Gli ospedali di comunit\ue0: processi organizzativi e logiche istituzionali

Questo capitolo ha la finalit\ue0 di esplorare il processo di creazione e di funzionamento degli ospedali di comunit\ue0, collocando il loro sviluppo all\u2019interno, e in interdipendenza con, il quadro di riferimento normativo e le correlate logiche istituzionali

Further offshoring: Contingencies for new offshoring generation

This paper aims at exploring and identifying the contingencies that influence the occurrence of repeated offshoring opportunities. We address the following research questions regarding new initiatives within current services offshoring frameworks: Under which conditions offshoring investments generate further offshoring opportunities? Which party is more likely to give rise to such offshoring opportunities? With these questions in mind, we conducted two case studies on two Italian medium-sized software companies both doing offshoring since 2000, respectively in Tunisia and in India. We collected data through open interviews with the CEOs, Human Resources manager, IS manager, the Offshore manager, two project managers, and 20 operators in each company. Each interview lasted two hours on average. We examined numerous documents, like balance sheets, quality manuals, meeting excerpts, internal memos, consultants\u2019 reports, too. The case study firms resort to the same coordination modes \u2013 i.e. captive centers. In both cases, the offshorees have developed technical architectural knowledge (through formal training, continuity of collaboration over time, staff exchange, ICT-mediated interactions etc.), underpinning the software products. The empirical evidence illustrates that both context and product characteristics influence the generation of repeated offshoring opportunities,. More generally we underline how it is only through a thorough comprehension of all the factors at play, and of their complex intertwining, that the precious aptitude of offshoring to generate new offshoring can be grasped and successfully exploited

SMEs in the digital era

With an interdisciplinary approach, this book elaborates and discusses the strategic, regulatory and economic scenario that the sponsorship of a European Digital Single Market has been generating for small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs). Encompassing expert innovative analysis of the regulatory framework, economic dynamics and organizational processes, SMEs in the Digital Era highlights the affects these have and the complex process through which SMEs can enter and successfully compete in the digital market. With contributions from international scholars, this insightful book takes a deep dive into the current most relevant debates taking place in management, economics and business law using original evidence from a variety of fields and countries. Chapters offer a fresh look at the new policies and regulatory tools required to meet the challenges of digitalization, reflecting on the effects on employment, competition and organizational processes, and how imbalances can impact the future of the technological revolution. Providing insights on the most advanced and recent research on digital markets, this will be an excellent resource for academics, practitioners, managers and policymakers in fields ranging from organization theory and organizational behaviour to strategy, economic analysis and also economics and business law

Discovering complex interdependencies in organizational settings: The role of social network analysis in qualitative research

The paper\u2019s aim is twofold: to display how the application of social network analysis techniques to observational data provides researchers with a unique set of data to make sense of the dynamics of organizational settings; to contribute to knowledge on group design, self-managing teams, and processes of technology diffusion. Design/Methodology/Approach The paper focuses on the findings of qualitative research, recently published, that we conducted in a major Italian clothing company producing garments for the top-end market. We employed observations, ethnographic interviews and analysis of documents for data collection. We used coding procedures and social network analysis techniques to analyse data. Findings The long presence in the field allowed us to build two grounded theories. One deals with the process of CAD technology diffusion into a small group and it connects a number of variables usually studied separately in the literature. The second accounts for the enactment of spontaneous self-managing practices in a group formally designed as a manager-led team. Research limitation/implications The grounded theories are formulated for specific social settings and future research could benefit from replications in different contexts to capture other phenomena leading to different categories to be integrated into the theories or to corroborate them. Originality/value We derived enacted network data from the direct and prolonged observation of actors as opposed to self-reported network data. This allowed us to clarify the actual content and the quality of the interactions among actors, and to move beyond their quantification, thus enhancing the comprehension of the impact of network relationships upon organizational behaviour

Changing Work Practices: Acceptance of Virtual Work among Knowledge Professionals Engaged in Offshoring Activities

Technological advances and economic changes have increasingly enabled distant collaboration between knowledge workers across boundaries (Hinds & Kiesler, 2002). A well known example of this trend is given by offshoring of professional services to emerging countries. Notwithstanding the advantages that offshoring brings to Western organizations, it is perceived as a turmoil by knowledge workers. The literature on globally distributed teams (GDTs) shows some of the challenges of distant collaboration between geographically and culturally distant members, such as compatibility with existing organizational hierarchical structures, need for increased coordination, awareness of other team members activities, trust, virtual members’ socialization processes, and leadership (e.g. Mohrman, 1998, Paul & Mc Daniel, 2004, Weisband, 2007). Today many types of work require individual cognitive activities and conventional collaborative activities with co-located colleagues, alongside other collaborative activities at distance supported by technology (Perlow, 1999). ICTs contribute to the spatial reconfiguration of work, allowing a person to work from different locations (re-location) and to rely on cyberspace to share work outputs (dis-location). Hybrid workspaces are work arrangements where ‘individuals are relocated and dislocated and continue to participate in more traditional workspaces’ (Halford, 2005, p.22). To date, little we know about the impact of multiple spatial locations (hybrid workspaces) on actual work practices (Barley & Orr, 1997; Halford, 2005). To this regard, members of GDTs typically experience different workspaces. The interpretation of physical space by a worker has a significant impact on (and, at the same time, is impacted by) the way he or she interprets himself or herself as a professional, that is, his or her professional identity (Pratt, 2006, Elsbach, 2003). Added to this, in GDTs individuals in different countries have typically different professional backgrounds and experiences (e.g. Gurung & Prater, 2006). This results in heterogeneous and potentially conflicting professional identities. While the literature on distributed work recognizes the challenge of different identities and the positive effect of a shared team identity (Hinds & Mortensen, 2005), there is still little empirical evidence about the effects of different professional identities of members on the GDT. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of the increasing use of offshoring on hybrid workspaces and the interplay with professional identity. We try to respond to the following research questions: How does the introduction of distributed work change the work of professionals, such as the way individuals share their time between different projects and activities in different locations? How do individuals in a globally distributed team interpret collaboration with offshorees, and how is this collaboration influenced by their professional identity and by the perception of the offshoree’s professional identity? We conducted a qualitative exploratory study based on two case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003) of GDTs of engineers and developers belonging to Italian software companies offshoring R&D work since 2000. We refer to the two companies as (1) Dream and (2) Core, with GDTs composed of members located respectively in (1) Italy and India and (2) Italy and Tunisia. To select our cases we looked for teams that were comparable in terms of governance form (captive offshoring), nature of work (software R&D), performance (successful), and stage of offshoring (‘third stage’: Couto, Mani, Lewin, & Peeters, 2006). At Dream 40 Indian and 52 Italian engineers collaborate at distance for (a) the development of new parts and (b) the release of updated versions of a CAD software. At Core, 35 Italian and 15 Tunisian developers and engineers collaborate on (a) new domain development and (b) maintenance of existing domains for an ERP software. In both cases, GDT members have frequent and both sequential and pooled interactions (Thompson, 1967; Von Glinow, 2007). The sources for our data include: 38 semi-structured interviews with managers, engineers, and developers, both onsite and offshore; observations of video conferences; archival data, such as internal reports, job descriptions, organizational charts, quality manuals., etc. In analyzing our qualitative data, we followed the framework depicted by Strauss & Corbin (1998) and Locke (2001) to build a grounded theory. We identified some recurrent themes; we grouped convergent themes at a higher level of abstraction; and we then looked for aggregate theoretical categories in order to organize the emergent findings in a coherent framework. Overall, we identified the following aggregate theoretical categories: acceptance of virtual work, integration with regular workflow, sensemaking of offshoring activities, and perception of difference in competences and identities. Finally, we connected the above-mentioned theoretical categories into a grounded theory

The influence of organizational identification and identity-congruent behaviors on knowledge sharing

This paper advances the perspective that the individuals' willingness to perform extra role behaviors directed at coworkers, like knowledge sharing, is simultaneously influenced by the former's strength of organizational identification and by their evaluation of the strength of identification of the potential recipients of such behaviors. Through an ethnography in a hospital unit where four professional groups operate jointly, we show how highly identified actors appraise the level of identification of the members of different professional groups on the basis of the observations of the extra-role behaviors that colleagues enact. Only when highly identified individuals perceive congruence between the level of identification expected and that displayed by colleagues are they motivated to devote time and effort to share knowledge with them. Moreover, our findings show that knowledge transfer between different professional groups can be interpreted as an unexplored type of organizational citizenship behavior. In fact, knowledge transfer implies the unrequired sharing of operational practices specific to a professional group with members of different professionals groups, which enables these latter to perform, in their turn, extra role behaviors to support the organization. More generally, our study suggests extensions to the model of organizational identification. It also contributes to research on knowledge transfer by highlighting how the processes of organizational identification can promote knowledge flows between heterogeneous groups

Enacting Possible Selves by Creating New Organizational Arrangements: Identity Work and Institutionalization

This paper investigates how processes of identity work originating from individuals\u2019 efforts to deal with identity challenges can influence the creation of new organizational arrangements, and eventually affect institutional dynamics. Our evidence collected in the context of Italian Community hospitals show how recent perspectives on identity related to possible and alternative selves and to positive identity can help us grasp the motivations that prompt individuals to create new organizational arrangements. Overall, we offer new insights to the streams of research interested in identity work and in exploring the microfoundations of organizational and institutional change and transformation