A Competency Model for Club Leaders

To ensure the success of a service organization, leaders must have skills and abilities to shape service systems and guide employees to deliver the service experience. So far, however, we have yet to see a set of leadership competencies required for service businesses—let alone those needed for the club business. As a result, we cannot provide new managers with the competencies they need to develop in their careers. To address this issue, we conducted a survey of 596 club managers to examine the leadership competencies required for general managers of private clubs. The club industry has the classic characteristics of other types of service businesses, meaning that managers are guiding staff members in relatively low-skilled jobs to fulfill guests’ wants and needs. However, clubs are distinguished from other service organizations by the presence of their members, who are long-term clients that have a strong connection with their clubs. Given that club general managers must report to the members’ board of directors, the interactions between club members and managers create a distinctive dynamic, which likely makes skills related to guest needs’ and interactions even more salient

RESEARCH ARTICLES A Guided Interview Process to Improve Student Pharmacists' Identification of Drug Therapy Problems

Objective. To measure agreement between advanced pharmacy practice experience students using a guided interview process and experienced clinical pharmacists using standard practices to identify drug therapy problems. Methods. Student pharmacists enrolled in an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) and clinical pharmacists conducted medication therapy management interviews to identify drug therapy problems in elderly patients recruited from the community. Student pharmacists used a guided interview tool, while clinical pharmacists' interviews were conducted using their usual and customary practices. Student pharmacists also were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the interview tool. Results. Fair to moderate agreement was observed on student and clinical pharmacists' identification of 4 of 7 drug therapy problems. Of those, agreement was significantly higher than chance for 3 drug therapy problems (adverse drug reaction, dosage too high, and needs additional drug therapy) and not significant for 1 (unnecessary drug therapy). Students strongly agreed that the interview tool was useful but agreed less strongly on recommending its use in practice. Conclusions. The guided interview process served as a useful teaching aid to assist student pharmacists to identify drug therapy problems

Tomorrow’s Digital Worker : A Critical Review and Agenda for Building Digital Competency Models

In competency management studies, scholars call for the importance of digital savviness to hire, train, and develop new digital workers. Yet, the knowledge about the development of such a competence is still scarce. For this endeavor, we followed a systematic literature review to identify a sample of 103 published scientific articles and book chapters dealing with the development and implementation of competency tools in the past 10 years. To our surprise, our review suggests that the landscape of competency tools is surprisingly obsolete and that contemporary requirements of digitization have not yet been incorporated into updated usable competency tools. Through this review our hope is to provide competency managers and researchers with a framework to advance and upgrade their competency tools to address the gap between existing know how and the needed expertise of the digital world.© 2020 Springer. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Advances in Human Factors, Business Management and Leadership Proceedings of the AHFE 2020 Virtual Conferences on Human Factors, Business Management and Society, and Human Factors in Management and Leadership, July 16-20, 2020, USA. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50791-6_14fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Pharmacotherapy review: a proposal to improve medication adherence among hypertensive patients

Abstract Pharmacotherapy review is a structured assessment of medicines, which aims to obtain a partnership with patients to achieve drug treatment goals and agreement about drug dosage, as well as when and how the drugs should be administered. The objective was to analyze the influence of pharmacotherapy review, by scheduling drug administration to improve medication adherence among antihypertensive patients. This study was an uncontrolled intervention developed in three distinct stages. The first stage included data collection on the profile of patients and their medications, and a preliminary assessment of medication adherence. In the second stage, the review report was delivered to patients. In the third stage, the results of blood pressure and medication adherence were assessed. The influence of the revision was measured through statistical tests (p<0.05). The study included 40 patients with a mean age of 58.0 (SD:11.3) years; 72.5% were women. Thirty-three (82.5 %) patients required some intervention, after when there was a significant increase in the number of daily doses (p=0.039) and drug intakes (p=0.025). There was a significant increase in the adherence rate, according to both the Morisky-Green test (p<0.001) and self-reported assessment (p=0.004). There was also an improvement in the levels of systolic (p<0.001) and diastolic (p=0.002) blood pressure and in the number of patients with controlled hypertension (p=0.006). The pharmaceutical service enhanced medication adherence and control of systemic blood pressure; however, it increased the complexity of treatment

Measurements of atmospheric electricity aloft

Measurements of the electrical characteristics of the atmosphere above the surface have been made for over 200 years, from a variety of different platforms, including kites, balloons, rockets and aircraft. From these measurements, a great deal of information about the electrical characteristics of the atmosphere has been gained, assisting our understanding of the global atmospheric electric circuit, thunderstorm electrification and lightning generation mechanisms, discovery of transient luminous events above thunderstorms, and many other electrical phenomena. This paper surveys the history of atmospheric electrical measurements aloft, from the earliest manned balloon ascents to current day observations with free balloons and aircraft. Measurements of atmospheric electrical parameters in a range of meteorological conditions are described, including clear air conditions, polluted conditions, non-thunderstorm clouds, and thunderstorm clouds, spanning a range of atmospheric conditions, from fair weather, to the most electrically active

Paddlefish ranching as an economically sustainable use of farm ponds [abstract]

Abstract only availableThe aquaculture industry in the United States is rapidly expanding into a booming sector of the farm economy. Many farmers in Missouri and the surrounding states have small- to medium-sized ponds on their property; however, these farmers tend to overlook the potential for income associated with these ponds. The purpose of this study is to examine the economic factors of farming paddlefish from the perspective of a farmer or landowner, and possible ways to group these landowners together, making negotiation and production more efficient. Osage Catfisheries, Inc. began as a game fish production operation, which expanded into paddlefish farming. Paddlefish are harvested for both their meat and eggs (caviar), and this business requires large amounts of fresh water. Farm ponds provide an ideal environment for paddlefish to thrive . The fish cause no damage to the existing ecosystem, and actually improve water quality by feeding on algae. Paddlefish farming requires no work or maintenance on the part of the landowner, only permission to use their reservoirs. The maturity process takes seven to nine years, after which the fish are harvested and the landowner is compensated accordingly. Using net present value analysis we analyzed the returns to leasing water currently being offered by Osage Catfisheries, Inc. to landowners. OCI currently has contracts with over 400 landowners in Missouri for paddlefish production, but is looking to expand its operation and streamline the production process. We computed an average net present value of $180/surface ace of water paid to the landowner for entering into this contract. We will next be evaluating the value to landowners of pooling ponds & lakes to offer a large group of water impoundments package to enhance the terms of the contract for the landowners.Dudley & Virgie Alexander Gif

Secondary reinforcement for fiber reinforced polymers reinforced concrete panels

The objective of the project was to investigate the development of an empirical secondary reinforcement ratio for FRP based on experimental tests performed at the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR). This study was separated into three phases which examined both early-age and later-age effects of various reinforcement ratios on the formation of shrinkage/temperature and flexural cracks. --Abstract, page iii