Task and Relationship Conflicts, Employee Agility, and Perceived Job Performance

The investigation into the impact of conflict on the modern approach of employee agility as well as employees’ perceived job performance seems to be a critical topic that has not relatively been touched on yet. The present study aims to look at the influence of conflict on employees’ agility and employee’s perceived job performance. This research divides conflict into two separate dimensions as task and relationship conflict to investigate the impact of each on agility and job performance. The data is collected by employing a self-structured questionnaire using 23 items and a 5-point Likert scale from the employees of a hygiene and sanitation company in Cameroon. The proposed model is examined via PLS-SEM. Overall, the study reveals that there is a negative coefficient in the relationship between relationship conflict and employee’s agility; a significant positive relationship between task conflict and employee agility; and a positive significant relationship between employee’s agility and employee perceived job performance. The generated results validate that task conflict is vital and welcome to workers; thus, managers are expected not to blindly avoid conflicts. The consequence of a constructive conflict can be employee agility which in itself will lead to a high level of job performance

Optimisation-based integrated decision model for ambulance routing in response to pandemic outbreaks

Pandemics and sudden disease outbreaks place considerable stress on hospital resources. Their increasing numbers in recent years has necessitated investment in disaster risk management strategies, particularly in the healthcare sector. The sudden surge of patients, particularly in requesting ambulance services, overwhelms hospital systems and compromises health service delivery. Failure of health planners to respond immediately to a sudden disease outbreak can result in insufficient distribution of healthcare services and can thereby exacerbate the death toll dramatically. The current research aims to develop an optimisation-based integrated decision model to assist healthcare decision-makers with immediate and effective planning for ambulances to move critical patients from their residences to hospitals, considering the available capacities of each hospital. Several lemmas for the problem are proposed, and based on these; several local search methods are developed to improve the performance of the proposed optimisation method. To confirm the efficacy of the proposed approach, a comprehensive comparison is conducted. In conclusion, sensitivity analyses are performed to discuss some practical insights. The proposed models can be adopted to develop decision tools that enable hospital system managers to optimize their resources to changing healthcare needs in disease outbreaks

An integration of operations research and design science research methodology: With an application in hospital disaster management

This paper presents a conceptual hybrid model that embodies a synergistic approach by integrating principles from operations research (OR) with steps from the design science research methodology (DSRM). The model is applied to develop an evacuation support system for a group of hospitals located in Western Sydney, Australia, exposed to the risk of floods induced by climate change. By combining these two approaches, the conceptual hybrid model effectively overcomes the limitations associated with traditional DSRM and provides a comprehensive research framework for addressing OR problems. The research findings hold significant implications for academia, professionals, and policy makers engaged in the field of disaster risk management. Moreover, this study offers valuable insights into enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of OR-based solutions in practical scenarios, thus contributing to the advancement of knowledge in this area