Andrea Appolloni

e-Health and Co-production: Critical Drivers for Chronic Diseases Management

A progressively ageing population makes the healthcare management of chronic diseases (e.g. heart failure (HF), diabetes, geriatric psychosis) an extremely relevant matter for worldwide national health systems, as chronicity persists for a long time and generally cannot be permanently cured. In order to ensure the economic and social sustainability of treating such diseases, new healthcare business models, based on innovative tools and patients’ participation, should be considered. The adoption of new technologies and the active involvement of patients in the therapeutic pathway might represent fundamental drivers in healthcare delivery innovation. Accordingly, empirical evidence about Chronic Diseases Management, based on new technologies, such as remote monitoring (RM) systems, shows how patients are enabled to actively take part in the follow-up process. This “co-production” approach to the service has shown a reduction in health organizations’ workload for the same level of outcome (e.g. hospitalization rate reduction), suggesting new opportunities in the design of healthcare delivery systems. Moreover, within this evidence, end-users’ (patients and their caregivers) collaboration, i.e. more skilled and ICT-adoption oriented, represents strong support to the medical profession, as well as to patients’ satisfaction and loyalty. Drawing from these premises, this work aims at summarizing Italian empirical evidence highlighted through the case study method) of co-production and telemedicine joint implementation. Specifically, through such evidence, we aim to describe how e-Health and co-production could prove to be crucial organizational drivers in Chronic Diseases Management, both in cost reduction and in service (outcome) innovation.

Public Procurement and Corruption in Africa: A Literature Review

Corruption is the major scourge of governments in Africa. This paper answers three questions: what types of corruption are found more often within public procurement in Africa? What are the major determinants of corruption in public procurement and what are the major challenges for the fight against corruption in public procurement in Africa? This paper examines the determinants of public procurement corruption in Africa, and finds that the economic, political, organizational and social determinants have a significant relationship with public procurement corruption in Africa, and proposes some challenges to consider in the fight against corruption in public procurement.

Service innovation in Indian knowledge-intensive business services: the Wipro case

Innovation is a major factor in the survival of many firms; more specifically for firms in the service sector. Since the service industry is growing fast in India, knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) have understood the need for innovation through the creation and distribution of knowledge. Current literature on service innovation has rarely examined the internal innovation of KIBS firms; it has only been focusing on the acting role of KIBS in innovation for their client firms. Information transfer, design, and implementation of knowledge to the client firm are services provided by KIBS. Helping in to understand the relationships between knowledge management and innovation in KIBS provides ample scope for empirical investigation. The aim of the research is to extend Nonaka and Takeuchis (1995) knowledge management life cycle model and to prove, internal and external knowledge acts as a tool for service innovation, in Indian KIBS. Through a case study on a leading Indian KIBS - Wipro - we try to complement existing theory on service innovation with specific reference to knowledge management in KIBS.

Vertical and Shared Leadership in Large Safety-Oriented Organizations. An Empirical Analysis

This article explores the relationship between leadership and safety-oriented culture, by analyzing the predictive role of vertical and shared leadership styles (and behaviors). Drawing on a sample of 68 managers from a safety-oriented organization, we develop a set of hypothesis in order to understand the different relationships between leadership styles (and behaviors) under prevention context as well as crisis situation. To test hypothesis we ran separate hierarchical regression analysis. Results highlight that vertical leadership variables account for a significant amount of variance in prevention context beyond the shared leadership variables, as well as the shared leadership variables account for a significant amount of variance over the vertical leadership styles under emergencies context. With respect to the existing literature, the paper contributes to the leadership literature and safety-oriented culture by showing how vertical and shared leadership (transformational and transactional) are related to prevention and containment processes and should be both considered in order to manage different contingencies that happen as ordinary and extraordinary events in the organization.

Reviewing strategy matters to gain an understanding of balanced scorecard's possible benefits within lean production contexts: a management control perspective

This paper adopts a systematic literature review method (Tranfield et al., 2003) to analyse features of strategy implementation and deployment that, over the last decade, have influenced theory on lean production (LP) and the balanced scorecard (BSC). The work, firstly, starts with an analysis of the evidences coming from the selected literature on the subjects, framed through the lens of contingency theory of management. Then, it aims at pointing out how the BSC can meet the requirements coming from the process of strategy implementation (and its complexities) within an LP context. The results are portrayed by means of a contingency-based framework that ties together five different shared characteristics. By discussing them, this work aims at furthering the conversation on how to manage and control lean manufacturing organisations through innovative management control systems (MCSs).

Gaining insight into innovation culture within the context of R&D centres in Turkey

The aim of this article is to identify the major themes of innovation culture within the context of R%D centres. The research question formulated for this purpose is: What are the aspects of corporate culture that can support building an innovation culture? To address this research question, qualitative exploratory research design was employed and focus group methodology was adopted. The research was conducted on 38 enterprises out of 127 with official R%D centre certification in Turkey. This paper contributes to the existing literature based on eight dimensions (knowledge sharing, learning and development, social networks and cooperation, allocation of free time, tolerance of mistakes, rewarding and incentive system, managing differences and teamwork) that captures the interface between corporate culture and innovativeness. A unique definition of innovation culture was also proposed.

Knowledge management practices of manufacturing firms: a study from the Turkish Aegean Free Zone

Today, knowledge is one of the main resources of organisations and effective management of knowledge is one of the major concerns that organisations face. Given this fact, the main purpose of this article is to examine the knowledge management (KM) practices of manufacturing industry organisations of the Aegean Free Zone in Izmir, Turkey by adopting a survey method. The findings show that there is an association between the practices in use, reasons for using these practices and lastly the benefits that the participant organisations gain. Organisational performance and competitiveness could be increased by using KM practices effectively. Although an organisation’s size is not an obvious factor in KM usage, it was observed that the advantages of using KM practices in large sized organisations are either equal to or greater than those of small sized organisations.

Strategic and organisational determinants of performance in Italian management consulting firms

This study focuses on the determinants of performance of management consulting firms. These firms are successful examples of organisations whose ability to incorporate knowledge into the service provided to the clients is critical to their success. The study aims to explain the process by which specific strategic choices and distinctive organisational practices of these firms influence their performance in ways not found in other settings. Specifically, we propose that service and geographic diversification have a positive impact on the performance of management consulting firms. We also propose that partnership leverage, as a distinctive organisational practice developed to increase the retention and commitment of personnel, influences the performance of these firms. We test the theoretical predictions using data from a large sample of Italian management consulting firms and adopting a multilevel linear regression model. Our results support the hypotheses, provide interesting insights and suggest further research.

From Comparative Advantages to Competitive Advantages: Biofuel Strategies for Sustainable Development

National comparative advantages and latecomer advantages have been much discussed within the economic and international trade and management literature respectively. This paper adapts these two concepts and presents an integrated strategy for sustainable development in emerging economies.It proposes a policy framework on strategies that late industrializing countries can pursue, resulting from identifying country-specific comparative advantages. This paper analyses current biofuels policies and further builds a framework to develop appropriate strategies to bind the economic opportunities from the biofuels sector to aid rural development. It also draws on the lessons learned from the Brazilian and Argentinian biofuel industries.