Leadership in Challenging Times: Managing Hospitals in the Transitional Countries of Southeast Europe
-- Faris Gavrankapetanović, Bojan Šošić and Stephanie Jones
Managing healthcare, especially in transitional countries, is challenging. The first-named author was Managing Director of a leading Clinical Center in Sarajevo, facing the need for institutional and structural reform after the 1992-1995 war. Economic and sociopolitical transition has to also take into account major changes in the health of the population, linked to war, migration and overall demographic change. A different kind of leadership was needed in the context of falling industrial production, lack of investment, exclusion from global business, unemployment, poverty, corruption, dislocation of the infrastructure and catastrophic ecological conditions. Although the adjustment procedure has started, especially for the planned accession to European Union membership, the countries in the Balkans are lagging behind. In the context of hospitals, leaders and managers face a long-term uncontrolled increase in health protection expenditure, which has resulted in an increase of overall healthcare costs, with new pressures from the market economy. Accordingly, these countries have started comprehensive and deep reforms of health financing, which are now being implemented. Leaders in this area are struggling with a lack of practical experience and searching for benchmarks and comparisons with other countries which have already experienced these challenges and have now reached a higher level of stability.
© 2018Faris Gavrankapetanović, Bojan Šošić and Stephanie Jones. All Rights Reserved.
Encouraging Ethical Practices
and Misconduct Reporting
-- R S Bangar
In the cutting-edge technological environment of robotics, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, machine language, etc., the world is embracing change each second and is getting complex day by day. So in order to keep pace with this dynamic world, proper checks and balances in reporting and a robust internal control framework at the organizational level, supplemented with the best ethical practices among the human resources, are essential to the survival and growth of the organization. There are a number of issues that employees face in the organization which becomes a potential bottleneck, holding such reporting which is critical to the organization. As professionals, we need to understand the control environment of the organization for a better understanding of the reporting hurdles and work on the remedies, which we have discussed in this paper.
© 2018 Sayoni Santra and V N Giri. All Rights Reserved..
Empowered Powerlessness in Production Environments
-- Kurt April and Khavitha Singh
The research encompasses the study of the lived experiences of empowered, senior women managers (executive, board and senior management levels) within environments producing materials or finished goods in South Africa. Production environments, with respect to this research, have included mining, food and beverages, pharmaceutical, Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and healthcare, which are all experiencing increased global competition. It assesses the working relationships of these managers with their male colleagues, often characterized as prejudiced and biased environments, and the feelings of powerlessness that have arisen for the women as a result of these relationships. Despite the transformation of women in the modern workplace, women still feel alienated, locked-out, not taken seriously, and do not have sufficient support structures to turn to, as they continue to represent a minority in technical working environments—environments where progress is slow and not evenly spread.
©Kurt April and Khavitha Singh. All Rights Reserved.
Reducing Sexual Harassment at Workplace
-- Ronald J Burke
This paper describes an emerging change in the environment of organizations. Sexual harassment, typically by men of women, exists in every country, with rates exceeding 75% of women experiencing sexual harassment in some countries. Recent events in the US have moved issues of sexual harassment to the front burner, with workplace examples now being reported in the media on an almost daily basis. The emerging #MeToo movement has fostered these changes. Women are now reporting sexual harassment experiences. Harassers are increasingly being terminated. Workplaces that ignore harassment experiences are seeing their reputations decline. More workplaces are now addressing issues of sexual harassment. However, it is too early to determine whether these initiatives will continue and have the desired effects. The paper offers suggestions for preventing workplace sexual harassment.
© 2018 Ronald J Burke. All Rights Reserved.
Perspective
The Language of Brands
-- Dan Coughlin
© 2018 Dan Coughlin. All Rights Reserved.
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