The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the diabetes antenatal clinic

Aims: The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions impacted both health outcomes and clinical practice. We explored the impact on the diabetes antenatal clinic (DANC) attendance and outcomes. Method(s): Pre and during pandemic periods were defined as January 2019 to February 2020 and March 2020 to March 2022, respectively. DANC attendance, maternal and perinatal data were analysed. Adverse neonatal outcomes included stillbirth, neonatal hypoglycaemia, jaundice, shoulder dystocia and respiratory distress. Result(s): DANC attendance increased in the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period (297 (Interquartile range (IQR) 269-358) vs 196 (IQR 176-211) monthly, p < 0.001) with 36.7% (IQR 33-49) virtual appointments, representing a 34% overall increase. Body mass index (BMI) increased (29.7 kg/m2 (IQR 26.4-32.2) vs 31.4 kg/ m2 (IQR 26.5-34.2)) during the pandemic (p = 0.007), but maternal age and parity remained unchanged. There was no difference in gestational age at delivery;however, induction rates reduced from 58.5% to 37.5% (p = 0.0009) and spontaneous vaginal deliveries increased from 13.7% to 34.5% during the pandemic (p = 0.0004). Instrumental deliveries reduced from 21.5% to 11.3% (p = 0.03) but there was no change in number of caesarean sections including emergency ones. There was no difference in the rates of macrosomia or neonatal admissions. There was an overall reduction in adverse neonatal outcomes (37/102 (36.2%) vs 33/142 (23.2%) p = 0.03). Conclusion(s): Clinic numbers and maternal BMI increased during the pandemic. However, delivery and perinatal outcomes improved. Out data are reassuring and align with other studies indicating maternity outcomes did not deteriorate during the pandemic, possibly explained by improved care provision and organisation culture under crisis.

Tangible Rewards for More Than Just Productivity: Examining Canadian Public Accounting Firms' Rewards Programs*

Companies spend significant amounts of money on tangible rewards programs, even during the economic turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prevalence, growth, and significance of these expenditures highlight the importance of understanding the purpose and use of these programs by organizations. Research on public accounting (PA) firms' compensation plans has focused on the balance between professional and commercial incentives in partner profit-sharing schemes but has failed to examine the incentives for nonpartner audit professionals. However, it is exactly these professionals who do a substantial amount of work on audit engagements. This paper has three main purposes. First, we investigate the nature and composition of PA firms' tangible rewards programs and provide a detailed description. Second, we examine the use of firms' tangible rewards programs to provide evidence of what actions are being rewarded. We use Almer et al.'s (2005, Behavioral Research in Accounting 17: 1-22) framework, which presents dimensions of the auditors' professional contribution, and explores whether firms recognize these dimensions using tangible rewards. Third, we develop future research questions to help explore the use of tangible rewards in firms without structured output. We collect archival data on the use of tangible rewards from each of the Big 4 PA firms and three of the next four largest international accounting firms in Canada. We find that firms use their tangible rewards programs for "building a culture of recognition," for performance incentives, and for employee and firm development, thus rewarding a broad set of measures beyond the incentive measures for hours worked.

Strategic management and organizational culture of medical device companies in relation to corporate performance.

AIMS: Strategies focus on securing the competitiveness of medical device corporations by strengthening their organizational capabilities, which, in turn, ensure their continuous development. This study aims to investigate both management strategies and organizational culture, which may affect the performance of these companies, and analyzes the influence of education and training investment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used data from the 3rd to 6th Human Capital Corporate Panel surveys by the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training as well as data from the Korea Information Service and 6,112 workers and 260 companies were analyzed. For the analysis, management strategy and organizational culture were set as independent variables, and corporation performance was set as the dependent variable. Additionally, investment in education and training was set as a control variable between the independent and dependent variables. Corporate performance was analyzed by dividing into organizational satisfaction and organizational commitment. RESULTS: Differentiation strategy and innovative culture had a positive (+) effect on organizational satisfaction, while cost leadership strategy and hierarchical culture had a negative (-) effect. On the other hand, in the case of interaction with education and training investment, cost leadership strategy and hierarchical culture had a positive (+) effect, while differentiation strategy and innovation culture had a negative (-) effect. In organizational commitment, innovation culture had a positive (+) effect, and hierarchical culture had a negative (-) effect. In the case of interaction with investment in education and training, only the hierarchical culture had a positive (+) effect. CONCLUSIONS: The innovation culture positively influenced the performance of medical device companies. Furthermore, cost leadership strategy, hierarchical culture, education and training investment improved the corporate performance of these companies. To enhance corporate performance, these companies should create an innovation culture and invest in education and training in accordance with the organizational culture.

COVID-19 has proven the excellence of Korea's medical devices, and the medical device industry is expected to continue to grow due to the increase in chronic disease and non-face-to-face treatment. However, the current medical device industry is monopolized by global companies with capital and technological prowess. To overcome this, Korean medical device companies are developing innovative medical devices centered on start-ups, but now is the time to strategically respond to them in order to compete with global companies. In general, companies establish management strategies for survival and growth by analyzing threats and opportunities based on the market environment to maintain the optimal organization according to market competition, government policies, and changes in consumer needs. Strategies are often established based on the culture of the organizations that make up the company. When it comes to strategy establishment, the medical device industry has special characteristics compared to other industries. The medical device industry is based on advanced technology and puts patient safety first, requiring continuous product upgrades. Therefore, it is an essential industry for employees to invest in education and training. The analysis shows the effectiveness of investment in education and training according to the management strategy and organizational culture of medical device companies. It was confirmed that when medical device companies create an Innovation culture, their performance improves. It also shows that when medical device companies adopt a cost leadership strategy, they need to increase their investment in education and training to improve corporate performance.

Attitudes of psychiatrists toward telepsychiatry: A policy Delphi study.

Objectives: To delineate areas of consensus and disagreements among practicing psychiatrists from various levels of clinical experience, hierarchy and organizations, and to test their ability to converge toward agreement, which will enable better integration of telepsychiatry into mental health services. Methods: To study attitudes of Israeli public health psychiatrists, we utilized a policy Delphi method, during the early stages of the COVID pandemic. In-depth interviews were conducted and analyzed, and a questionnaire was generated. The questionnaire was disseminated amongst 49 psychiatrists, in two succeeding rounds, and areas of consensus and controversies were identified. Results: Psychiatrists showed an overall consensus regarding issues of economic and temporal advantages of telepsychiatry. However, the quality of diagnosis and treatment and the prospect of expanding the usage of telepsychiatry to normal circumstances-beyond situations of pandemic or emergency were disputed. Nonetheless, efficiency and willingness scales slightly improved during the 2nd round of the Delphi process. Prior experience with telepsychiatry had a strong impact on the attitude of psychiatrists, and those who were familiar with this practice were more favorable toward its usage in their clinic. Conclusions: We have delineated experience as a major impact on the attitudes toward telepsychiatry and the willingness for its assimilation in clinical practice as a legitimate and trustworthy method. We have also observed that the organizational affiliation significantly affected psychiatrists' attitude, when those working at local clinics were more positive toward telepsychiatry compared with employees of governmental institutions. This might be related to experience and differences in organizational environment. Taken together, we recommend to include hands-on training of telepsychiatry in medical education curriculum during residency, as well as refresher exercises for attending practitioners.

Association between the Nursing Practice Environment and Safety Perception with Patient Safety Culture during COVID-19.

AIMS: In this study, we aimed to identify the relationship between nursing practice environments (NPEs) and safety perceptions with patient safety culture (PSC) during COVID-19. DESIGN: We conducted a quantitative, non-experimental, correlational, and cross-sectional study. We interviewed 211 nurses from Peru using two scales: PES-NWI and HSOPSC. We used the Shapiro-Wilk test and Spearman's coefficient and estimated two regression models. RESULTS: NPE was reported as favorable by 45.5% of the participants, and PSC was reported as neutral by 61.1%. Safety perception, the workplace, and NPE predict PSC. All NPE factors were correlated with PSC. However, safety perception, support of nurses subscale, the nurse manager's ability, and leadership were predictors of PSC. CONCLUSION: To promote a safe work culture, health institutions should foster leadership that prioritizes safety, strengthens managers' abilities, encourages interprofessional collaboration, and considers nurses' feedback for constant improvement.

Business in a Post-COVID World: The Move to Stakeholder Capitalism

The last 15 years have seen a remarkable set of changes in the global business environment. Established companies and start-ups alike have been subjected to some fundamental shifts in the very way that we conceptualize business. Together with some generational challenges we have seen myriad calls for a new narrative about business. And, even more recently, the COVID pandemic has reinforced a number of these shifts and led to even more fundamental change. The purpose of this essay is to outline these challenges to the dominant narrative about business and to suggest that it is no longer a useful way to think about value creation and trade (business).

The impact of organizational culture and total quality management on the relationship between green practices and sustainability performance

PurposeThis study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of organizational culture (OC) and total quality management practices (TQMPs) on the relationship between green practices (GPs) and sustainability performance (SP) by using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposed a conceptual research model of the relationships and formulated six hypotheses. This study used a structured questionnaire based on previous studies to collect relationship data to test these hypotheses, and 441 full-time managers from various US businesses responded. The complete and valid survey responses were then tested against the hypotheses using IBM SPSS Statistics and SEM-AMOS.FindingsResults supported the relationships proposed in the research model. They indicated that a strong supporting OC and TQMPs might improve positive SP and GPs. Additionally, the more managers are aware of their companies' GPs, the more likely they will feel positive about the organization's SP.Research limitations/implicationsA larger sample size to ensure statistically minimum representation in several major industries would better validate the findings and help identify significant differences in industry-specific OCs, TQMPs, GPs and SPs. Similarly, ensuring a varied geographical representation (both within the USA and internationally) would help determine if the findings vary according to the respondent's location. Furthermore, collecting the data during Year 1 of the COVID-19 pandemic may have skewed the results. Thus, once the working environment has been normalized, the survey should be repeated to determine if the findings are valid post-pandemic.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide important strategic guidance for managers who work to balance the implementation of corporate GPs and the triple bottom line dimensions of SP. For practitioners, the results showed that companies could accomplish both profitability and sustainability if they are willing to continuously pay attention to environmental issues and strategically invest in cost-efficient and eco-friendly initiatives.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this research is one of the first to explore how OC and TQMPs, directly and indirectly, affect the relationship between GPs and the triple bottom line dimensions of SP. These results imply that OC and TQMPs have a significant indirect impact on the relationship between GPs and the SP dimensions.

Culture meets commitment: how organizational culture influences affective commitment

PurposeOrganizational culture has been identified as an important factor in increased employee commitment. Particularly during a shortage of skilled workers, commitment is a meaningful indicator of higher loyalty and retention. However, limited research has studied the relationship between organizational culture and commitment from a global perspective. Most research focuses on specific aspects of culture and examines the aspects' effects on commitment separately. The author's objective is to identify influential organizational culture's dimensions and assess dimensions' relationship to commitment holistically.Design/methodology/approachFor this purpose, the author analyzed a data set with 241,648 participants from 9 industries in Germany. The survey captures individual attitudes toward certain aspects of organizational culture and assesses workers' commitment to their organizations.FindingsThe results of a linear regression show that all cultural dimensions considered, namely transformational leadership behavior, team cohesion, compensation, fairness and caring attitude, if well-developed, positively and significantly influence organizational commitment. Interestingly, team cohesion has the greatest effect on commitment, followed by transformational leadership behavior, compensation, caring attitude and fairness.Originality/valueThis paper aims to examine the relationship between organizational culture and commitment holistically, thereby revealing which aspects of corporate culture are particularly important for increasing workers' commitment.

Ensuring an Attuned Workforce: Individual and Systemic Factors Impacting Trauma Professionals

While vicarious trauma from hearing traumatic material when working with clients has long been recognised, the concept that much vicarious trauma stems from systemic challenges, and work conditions, is a more recent development. There has been a willingness to recognise the toll on individuals of client stories, however this has allowed organisations to minimise other aspects of the work that are also impactful. Never has this been truer than in the last two years with the Covid-19 pandemic, when workers have experienced their own sense of risk at work, alongside a sense of possible expendability from their organisations. Workers may have felt obliged to keep meeting client need, whilst managing their own personal distress or worry. The article explores areas that contribute to vicarious, work-related trauma, other than hearing the narratives of those who have experienced trauma themselves. Individual and organisational practices, such as organisational culture;variability of the workload;conditions of the work environment;access to professional development;and the provision of quality supervision. The impact of each will be considered, with the aim not just to avoid vicarious trauma or burnout, but to proactively address issues that may impair the functioning of an integrated and fully cognisant professional.

Government support, employee motivation and job performance in the COVID-19 times: evidence from Turkish SMEs during the short work period

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the effect of government support (short work allowances - SWA) on SME employees' job performance and employee motivation perceptions, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from 2,781 employees working in SMEs registered to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (SMEDO) in Turkey. The relationships were assessed through structural equation modeling with bootstrap estimation.FindingsThe results support the proposed framework illustrating the positive effect of government support on employees' perceived motivation and job performance. Findings indicate that employee motivation has exhibited a mediating effect between government support and job performance. Another important finding is that, contrary to the classical understanding of Herzberg's two-factor theory, SWA system was able to perform as a motivating factor during the pandemic by meeting the hygiene needs.Research limitations/implicationsSince this is a cross-sectional research study, causal inferences cannot be derived from the research results.Originality/valueThere is a lack of empirical study on SME employees' perceptions on the government support during the pandemic, especially on the perspectives of emerging economies are infrequent. Turkey's case is unique in terms of providing insights on how perceived employee motivation is increased by the government supports (SWA) in Turkey, and how this motivation mediates the job performance perceptions. Besides, the impacts of government support are mostly studied at the firm or macro-levels, this study's unit of analysis is at individual level. Regarding the criticism from the motivation perspective of two-factor theory, COVID-19 context and its impact on the motivation needs have not been elaborated before. This article starts new discussions on how crisis contexts influence individual motivator factors.

Organizational Culture and Business-IT Alignment in COVID-19: A Swiss Higher Education Case Study

This paper assumes that cultural characteristics of IT are critical for business-IT alignment (BITA), especially in crises such as COVID-19. A case study of a Swiss higher education institution examines this relationship and its contributions in terms of performance. The study develops a strategic alignment and organizational culture research model based on semi-structured interview guidelines by interviewing employees with different job roles and characteristics. It reveals the dominance of corporate infrastructure and process-strategic orientation and the combined influence of clan, hierarchy, and market culture. Results mapping leads to novel propositions for BITA at different management levels.

Lessons in Financial Governance from Bowen's Family Systems Model

All organizations are social systems. The family is the first social system to which each person belongs. A business organization is also such a system. Family theorists describe family relationships and use this understanding to help families to improve their functioning. These insights can also be applied to business organizations and their governance. The present paper uses Bowen's family systems theory to understand financial governance and governance relationships. Bowen's eight concepts of family systems are triangles, differentiation of self, nuclear family emotional process, family projection process, multigenerational transmission process, emotional cutoff, sibling position, and societal-emotional process. These concepts are discussed in light of how financial information is shared in a business, how board composition affects the oversight of financial operations, how leadership balances financial and operational demands, and how the social interactions within the business interplay with the macro social-industrial environment. For example, a well-functioning family helps a family member develop into an independent adult. Likewise, the effective business leader enables the financial department to develop autonomy, allowing that department to provide meaningful, objective information for business decisions. When this does not occur, problems can arise which affects family stability and business efficiency. Suggestions for further research are offered. In particular, the connection between family theories and agency and social models of governance is explored. The models also are relevant to notions of who are the business's stakeholders. The overlap between business systems and family systems which has become more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic speaks to the relevance of the concepts in this paper to future research and business planning. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

An ed-tech organizational transition from a reactive to a proactive change model in client success

The pivotal role Ed-Tech facilitates as an industry is increasing in education. As education evolves, the emergence of Ed-Tech in the classroom, data collection, curriculum, assessment, and student information continues to drive new initiatives, projects, and solutions in the school. The cross-sectional relationship between education and organizational culture during the COVID pandemic identified emerging themes of the increasing reliance on education and the emphasis society and education place on technology. This study analyzes and developed an action plan to address the disconnect between educational stakeholders and client organizational engagement. This qualitative study focuses on the role of the organizational culture of Ed-Tech organizations in improving practices of engagement, user experience, and internal client success practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Exploring organizational culture's relationship to innovation in online instruction

Institutions of higher education have identified online programs as a top innovation strategy, but lack of faculty buy-in has been cited as a major challenge to launching them. In addition, leaders have identified issues of organizational culture, such as the lack of supportive leadership and a risk-averse mindset, as key barriers to their innovation efforts. In fact, researchers have uncovered a strong predictive relationship between organizational culture and innovation, such as online education. Aspects of organizational culture have been shown to influence technology use, and the adoption of online and blended learning. Comprising three manuscripts, this dissertation explores the influence of organizational culture on faculty's adoption of online teaching and yields practical insights for leaders and stakeholders who seek to expand their online offerings. This dissertation's original research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which faculty were essentially forced to teach online, many for the first time. These unique circumstances presented an opportunity to explore the influence of organizational culture on different types of online faculty adopters--those who were already teaching online and those who were new to teaching online due to the pandemic. The first manuscript presents a sequential explanatory mixed methods study focused specifically on these faculty who were forced to teach online during the pandemic. Surveys were used to capture faculty's perceived organizational culture, relying on the Competing Values Framework's four cultural archetypes. Interviews were then conducted to understand how organizational culture influenced faculty's online teaching practices and willingness to teach online post-pandemic. The second manuscript describes the same empirical study but analyzes all online teaching adopters, who were categorized using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations adopter categories (innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority and laggards). The third manuscript is a systematic literature review yielding culture-based facilitators and best practices that promote online teaching adoption. These manuscripts together found collaboration was a key success factor, as well as developing and aligning to share values. As institutions' online education plans evolve over time, culture must also evolve to meet current goals and strategies. This dissertation provides a roadmap to support institutions who seek to foster cultures that support innovation through online education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Factors Affecting Remote Workers' Job Satisfaction in Utah: An Exploratory Study.

With structural changes in work arrangements, employee retention becomes more important for organizational success. Guided by the Ability, Motivation, Opportunity (AMO) framework, this study investigated the factors affecting remote workers' job satisfaction and personal wellbeing in Utah. From a sample of n = 143 remote workers, the study used a correlational design to identify the significant predictors of job satisfaction and personal wellbeing. It mapped the relationships between significant predictors of job satisfaction and personal wellbeing and explored the role of human resources (HR) policies and organizational culture in a remote work environment. Results showed intrinsic motivation, affective commitment, opportunity, and amotivation affected employee job satisfaction, while self-efficacy, amotivation, and job satisfaction affected personal wellbeing. A structural equation model (SEM) showed that remote workers with higher levels of self-efficacy, lower amotivation, and higher job satisfaction were likely to have greater personal wellbeing compared to others. When exploring the role of HR, findings showed that HR bundles and organizational culture indirectly affected job satisfaction but had a direct effect on the most important predictors of job satisfaction and personal wellbeing. Overall, results demonstrated the interconnectivity of HR practices, AMO factors, job satisfaction, and personal wellbeing.

Host control by SP beta phage regulatory switch as potential manipulation strategy

This research studies the aesthetics of organisations and identifies, from a semiotic perspective, the elements of the aesthetics of organisations and their workers' perceptions of them. This research adds to the theoretical development of a new paradigm using a qualitative, retrospective, cross-sectional methodological approach and non-experimental design. To validate the dimensions and variables identified, three empirical research studies were carried out on a sample of 346 people using a semiotic-based method. The study is also quantitative, as the results obtained from the surveys are presented in numerical form in the semiotic matrix, which identifies the dimensions involved in the aesthetics of the organisations. The main contribution of the study is the design of a typology of organisational beauty by which to analyse the aesthetic dimensions of organisations.

THE DENISON ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE SURVEY (DOCS): EMPIRICAL REVIEW OF A DIGITAL ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES acute accent EFFECTIVENESS

Digitalization presents a driving force for many organizations regarding the dynamic changes and requirement of a new way of thinking and achieving higher performance, improving quality, safety, and profitability. Digital transformation has become a prevalent project in many industries, nevertheless often failure due to inhibit organizational cultures preventing change. Empirical review of the digital organizational cultures ' effectiveness identifies cultural traits that are crucial for the digital transformation process. Understanding the digital organizational culture is important for leaders to react to changing environments, especially amplified by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of the study is to assess the culture of organizations and track the progress of digitalization using the Denison organizational culture model. The survey was conducted in October 2022. The sample comprised over 400 respondents. Statistical analysis is performed with MAXQDA software, where the statistical relationship between the variables of interest was explored. Convergent validity was evaluated using Person ' s correlation analysis. A psychometric evaluation is acceptable and correlation confirms the statement that each trait strongly correlates with two other traits, but less with the incompatible trait. The correlation between particular traits and their subdimensions indicates the convergent and divergent validity of the items. The findings have revealed a significant connection between Adaptability and Customer Experience and Mission and Digital Strategy. These traits highly affect the digital evolution within an organization. Findings reveal that the organizational culture is crucial to a successful digital transformation and needs to be given sufficient attention. In conclusion, this study indicates that organizational culture appears to be a force that boosts digital progress.

The intermediating role of big data analytics capability between responsive and proactive market orientations and firm performance in the retail industry

Big data analytics capability (BDAC) is the key resource for competitive advantage in the drastically changing market. Although some studies have investigated the impacts on firm performance, there is limited under-standing of how firms enhance their BDAC. This study draws on organisational culture and investigates the effects of responsive and proactive market orientations on BDAC and firm performance. The results show that both responsive and proactive market orientations increase BDAC. Further, BDAC fully mediates the relationship between these two market orientations and firm performance. Our findings suggest that BDAC researchers should focus on market orientations that enhance BDAC.

Digitally Transforming Organisational Cultures: Ensuring Enhanced Innovation in a Remote Working World

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it dramatic environmental changes, forcing organisations to adopt digital technologies on a wider scale, under significant time pressure. While the pandemic tested the agility and resilience of organisations, team dynamics and the implications of virtualisation on collaboration and creativity have become increasingly important for research (George et al., 2020) as the daily working routines in which employees have been embedded in for decades have become disrupted. The abrupt move to "working from home” that the pandemic created is arguably the most significant organisational design change in our lifetimes. Organisations are now asking how the virtualisation of work has impacted on the collaboration and communication necessary for driving innovation behaviour, and what strategies are available to develop remote innovation solutions. In this study, we explore organisational culture theory against the backdrop of digitally transforming innovation development as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This multi-layered model offers a useful framework for thinking about processes that foster innovation. By doing so, we investigate how organisations have adapted their approach to remote, collaborative innovation from the perspective of nineteen industry experts. The purpose of this study is to present the determinants of organisational culture to develop digital innovation in a hybrid working environment. Our findings reveal twelve distinct variables across the artifacts, values, and assumptions required to ensure digital innovation. These findings have implications for theory and practice, as it provides organisational leaders with a strategic understanding as to how a remote innovative culture can be developed, and subsequently exploited. © 2022, Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All right reserved.