Building top management muscle in a slow growth environment: How different is better at Greyhound Financial Corporation

The turbulence experienced in the 1980s in the U.S. business environment has led to something of a motivational crisis among corporate managers. Increased competition, budget constraints, and changing demographics are forcing companies into adopting strategies geared toward downsizing and flatter organizational structures. While corporate America probably has begun to accept its leaner profile, it has not yet successfully addressed the issue of how to keep the best managerial talent tuned in and turned on in an era of dwindling resources. This article describes and assesses one corporation\u27s efforts to maintain top-managerial motivation through a unique form of job swapping called the Muscle Building program at Greyhound Financial Corporation in Phoenix, Arizona. Muscle building. a top-management job rotation program, helps prevent career gridlock, fosters management diversity, and provides for top-management succession. Hidden costs and benefits of the program and issues concerning its implementation are discussed

Like Velvet From Antlers: A Novel

Like Velvet From Antlers is domestic noir novel about a mother-daughter pairing and an exploration into how their intimate connection to a serial killer affects the minutia of their daily lives. The grounding principle of this work is a critique of romanticised serial killer narratives that play up the charisma of the killer and remove focus from the predominantly female victims. Writing back against the established—and booming—serial killer genres means creating a space where women retain bodily autonomy, the serial killer is not permitted to voice his justifications, and the voices of female characters are central to the story. To replicate fractured identities being woven back together through relationship, Like Velvet From Antlers takes place over the course of three decades—1987 to 2019—from four interlocked perspectives

Candidemia in neonatal intensive care unit: a cause of concern

Background: Candidemia in neonates is a serious and common cause of late onset sepsis. Candida species are the third most frequent organism isolated in late onset sepsis in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants (i.e., <1,500 g). Methods: This study was performed to evaluate epidemiology, species distribution, antifungal susceptibility and outcome of candida blood stream infections at a tertiary care centre.Results: About 1-2 ml of blood was collected aseptically in suspected cases of septicaemia and inoculated in 20 ml of Brain Heart Infusion(BHI) broth. Candida species isolates were confirmed by germ tube production, chlamydospore formation on corn meal agar(HiMedia), pigmentation on Hichrome Candida differential agar (Himedia), and carbohydrate assimilation tests. Non-albicans candida spp. are of special concern, due to their high virulence and low azole susceptibility characteristics, augmenting the high mortality rates.Conclusions: The emergence on non-albicans Candida merits attention as they display higher degree of resistance to azoles and are associated with higher mortality rates. Additional studies are required to define more accurately the prevalence and sensitivity pattern of Candida spp. which may serve as a template for development of preventive and therapeutic strategies for neonatal candidemia especially at peripheral health centres

A social composition view of team creativity: The role of member nationality-heterogeneous ties outside of the team

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences) via the DOI in this record. We sought to understand team member informal social network ties outside of the team as a way to achieve cognitive variation within the team, thereby facilitating creativity. Specifically, we take a configural perspective, which emphasizes individual team members and the heterogeneity and strength of their outside ties. We theorize that these characteristics of outside ties are important because they amend members' schemas and the team's cognitive architecture. Results of a study of 82 long-term MBA project teams suggest that both outside ties with nationality-heterogeneous individuals and weak outside ties independently facilitate team creativity. In addition, nationality-heterogeneous outside ties that are weak rather than strong are associated with higher team creative performance

Working With Creative Leaders: Exploring the Relationship Between Supervisors\u27 and Subordinates\u27 Creativity

We propose that supervisors\u27 own level of creativity is a core component of effective leadership that can be associated with subordinates\u27 self-concept and creativity. Specifically, drawing on the identity theory framework, and role identity theory in particular, we argue that subordinates\u27 creative role identity is an important underlying mechanism in the relationship between supervisors\u27 level of creativity and their subordinates\u27 creativity. Using a sample of 443 employees working with 44 supervisors in an IT firm, we hypothesized and found support for a moderated mediation model. There was a positive indirect relationship between supervisors\u27 creativity and their subordinates\u27 creativity via the subordinates\u27 creative role identity, and this indirect relationship was stronger when employees perceived higher levels of organizational support for creativity

A preferred vision for administering elementary schools: A reflective essay

How it all began ... July 31, 1991 (8:30 PM) 1 After a long and busy day, the phone rings. It is Kathi, a friend of mine, calling to see if I had a teaching job for the upcoming school year. Kathi had recently visited with a former colleague who was concerned that her school would not have a principal for the new school year. The principal of this small parochial school 25 miles from Storm Lake had just resigned to take another principalship in Eastern Iowa. Kathi had talked to the priest/superintendent and had mentioned my name. He requested a call from me if I was interested in the job

The ‘responsibility’ factor in imagining the future of education in China

Design and creativity have been a considerable force for improving life conditions. A lot of effort has been invested in explaining the design process and creativity mainly through the design thinking methodology, but design accountability and responsible actions in the design process are, yet, to be fully explored. The concept of design ethics is now increasingly scrutinized on both the level of business organization and of the individual designer. A 4-day design workshop that involved creativity techniques provided the base to explore responsibility in the fuzzy front end of the design process. The future of education in 2030 was defined as the workshop's theme and fifty-six students from China were asked to create detailed alternative scenarios. A number of imagination exercises, implementation of technological innovations and macro-environment evolutions employed in the workshop are discussed. The aim was to incite moral and responsible actions among students less familiar with creative educational contexts of student-led discovery and collaborative learning. This paper reflects on the use of creativity methods to stimulate anticipation in (non)design students

Knowledge workers' creativity and the role of the physical work environment

ABSTRACT The present study examines the effect of the physical work environment on the creativity of knowledge workers, compared with the effects of creative personality and the social-organizational work environment. Based on data from 274 knowledge workers in 27 SMEs, we conclude that creative personality, the social-organizational work environment, and the physical work environment independently affect creative performance. The relative contribution of the physical work environment is smaller than that of the social-organizational work environment, and both contributions are smaller than that of creative personality. The results give support for HR practices that focus on the individual, on the social-organizational work environment, and on the physical work environment in order to enhance knowledge worker creativity

The urban-rural divide: Hypertensive disease hospitalisations in Victoria 2010–2015

BackgroundHypertension is present in 23–32 per cent of Australians, making it one of the most prevalent diseases in the country. It is the greatest risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in Australia and it affects rural populations at a higher rate than urban residents.AimsThe aims of this study were to investigate the differences in hypertensive disease hospitalisations across rural and urban Victoria, and to determine predicting variables.MethodsHospital admission data from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2015 were obtained through the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset and other organisations. Data included various patient demographics for each hospital admission entry. The rates of hospitalisation for each Local Government Area were analysed. Further regression analysis was undertaken to examine the association between hypertensive disease hospitalisation and various predictor variables.ResultsFrom 2010–2015 11,205 hypertensive disease hospital admissions were recorded of which 64.8 per cent were female, 74.7 per cent admissions were at urban hospitals, and 65.0 per cent were public patients. Hospitalisation rates were consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas, and rural residents on average stayed in hospital for longer. Significant predictor variables for hypertensive disease hospitalisation included various indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage, GPs per 1,000 population and GP attendance per 1,000 population.ConclusionHypertensive disease hospitalisation in Victoria continues to rise and rates of hospitalisation of rural Victorians continue to be higher than their urban counterparts. Females were hospitalised almost twice as often as males. Further research is required to identify the specific factors that impede access to health services, particularly in the identified high-risk populations

The determinants of hotels' marketing managers' green marketing behaviour

Little is known about the factors underlying the pro-environmental behaviour of marketing managers. This paper explores the determinants of green marketing practices in the Red Sea hotel sector in Egypt. The research model assesses green marketing practices against the personal and organisational values of the marketing managers, together with a range of organisational and demographic variables expected to influence hotels' environmental behaviour. From a valid sample of 89 marketing managers responsible for 194 hotels, it was found that organisational contextual variables, and in particular targeting Western tourists, being affiliated to an international hotel chain and the marketers' own demographics, including age, academic subject studied and gender, were the best predictors of more proactive green marketing. Personal environmental values did not explain the pro-environmental behaviour of marketers, and the organisational environmental values that had explained part of their ethical behaviour had resulted from voluntarism rather than utilitarian or conformance-based values. Government policies also appeared to be ineffective determinants. The implications for green marketing practices are also discussed. © 2010 Taylor & Francis