What Skill/Knowledge is Important to a Nursing Professional?

This study employed a survey instrument to investigate the knowledge topics that are important to a nursing professional. We asked 491 nursing professionals and managers in Taiwan what they thought about 47 educational topics. For each topic, the authors asked them how much they had learned about a given topic in their formal education, their current knowledge of the topic, and how important the topic has been in their career. Results indicate each knowledge topic’s importance, the amount learned in formal education programs, and the educational knowledge gap. The findings also show the amount currently known, current knowledge gap, and the amount learned (or forgotten) subsequent to education. The survey supports current perceptions about the importance of some topics, but it also highlights topics that are sometimes underemphasized or overemphasized. Efforts to develop nursing curricula or training programs for nursing professionals or students should consider the experience of practitioners in clinics and hospitals. Findings should be useful to hospital training departments and nursing educators in universities and colleges to refine or revise their curriculum design. Nursing professionals and students seeking continuing education will also be able to use the results for selecting courses for career enhancement.

Capability Approach

This paper acknowledges the role of entrepreneurship for the development of the process of sustained livelihood. The paper proposes a systematic usage of the ‘Capability’ approach (Sen, 2000) as the basis of the methodology applied by agencies having objectives in lieu with the process of sustained livelihood, because of the wider applicability and span of this approach. Taking examples of rural non-farm sector schemes of NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development), the proposition of the usage of ‘Capability’ approach emphasizes the emergence of better criterion for measuring the effectiveness of the implementation of such schemes.

Development of Human Factors Ontology for Business Knowledge Management

Employee knowledge and cognitive skills are key assets to achieving business success, yet are often mismanaged. By promoting the human-centered design approach, the discipline of human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) can significantly contribute to optimizing business processes through effective management of employee knowledge. However, a comprehensive methodology is needed to help organizations integrate the HF/E principles across various business processes. This paper introduces a novel method for integrating HF/E principles into business processes through the application of HF/E ontologies.

Chinese Manufacturing

In the past three decades, Chinese economy has been arresting the worldwide attention for its double-digit growth rate. Playing a leading part in general economic development, Chinese manufacturing has been contributing a substantial portion in the total GDP growth. However, a national key project, the Research of China National Manufacturing Strategy, has found in the last several years that Chinese manufacturing has already lost its competitiveness due to the void of cheap labor force (New Labor Law in China), the rising costs of raw materials and energies, and the more rigid requirements for environmental protection. Chinese manufacturing has met its Waterloo and calls for an urgent business transformation if it wants to survive and sustain its development. Based on fundamental research, authors of this paper propose a new business conceptual model, SERVICE-MANUFACTURING, which focuses on the seamless marriage of service and manufacturing and how this new model can be implemented in real business practices.

The Essential Leadership Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita, a part of the Mahabharata composed more than 5,000 years ago by Vyasa, is a timeless leadership classic and its wisdom is highly relevant to leaders of today. Here, in this paper, the authors examine the various tenets of the Bhagavad Gita and provides its wisdom to contemporary leadership. Some of these teachings will certainly inspire the leaders to change from within and transform their leadership from transactional to transformational and towards transcendental. In presenting this wisdom, the authors have employed hermeneutics, which is a method to interpret ancient texts combined with some qualitative inputs received from leadership seminar participants. This paper is significant for both leadership theory and practice.

Improving Small Firm Performance Through Collaborative Change Management and Outside Learning

This empirical-exploratory article sheds light on the change management approaches used by Chinese owner-managers of small firms in Singapore and their openness toward strategic learning. The paper examines widespread common-sense assumptions that ethnic Chinese adopt mostly directive-coercive (autocratic) change management approaches, which may stifle innovation. Great diversity exists amongst small firm owners in Asia with regard to their change leadership practices, and respective change implementation approaches are contingent on both demographic variables and situational forces like the urgency of change, the degree of resistance to change, and/or the dynamics of the environment in which the firms operate. Data from a SME survey in Singapore (n = 101) serves to substantiate several propositions about change management of Chinese owner-managers of SMEs in Singapore. Three hypotheses about the openness of SME owner-managers to outside sources of learning are presented to ascertain the prediction that such knowledge can give SMEs a performance headstart by helping them to work smarter.

Key Intangible Performance Indicators (KIPs) for Organisational Success

The paper reviews the concept and trend of Key Intangible Performance indicators (KIPs) for organisational success. Although KPIs are useful for tracking tangible performance drivers, KPIs cannot adequately measure intangible performance drivers. Therefore, organisations need to look for KIPs (which measure intangible drivers) in order to generate a complete picture of overall performance of organisations. Evidently, there is a significant shift of emphasis from measuring tangible to intangible performance measures in order to tap the full potential of intangible resources. It makes logical sense for organisations to unlock the intangible values for achieving and sustaining competitive advantage. In the face of globalisation, organisations need to transform themselves into highly competitive organisations to stay ahead of competition and at the forefront of their industries. The development and application of KIPs will be a strategic move to provide further insights and an impetus for continual improvement. From the literature review conducted, it is found that there are many diverse KIPs drivers which impact organisational success. And the most important drivers identified in this paper are leadership, innovation, company image and reputation, and employee satisfaction.

The Globalisation of Firms as a Social Evolutionary Process

From a social systems theory perspective, globalisation can be conceptualised as an evolutionary social process. By fusing systems theories, evolutionary theories, and organisation theories, globalisation becomes apparent as a historical social process, which encompasses the emergence and reproduction of social systems such as firms or other organisations within the wider process of the globalisation of society. The conceptualisation of firms as social systems also opens new perspectives on methodological issues such as how to study their globalisation process.

Psycho-Social Impact of Shift Work

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of work related problem on shift workers’ attitude, aptitude and job satisfaction. A total of 240 shift workers in five Ferro-alloy industries of Orissa working in rotating three shift systems were participated in this study. The findings indicated that shift work has major adverse impact on psychological, social, family and conjugal life of shift worker. It has also seen that the shift work schedule curtails leisure activities, affects sleep and causes various health problems.

Australia-China and Stern Hu

China’s economic growth over the last decade has been spectacular and Australia has been a beneficiary of this growth in terms of China’s demand for resources and the strength of Chinese exports. Pundits even suggest that Australia avoided the global recession as a result of this strong trade relationship. Trade relations between Australia and China resulted in China becoming Australia’s key trading partner. The arrest and charging in 2009/10 of four Rio Tinto executives (including Stern Hu the head of Rio’s operation in China) based in China raised fears of posing a strain on this vital economic relationship. Moreover China’s inability to takeover Rio Tinto and the significance and consequences of this incident are at the core of this paper. How do these events reflect the uncertainties of doing business in China or do these events demonstrate China’s sovereign right to enforce anti-corruption legislation? While China has embraced the international business community, to what extent has the arrest and imprisonment of Stern Hu changed the Australian-China trade relations including doing business in this thriving and buoyant market?