Organizational Choices Research Articles

Costs to Implement a Pediatric Weight Management Program Across 3 Distinct Contexts.

The Connect for Health program is an evidence-based program that aligns with national recommendations for pediatric weight management and includes clinical decision support, educational handouts, and community resources. As implementation costs are a major driver of program adoption and maintenance decisions, we assessed the costs to implement the Connect for Health program across 3 health systems that primarily serve low-income communities with a high prevalence of childhood obesity. We used time-driven activity-based costing methods. Each health system (site) developed a process map and a detailed report of all implementation actions taken, aligned with major implementation requirements (eg, electronic health record integration) or strategies (eg, providing clinician training). For each action, sites identified the personnel involved and estimated the time they spent, allowing us to estimate the total costs of implementation and breakdown costs by major implementation activities. Process maps indicated that the program integrated easily into well-child visits. Overall implementation costs ranged from $77,103 (Prisma Health) to $84,954 (Denver Health) to $142,721 (Massachusetts General Hospital). Across implementation activities, setting up the technological aspects of the program was a major driver of costs. Other cost drivers included training, engaging stakeholders, and audit and feedback activities, though there was variability across systems based on organizational context and implementation choices. Our work highlights the major cost drivers of implementing the Connect for Health program. Accounting for context-specific considerations when assessing the costs of implementation is crucial, especially to facilitate accurate projections of implementation costs in future settings.

Not a black or white issue: choosing alternative organizational models for delivering early childhood services

ABSTRACT This article investigates how municipalities choose their organizational arrangements for delivering early childhood services and the interplay among the regional framework, local legacies, and agency factors influencing these choices. We answered these questions through a mix-method approach and a comparative analysis of four European regions in the same country (Italy). Our data shows that a variety of hybrid organizational models for service delivery is possible, and the fundamental role played by the regional framework in affecting organizational choices – with local factors such as legacy and agency compensating in the event of its absence.

SecureLog: Open-Source Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Solution for Enhanced Threat Detection and Incident Response

Purpose of the study: As organizations face increasingly sophisticated and persistent cyber threats, the need for robust Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions becomes paramount. This paper presents "SecureLog," an open-source SIEM solution designed to enhance threat detection and incident response capabilities.
 Methodology: This paper explores the architecture and components of SecureLog, detailing its data collection and log management capabilities. It examines the threat detection algorithms employed, emphasizing real-time event correlation and alerting mechanisms. The paper addresses the scalability and performance considerations associated with deploying SecureLog in large-scale environments.
 Main Findings: The findings highlight the benefits of using fuzzy logic in cyber threat intelligence and pave the way for further research and development in this promising field. The future prospects and challenges of integrating fuzzy logic with other advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.
 Applications of this study: SecureLog emerges as a valuable open-source SIEM solution, empowering organizations with enhanced threat detection and incident response capabilities. With its feature-rich architecture and active community support, SecureLog proves to be a reliable choice for organizations seeking to fortify their cybersecurity defences.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: The paper also includes practical use cases and case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of SecureLog in enhancing threat detection and incident response. Security and compliance considerations, including data privacy and regulatory compliance, are examined, along with recommendations for securing the SecureLog deployment.

Global banking and the international transmission of shocks: A quantitative analysis

Regulatory reforms typically follow financial crises. We propose a model of global banking that can be used proactively to study alternative regulatory policies. The model mimics the US regulatory framework and highlights the organizational choices that banks face when entering a foreign market: branching versus subsidiarization. The model is able to replicate the response of the US banking sector to the European sovereign debt crisis. Counterfactual analysis suggests that pervasive subsidiarization, higher capital requirements, or an ad hoc monetary policy intervention would have avoided entirely the negative effects of the sovereign debt crisis on US lending. However, the same measures would have had limited effects in more severe scenarios.

Determinants of farmers’ organizational structural choices in Uganda

Determinants of farmers’ organizational structural choices in Uganda

Some aspects of ensuring patients' rights and accessibility of medical care in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Estonia

The article devoted to ensuring the rights of patients and the availability of medical care in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Estonia notes the experience of creating an institute of independent ombudsmen who plays an important role in this issue. Basically, in these countries, the choice of a medical organization and a doctor is possible, and in Belgium the right to choose an insurance organization is granted. Patients in these countries are given the right to control the process of providing them with medical care, including its payment and joint decision-making with the doctor on treatment tactics. The State also ensures the patient's right to receive preventive and restorative services provided to children free of charge, and compensated for adults in 80% of cases. It is impossible not to recognize the high percentage of citizens of these countries, reaching 98%, satisfied with the medical services provided to them. However, in some countries there is an imbalance in the availability of medical care, which is expressed by high availability of family doctor services and low availability of specialist services, as in Estonia. Nevertheless, this does not cause an increase in the level of corruption in the medical spheres of these countries, which is below the European average. According to the totality of indicators of the availability of medical care, Germany is the leader among the analyzed countries.

Comparing the responses of countries and National Health Systems to the COVID-19 pandemic: a critical analysis with a case-report series.

This review aimed to compare the different responses of countries to the pandemic, their National Health Systems, and their impact on citizens' health. This work aimed to create a narrative plot that connects different discussion points and suggests organizational solutions and strategic choices in the face of the pandemic. In particular, this work focused on public health organizations, specifically the European Union and vaccination politics. It is also based on a case report series (about the United States, Germany, Vietnam, New Zealand, Cuba, and Italy), where each country has responded differently to the pandemic in terms of political decisions such as vaccination type, information to citizens, dealings with independent experts, and other specific country factors. In comparing the various models of care systems response to the pandemic, it emerges that: we have found some (few) good practices, but without global coordination, and this is obviously not enough. It is now quite clear that there cannot be a "good answer" in a single nation. Uncoordinated local responses cannot counter a global phenomenon. The second point is that the general context must be considered from a strategic point of view. With the threat of new pandemics (but also of health disasters linked to climate change, pollution, and wars), humanity finds itself at the crossroads between investing in a "democratic" management of international bodies but without power (and at the mercy of the need for funds with consequent conflicts) or in some new leadership proposals that advocate efficiency and problem-solving (and that would probably be able to implement it) but that would place processes totally outside of the public's control.

“If We Don’t Take the Risk, Who Else Would?” Self-perceptions of Foundations that Financially Support Journalism

ABSTRACT This study adds to the existing literature on atypical newswork and foundation funding in journalism by exploring considerations and organizational choices foundations make when interacting with journalists in a Western-European context. The study relies on 18 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with representatives of Dutch-based foundations that support journalistic production processes on local, and/or national and international level. Using a combination of the strengths of Howard Becker’s notion of art “worlds” and Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory as theoretical scope, the interview data suggests that in their everyday practices, foundations perceive and navigate three key tensions: (1) between the allocation of grants to journalists and the precarity of (atypical) working conditions many journalists face, (2) between ideological notions of what good journalism “should be about” and the everyday realities of journalism production, and (3) between the powerful position of foundations within the world of journalism and the autonomy of journalists. The organizational choices made by foundations when confronted with these tensions highlight how and to what extent journalistic production processes are both enabled and constrained.

Shifting incentives: the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on S bank conversions

PurposeThis paper investigates the significant increase in S corporation banks converting to C corporations following the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and the shift in motivations behind these conversions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses bank-level panel data from Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Call Reports to analyze the determinants of S bank conversions after the TCJA, comparing post-TCJA conversion trends with pre-TCJA trends utilizing an ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistics model.FindingsThe study finds that post-TCJA conversions are primarily driven by financially stable banks seeking improved tax conditions and relaxed shareholder restrictions as C corporations. This contrasts with pre-TCJA conversions, which were predominantly driven by financially distressed S corporation banks seeking new equity capital to maintain solvency.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings necessitate a comprehensive reconsideration of the Subchapter S status' sustained relevance for smaller institutions, especially in light of the comparative benefits now offered by the C corporation status post-TCJA. The results underscore the importance of ongoing academic investigation to deepen the understanding of the evolving fiscal landscape's effects on community banks, thereby contributing to the knowledge of the resilience and health of the US economy.Practical implicationsThis research nudges policymakers and regulators to contemplate the ongoing relevance and advantages of the S corporation status. Given the substantial benefits conferred by the C corporation status in the post-TCJA environment, this study suggests that retaining the S corporation status may not offer the same appeal for smaller community banks as it once did.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the broader understanding of the impact of tax policy on businesses' organizational choices, particularly in the banking industry and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive review of the S corporation status to assess its ongoing applicability in fostering small and community-focused financial institutions in light of the evolved corporate tax landscape.

A possible dialogue between Accessibility and Assessment in university context. Considerations from a case study

The subject of this paper is Assessment in university contexts and aims to establish a possible dialogue between the assessment of student learning and Accessibility. The aim is to offer a reflection starting from a case study, which has tried to examine the assessment processes from the point of view of cultures (the values and meanings associated with the process), of policies (the strategic and organizational choices) and practices (tools, procedures used). The new element is represented by the specific lens that has been chosen to adopt in reading the results of the research: that of accessibility. In university contexts it becomes important to give value to a construct like this, which arises from the philosophy of Universal Design, and which reveals opportunities for rethinking and improvement starting from questions such as: is it possible to think of an assessment process that promotes accessibility for everyone? How to design a universal assessment process? The research tools used in the study are the analysis of documents (60 documents), questionnaires (156 teachers and 380 students) and Focus Groups (16 students).

Enhancing Writing Skills of Senior High School’s Humanities and Social Sciences Students Through Online Blogging

Online blogging is the act of creating and maintaining content such as ideas, opinions, essays, images, videos, etc. for a blog that is personally uploaded and shared to a website. In education, it is viewed as a novel and innovative teaching strategy to use for augmenting the writing skills of the students. To ascertain such contention, this study explores the effectiveness of online blogging in enhancing the writing skills of Senior High School’ Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students. The researcher employed quasi-experimental research design to examine the effectiveness of online blogging as compared to traditional writing. Grade 11 HUMSS students of Balite National High School (n=13 for experimental group, and n=13 for control group) for the 2nd semester of school year 2021-2022, comprised the respondents for this study.To collect the data, the researcher used an Assessment Writing Test in essay form as an instrument. There was a pre-test that was held before the researcher gave treatment to the experimental class and a post-test, which was held afterward. To make the data analysis, the researcher analyzed the data by using mean and independent t-test. The findings indicated that there was significant difference in the level of writing competencies as to focus and details, voice, and grammar and mechanics of the students but in other writing competencies such as organization and word choice there wasno significant difference in their pretest and posttest performance. Generally, the integration of online blogging was found better and more effective than the traditional method. Results suggested that the participants have positive perception and attitude towards online blogging, viewed this as a tool in improving their writing skills, and kept them motivated. Finally, this study recommends that online blogging should be part of the writing classes and be incorporated in lesson planning and designing curricula in senior high school.

Sustainability Reporting Practices in Bangladesh: Insights from Upper Echelons Theory

The objective of this paper is to explore and understand how the top management team (TMT)'s, namely the CEO/ MD/ Board of Directors (BOD) and Executive Committee Members, observable attributes and cognitive traits influence the strategic choices, such as adopting the Sustainability Reporting (SR) practices in the organization. This qualitative study conducts 12 semi-structured in-depth interviews with the Top Management Team, including CEOs of publicly listed companies from different industries in Bangladesh. Using the Upper Echelons theory, the author provides an alternative theoretical lens to the motivations of SR practices in Bangladesh. There has been a number of studies on the relationship between CEO attributes and strategic decisions in management literature, primarily in the developed country context. However, the influence of CEO and TMT traits on strategic choices like SR practices in emerging countries is scant. The overall analysis reveals that cognitive bases like values and beliefs, philosophies, and vision of the top management team (TMT), as well as the observable traits like education and background, career track, functional and financial expertise, international exposure or orientation, views, and understanding of the SDGs and their disclosure influence the strategic choice of organizations like the adoption of SR practices. Demographic traits largely shape the values, views, and attitudes of the top management (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), which help them develop or change their perceptions and eventually influence their strategic choice. This paper contributes to sustainability reporting literature by providing an insight into how the top management characteristics shape the SR practices in an emerging economy like Bangladesh.

Environmental ethics beyond conferences: A response to the WCB bioethics in Qatar.

Rieke van der Graaf, Karin Jongsma, Martine de Vries, Suzanne van de Vathorst, and Ineke Bolt have done well to voice ethical concerns over the decision of the IAB to host the next WCB in Qatar. Conferences should be more sustainable. Yet, attention to the carbon impact of conferences-and, perhaps, any country that a person might travel to for business or pleasure-are only one small part of environmentally responsible citizenship, especially for those trained in ethics and committed to health. Both bioethics as a discipline and bioethicists as individuals need to interrogate their environmental choices. To this end, some ecological choices are more obvious targets of ethical scrutiny-diet and travel-while others appear sacrosanct, like reproduction and even healthcare use. This underscores the importance of making sustainable and ethical organizational choices, such as where to hold a conference, without absolving environmental accountability in other ethical calculations. Many organizations in academic and clinical medicine need to make drastic alterations in their practices and policies to effectively mitigate carbon. While the burden is not only on bioethics alone, the expectation that it should be remains.

Organizational mode choices of multinational banks abroad

We investigate the determinants of organizational modes adopted by multinational banks abroad using a unique database of 98 parent banks and their organizational modes in 169 countries from 2005 to 2015. Our findings reveal that multinational banks operate in various organizational modes abroad, including multiple modes in a single host country; however, subsidiaries are the dominant mode of operation, followed by branches and simultaneously operating branches and subsidiaries in the host country. Furthermore, the characteristics of multinational banks play a significant role in determining their organizational decisions in a host country. Our results indicate that less profitable banks are less likely to open representative offices and are more likely to have branches. In contrast, multinational banks with high asset growth are more likely to operate a representative office abroad and less likely to open a subsidiary. These findings suggest that parent bank profitability and asset growth are important considerations when determining the optimal organizational mode of foreign expansion. Furthermore, country characteristics (particularly openness to economic and capital flows, institutional framework, and geographical and cultural distance) between host and home countries also influence foreign bank operations in a given host country.

Co-creating organizational welfare through action-research: Insights from the case of a social cooperative

Based on co-creation theory, the value of any human resource (HR) practice is defined by any stakeholder who uses it; hence, to maximize its value, HR practices should be co-created by HR and users. However, when it comes to organizational welfare, in most of the cases, decision-makers rely on standardized processes and workers are involved mainly in terms of needs-analysis through standardized tools resulting in less incisive choices and policies. The current work takes on the challenge to apply action-research (AR) in the field of organizational welfare and show how AR can be used as a valuable methodological approach to sustain the co-creation of more relevant organizational welfare choices. We worked in collaboration with an Italian social cooperative with the purpose to adjust its representations and practices around organizational welfare through organizational actors’ participation. Results showed that AR allowed a complex welfare picture to be built, supporting awareness around several priorities from the bottom that would have otherwise remained invisible: the need to define an operational direction and the identification of a dedicated role to coordinate the process; development of a context-based welfare-need questionnaire. Our findings support the contribution of AR to the co-creation process of more effective HR practices.

Byte Academy-Coder Hub

Abstract: This research paper proposes a programming learning system called Byte Academy-Coder Hub to help solve educational quizzes. Byte Academy is a coder hub that provides training, mentoring, and community support to aspiring developers to help them launch their careers in the tech industry. This paper presents an online Q&A solution that uses NET and a database to provide users with an easy and efficient way to get answers to their questions. The system is designed to appeal to a wide range of users, from students to professionals, by providing an intuitive and user-friendly interface. In addition, the system will include a chatbot to enhance user interaction and user experience. The suggested solution will be flexible, scalable, and simple to manage, making it the perfect choice for companies and organisations across a range of industries. This study examines Byte Academy's attributes and advantages as well as how it affects the software development sector. The program's curriculum, instructional techniques, and results are all examined in this essay, along with the graduate-accessible resources and the program's community. The report also compares Byte Academy to other Coder Hubs available on the market and evaluates their shortcomings.

Coopetition and technology licensing partner selection

Technology licensing involves the simultaneous competition and collaboration between the partnering organizations (“coopetition”). This paper investigates resource-based, market-based, and imitation-based motives in technology licensing partner selection. Using the theoretical foundations of these diverse motives, we identify drivers related to whether firms license-in technologies from science-based organizations (i.e., universities, government, and research institutes) and competitors. Using 307 patent licenses, we found that technological similarity has differing impacts on the choice of science-based organizations and competitors. Our results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between technological similarity and choice of competitors, while a U-shaped relationship exists between technological similarity and choice of science-based organizations. We also find that when there are a large number of product-market entries, firms tend to license technologies from competitors. These results confirm that the drivers of technology licensing partner selection vary depending on firms' diverse motivations.

International taxation and the organizational form of foreign direct investment

We investigate the relation between international taxation and the organizational form of foreign direct investment (FDI). Using micro-level data on inbound FDI relations in Germany, we find that a higher tax burden on income earned in a corporate subsidiary increases the probability that a multinational corporation (MNC) conducts foreign investment through a non-corporate flow-through. This effect is economically meaningful and varies with the relative importance of tax-motivated income shifting, a subsidiary’s non-tax benefits of limited liability and legal independence, and an MNC’s local knowledge. Moreover, we examine potential real effects of organizational form choices and document that affiliates established as flow-throughs exhibit a lower loss propensity and are less profitable than affiliates established as subsidiaries. Taken together, our findings inform policy makers about the potential response of MNCs to tax-law changes and suggest that the chosen organizational form can shape the future characteristics of investments abroad.

Portfolio management: A new direction in public sector strategic management research and practice

AbstractPortfolio management is widely used by large government agencies and nonprofits, but it is rarely discussed in public administration scholarship. Portfolio management tools can illuminate groups of projects that should be considered as priority investments by highlighting the relationship of risk to outcomes. This article explores historical and theoretical reasons for the neglect of portfolio management, and then proposes using portfolio management to update a classic strategic management framework to guide organizational choices in public administration. Though portfolio management ideas originated in the private sector, public sector portfolio management differs from its private sector counterpart by trading off risk with public value or mission outcomes rather than financial outcomes. Portfolio management is a tool to incorporate risk to mission in investment decisions. It holds promise for adding an intermediate‐level implementation tool to develop theories of public value. The paper concludes with hypotheses for future investigation.

Diversification's legitimation challenges: ASEAN and its Myanmar predicament

Abstract International organizations (IOs) confront complex legitimation challenges with the diversification of audiences and actors asserting judgment and input. Drawing on Lenz and Söderbaum's agents-audience-environment (AAE) conceptualization of legitimation strategies, this discussion advances understandings of how diversification affects IO legitimation and legitimation strategies. Particular attention is given to their special sensitivity to internal IO diversification processes whose constitutive changes affect both the agent and audience ends of strategy. It especially highlights three commonly found sources of internal IO diversification: domestic change, new membership and new purposes. Providing illustration is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its 30+ year-long efforts to defend and legitimate the organization's choices vis-à-vis its most internationally criticized member, Myanmar, and to manage the delegitimating effects of association. The discussion highlights three periods of contrasting internal diversification and effects on ASEAN's legitimation strategies: the first characterized by the least diversification and defiant affirmation of internal founding norms; the second by membership-, purpose- and audience-diversification, and strategies of reconciliation; and the third by diversification's accentuation of member-states' dual roles as agents and audiences of legitimation with growing reliance on informal workarounds, strategic ambiguation and defensive depoliticization as especially illustrated by ASEAN's responses to Myanmar's 2021 coup.