User adoption of a CRM-based information system within a financial services organisation: An empirical analysis

Financial Services firms require processes and systems which can support and maintain customer-related information for the purposes of core business-focussed activity. Specifically within the investment banking sector, the importance and criticality of such customer information underpins the firm’s ability to transact sales, trading and other advisory-based services in an efficient and relevant manner. The design and development of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to address the given external vs. internal customer information touchpoints, therefore provides a vital link between financial services professionals, client data and business processes. In doing so, the input of CRM user requirements is a key step in deriving benefit from such a technology solution. This paper henceforth identifies and details user requirements and experiences of such an information system within a case study company and highlights pertinent issues for the adoption of such systems within the given secto

The Beck Initiative : training school-based mental health staff in cognitive therapy

A growing literature supports cognitive therapy (CT) as an efficacious treatment for youth struggling with emotional or behavioral problems. Recently, work in this area has extended the dissemination of CT to school-based settings. The current study has two aims: 1) to examine the development of therapists’ knowledge and skills in CT, an evidence-based approach to promoting student well-being, and 2) to examine patterns of narrative feedback provided to therapists participating in the program. As expected, school therapists trained in CT demonstrated significant gains in their knowledge of CT theory and in their demonstration of CT skills, with the majority of therapists surpassing the accepted threshold of competency in CT. In addition, an examination of feedback content suggested that narrative feedback provided to therapists most frequently consisted of positive feedback and instructions for future sessions. Suggestions for future research regarding dissemination of CT are discussed in light of increasing broad access to evidence based practices.peer-reviewe

The challenges of change:Exploring the dynamics of police reform in Scotland

Despite a long tradition of pessimism regarding the scope for meaningful change in police practices, recent structural reforms to police organizations in several European countries suggest that significant change in policing is possible. Drawing on recent research into the establishment and consequences of a national police force in Scotland, this article uses instrumental, cultural and myth perspectives taken from organization theory to examine how change happened and with what effects. It highlights how police reform involves a complex interplay between the strategic aims of government, the cultural norms of police organizations and the importance of alignment with wider views about the nature of the public sector. The article concludes by identifying a set of wider lessons from the experience of organizational change in policing

Voices from the Field: Welfare Policy and Well-being of Child Protection Social Workers in UK

This paper examines two approaches to Child Protection Policy and Practise in UK. Governmental policy is examined first, followed by an overview of alternative approach suggested by its critics. Efficacy of policy reforms is examined from the perspective of the front liners, i.e., the child protection social workers who are the main agents responsible for translating policy into practise. The “reality” of the social workers is mapped through empirical analysis and used as a measure to indicate which ideology, one currently adopted by the State or the one being advocated by its critics, is better suited to improving well-being of workers as well as recipients of welfare. The importance of taking their contextual reality into account when formulating policy is highlighted as crucial to determining the fate of the policy as well quality of life of social workers. The findings are strongly in favour of the critics and highlight severe shortcomings in current State ideology of child and family welfare.Social Policy; Child Welfare; New Public Management; Child Protection Social Workers

Leadership conversations: the impact on patient environments

Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine 15 NHS acute trusts in England that achieved high scores at all their hospitals in the first four national Patient Environment audits. No common external explanations were discernible. This paper seeks to examine whether the facilities managers responsible for the Patient Environment displayed a consistent leadership style. Design/methodology/approach – Overall, six of the 15 trusts gave permission for the research to take place and a series of unstructured interviews and observations were arranged with 22 facilities managers in these trusts. Responses were transcribed and categorised through multiple iteration. Findings – The research found common leadership and managerial behaviours, many of which could be identified from other literature. The research also identified managers deliberately devoting energy and time to creating networks of conversations. This creation of networks through managing conversation is behaviour less evident in mainstream leadership literature or in the current Department of Health and NHS leadership models. Practical implications – The findings of this study offer managers (particularly those in FM and managers across NHS) a unique insight into the potential impact of leaders giving an opportunity to re-model thinking on management and leadership and the related managerial development opportunities. It provides the leverage to move facilities management from the role of a commodity or support service, to a position as a true enabler of business. Originality/value – Original research is presented in a previously under-examined area. The paper illuminates how facilities management within trusts achieving high Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) scores is led.</p

Notes on Nightingale: The Influence and Legacy of a Nursing Icon

{Excerpt}The centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale occurs on 13 August 2010. Like Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, and John Stuart Mill, Nightingale is one of those monumental Victorians who were genuine household names in their day and for the generations that followed. Like her peers, she was a highly educated individual on a lifelong path of discovery, dedicated to knowledge and science in the service of a better society. But Nightingale was a singular individual among the great Victorians in that she was a woman—a woman who achieved a level of fame arguably surpassed only by the queen herself. Nightingale was also exceptional in that the work for which she is best known was not her science, literature, or philosophy, but the professionalizing of a domain of low status and semidomestic women\u27s work: nursing. In compiling this book, we have sought to take key elements of the Nightingale story and legacy and bring fresh analyses from leading scholars and thinkers in the field. The aim has been to provide both an update on the scholarship in several areas—the story of Nightingale in the Crimean War, her influence on the colonies of the British Empire, her contribution to statistical sciences, and her impact on the American nursing story—and a review of the current state of play with respect to the endless historiographical myths around her. The contributors represent a wide range of specialized knowledge on the heterogeneous topic of Florence Nightingale. Scholars, of course, have strongly held views and do not necessarily agree with one another. We do not attempt to adjudicate between competing perspectives in the discussion surrounding Nightingale, believing them to be symptomatic of a lively academic field in which scholars continue to debate the interpretation of sources and the significance of events. If Nightingale did not inspire controversy (and its sister, passion), would we still be interested in her a century after her death? Throughout the book there are shades of interpretation and emphasis that vary among contributors. Was Nightingale an opponent of germ theory? Did she create the new model of nursing from which all modern nursing sprang? Read on and make up your own mind! Our hope is that readers develop an awareness of the nuances of historical scholarship and the complexity of the past, as opposed to seeing it as a set of facts. Facts, as any good historian knows, are not set in stone but matters of interpretation. Nightingale lived a long time. She was also a prolific correspondent and writer, and thus the historical record from her own hand is plentiful. This surfeit of riches creates its own methodological challenges. Individuals change their views over time, they sometimes contradict themselves, they write their different messages to different audiences, and their words may mean something different to a contemporary reader. Nightingale\u27s persona evolved from a young passionate woman to a politically astute social actor to a much revered icon, and her writings reflect this evolution

Traditional as radical

An essay that considers the traditional methodologies of making as a model for contemporary sustainable design

An ethnographic study of the enactment of service level agreements in complex IT-intensive business-to-business services.

Service level agreements (SLAs) for complex IT-intensive business-to-business (CITI-B2B) services are high-level representations of services to be enacted, with predominantly quantifiable performance targets. Inevitably, there is a gap between this representation and the nuanced practices of enactment adapting to emergent conditions over time. Overarching terms in the master agreement anticipate this gap; however, the nature of the practices that manage that gap is not well understood. This study aims to develop a deeper understanding of these everyday practices to identify potential areas for improving value realisation in SLA enactment. We conducted a long-term ethnographic study of the enactment of an SLA by a global IT provider and global financial services company, framed by relational theory of contract. Our analysis showed the gap was bridged by a cycle of enactment in which emergent conditions triggered relational interactions among participants, culminating in decisions to adapt the terms of the SLA in pursuit of value realisation. Further, our analysis showed that this cycle is enabled by informal mechanisms of learning, negotiating, and adapting that we conceptualise as relational capability, which is amenable to representation, refinement, innovation, and capability development. Exploiting this capability and as well as the information produced during the cycle of enactment could inform SLA design and enable the transformation of SLAs as evolving learning instruments

Organizational Storytelling in Academic Libraries: Roles, Addressees and Perceptions

Libraries have survived throughout millennia while retaining particular characteristics that help define them as organizations. This study focuses on academic libraries, by exploring the world of the academic library employee through one of the most recent alternatives to organizational studies: knowledge management. Knowledge management is a relatively new approach to management, which focuses on people as the main components of organizations, and explores ways in which the knowledge created by them allows organizations to innovate and compete successfully. Storytelling is one of the ways knowledge is transferred among employees. This qualitative study explores the perceptions academic reference librarians have regarding the stories that are shared among employees with similar responsibilities. The findings show that the organizational storytelling taking place among the participants centers mostly on: stories as a warning system, stories told for the purpose of finding comfort, stories told in order to prepare others, and stories that explain current working conditions. In addition, this study found that the knowledge being transferred was tacit and emphasized social interactions. Five main themes emerged from the data: unusual patrons, former supervisors, poor administrators, former employees, and past crises. The results also point at the participants’ having negative perspectives regarding the role of the stories they share, with many classifying them as gossip