Senior Management Changes Research Articles

Evaluation of implementation strategies of the Best Practices Spotlight Organisations (BPSO) Project in Spain.

To identify favourable elements and barriers to implementation in the Program of Best Practice Spotlight Organization® that establish clinical practice guidelines of the Registered Nurse' Association of Ontario, so that future experiences could benefit from the assessments presented here. Evaluation research study of the process of implementing guidelines in institutions that make up the first two cohorts of the programme in Spain, through analysis of contents of implantation reports and inductive process, reading, interpretation, coding and categorized according to SWOT structure: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Reports from 18 centres in 12 Autonomous Communities have been analyzed, including 22 different guidelines. As weaknesses, problems related to information systems and their exploitation stand out for frequency and intensity. Other elements related to dissemination of results, to professionals, care and factors related to the institution are presented. Standing out as threats are the instability of staff and continued changes in Senior Management or corporate policies. Among the strengths, the exclusive dedication of personnel to the project and its link to institutional objectives are distinguished. As opportunities, the possibility of standardized comparison of own results with others, as well as the dissemination of results are highlighted. A useful pattern is set up to approach implementation in other scenarios, where changes in professional culture, training, communication and leadership, as well as aligning interests of managers and politicians, facilitate ideal conditions for Evidence-Based Practice.

Evaluation of implementation strategies of the Best Practices Spotlight Organisations (BPSO) Project in Spain

ObjectiveTo identify favourable elements and barriers to implementation in the Programme of Best Practice Spotlight Organization® that establish clinical practice guidelines of the Registered Nurse’ Association of Ontario, so that future experiences could benefit from the assessments presented here. MethodEvaluation research study of the process of implementing guidelines in institutions that make up the first two cohorts of the programme in Spain, through analysis of contents of implantation reports and inductive process, reading, interpretation, coding and categorized according to SWOT structure: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. ResultsReports from 18 centres in 12 Autonomous Communities have been analyzed, including 22 different guidelines. As weaknesses, problems related to information systems and their exploitation stand out for frequency and intensity. Other elements related to dissemination of results, to professionals, care and factors related to the institution are presented. Standing out as threats are the instability of staff and continued changes in Senior Management or corporate policies. Among the strengths, the exclusive dedication of personnel to the project and its link to institutional objectives are distinguished. As opportunities, the possibility of standardized comparison of own results with others, as well as the dissemination of results are highlighted. ConclusionA useful pattern is set up to approach implementation in other scenarios, where changes in professional culture, training, communication and leadership, as well as aligning interests of managers and politicians, facilitate ideal conditions for evidence-based practice.

Assessing the risk of hospital information system implementation using IVIF FMEA approach

ABSTRACT At present, healthcare industry in general and hospitals in particular are in need of automated information systems to capture, document, store, manage, and transfer large amounts of information related to the health of individuals as well as the wide array of business and organizational activities that take place in the health sector. Despite of many benefits of implementing HIS which is a costly implementation, the HIS project, however, sometimes fails. The importance of the HIS failure and the preventive methods in this regard has made the researchers examine the failure factors of the IS. In the current study, the FMEA technique was used in an Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy environment to evaluate the HIS failure causes. The results of the proposed approach indicated that six factors are of paramount importance in HIS failure causes: non-commitment of senior management, lack of project maintenance budget, senior management change, non-commitment (accountability) of users, inconsistency between company culture and change requirements (compatibility), and improper software development.

Goodwill impairment tests as a device for earnings management: Evidence from Germany

This study investigates whether goodwill impairments are influenced by earnings management incentives. It is motivated by the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) post-implementation review on business combinations, the ongoing debate on the reliability of impairment testing, and the high practical relevance of this topic. The sample consists of 2,127 firm-year observations from German listed firms for the periods 2006 to 2013. The results show that the likelihood to recognize goodwill impairments and the magnitude of impairment losses are not only determined by economic and other relevant factors but also influenced by earnings management incentives like beating an earnings target, conservative smoothing, big bath accounting, changes in senior management, and the firms’ general earnings management behavior. Hence, goodwill impairment tests seem to be used by management as a device for earnings management. The results do not change over time, i.e., between the period before, during, and after the financial crisis.

Perceived Effective Business Ethics through Leadership and Cultural Competence in the United States

The paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue perceived effective policing through leaderships’ diversity training learning outcomes and cultural competence. The main purpose of this quantitative correlational study was conducted to address if and to what extent the leadership of law enforcement agencies is learning outcomes of diversity training initiatives and the level of cultural competence of leadership influences law enforcement organizational effectiveness. Systematization of literary sources and approaches for solving the problem of effective policing leadership indicates that this quantitative research study expands police leadership knowledge base by identifying whether significant differences exist in police effectiveness when incorporating diversity training initiative learning outcomes and cultural competence both exclusively and collectively. The relevance of the decision of this scientific problem is that police leadership possessing the knowledge and understanding police effectiveness through diversity training initiative learning outcomes and cultural competence can adapt and adjust in concert with the need to be more effective in Black and multicultural commutes based on the study’s findings. The statistical significance indicated in this study concerning diversity training initiative learning outcomes predicting police effectiveness is substantial. The paper presents the results of this empirical analysis study that may contribute to the positive national senior management change by bringing into focus the role of effective policing through leaderships’ diversity training learning outcomes and cultural competence and its positive impact on the public sector. Keywords: Cultural Competence, Diversity Training, Management Effectiveness, Multicultural Leadership, Management Decision, Business Ethics.

Perceived Effective Business Ethics through Leadership and Cultural Competence in the United States

The paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue perceived effective policing through leaderships’ diversity training learning outcomes and cultural competence. The main purpose of this quantitative correlational study was conducted to address if and to what extent the leadership of law enforcement agencies is learning outcomes of diversity training initiatives and the level of cultural competence of leadership influences law enforcement organizational effectiveness. Systematization of literary sources and approaches for solving the problem of effective policing leadership indicates that this quantitative research study expands police leadership knowledge base by identifying whether significant differences exist in police effectiveness when incorporating diversity training initiative learning outcomes and cultural competence both exclusively and collectively. The relevance of the decision of this scientific problem is that police leadership possessing the knowledge and understanding police effectiveness through diversity training initiative learning outcomes and cultural competence can adapt and adjust in concert with the need to be more effective in Black and multicultural commutes based on the study’s findings. The statistical significance indicated in this study concerning diversity training initiative learning outcomes predicting police effectiveness is substantial. The paper presents the results of this empirical analysis study that may contribute to the positive national senior management change by bringing into focus the role of effective policing through leaderships’ diversity training learning outcomes and cultural competence and its positive impact on the public sector. Keywords: Cultural Competence, Diversity Training, Management Effectiveness, Multicultural Leadership, Management Decision, Business Ethics.

Banks’ Hidden Negative Capital Before and After the Senior Management Change at the Bank of Russia

What was the size of hidden negative capital (HNC) in the Russian banking system before the Bank of Russia's senior management changed? Has the financial regulator's new, tougher, supervision policy launched in mid-2013 been productive in dealing with problems accumulated over recent years? This study attempts to provide first answers to these questions using Heckman selection models and solving a possible regulator's optimization problem using the data on Russian banks over the period from December 2009 to May 2017. The study results suggest that before the change of the Bank of Russia's senior management in mid-2013, the average level of HNC at banks operating in Russia was very high: 14% of the banking system's total assets on each specific date, and fairly permanent in time. But as early as half a year after the Bank of Russia's senior management changed, the overall size of HNC started contracting rapidly, coming close to to 4% by mid-2016. In the last 12 months of the time span under study the level of the HNC stabilized at 4%. These estimates point to the high effectiveness of the new senior management's supervision policy. The policy has produced a strong indirect positive effect: large part of fragile banks have started addressing their problems without waiting for the Central Bank's intervention. The effectiveness of the Bank of Russia's new policy cannot be attributed to other factors such as macroeconomic stabilization or improvement and/or rising profitability or bank operartions. Rather, when supervision policy was stepped up, these other factors were acting in the opposite direction.

The use of technology-structured management controls: changes in senior management’s decision-making behaviours

This paper looks at the perceived behavioural changes in senior management as a result of embracing information technology to enact and enforce management controls. A case study approach was used to explain the association between individuals and technology-structured management controls. Data were collected through observations, interviews and document analysis. The information technology helped senior management learn more about the inner operations and issues faced by other divisions in producing potential new products. Senior management had intended to use the information technology to control their subordinates and influence the new product development work being performed. However, they received more than that. Not only did the information technology allow senior management to monitor their subordinates, but the chief executive officer, who was removed from the formal decision process, was inadvertently able to quietly watch them. They were also opened up to more scrutiny by their peers and subordinates. Interestingly, the open transparency did not create fears steering senior management to make pretentious claims when assessing ideas, or use destructive language when critiquing each other. It actually created peer pressure among them and made them more circumspect. An objective, fair, respectful, collaborative, and harmonious decision-making environment was thus formed. As an electronic colleague, the information technology coached them towards what aspects to consider, facilitated fair participation from them, reminded them of the financial returns, spoke for those who would otherwise shy away, publicised to all involved what was being said and by whom, and tracked the completion progress of all designated tasks.

Asset write-offs discretion and accruals management in Taiwan: the role of corporate governance

Using a sample of Taiwan’s public firms, this paper examines whether managers use discretionary write-offs and abnormal accruals jointly to reach earnings targets and how corporate governance mechanisms react to such opportunistic behavior. We develop a set of simultaneous equations that capture executives’ incentives to manage earnings through write-offs and accrual management. These incentives include the existence and tightness of accounting-based covenants, “big bath,” income smoothing, and changes in senior management. The empirical results show that firms with larger discretionary write-offs also have lower discretionary accruals. In addition, we find that these earnings management tools are endogenous, suggesting that discretionary write-offs and discretionary accruals are partial complements for earnings manipulation and that their magnitudes are determined jointly. These findings contrast sharply with the tenor of discussion in the U.S. literature concerning the potential for using asset write-offs and discretionary accruals to manipulate earnings, which documents that managers use their discretion over accruals to signal economic realities rather than to obfuscate. Moreover, the results reveal that the empirical association between discretionary write-offs and abnormal accruals is more pronounced in weakly governed firms, suggesting that a strong governance setting is likely to constrain management’s discretionary behavior. The above implications are robust to a number of alternative specifications and variables definitions.

JAPANESE INDUSTRY Leadership changes at profitable Shin-Etsu Chemical

Shin-Etsu Chemical, Japan’s most profitable chemical company, will get a new president after Chihiro Kanagawa, its leader for the past two decades, moves on to become chairman, a position that has been vacant for at least 15 years. Kanagawa will be succeeded by Shunzo Mori, who is currently executive vice president in charge of human resources and general administration. Mori, 72, joined Shin-Etsu in 1963, one year after Kanagawa, who is now 84. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Mori managed a Japanese rare-earth compound and silicone plant in the early 1990s. After that, he headed the company’s electronic materials business for several years. Shin-Etsu did not provide a reason for the senior management change but emphasized that it plans no major rethink of how the company is run. The firm is the world’s largest producer of both polyvinyl chloride resins and silicon wafers, two businesses in which it intends to maintain its global dominance. ...

Health System Managerial Staffing Patterns: Public Sector Experience From Pakistan

Poor human resource management and frequent changes in senior management has been associated with low levels of performance in the social sector in less developed countries. A study of administrative data on transfer and posting was conducted on the 54 top provincial offices in the government of Sindh Department of Health over the period of 24 years (1981-2004). There were 689 transfers/postings made in the 54 key offices studied over the 24 year time period. Almost half (48.9%) of these postings lasted no longer than 1 year. The offices affected highest were tertiary/district care hospitals (54 times) and district health offices (37 times) respectively. High rate of frequent transfers/postings documented in the study among high level public health care delivery system managers in Sindh, Pakistan. Human resource policy in government bureaucracies should be developed to stabilize professional positions and improve the performance of the health care delivery system.

An Examination of SFAS No. 144: The Likelihood of Asset Impairment Recognition, Write-Off Characteristics, and Market Reaction

This paper adds to the growing body of literature on managers' discretionary accounting choices in general by specifically studying several issues related to the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 144, Accounting for the Impairment or Disposal of Long-Lived Assets. Our investigation starts by exploring the factors affecting the decision to take an SFAS No. 144 write-off and the percentage of the assets that is actually written off. The empirical results reveal that, after controlling for the effects of firms' economic conditions and changes in those economic conditions, write-off firms appear to be acting in a manner consistent with the big bath behavior and smoothing incentive. We also find that firms with a senior management change are more likely to accelerate write-offs. To examine the extent to which our write-off likelihood model that incorporates both economic factors and reporting incentives mirrors the market's assessment of long-lived assets, we study the association between the market reaction to write-off announcements and the probability of a write-off produced by our model. The results provide support for the notion that our write-off prediction model proxies for the unobservable market expectations. The findings also reveal a negative stock price response to unpredicted asset write-offs. The above implications are robust to a number of alternative specifications and variables definitions.

Measuring goodwill trust between groups of people: three years of an oil industry alliance

Abstract The period from 1993 to 1998 saw the UK's upstream oil and gas industry move towards more collaborative relationships (partnering and alliances) between the oil companies and their contractors. This paper is derived from observation over three years of an alliance between an oil company and five of its contractors involved in underwater projects. The paper uses concepts of ‘goodwill trust’ and ‘obligational contractual relationships’ which have been introduced by Sako. The ideals of obligational contractual relationships are very similar to those of the collaborative relationships between companies in the UK upstream oil and gas industry in the 1990s. Attitude surveys of members of the alliance in three consecutive years attempted to estimate the levels of goodwill trust between the people and companies in it. It would be expected that trust levels within an alliance would rise over time as people gain experience of working with each other. Analysis of the results from the survey did show an overall increase in goodwill trust over the period but also showed some company pairs where trust levels remained low. The paper speculates that the reasons for reduced levels of trust could include: the experiences inherited from previous relationships, project successes or failures affecting the way people felt about each other, perceived lack of fairness in allocation of risks and rewards, and changes in senior management. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Senior management changes

Senior management changes

Earnings and Impression Management in Financial Reports: The Case of CEO Changes

This article examines earnings management, as well as the presentational format of graphs (impression management) in the financial reports of sixty‐three Australian listed public companies that changed chief executive officers (CEOs). Prior U.S. evidence generally suggests downward earnings management in the year of senior management changes and upward earnings management in the following year (Pourciau, 1993). We argue that new managers not only have incentives to manage earnings but also have similar incentives to manipulate the impressions created by graphs in financial reports. Examining earnings and impression management at the same time also provides an opportunity to distinguish between alternative explanations for any observed earnings management. In the year of CEO change, we hypothesize and find evidence of downward earnings management and some limited evidence of unfavourable impression management of the key financial variables (KFVs) graphed. As posited, we find evidence of upward earnings management and some evidence of favourable impression management in the year after a CEO change. These results are strongest for the subsample in which the CEO change was prompted by a resignation rather than a retirement.

Senior management changes

Senior management changes

Earnings and Impression Management in Financial Reports: The Case of CEO Changes

This article examines earnings management, as well as the presentational format of graphs (impression management) in the financial reports of sixty-three Australian listed public companies that changed chief executive officers (CEOs). Prior U.S. evidence generally suggests downward earnings management in the year of senior management changes and upward earnings management in the following year (Pourciau, 1993). We argue that new managers not only have incentives to manage earnings but also have similar incentives to manipulate the impressions created by graphs in financial reports. Examining earnings and impression management at the same time also provides an opportunity to distinguish between alternative explanations for any observed earnings management. In the year of CEO change, we hypothesize and find evidence of downward earnings management and some limited evidence of unfavourable impression management of the key financial variables (KFVs) graphed. As posited, we find evidence of upward earnings management and some evidence of favourable impression management in the year after a CEO change. These results are strongest for the subsample in which the CEO change was prompted by a resignation rather than a retirement.

An analysis of factors influencing asset writedowns

This study investigates the magnitude of total asset writedowns for a random sample of Australian industrial companies. We adopt an income strategy approach in operationalising our magnitude of writedowns construct to consider the set of accounting policies and negative accruals potentially available to managers. Our focus is on the incentives for and constraints on management to make asset writedowns. We find that the magnitude of writedowns observed are associated with managers’ incentives to writedown impaired assets that have declined in value, as well as the firm's capacity to absorb the financial statement effects of the writedown. The number of senior management changes found to be associated with greater writedowns in prior studies is also supported in this study when only writedowns taken to the income statement are considered. The quality of corporate governance mechanisms does not vary systematically with the magnitude of writedowns.

People

Three senior management changes have taken place in the Coates Group.