Organizational Beliefs Research Articles

Retour aux sources : Asres Yenesew et l'Occident

This paper discusses the ideas of Asres Yenesew, who was a leading clerical scholar during Haile Selassie’s reign. Frustrated by the marginalization of Ethiopia despite the preservation of its independence, Asres identifies the introduction of Western education as the main culprit and derives the economic satellization of Ethiopia from the cultural ascendancy of the West. As a remedy, he proposes a return to the source by which alone Ethiopia can again recenter itself and make choices in accordance to its interests. He supports his proposal by expounding the empowering forces of some important components of the traditional system of social organization and cultural beliefs. The paper underlines the revolutionary message of Asres’s discourse, but also shows how the timidity of his political stand singularly diminished its resonance.

The Importance of Illness Perception in End‐Stage Renal Disease: Associations with Psychosocial and Clinical Outcomes

Illness perceptions refer to organized beliefs surrounding the symptoms, consequences, time course, controllability, and causes of an illness. Illness perceptions have been shown to predict a range of psychosocial and clinical outcomes in patients with ESRD including depression, nonadherence, and even survival. Accordingly, personal illness beliefs are novel yet potentially modifiable prognostic factors. Studies are required to assert whether illness perception-based interventions deliver the promise of improved subjective and clinical well-being in patients with ESRD.

VET Manager identities: Culture, philosophy and professional practice

Using a post-structural approach this article investigates the working lives of frontline managers in VET and how they negotiate change in their day to day practices and decision making. The article is organised around accounts made by managers from different types of Vocational Education and Training (VET) organisations, namely: Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions, Group Training Organisations (GTO), Registered Training Organisations (RTO), RTO and Adult Community Education (ACE) joint organisations and stand alone ACE organisations. The data showed that most managers were experiencing change, albeit in different ways across their diverse VET organisations and roles. Managers were seen to understand and respond to the discourses of reform differently, depending on their organisational type, culture and philosophical beliefs, and according to their understandings of their professional role and status.

Varieties of organizational soul: The ethics of belief in organizations

This article argues that the expression of religious beliefs within organizations, often made manifest through the notion of soul, provides insight into the ethics of organization in postsecular society. Using examples to illustrate the discursive representation of organizational soul in three US-based multinational companies, we argue that religious organizational beliefs must be located within cultural and material contexts of practice in order to fully appreciate their ethical implications. We show how the use of soul is a contemporary reiteration of the 19th century religious attitude that William James termed ‘healthy-mindedness’. We suggest that this variety of religious experience is limiting through its neglect of the social and political contexts of ethical thought and action and the definition of evil or harm as external to the believer and the organization. Drawing on a pragmatist perspective, we critique this approach to belief-led business and propose that the Jamesian notion of a ‘sick soul’ constitutes a more robust ethical framework for belief-led businesses by encouraging ethical skepticism concerning the nature of organizational activities. We conclude by exploring what our analysis means for the development of postsecular critical organization theory.

Some more unequal than others: alternative financing for museums, libraries and archives in England

This article explores whether and how organizational infrastructure and attitudes at museums, libraries and archives in England affect their propensity to diversify financing sources. After more than 50 years of policies and programmes to support funding diversification in the UK cultural sector, research suggests the sector remains dependent on public funding and relatively reluctant to explore new ways of exploiting their assets. Policies directed at addressing these issues concentrate on correcting perceived disparities in terms of cultural form and location (i.e., the London Effect). Empirical research suggests, however, that successful private fundraising is not significantly associated with the region where the organization operates. Instead, successful funding diversification may be closely related to factors such as organizational infrastructure and attitudes towards innovation and risk. This article expands on initial descriptive analysis undertaken from responses to a questionnaire on financial sustainability at museums, libraries and archives in England commissioned by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 2008. Guided by a conceptual framework, the article focuses on developing typologies of characteristics related to an organization's infrastructure, attitudes and beliefs, and their level of funding diversification. This line of research has implications for policy, training and organizational development of cultural enterprises. The ongoing fiscal retrenchment and growing outcomes agenda have provided the setting for more entrepreneurial activities in the sector, without major changes to its organizational infrastructure. The article aims to provide insights into the sustainability of these activities as both economic activity and fiscal constraints increase.

The Community Narration (CN) Approach: Understanding a Group's Identity and Cognitive Constructs through Personal and Community Narratives.

Community program evaluations, visioning and assessments must always endeavor to attain useful information in the most sensitive way. Most community-based organizations form, grow and continue on their own without the help of outside experts. Participatory approaches should respect the historical evolution of these groups and understand the positive factors that underlie their organizational beliefs. A group's mission, values and identity should inform any community program evaluation, consulting project, and the design of any research study. Narrative methods have been used with mutual-help groups and many other organizations to good effect. Such methods have great potential to avoid hierarchical and unidirectional forms of evaluation, encouraging the group's collective psychology and identity-based constructs to emerge. We developed a participatory, narrative technique called Community Narration (CN), which is described here. The technique utilizes personal stories and community narratives as an entry into the evaluation process or other work involved in understanding an organization. The community's participants were able to use the technique successfully, found it enriching, and the constructs obtained have led to many discussions and member-guided research related to the organization.

Are Good Citizens Religious? Exploring the Link between Organizational Citizenship Behaviours and Religious Beliefs

Several influential studies have found religion to be an important determinant of human behavior and organizational behaviors. Research(e.g. Ntalianis & Raja 2002) along this line has suggested a direct association between religious affiliations and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). Yet, no study has tested this relationship directly. This study was designed to empirically examine this relationship. It thus investigated the possible influence of religious beliefs on citizenship behaviours. Ghanaian industrial workers affiliated with three main religious groups, Christianity, Islam, and Traditional African Religion, were asked to rate their participation in organizational citizenship activities, and their responses were compared. Ttest, ANOVA and MANOVA were employed in the analyses. Mean scores for all three groups were rather high, indicating active participation by all three religious groups. Preliminary analyses showed Christian workers to have relatively active participation in OCBs. Further analyses, however, ascribed this difference to the effect of higher education and the concomitant socioeconomic factors prevalent among the workers affiliated with Christianity. The general observation was that religious beliefs tend to influence workers to act in accordance with the ethical teachings of their religions.

Knowledge Brokering in Children's Rehabilitation Organizations: Perspectives from Administrators

Administrators must balance the demands of delivering therapy services with the need to provide staff with educational opportunities promoting evidence-based practice. Increasingly, the use of multifaceted, interactive knowledge translation strategies, such as knowledge brokering, is suggested as an effective way to encourage clinician behavior changes and implement new knowledge. The purpose of this qualitative study is to describe administrators' perceptions of the successes and challenges in using a knowledge broker (KB) to promote the use of evidence-based measures of motor function for children with cerebral palsy. Administrators from 27 pediatric facilities completed a semi-structured telephone interview following 6 months of knowledge brokering within their organizations. Using thematic analysis, interview transcripts were reviewed to identify common themes. Six interview themes were identified: "Efficient and Effective," "Stimulating Peer-to-Peer Learning Environment," "Committed and Respected Knowledge Brokers," "Sharing Beyond," "Organizational Beliefs and Values," and "The Dilemma of Moving Forward". Administrators were positive about the KB experience, acknowledging its efficiency and effectiveness. They commented on the stimulating peer-to-peer and interdisciplinary learning environment that the KB process encouraged. Administrators referred to their organizational beliefs and values when discussing their need to make priorities for limited resources, which influenced their decisions about whether to continue with a KB after the study was completed. Although administrators were philosophically supportive of knowledge brokering, they identified funding and resource constraints and the absence of evidence of the effectiveness of knowledge brokering as major barriers to the continuation of a KB role in their facility.

Work performance norms and organizational efficacy as cross-level effects on the relationship between individual perceptions of self-efficacy, overcommitment, and work-related stress

In the past 10 years, there has been increasing interest in applying multilevel analysis to explain how psychosocial work conditions may influence organizational behaviour. In the present study, we investigated how the individual level variables of self-efficacy and overcommitment may relate to job stress within an analytic context controlling for the main effects of dimensions of the psychosocial work environment, as well as the employees' collective perceptions of work performance norms and organizational efficacy beliefs. The final sample consisted of 924 employees from the food and beverage industry in Norway. Hierarchical linear analysis shows that overcommitment and self-efficacy together have significant main effects on stress. As expected, the results show that overcommitment is positively related to experiences of stress and self efficacy is negatively related to work-related stress. Norms governing performance, magnitude of production, attendance, and work pressure in the workplace are directly and positively related to job stress experiences at the individual level. Contrary to our expectations we did not find a significant interaction effect of work performance norms, nor did we find main or interactional cross-level effects of organizational efficacy on stress.

Cutting Costs and Improving Quality: The Everett Experience

THE FEATURE ARTICLES Cost Cutting in Health Systems Without Compromising Quality Care and Cost Reduction in Health Systems: Lessons from an Analysis of $200 Million Saved by Top-Performing Organizations examine fundamental aspects of achieving high-quality, lower-cost healthcare. Both emphasize the importance of tracking and analyzing data, creating a supportive culture, and effective feedback and monitoring techniques to ensure that changes become part of an organization's fabric. Both identify numerous key factors for success: * A mindset of clinical quality * Keeping the patient first when considering change * Alignment of stakeholders, including clinical staff, physicians, and other providers * Transparency of strategic imperatives and goals * Use of clinical and operational data to pinpoint and track progress * Adherence to evidence-based practices and protocols that ensure consistent implementation across all patients and programs * Standardization of management based on these best practices * Clear accountability for results * Consistent monitoring of those results and data * An organizational belief that status quo is not acceptable ACHIEVING TOP PERFORMANCE Based on extensive research, Caldwell, Butler, and Poston write of the successful techniques of top performers. They found that rarely were all senior leaders in a top-performing organization themselves top-performing leaders. They state, Certainly, the collective competencies of the entire teams determined the direction of each organization's performance, but leadership was not the defining characteristic. Factors such as structure, prioritization, goal setting, use of data, and organizational culture provided a much richer differentiation than leadership alone. While leadership is an important factor, the research heralding the collective competencies of the entire team rings true at Providence Regional Medical Center. Many higher-quality, lower-cost practices are born out of physician and staff innovation - teams of people working together for the good of the patient. For example, one such team developed Providence Regional's Cardiac Single-Stay Unit (CSSU). For more than a decade, Providence Regional has operated an award-winning cardiac program; however, in 2003, a cardiac surgeon and a critical care nurse started asking, Why do we move the cardiac surgery patient from ICU to telemetry to an acute care floor, when it would be best for the patient to stay in one room and the care to move around the patient instead? This innovative, anti-status-quo thinking led Providence Regional to be among the first in the nation to open a cardiac single-stay unit. The traditional model involves more handoffs and an increased risk of infection and complications. The CSSU model keeps the patient in the same room after surgery, with staff and equipment moving in and out as needed, minimizing many of the risks and difficulties. The cardiac single-stay unit was - and remains - a highly successful approach to care. Today, the 15-bed CSSU has routinely scored in the top decile of performance, and length of stay is one day shorter than the national average - which results in reduced costs. Plus, patients experience significantly lower infection rates and readmissions. DIAMONDS IN THE DATA In keeping with the findings by Clark and Caldwell and their colleagues, successes in reducing costs while improving quality are largely attributable to emphasis on effective data mining and use ofthat data to identify opportunities for cost savings, as well as clinical integration initiatives that focus on patients' well-being and measurable quality outcomes. The feature article by Clark, Savitz, and Pingree also challenges past assumptions that more is better. In fact, they write that Intermountain Healthcare's clinical outcomes data suggest that quality can actually be enhanced when some cost drivers are appropriately minimized and standardized within the context of providing value-driven healthcare. …

The relationship and Effect of Belief in Organization on the Workers Desire to Continue Working. An Analytical Study of Opinions of Working Staff at Palestinian Universities

The relationship and Effect of Belief in Organization on the Workers Desire to Continue Working. An Analytical Study of Opinions of Working Staff at Palestinian Universities

The Seven Deadly Sins of Quality Management

We should all know the classic historic seven deadly sins as lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. And if you like Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and gory scary movies, you’ll have seen the movie Seven . But don’t worry; this column is not a rant on morality. Rather, we’re going to look at the common sins made when managing organizations and use laboratory examples to illustrate them. The “Seven Deadly Sins of Quality Management” were introduced some years ago.1 The author described the commonly used taxonomy of classifying and organizing root cause categories as follows: inadequate control of management systems, inadequate training, inadequate use of procedures, inadequate communications, and other problems that are management controllable. Indeed, the root cause analyses of laboratory sentinel events and other quality problems usually point to a weakness in one or more of the 12 Quality System Essentials, which are core quality activities management needs to develop and implement in any medical laboratory. The author suggests that real root causes of nonconforming events are embedded organizational values and beliefs that justify …

Integrating the Semiotic into UML via Enhancing and Cross-validating Use Case with an Enriched Domain Model

Use case models are representation of the way in which users of the system interact with it. The UML specification driven approach to system development enable the use case model to be continuously refined and cross-validated from a number of system viewpoints. However, little has been done for validating the model against the organizational and workgroup setting in which the system will reside. This article aims to address this gap by the use of techniques derived from organizational semiotics for validating use case models against a wider aspect of organizational culture and meaning making at the organizational, workgroup and actor level of abstraction. Such approach will enhance the system development by providing “goodness of fit” between system model and organizational values and beliefs.

Near-Term Liability of Exploitation: Exploration and Exploitation in Multistage Problems

The classic trade-off between exploration and exploitation reflects the tension between gaining new information about alternatives to improve future returns and using the information currently available to improve present returns. By considering these issues in the context of a multistage, as opposed to a repeated, problem environment, we show that exploratory behavior has value quite apart from its role in revising beliefs. We show that even if current beliefs provide an unbiased characterization of the problem environment, maximizing with respect to these beliefs may lead to an inferior expected payoff relative to other mechanisms that make less aggressive use of the organization's beliefs. Search can lead to more robust actions in multistage decision problems than maximization, a benefit quite apart from its role in the updating of beliefs.

Influence of national culture on trans‐national alliance relationships

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse and review whether national culture influences organisational beliefs about and behaviours to trans‐national alliance partners.Design/methodology/approachReviewed extant studies on national culture, organisational culture and business‐to‐business relationship. Using information from the literature review and key informant surveys, a survey instrument comprising of close‐ended questions was developed. The questionnaire was sent to the Chief Executives Officer's of 1,248 organisations identified through systematically selecting every third organisation in the sampling frame. Two weeks later, universal reminders were sent to all 1,248 organisations. The data from 376 fully completed questionnaires returned were analysed through exploratory factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis.FindingsNational culture influences beliefs about and behaviours to trans‐national alliance partners. However, beliefs and behaviours are also influenced by the complex inter‐relationships between relational constructs such as trust, commitment, co‐operation, dependence, communication and compatibility. Often, compatibility is not only influenced by national culture but also by the size, business activity and how the organisation is incorporated.Practical implicationsBeliefs about and behaviours to trans‐national partner organisations are not solely influenced by national culture. It is the outcome of complex and diverse social, political, economic and organisational factors and how these factors influence orientations to issues such as trust, commitment, co‐operation and communication.Originality/valueExplores a hitherto under‐researched theme on trans‐national business alliances, the influence of the national culture of organisations on various relational issues discussed in business‐to‐business relationship studies. The study consolidates knowledge from three streams of literature (national culture, organisational culture and business‐to‐business relationship), often handled as disparate sources of knowledge.

Benefits of religious beliefs for cancer patients: A response to Dawkins and Hitchens

Two brilliantly written and perhaps surprisingly popular books, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens, discuss in great detail the potential dangers associated with organized religions and religious beliefs [1,2]. Both writers have unquestionably—and quite eloquently— expressed a coherent perspective on the role of religion in the daily life of individuals and its disconcerting impact on both history and our current geopolitical environment. In their respective books, these authors forcefully discuss how many individuals—including, apparently, themselves— lack a fundamental requirement for a belief in God in the face of serious health concerns, such as advanced and progressive malignant disease. Unfortunately, however, both authors either fail to appreciate, or have chosen not to acknowledge, the extraordinary importance that a very “personal God” may play in the lives of many individuals forced to deal with these profoundly life-changing situations. In a brief section of his book (page 352) entitled “Consolation,” Professor Dawkins writes [1]:

Determinants of Bahraini managers' acceptance of business process reengineering

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the possible underlying factors that influence managers' intentions towards adopting business process reengineering (BPR) in a less‐developed country (LDC) context, namely Bahrain.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a survey method to elicit opinions from 104 managers from 14 different big Bahraini businesses.FindingsThe results showed that the existence of some organizational capabilities such as “effective project management experiences” and “the ability to build an organizational‐wide need for change” are important requisites to gain positive salient beliefs toward accepting BPR. Moreover, it showed that “managers' cognitive style” and “level of education” had significant influences on their “intentions to adopt BPR approach.” The findings also suggest that other external factors such as “competitive pressures” and “managers' beliefs about BPR” are significant antecedents to BPR perceived ease of use.Research limitations/implicationsConclusions are drawn about BPR experiences in countries such as Bahrain. Those experiences are compared and contrasted with the related prior studies, which are mainly from western countries' practices. Possible future research issues are raised to extend the author understanding of how BPR initiatives are promoted in organizations. However, the sample was limited to one LDC, which limits the possibility of generalizing its findings to all less‐developed countries.Originality/valueThe study provides insights into the required organizational capabilities, circumstances, and/or beliefs that ease promoting BPR initiatives in businesses. Accordingly, possible‐related strategies can be devised to enhance BPR practices in organizations.

The Sociocultural Model of Public Relations/Communications Management Practice: A Critical-Cultural Perspective

Using a critical-cultural perspective, the author proposes a sociocultural model of public relations/communication management practice that posits that the function's primary role is to shape, sustain and transmit organizational culture over time and through space. The model portrays public relations and communications management as fostering culture along four dimensions: personification, socialization, enculturation and adaptation. Through personification the communication practitioner creates a sense of the organization as a “being” and “as being.” With socialization the practitioner contributes to the processes of both integrating new members into the organization and enculturating members in the organization's values and beliefs. And, finally, in the adaptation process practitioners assist in implementing organizational change to manage environmental uncertainty. This model provides professional communication practitioners a deeper understanding of both the strategic significance of their roles in furthering the success of their organizations and insights on how to most effectively influence, sustain and enhance a healthy, dynamic organizational culture.

Cognitive Accuracy and Intelligent Executive Function in the Brain and in Business

This article reviews research on cognition, language, organizational culture, brain, behavior, and evolution to posit the value of operating with a stable reference point based on cognitive accuracy and a rational bias. Drawing on rational-emotive behavioral science, social neuroscience, and cognitive organizational science on the one hand and a general model of brain and frontal lobe executive function on the other, I suggest implications for organizational success. Cognitive thought processes depend on specific brain structures functioning as effectively as possible under conditions of cognitive accuracy. However, typical cognitive processes in hierarchical business structures promote the adoption and application of subjective organizational beliefs and, thus, cognitive inaccuracies. Applying informed frontal lobe executive functioning to cognition, emotion, and organizational behavior helps minimize the negative effects of indiscriminate application of personal and cultural belief systems to business. Doing so enhances cognitive accuracy and improves communication and cooperation. Organizations operating with cognitive accuracy will tend to respond more nimbly to market pressures and achieve an overall higher level of performance and employee satisfaction.

Federal Administrative and Judicial Oversight of Medicaid: Policy Legacies and Tandem Institutions under the Boren Amendment

Because of the active role assumed by the courts in Medicaid nursing facility reimbursement, and because that role changed over time, federal intervention in this area provides a useful window through which to examine the role of the federal judiciary in oversight of state health policy making. Findings support the proposition that because judicial influence extends beyond program outcomes to include the organizational structure and beliefs of key stakeholder groups, the effects of case decisions, and the statutes under which they are litigation, may be deeper and longer lasting than their usefulness as a litigation tool. Findings also support the proposition that neither the executive nor the judiciary acts in isolation but instead they serve as tandem institutions guiding federal oversight of state policy making. Data for this analysis derive from archival documents, secondary sources, and 101 in-depth interviews.