Offshored Service Cost Model as a Key Post-Transition Challenge

Business process offshoring has been dynamically growing worldwide in the last few years, facilitated by the corporate need for operational expenses reduction, overcoming skilled workers shortage and the potential for operations optimization. At every stage of organizational changes, there are various challenges the service offshoring managerial community constantly struggles with. Th e paper presents the offshored service cost model that can be adjusted and applied for service budgeting, valuation and control, for it has been identified as the most common challenge affecting Polish service off shoring corporations in the post-transition period. Th e need for strengthening this area of knowledge was identified through empirical research and the case study conducted in this work serves for presenting the authors’ insights on cost modelling for offshored business services

Offshored Service Cost Model as a Key Post-Transition Challenge

Business process offshoring has been dynamically growing worldwide in the last few years, facilitated by the corporate need for operational expenses reduction, overcoming skilled workers shortage and the potential for operations optimization. At every stage of organizational changes, there are various challenges the service offshoring managerial community constantly struggles with. Th e paper presents the offshored service cost model that can be adjusted and applied for service budgeting, valuation and control, for it has been identified as the most common challenge affecting Polish service off shoring corporations in the post-transition period. Th e need for strengthening this area of knowledge was identified through empirical research and the case study conducted in this work serves for presenting the authors’ insights on cost modelling for offshored business services

Nearshore Service Transfers in the EU: Legal and Economic Issues

In the second decade of the XXI century, the rapid growth of service offshoring industry can be observed in Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Such international corporate transformations wield significant influence on economies and societies of the states involved. The legal issues regulating international services migrations are among the most demanding managerial challenges at the pre-transition phase (i.e. before the commencement of a transition project which is supposed to successfully relocate processes from one country to another), and are directly linked to the sociological and economic aspects of the multidimensional changes in transnational business environments. The paper presents the review of selected legal issues regulating international process transfers within the European Union (EU), in the light of the economic and social conditions that are important for the offshoring industry’s managerial community at the pre-transition phase

Higher Education Offshoring as an Innovative Response to Global Learning Challenges

The wide implementation of service offshoring strategies worldwide has been visible and studied mainly in such business domains as information technology, accounting, human resource management and customer care centres. Nonetheless, transferring processes to offshore locations has also been implemented in the higher education sector. Responding to demographic, social and globalization challenges, renowned universities seek for innovative solutions that shall enhance quality and attractiveness of their operations, while strengthening their competitive advantage. The paper examines the case of an American university that conducts degree programmes in European offshore locations, in the light of differences between higher education and standard business offshoring

Brain-Specific Biomarkers as Mortality Predictors after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Haemorrhage

Aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (aSAH) is a serious condition with a high mortality and high permanent disability rate for those who survive the initial haemorrhage. The purpose of this study was to investigate markers specific to the central nervous system as potential in-hospital mortality predictors after aSAH. In patients with an external ventricular drain, enolase, S100B, and GFAP levels were measured in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) on days 1, 2, and 3 after aSAH. Compared to survivors, non-survivors showed a significantly higher peak of S100B and enolase levels in the blood (S100B: 5.7 vs. 1.5 ng/mL, p = 0.031; enolase: 6.1 vs. 1.4 ng/mL, p = 0.011) and the CSF (S100B: 18.3 vs. 0.9 ng/mL, p = 0.042; enolase: 109.2 vs. 6.1 ng/mL, p = 0.015). Enolase showed the highest level of predictability at 1.8 ng/mL in the blood (AUC of 0.873) and 80.0 ng/mL in the CSF (AUC of 0.889). The predictive ability of S100B was also very good with a threshold of 5.7 ng/mL in the blood (AUC 0.825) and 4.5 ng/mL in the CSF (AUC 0.810). In conclusion, enolase and S100B, but not GFAP, might be suitable as biomarkers for the early prediction of in-hospital mortality after aSAH

Orlando. Biografie (in translation: Orlando. Biographies)

Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above. Virginia Woolf Despite all that, in 2022 politicians are still trying to forcefully remove the people who don’t confirm to the norms: five months before the invasion on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin said that being transgender is “almost a crime against humanity”, in Hungary there is a ban for “homosexual propaganda”, in Poland there are “LGBT free zones”. Can similar attempts succeed? The show that uses the novel Orlando (1928) and a movie based on it (1992) as its base is trying to face the embarrassment, reluctance, and hatred towards being different. In a journey through centuries, lives, and experiences of cisgender, trans-, and non-binary artists invited to join the project, we ask: is being different really as rare as we think it is? And maybe each of us is different in their own way? Isn’t every transformation and transition we go through in life being different? Do you really know who you are? Are binary divisions the answer to today’s threats? And maybe in this difference there is a promise of fun, revolution, and… a new, better order and world? One of the performers, Filipka Rutkowska, reflecting on the work wrote: Orlando is a love of change. Orlando is a value worth taking care of. ‘It’ is Orlando. Orlando is taking on different genders while still being the same person. Orlando is experiencing the mystery of transition – and treating this transition as a source of knowledge. Orlando is thinking about the birth of a new mind by using old thoughts and then reminiscing about the thoughts that are already gone. Orlando is the acceptance of losing a part of yourself and the readiness to get a new one. Orlando is the curiosity of the world. Orlando is a simultaneous loneliness among people and finding understanding amongst them. Orlando is entering a new state of focus, without knowing the laws that rule this state. Orlando is going to the other side of your own reflection. What stays the same in a person after transitioning? Text: Filipka Rutkowsk