese universities

Recent policy debates surrounding Japan’s graduate education raise a serious skepticism in the validity of its “research-based” or “learning-by-doing” training approach that these institutions have uniquely established. Proponents of reform suggest drastic restructuring of the graduate programs by replacing the experience-based mentoring aspect with more systematic education that blends an array of coursework and examinations. However, whether such a coursework-based model of graduate training will successfully function without sacrificing the traditional virtue of Japanese practices is an unsubstantiated matter. Japanese graduate schools have produced scientists who have made immense contributions to the advancement in our scientific knowledge. Policy makers and academia in Japan should humbly acknowledge this fact and prudently determine what aspects of their educational content should be reformed and what should be retained. In order to do this, the merits and demerits of alternative models must be clearly understood. The objective of this study is to affirm both the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional approach that Japanese universities need to consider preserving and eliminating, in order to capitalize on their institutional heritage while also building in the educational caliber of the rigorous US graduate training model in the reforming process.

Russian Protectionism: Problems of Institutional Heritage

The article analyzes the pre-revolutionary and the Soviet experience of the protectionist policies. Special attention is paid to the external economic policy during the times of NEP (New Economic Policy), socialist industrialization and the years of 1970-1980s. The results of the state monopoly on foreign trade and currency transactions in the Soviet Union are summarized; the economic integration in the frames of Comecon is assessed.

The early and rapid internationalization of Asian emerging MNEs

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated framework that conceptualizes multifaceted antecedents pertaining to international expansion of Asian emerging multinational enterprise (MNEs) in relation to firm performance. The author argues that the accelerated process of Asian emerging MNEs internationalization appears to be a historically significant change in the way business is conducted.Design/methodology/approachThe paper tests how internationalization expansion path, geographic scope, industry and firm characteristics affect Asian emerging MNEs performance in a sample of 115 Asian MNEs over the period 2003‐2006.FindingsThe results indicate that an emerging MNE's institutional heritage and its own internationalization strategy are likely to create specific preference for operating in differing geographic regions. On the other hand, the results also indicate that domestic growth rate, global market growth rate and R&D investment influence the degree of internationalization of Asian emerging MNEs.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies may apply time series data and require additional empirical research using samples from other emerging markets such as Eastern European, Russia and South America. Addressing industry‐specific effects, and/or examine the influence of company characteristics would clearly add to this study.Originality/valueAsian merging MNEs have certain advantages over large developed country's MNEs, including greater flexibility, efficiency, quality and advantage‐seeking behavior, which allow an emerging multinational enterprise MNE to develop capabilities to succeed in the international markets.

Intersectionality and the Construction of Cultural Heritage Management

From an intersectional perspective, this article will identify, critically analyse and deepen the understanding of how the social categories gender, class, ethnicity and nationality are inscribed and interlinked in the official narratives performed by the public actors in the field of cultural heritage management. This article will analyse the contemporary discourse of the official institutional cultural heritage management actors, with special emphasis on Protection Orders made by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway. It is important to analyse this kind of material because it can bring new knowledge and raise the level of awareness of the construction of identities that are present at a structural national level of representation. This has the potential to increase the understanding of how the societal feeling of being Norwegian is created, which in a strange way seems to have striking similarities to the representations of national identities in other Western countries.

Three Lectures on Post-Industrial Society, by Daniel Cohen

Three Lectures on Post-Industrial Society, by Daniel Cohen

A Preceptor Café

How do you affirm meaning and articulate values that will serve as the bedrock of a preceptor program? The Medical Specialty Preceptor Committee in a large hospital system planned a series of preceptor forums for 88 medical specialty preceptors. The goals were to renew commitment, refresh vision, and develop strategies for successfully orienting new hires. This study began by examining the work of JoEllen Koerner in her book Healing Presence: The Essence of Nursing. The universal values in her model involve acknowledging and addressing three basic levels: safety needs, relationship needs, and self-esteem needs, encompassing the individual's connection to the external world. The middle level is labeled transformation and goes beyond the first three levels to how the individual expresses the authentic self within the working world. The higher levels involve intuition, intention, and self-actualization and focus on the inner world of the individual. The needs of orientees could be met in all of these dimensions, based on existing structure and process in the organization. Relationship-based care as our nursing model guides holistic care. Our rich institutional heritage promotes values-based teamwork. Our goal was to articulate these values and hold discussions among preceptors about how these values could be expressed and developed in orientees. These café conversations were held as spring forum sessions. This article highlights essential ideas at the core of this preceptor activity.

The UN and Development: From Aid to Cooperation

List of Boxes and Tables Foreword Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly, and Thomas G. Weiss Preface and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations IntroductionPart I: The Emergence of International Development Assistance1. Pre-aid Traditions, Ideas, and the Institutional Heritage 2. The Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance 3. The UN Fund for Economic Development 4. First Steps Down the Road: What Can the Footprints Tell?Part II: The Formative Years5. The First Development Decade: An Instrument of Persuasion? 6. The Second Development Decade 7. The United Nations Development Programme, 1966-1981 8. The Word Food Programme, 1960-1981: Surplus Food for Development and ReliefPart III: The Lost Decade and a New Beginning9. The 1960s and 1970s: Perspectives on Developments 10. Visions and Priorities for the 1990s: The United Nations Strategy for the Fourth Development Decade 11. The Revival of the Social and Human Dimensions of Development 12. The UNDP, 1982-2005: Evolving Priorities, Patterns, and Trends 13. Food Aid: From Development to Humnitarian Relief 14. The Long Road Toward the Millennium Development Goals 15. The Contribution of the UN System to Development CooperationAppendix 1 Notes Index About the Contributors About the United Nations Intellectual History Project