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The purpose of this paper is to identify five quality improvement initiatives for healthcare system leaders, produced by such leaders themselves, and to provide some guidance on how these could be implemented.

A multi-stage modified-Delphi process was used, blending the Delphi approach of iterative information collection, analysis and feedback, with the option for participants to revise their judgments.

The process reached consensus on five initiatives: change information privacy laws; overhaul professional training and work in the workplace; use co-design methods; contract for value and outcomes across health and social care; and use data from across the public and private sectors to improve equity for vulnerable populations and the sickest people.

Information could not be gathered from all participants at each stage of the modified-Delphi process, and the participants did not include patients and families, potentially limiting the scope and nature of input.

The practical implications are a set of findings based on what leaders would bring to a decision-making table in an ideal world if given broad scope and capacity to make policy and organisational changes to improve healthcare systems.

This study adds to the literature a suite of recommendations for healthcare quality improvement, produced by a group of experienced healthcare system leaders from a range of contexts.

Nebraska libraries are involved in a variety of automation and connectivity initiatives. Libraries of all sizes and types are using information technology for internal operations as well as for connectivity with other libraries and external sources. Individual libraries and groups of libraries have had success in obtaining both public and private funding to support their technology projects. Despite these successes, ongoing support is lacking to sustain and enhance library technology. The following examples highlight several projects, but do not pretend to cover all of the many individual and cooperative initiatives underway or planned.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolving nature of supply chain management customised executive education over the past decade and present a conceptual framework for curriculum development and design.

The paper adopts a combination of methods utilising both in‐depth interviews with academics and practitioners and a single longitudinal case study based on records of 197 customised executive education programmes delivered since 2000.

The findings show that the needs of practitioners have evolved from acquiring competency‐based training to obtaining support for wider strategy deployment and change management programmes within organisations. Moreover, the design and delivery of programmes have developed over the period considering the requirements for experiential learning, project work involving deeper faculty engagement, pre‐ and post‐course project activity, supported by internet‐based learning portals.

The authors' research provides evidence that the nature of supply chain executive education has changed and that further research is needed to explore the implications for the delivery of programmes.

The adoption of the framework will provide course directors and programme managers involved in supply chain management executive education with insights for successful design and execution of programmes. Similarly, the framework can support decision‐making processes conducted by organisations commissioning customised executive education programs.

Although there is a body of research relating to curriculum development and design generally, there is little empirical research focusing on supply chain management executive education.

Drawing from the work of sociologist Niklas Luhmann, this paper analyzes and critiques the ways sociology presents itself as a vehicle for sociological “enlightenment.” It begins with a brief historical account of how sociology has come to describe itself as a science in the name of promoting social justice rooted back to the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Next, the relevant elements of Luhmann's theory of society are explained ground the analysis. Luhmann's critiques of sociology and science are then presented to explain how a Luhmannian understanding of social systems exposes what is missing in sociology's current self-description of itself and its “enlightenment” mission. Building upon Luhmann's observations, a preliminary observational analysis of the communication techniques and technologies of sociology, such as classes, conferences, and publications, is assessed to evaluate the tools sociology uses to engage in communication and “irritate” other social systems. The central question here is, are these tools effective in communicating sociological knowledge in a way that aligns with the aspirational humanistic goals sociology seeks to achieve? The argument then concludes with some remarks about how sociology might potentially overcome its communicative efficacy problem if it takes seriously the insights from a Luhmannian approach to communication and considers alternative forms of communication to reach new audiences. In this way, sociology could perhaps overcome the gap between the facts of its communicational efficacy and its enlightenment norms.

The purpose of this study is to employ the collage technique, an unstructured qualitative association instrument, with respect to place branding initiatives and to uncover internal stakeholders' perceptions of the region or destination.

The first part presents a general framework of brand and destination branding in the field of tourism research. The empirical study was carried out in selected Alpine tourism destinations. In the first stage the authors identified the main representatives of stakeholders in two Austrian tourism destinations. In the second, the collage technique was used to obtain stakeholders' perceptions of the tourism destination brand.

The findings reveal that different internal stakeholders trace different perceptions of tourism places and illustrate the importance of using the collage as a technique to explore the various identities of a place.

It is argued that internal destination stakeholders do not share the same brand perception of the destination brand and they do not share a common identity, which is communicated through the destination management organisations (DMOs). However, more research is needed to support these findings as the study is limited by its sample size and focus on the Alpine region of Tyrol, Austria.

The results suggest that DMOs should establish better identities within their destination. In particular, they must consider that the collage is a very important technique in communicating the desired brand identity to internal destination stakeholders.

This paper seeks to clarify the effectiveness of the collage method as a tool to measure stakeholders' identities of selected tourism destinations. The paper demonstrates the importance of employing different association methods (word or picture) in recognizing stakeholders' knowledge and opinions of destinations as a primary step in analyzing stakeholders' brand identity perception.

Confirms the empirical test of Hunt and Vitell’s general theory of marketing ethics by Mayo and Marks across four cultures. Uses path analysis to show the core relationships of the general theory of marketing ethics were successfully replicated using over 1,500 students from seven universities in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, and Australia. States that tomorrow’s managers appeared to use a more deontological approach to making ethical judgements about personal selling. Extends its original research by confirming the positive relationship between the probability and the desirability of consequences. Concludes that, although the model was originally intended to explain management ethical decision making, the study shows that it may be possible to generalize as to how individuals make ethical life decisions.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

This paper aims to take seriously the import accorded to the interface within the digital humanities. It will probe some of the possibilities and limits of the computer interface as a reading and research tool by unpacking theoretical and practical aspects of interface design.

The authors wanted to see if they could design a tool that would meet three interrelated goals: the first was to develop a digital tool that would enable scholarship rather than mere publishing. Next, they wanted to build an interface that would acknowledge the situatedness of reading and meaning-making practices.

The research-oriented design approach to interface design has shown us how valuable it is to combine research and practice when thinking through issues in the digital humanities. Engaging in such a design project provides the unique opportunity to bring together theoretical concepts relating interface design with robust tools like XML mark-up and Drupal modules.

There is literature on the subject of transformation of print documents to electronic text (Hayles, 2003) and the representation of text within a computer (Sperberg-McQueen, 1991); this project attempts to build a prototype of what these theories might look like.

Through a critical viewing of All in the Family and Curb Your Enthusiasm, significant shifts in popular conceptions of racialized others can be identified. All in the Family, represented by the character Archie Bunker, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, represented by Larry David, are deconstructed and contrasted to represent distinct eras in the portrayal of race relationships. All in the Family takes a sanctimonious and judgmental stance toward prejudice that embodies a simplistic conception of race humanized through the defects of Archie Bunker. Curb Your Enthusiasm, in contrast, offers a complex conception of racialized relationships, humanized by the character of Larry David. Comparisons of the two portrayals suggest that (1) conceptions of race have shifted from fixed, definitional and “individualized” contents toward situational, fluid, and ironic ones, (2) this shift parallels transformations in society, and (3) sarcastic and framed narratives of the consequences of interracial relationships and race prejudice have displaced optimistic and challenging portrayals. For their respective eras, each program reflects conceptions of race in popular consciousness.