Dr Nii Amoo

Working environments become increasingly culturally diverse and managers, employees and people at large are often required to engage in cross-cultural negotiations. In this regard, it becomes important for negotiators to develop the ability to recognize cultural differences and adapt their negotiation styles to the cultural contingencies they face. This study examines the influence of cultural intelligence on the relationship between cultural values and the individual preferences for a given negotiation style. Our results show that cultural values (e.g. power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism and masculinity) have a direct influence on negotiation styles as well as an indirect effect, which is mediated through cultural intelligence. The study highlights the importance of cultural values and cultural intelligence on negotiation styles and contributes to the research and practice of negotiations.

Purpose: To examine the use of tools and techniques of strategy and strategic analysis within SMEs as part of the strategy formation process. Methodology: A qualitative, multiple-case-based investigation utilising semi-structured interviews and secondary data sources to create a context-rich insight to the area examined. Findings: The findings indicate a strong orientation towards operational tools deployment aligned with financial management and resources and process planning, monitoring and control. Strategic perspectives of the respondents indicate an implicit, rather than explicit deployment of strategy tools and unstructured deployment, but general awareness of the resulting component issues. Clearer strategic approaches and strong implementation appear to positively influence success, when measured by growth. Limitations: This study is limited to nine organisations within a UK geographic region and therefore larger scale investigation would be beneficial to extend and confirm the findings in differing contexts. Practical Implications: With resource scarcity potentially stymying the opportunity for owner-managers to develop more structured approaches to strategic analysis and development, consideration should be given to how owner-managers can further develop their strategic thinking in order to support enhanced strategic outcomes for their organisations. Furthermore, strategy educationalists may wish to reflect upon the manner in which they prepare delegates for strategic roles, where the SME context may differ radically from corporate experience. Originality: The methodology for this study differs substantially from previous investigations within the field, which has had relatively few contributions, as it utilises in-depth context-rich qualitative techniques to investigate the micro processes at play. The conclusions capture new insights, indications and identify areas for further investigation, hence adding to our understanding of a complex and heterogeneous field.

Today's international corporate environments demand that employees are culturally intelligent for effective engagement in cross-cultural interactions. This study examines the moderating effect of cultural intelligence (CQ) in the relationship between individual cultural orientations and the choice of a conflict management style. A sample of 403 employees completed self-report measures of all study variables. Findings confirmed the impact of cultural orientations on conflict management styles, namely avoiding, forcing and problem-solving. Moreover, findings confirm the existence of a moderated effect of some facets of cultural intelligence on the relationship between individual's cultural orientations and conflict management styles. The study offers novel empirical evidence for the important role that cultural intelligence has in managing conflict for increased productivity and performance in diverse international environments.

The continuous increase in healthcare costs as regards GDP and the public expenditure reflects, on the one side, the growth of health demand due to the change in the global epidemiological landscape and, on the other side, a progressive rise in health costs, sig-nificantly influencing the sustainability of the world health system. The legislative measures adopted by many countries, primarily aiming at containing the public ex-penditure, have drawn the attention of academics and practitioners. The interest is focused on risk management because nowadays this process is considered necessary in healthcare public companies. The reason is that it allows, on the one hand, to reduce waste and, consequently, costs, and, on the other hand, to improve the results and the assistance quality offered. In this context, the aim of the study is two-fold: i) to examine the clinical risk management in healthcare organizations; ii) to verify, through a case study, in which way the adoption of innovative managerial models, such as the lean management, can improve performance and reduce the clinical risks caused by adverse events; this, to improve the clinical risk management. For this pur-pose, we analyze the lean management model implemented in “Morgagni Pierantoni Hospital Unit” of Forlì. The results show a positive impact of lean management model on clinical processes in terms of improvement of performance and higher security of assistance services.

Public sectors have responded to the demands of changing demographics and economies, the availability of and new developments in technology, and changing relationships with citizens, by establishing Collaboratives – new inter-organisational partnerships. In the healthcare sector these collaborative models recognise that increasing demand can only be supported through co-produced models of care that bring citizens’ assets into the production of services. In the UK, a proliferation of collaboration-based healthcare networks exist that could help to both enhance the value of investments in the health programs, and also reach under-served people in complex environments. This paper presents the results and findings of a placed-based collaborative network, highlighting challenges and insights that emerged from using such an organisational form. Using a social constructionist epistemology and a qualitative methodology, we suggest that leadership, data enabled learning through system-wide training and development, and the provision of an enabling environment that is facilitated by a higher education institution can go a long way in the managing of healthcare networks.

The debate about the relevance of management education to management practice has been intense and full of contradictory findings, with increasing concerns about the application of management education within the workplace. Despite these concerns, there is relatively little evidence about whether graduates use the tools, techniques and concepts taught as part of management education. This paper addresses this gap by providing evidence from a large-scale survey on business school alumni’ patterns of adoption of those tools, techniques and frameworks typically taught within strategic management education. The results clearly indicate that education characteristics on four dimensions, level of formal education, exposure to and frequency of management training, and specificity of strategic management education, are important drivers in alumni adoption of strategy tools. Moreover, using regression analysis, we find a cumulative effect, that also indicates the relative weight of each of these educational characteristics in predicting tool adoption.

Strategy tools such as scenario planning and Porter’s Five Forces have been developed in order to support the strategy work of practitioners and organizations. However, little research has been concerned with the practicalities of using strategy tools. This paper addresses this gap through a large scale survey of where in the strategy process managers use different strategy tools and what value they accord to that use in different phases. It was found that: a) strategy tools use is not specific to a single stage of the strategy process rather their use spread across all stages b) strategy tools use and value are not strongly correlated; c) the use and value of strategy tools decreases progressively as we move from strategy analysis to strategy implementation.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the use of tools and techniques of strategy and strategic analysis within small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a part of the strategy formation process. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a qualitative, multiple-case-based investigation with semi-structured interviews and secondary data sources to create a context-rich insight to the area examined. Findings: The findings indicate a strong orientation towards operational tools deployment aligned with financial management and resources and process planning, monitoring and control. Strategic perspectives of the respondents indicate an implicit, rather than explicit deployment of strategy tools and unstructured deployment, but general awareness of the resulting component issues. Clearer strategic approaches and strong implementation appear to positively influence success, when measured by growth. Research limitations/implications: This study is limited to nine organisations within a UK geographic region, and therefore, larger-scale investigation would be beneficial to extend and confirm the findings in differing contexts. Practical implications: With resource scarcity potentially stymying the opportunity for owner-managers to develop more structured approaches to strategic analysis and development, consideration should be given to how owner-managers can further develop their strategic thinking to support enhanced strategic outcomes for their organisations. Furthermore, strategy educationalists may wish to reflect upon the manner in which they prepare delegates for strategic roles, where the SME context may differ radically from corporate experience. Originality/value: The methodology for this study differs substantially from previous investigations within the field, which has had relatively few contributions, as it uses in-depth, context-rich qualitative techniques to investigate the micro-processes at play. The conclusions capture new insights and indications and identify areas for further investigation, hence adding to the understanding of a complex and heterogeneous field.

The relevance of management education to management practice has been a topic of intense debate in the management field. In this paper, we argue that the debate is stuck in an infinite sequence of arguments and counter-arguments, which generally take a representationalist view of management education and assume that managers use or should use academic knowledge in the way academics prescribe. In order to move the field forward, we should consider a practice epistemology that conceptualizes the problem from a different angle. This will allow us to focus on what managers actually do with their education rather than what they should do. Approaching the problem from this angle may enable us to ask different questions and generate counter-intuitive results that will challenge some deep-rooted assumptions about relevance. We finalise the paper by discussing the implications of this approach to management teaching and the relevance debate research agenda.

Change and reform in the Healthcare system, and policy determination to reduce costs has now necessitated a rethink and more innovation for this sector. In the healthcare sector, leadership needs to strengthen professionals who have the dual responsibility for ensuring the quality and effectiveness of healthcare and this requires new organisational forms beyond the traditional hierarchical organisational structures. Drawing upon strategic management and leadership discourse to underpin the study into sustainable and high performing systems, we then look at seven key lessons (propositions) from a mixed-methods study of a live city-wide large-scale collaborative in Leeds, UK. These seven propositions are framed in the context of leadership and strategy, however interesting and emergent findings also emerged as a result of the study. We thereby illuminate the challenges and opportunities to the collaboratives development in the context of global government calls for better healthcare management within the sector. We found that in the sustainability of such collaboratives, requires a more effective structure could be local city-wide collaborative in contrast to national or regional collaborative, however there are also several unknowns in such novel organisational structures. The shared and distributive form of leadership is underpinned with an energetic strategic leader who holds the centre whilst inspiring and empowering the collective nature of all members. This is also effectively achieved through promotion of a professional culture that is sustained through structured organisational learning. This paper adds to the small but growing body of knowledge in Improvement Collaboratives in the Health sector.

Despite concerns about the relevance of management education, there is relatively little evidence about whether graduates use the management tools and concepts they are taught. We address this gap with evidence from a survey of business school alumni adoption of tools typically taught in strategic management courses. Our findings show that four educational characteristics—level of formal education, frequency of management training, specificity of strategic management education, and time elapsed since formal education—drive adoption of strategy tools. Specifically, features such as postgraduate over undergraduate qualifications and frequent exposure to management training predispose greater user of strategy tools. However, other factors, such as time elapsed since formal education, are not as great a predictor of variation in use. We conclude with a predictive model of the relative weight and importance of educational and demographic characteristics on strategy tool adoption and discuss our findings in light of the relevance debate.

Purpose: Public sectors have responded to grand societal challenges by establishing collaboratives – new inter-organizational partnerships to secure better quality health services. In the UK, a proliferation of collaboration-based healthcare networks exists that could help to enhance the value of investments in quality improvement programs. The nature and organizational form of such improvements is still a subject of debate within the public-sector literature. Place-based collaboration has been proposed as a possible solution. In response, the purpose of this study is to present the results and findings of a place-based collaborative network, highlighting challenges and insights. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a social constructionist epistemological approach, using a qualitative methodology. A single case study was used and data collected in three different stages over a two-year period. Findings: The study finds that leadership, data-enabled learning through system-wide training and development, and the provision of an enabling environment that is facilitated by an academic partner, can go a long way in the managing of healthcare networks for improving quality. Research limitations/implications: Regardless of the tensions and challenges with place-based networks, they could still be a solution in maximizing the public value required by government investments in the healthcare sector, as they offer a more innovative structure that can help to address complex issues beyond the remit of hierarchical structures. This study is limited by the use of a single case study. Practical implications: Across countries health systems are moving away from markets to collaborative models for healthcare delivery and from individual services to population-based approaches. This study provides insights to inform leaders of collaborative health models in the design and delivery of these new collaborations. Social implications: As demand rises (as a result of increasing complexity and demographics) in the western world, health systems are seeking to redefine the boundaries between health service provision and community self-reliance and resilience. This study provides insights into the new partnership between health institutions and communities, providing opportunities for more social- and solidarity-based healthcare models which place patients and the public at the heart of change. Originality/value: The city place-based network is the first of such organizational form in healthcare collaboration in the UK.

This study analyses the implications of oil prices shocks for the BRICS economies. We employed a time-varying structural vector autoregressive (TV-SVA) framework in which the sources of time variation are the coefficients and variance-covariance matrix of the innovations. The quarter frequency data for the period of 1987QII – 2017QII is used for the empirical analysis. The key findings suggest that there are substantial differences and asymmetries in the response of these economies to oil shocks. These differences were profound between, and even within, oil exporters and importers. It shows that between major oil exporters i.e. Russia and Brazil the former’s economy is rather more intensively influenced by oil prices shocks. Between the two largest net oil importers i.e. India and China, comparatively, the Indian economy seems to be rather more vulnerable to oil prices shocks in terms of their adverse effects on GDP, inflation and balance of trade. The dependence of economies on oil and an increasing level of consumption continue to pose policy challenges for prices and economic stability. The analysis on South Africa also shows negative impacts of oil prices shocks, however, the effects are comparatively more time-variant than other BRICS members. While these asymmetries indicate significant differences in the structure of these economies they also indicate venues of cooperation and stronger trading relationships to overcome the adverse shocks and mutual development.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of literatures and previous studies on the relationship between strategic planning and performance and propose conceptual designs and hypotheses using multidimensional constructs to advance the understanding of this relationship, contribute to existing debates in the extant literature and make recommendations. Design/methodology/approach A semi-systematic literature and previous studies (studied by various groups of researchers within diverse disciplines) review approach has been used in this paper to contribute to the debate on whether strategic planning affects performance and how. Using more recent knowledge about the strategic planning concept, the semi-systematic review looked at how research within strategic planning has progressed over the past five decades and its relationship with performance. Findings In the past, the strategic planning performance relationship has been treated as a black box and this paper proposes that the conceptualisation of a number of constructs and the inclusion of strategy implementation will help converting the black box into a white box. To strengthen support for the debate regarding the relationship between strategic planning and performance this paper proposes a further conceptual/operational design, mathematical expressions and hypotheses to be tested empirically in further studies. The proposal provides a conceptualisation of the major constructs (strategy development; strategy implementation; and performance), and the use of strategy implementation as a mediator and/or as a moderator in the planning performance relationship. Research limitations/implications This study is limited due to fact that the findings have not been tested empirically, it is not a cross-sectional and/or a longitudinal research and only a limited number of dimensions of strategy development and strategy implementation have been used. In addition, the approach used is a semi-systematic review followed by quantitative thinking, which, in turn, typically assumes the relevance of and a warrant mainly from a positivist epistemology. Originality/value The proposed design developed in this paper ensures that core issues in planning performance relationships research are addressed. Furthermore, the inclusion of strategy implementation in planning performance relationship studies means that the whole chain of activities in the strategy process is being considered, drawing a complete and comprehensive conclusion on how strategic planning affects an organisation’s performance. In addition, by separating strategy implementation and by not combining it with formulation/formation activities will theoretically and analytically help to evaluate the importance or role of each stage of the strategy process. Moreover, the conceptualisation and operationalisation of the key concepts as multidimensional constructs contribute to past research gaps. Finally, this paper provides some clarity to many contradictory findings concerning the strategic planning and performance relationship.

This study has analysed the implications of oil price shocks on dynamics on the of BRICS economies (GDP, Inflation, Trade balance). We employed a Time-Varying Structural Vector Autoregressive framework in which the sources of time variation were both the coefficients and variance-covariance matrix of the innovations and the quarterly data from 1987Q2–2017Q1 of the BRICS. The key findings suggested that there are substantial differences and asymmetries in the response of these economies to the oil shocks. These differences were profound between and even within the oil exporters and importers. It showed that between the major oil exports i.e. Russia and Brazil the former’s economy was rather more intensively influenced by the oil price shocks. Between the two largest net oil importers i.e. India and China, comparatively, the Indian economy seemed to be rather more vulnerable to the oil price shocks in terms of their adverse effects on the GDP, Inflation and Balance of Trade. The Analysis on South Africa also showed negative impacts of oil price shocks, however, the effects were comparatively more time-variant than other BRICS members. While these asymmetries indicate significant differences in the structure of these economies they also indicate towards venues of cooperation and stronger trading relationships to overcome the adverse shocks and mutual development.

Through quantitative methodological approaches for studying the strategic management and planning process, analysis of data from 208 senior managers involved in strategy processes within ten UK industrial sectors provides evidence on the measurement properties of a multi-dimensional instrument that assesses ten dimensions of strategy implementation. Using exploratory factor analysis, results indicate the sub-constructs (the ten dimensions) are uni-dimensional factors with acceptable reliability and validity; whilst using three additional measures, and correlation and hierarchical regression analysis, the nomological validity for the multi-dimensional strategy implementation construct was established. Relative importance of ten strategy implementation dimensions (activities) for practicing managers is highlighted, with the mutually and combinative effects drawing conclusion that senior management involvement leads the way among the ten key identified activities vital for successful strategy implementation.