Potential pitfalls of startup integrations: An exploratory study

PurposeThis paper aims to conduct case studies in companies of different branches of the agribusiness sector to analyze the degree of adherence to lean production system, considering the use of techniques and tools, and how the specificities of the agribusiness system work.Design/methodology/approachBy contributing to the refinement of the theory, multiple type case studies were conducted in eight agribusiness units from different branches by applying structured interviews, on-site visits and document analysis. The comparative analysis of the cases occurred focusing on the degree of adherence to lean production system; use of techniques and tools; and influence of the specificities of agribusiness systems.FindingsThe adoption of lean production system occurs as an improvement mechanism of organizational performance. However, it is necessary to advance in the formalization of the actions, which need to encourage the creation of new leaders who spread the organizational philosophy. When comparing the degree of adherence to lean production with the use of techniques and tools, it was observed that there is no direct relationship, indicating that each organization should select only the techniques and tools that will improve their own organizational performance. At last, the specific characteristics of seasonality of consumption, quality and health surveillance and sociological aspects of the food have high influence on surveyed agribusiness systems, and its effects can be minimized by the techniques and tools associated with lean production system.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is valid for the universe investigated due to the specific characteristic of the case study.Originality/valueThe literature regarding the lean production philosophy is vast; however, the agribusiness segment, one of the major sectors of the global economy, features a large gap in literature. This study is one of the first original papers to report this reality.

IntroductionEffective teamwork plays a critical role in achieving high-performance outcomes in healthcare. Consequently, conducting a comprehensive assessment of team performance is essential for providing meaningful feedback during team trainings and enabling comparisons in scientific studies. However, traditional methods like self-reports or behavior observations have limitations such as susceptibility to bias or being resource consuming. To overcome these limitations and gain a more comprehensive understanding of team processes and performance, the assessment of objective measures, such as physiological parameters, can be valuable. These objective measures can complement traditional methods and provide a more holistic view of team performance. The aim of this study was to explore the potential of the use of objective measures for evaluating team performance for research and training purposes. For this, experts in the field of research and medical simulation training were interviewed to gather their opinions, ideas, and concerns regarding this novel approach.MethodsA total of 34 medical and research experts participated in this exploratory qualitative study, engaging in semi-structured interviews. During the interview, experts were asked for (a) their opinion on measuring team performance with objective measures, (b) their ideas concerning potential objective measures suitable for measuring team performance of healthcare teams, and (c) their concerns regarding the use of objective measures for evaluating team performance. During data analysis responses were categorized per question.ResultsThe findings from the 34 interviews revealed a predominantly positive reception of the idea of utilizing objective measures for evaluating team performance. However, the experts reported limited experience in actively incorporating objective measures into their training and research. Nevertheless, they identified various potential objective measures, including acoustical, visual, physiological, and endocrinological measures and a time layer. Concerns were raised regarding feasibility, complexity, cost, and privacy issues associated with the use of objective measures.DiscussionThe study highlights the opportunities and challenges associated with employing objective measures to assess healthcare team performance. It particularly emphasizes the concerns expressed by medical simulation experts and team researchers, providing valuable insights for developers, trainers, researchers, and healthcare professionals involved in the design, planning or utilization of objective measures in team training or research.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze how the application of gamification promotes employee motivation and engagement in the workplace. This study sought to identify gamification characteristics, examine motivation and engage at work to relate them to different game designs.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative exploratory study of multiple cases involving four companies located in Brazil’s southern region. These companies use gamification with their employees or companies whose business offers gamification solutions focused on people management.FindingsThis multiple case study presented aspects and different approaches to gamification and serious games. Of the four case studies, the Bravi Quiz application was the most satisfactory case because of its attractive design.Research limitations/implicationsThe research instruments prioritized the topic of gamification with its tools and applicability. The themes of motivation and engagement at work have been addressed but need further research.Practical implicationsThe planning and application of gamification with the appropriate score, feedback and rewards are necessary to promote motivation and engagement in the workplace. Gamification must be linked to its systems and processes on its excellent progress because it is taken in isolation; it does not increase engagement and motivation.Originality/valueThis is one of the few studies dealing with gamification in human resource management by involving developers/instructors, managers and employees/users and different companies’ tools. This study served as a comparison between the tools of gamification and serious games.

This paper aims to analyse the ways in which risk management has been embedded in management control systems in Italian municipalities. Through a qualitative method, this study presents multiple case studies from six municipalities with two levels of analysis: content analysis on the information published on the institutional website, and interviews through a questionnaire with open and closed questions addressed to the public managers of the Italian municipalities selected. Moreover, the municipality respondents were classified into medium (two municipalities with over 50,000 inhabitants), medium-high (two municipalities with between 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants), and high (one municipality with over 500,000 inhabitants). The multiple case studies reported show how there is not a strong level of integration between risk management and the management control system in use. This research is useful to sustain the debate about risk management in the public sector. It should help practitioners and scholars to cover their municipalities’ needs.

PurposeDerived from work conducted on the topics of Lean‐thinking and Lean‐Kaizensome management practices or techniques, such as the 5Ss, have recently become important in this research. The reason for this is that more and more of the companies that apply Lean‐thinking and Lean‐Kaizenare using the 5Ss as an essential step in their implementation. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the implementation of the 5Ss in multinational organisations in Mexico empirically, in order to analyse and compare them against the respective theoretical frameworks. The research question that governs the study is: “How are the 5Ss implemented in an organisational context such as that of a multinational company in Mexico?”Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory multiple case study was conducted. Three multinational companies, which have been established in Mexico for at least 20 years, were selected. Two of these companies were from the automotive sector (suppliers) and the third was a company manufacturing hygiene and cleaning products. Four methods were used to gather data: direct observation, participative observation, documentary analysis, and semi‐structured interviews.FindingsBased on cross analysis findings, a group of reasons was found for applying the 5Ss in the multinational organisations analysed, along with a group of drivers and inhibitors responsible for enhancing or blocking the successful implementation of the 5Ss. Finally, a conceptual framework was also established, based on the results of comparing theory and fieldwork: this provides a glimpse into the relationship of the 5Ss with other improvement programmes, known as Lean‐thinking or Lean‐Kaizen, in the organisations analysed. In particular, the framework show the importance betweendo(way: philosophy) andjyutsu(techniques) during the implantation process of 5Ss.Practical implicationsDerived to describe three case studies on how to implement the 5Ss within a programme or model for the Lean‐thinking or Lean‐Kaizenapproach, it may prove to be of value to practitioners and managers involved in the field. Similarly, a section on managerial implications has also been included.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the limited existing literature on the 5Ss through research that seeks to understand how this technique is implemented in a context of multinational organisations, particularly emphasising the main drivers and inhibitors that enhance or block it during the implementation process. It also includes a theoretical framework that can demonstrate the relationship of the 5Ss with the Lean‐thinking and Lean‐Kaizenprogrammes in this context: In particular for Latin America and Mexico, where virtually no academic studies of this type have been conducted.

Without careful methodological guidance, case studies in software engineering are difficult to plan, design and execute. While there are a number of broad guidelines for case study research, there are none that specifically address the needs of a software engineer undertaking multiple case studies in an industrial setting. Through a synthesis of existing best practices in case study research, we provide a set of comprehensive guidelines for conducting multiple case studies in software engineering research. Our guidelines can assist software engineering researchers with all stages of multiple case study research, although in this paper we concentrate on the early phases, such as focusing the case study and detailed plan design. To date, three exploratory research projects found our guidelines very useful. We illustrate our guidelines with examples from one of these projects.

Investigating the effects of time pressure on new product development teams

Neuromotor and functional assessment of the non-progressive to progressive transition in multiple sclerosis: a multiple case study

This qualitative research study focuses upon 5 highly creative kindergartners and 5 low creative kindergartners and presents the results of a descriptive study, examining the profile of highly creative kindergartners and parent child rearing styles. The data sources were the mother, father, teacher, and the kindergartener. Research methods or investigation include document analysis, tests, questionnaires, in-depth interviews. The results from both parents (mothers and fathers) of high creative cases revealed that there is a consistency on child rearing style between mother and father. Agreement between mother and father was best for the level of achievement toward their child, values on creative education and process, permissive parenting style. The mothers of high creative cases provide rich home environments to foster creativity and encouragement, response to questions, and the level of educational expectation are high in comparison to those of low creative cases. The findings reported here describe uniqueness and challenges for consideration by researchers as well as parents and teachers who wish to foster creativity for the kindergarteners.

Despite the promising application of cloud computing within government organisations, determining the barriers to the successful implementation of cloud computing remains a major challenge. Often, government organisations face formidable barriers to fully adopting cloud computing functions. These barriers include organisational culture issues, a weak application of service-level agreements (SLAs), compliance issues, interoperability and integration issues, the lack of an organisational strategy, cost calculation methods, cloud service availability, and cloud data security and privacy, as well as insufficient trust in providers. Tackling these barriers while meeting the specifications of government cloud computing involves architectural requirements and mechanisms. In addition, the nature of cloud ecosystem operation and its alignment with appropriate strategies are known to be complex, also considering the growing desire for governance solutions. Although researchers and organisations have recognised cloud computing obstacles prior to the cloud implementation stage, fewer efforts have been made to investigate cloud barriers in-depth during and after cloud implementation projects or when introducing governance solutions. This might partly be attributable to inadequate enterprise requirements for addressing cloud barriers, the complexity of government cloud specifications, and the lack of involvement by cloud stakeholders, such as providers and consumers. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to develop a governance method consisting of the generation and testing of architectural requirements to overcome dominant cloud barriers and improve cloud computing functionalities in the implementation stage. To achieve this, the roles of related cloud providers and consumers have been investigated. The study was guided by activities of The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Architecture Development Method (ADM) to design related architectural requirements that would provide best practices for the development of the governance method. Using a sequential, exploratory mixed method, multiple qualitative case studies on the role of cloud providers were conducted to explore which and how architectural requirements are suitable and applicable for addressing the identified cloud barriers. Afterwards, a quantitative survey study was performed to examine and validate the findings from the qualitative phase and to discover the role of cloud consumers in tackling cloud barriers. The utilisation of dual perspectives, from cloud providers and consumers, to design and measure the suitability and applicability of the architectural requirements is a substantial theoretical contribution in the field of enterprise information systems and cloud governance. Both cloud providers and consumers in the selected research context balanced their roles in the composition of cloud ecosystem projects, reducing complexity and enabling cooperative solutions for handling cloud barriers with different levels of emphasis and prioritisation. The results of this thesis provide significant guidance in eliciting architectural requirements as well as in their successful contribution to addressing the 10 identified cloud barriers in the selected context. Seeking a cloud provider’s perspective through multiple case studies resulted in 24 confirmed, newly emerged architectural requirements and 48 sub-requirements for best practices to support Information Technology (IT) managers and practitioners during the implementation of government cloud projects. From the point of view of the cloud service consumer, statistical evidence showed that the architectural requirements proved to be relevant and applicable and resulted in the validation of only eight important cloud constructs with a scale of 36 architectural requirements. The results at the governance level also produced a clear method that can enhance the realisation of value when business/IT strategies and EA governance practices both take place in cloud projects. The governance method also consists of a set of architectural requirements to support managing and controlling cloud computing implementation projects with related stakeholders and change management initiatives. The architectural requirements have been modelled via the ArchiMate 3.0 modelling language as unique and beneficial contributions for the enhancement of enterprise architecture practices. This thesis thereby introduces a novel cloud governance method with clear mechanisms and practices to serve as crucial resources for related organisations, decision-makers, business practitioners and researchers.

Background: There is uncertainty about the factors influencing inequities in access to palliative care in socially deprived areas, including the role of service models and professional perceptions. Aim: To explore the relationship between social deprivation and access to hospice care, including factors influencing access and professional experiences of providing care. Design: A mixed-methods multiple case study approach was used. Hospice referrals data were analysed using generalised linear mixed models and other regression analyses. Qualitative interviews with healthcare professionals were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings from different areas (cases) were compared in a cross-case analysis. Setting: The study took place in North West England, using data from three hospices (8699 hospice patients) and interviews with 42 healthcare professionals. Results: Social deprivation was not statistically significantly, or consistently, associated with hospice referrals in the three cases (Case 1, Incidence Rate Ratio 1.04, p = 0.75; Case 2, Incidence Rate Ratio 1.09, p = 0.15, Case 3, Incidence Rate Ratio 0.88, p = 0.35). Hospice data and interviews suggest the model of hospice care, including working relationship with hospitals, and the local nature of social deprivation influenced access. Circumstances associated with social deprivation can conflict with professional expectations within palliative care. Conclusion: Hospice care in the UK can be organised in ways that facilitate referrals of patients from socially deprived areas, although uncertainty about what constitutes need limits conclusions about equity. Grounding professional narratives around expectations, responsibility, and choice in frameworks that recognise the sociostructural influences on end-of-life circumstances may help to foster more equitable palliative care.

Although previous studies in the education field have investigated how teachers’ beliefs and practices converge or diverge, native English teachers’ (NETs) beliefs and practices remain underrepresented and underexplored, particularly with respect to university-level English speaking instruction in the Chinese context. This qualitative study used interviews and classroom observations over one semester to examine the pedagogical beliefs and actual classroom practices of three NETs instructing a course in oral communication with English as a foreign language (EFL). Based on the data analysis, this multiple case study found that the three native EFL teachers’ practices converged with their beliefs related to language, teaching, and teachers’ roles. However, divergences existed in terms of teaching and student learning. Teachers’ personal, learner-related, and contextual factors modified teachers’ practices and affected their decisions in putting their beliefs into practice. The results imply that it is essential for NETs to engage in critical reflection and enhance their professional agency, which helps them make appropriate classroom decisions to achieve resonance between their beliefs and practices. University administrators in the Chinese context may consider creating a more conducive environment for teacher training, increasing NETs’ sense of belonging, and further facilitating teachers’ professional development.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore relational aspects of key account management (KAM) in terms of social capital and relationship quality. The second objective was to identify the main dimensions that shape social capital and relationship quality within the KAM context. Finally, the third objective was to explore how relational KAM is practiced in the Middle Eastern context.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a qualitative methodology and a multiple case design. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a sample of senior executives from large Saudi firms.FindingsThe results highlight the importance of relationship quality and social capital to KAM implementation. A multiple case study was used to build a relational framework for KAM in the Middle Eastern context.Practical implicationsThree strategies were identified for use within the context of KAM in the Saudi market. The first strategy consisted of a means of attracting potential customers. The second strategy involved communication, aimed at maintaining frequent contact with key accounts. Finally, the third strategy was concentrated in maintenance to help sustain the relationship with key accounts.Originality/valueThis study extends understanding and the application of KAM to the Middle Eastern context, contributing to social capital, relationship quality and the KAM literature.

BackgroundIt is well documented that Canadian healthcare does not fully meet the health needs of First Nations, Inuit or Métis peoples. In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples concluded that Indigenous peoples’ healthcare needs had to be met by strategies and systems that emerged from Indigenous worldviews and cultures. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission also called on health organizations to learn from Indigenous knowledges and integrate Indigenous worldviews alongside biomedicine and other western ways of knowing. These calls have not yet been met. Meanwhile, the dynamic of organizational learning from knowledges and evidence within communities is poorly understood—particularly when learning is from communities whose ways of knowing differ from those of the organization. Through an exploration of organizational and health system learning, this study will explore how organizations learn from the Indigenous communities they serve and contribute to (re-)conceptualizing the learning organization and learning health system in a way that privileges Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing.MethodsThis study will employ a two-eyed seeing literature review and embedded multiple case study. The review, based on Indigenous and western approaches to reviewing and synthesizing knowledges, will inform understanding of health system learning from different ways of knowing. The multiple case study will examine learning by three distinct government organizations in Northwest Territories, a jurisdiction in northern Canada, that have roles to support community health and wellness: Tłı̨chǫ Government, Gwich’in Tribal Council, and Government of Northwest Territories. Case study data will be collected via interviews, talking circles, and document analysis. A steering group, comprising Tłı̨chǫ and Gwich’in Elders and representatives from each of the three partner organizations, will guide all aspects of the project.DiscussionExamining systems that create health disparities is an imperative for Canadian healthcare. In response, this study will help to identify and understand ways for organizations to learn from and respectfully apply knowledges and evidence held within Indigenous communities so that their health and wellness are supported. In this way, this study will help to guide health organizations in the listening and learning that is required to contribute to reconciliation in healthcare.

To assess the impacts of different forms of case management for people aged over 65 years at risk of unplanned hospital admission, in particular the impacts upon patients, carers and health service organization in English primary care; and, in these respects, compare the Evercare model with alternatives. Multiple qualitative case studies comparing case management in nine English Primary Care Trusts which piloted the Evercare model of case management and four sites which implemented alternative forms of case management between 2003 and 2005. Data were obtained from 231 interviews with patients, carers and other key informants, and from content analysis of documents and observation of meetings. All the projects established functioning case management services, but none led to major service reorganization or savings elsewhere in the health care system. Many informants reported examples of admissions which case management had prevented, but overall hospital admissions did not significantly change, possibly due to increased case-finding. Patients and carers valued case management for improving access to health care, increasing psychosocial support and improving communication with health professionals. Case management was highly valued by patients and their carers, but there were few major differences in outcomes between Evercare and other models.