David Dreyfus

This research demonstrates a method to introduce blockchain technology in the classroom based on the Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP). A blockchain is a digital distributed ledger with the potential to improve transparency and trust between parties. Businesses are testing, piloting, and deploying blockchain technology across their organizations, and students show growing interest in the technology. This teaching brief proposes an exercise that uses POAPs, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) associated with an event, to help students understand blockchain technology within supply chain management contexts. Instructors can use the exercise for various purposes: as incentives for behavior the instructor wishes to encourage (such as attending class) or as prizes for games. The exercise also includes a glossary of blockchain‐related terms to introduce the language of this industry to students. Student surveys showed a significant change in their knowledge of blockchain technology, specifically, a 41% increase in understanding of how blockchain technology may benefit supply chain management and a 35% improvement in the ability to explain blockchain technology to others. This brief concludes with resources to create and distribute POAPs for courses and other settings.

Purpose: Drawing on normal accident and high-reliability organizational theories, this study examines the impact of magnitude and likelihood of disruptions on surgical procedure performance. More importantly, the authors investigate the moderating role played by information exchange and risk management infrastructure in mitigating the negative effect of disruption on performance.Design/methodology/approach: A nationwide multi-respondent survey was administered to operating room personnel to collect information on their experiences with disruptions experienced in surgeries. The survey data are analyzed to examine the relationship between operational disruptions and procedure performance. Additionally, the moderating roles of risk management infrastructure and information exchange on the relationship between disruptions and performance are investigated. The results obtained from the empirical analysis are validated using data from an ethnographic investigation of surgeries at a major hospital.Findings: The results show that both the magnitude and the likelihood of a disruption adversely impact procedure performance. Interestingly, the authors find that risk management infrastructure and information exchange play different roles in mitigating the effect of disruptions on performance. The authors find that while risk management infrastructure helps mitigate the effect of magnitude of service disruptions, information exchange helps reduce the effects of likelihood of disruptions. The findings lend strong support to the theoretical assertions. By means of the participant–observer data collected from over 100 surgeries as part of the ethnographic investigation, the authors validate the key findings. The findings suggest that disruptions are common occurrences in surgical settings, but their performance impact may be lessened or altogether avoided with the proper information and risk management mechanisms in place.Originality/value: This survey research extends the understanding of risk management by considering a context that is highly prone to disruptions. The authors adopt existing constructs pertaining to supply chain disruptions within this context and find new insights. The findings of the study show differential roles played by information exchange and risk management infrastructure in mitigating disruptions. This nuanced understanding provides directions for aligning efforts towards risk mitigation in surgical settings in a more focused way. This study supplements findings from survey data analysis with an examination of data collected by means of ethnographic investigation.

This study investigates how the affiliation of dialysis facilities within chain organizations of varying sizes impacts efficiency and quality outcomes of these facilities. We develop our hypotheses by building on the literature base that relates to organizational learning. The paper uses a panel dataset spanning the years 2008–2013. The efficiency of the dialysis facilities is operationalized by means of a data envelopment analysis model. This model considers the number of treatments in the dialysis facility as the output variable. The model uses four inputs—number of dialysis stations, number of full‐time equivalents of physicians, number of full‐time equivalents of clinical staff, and the number of employee hours per week at a dialysis facility. Quality is operationalized by considering facilities’ performance scores on three measures developed by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services. The findings point to distinct effects of chain organization size on quality and efficiency performance of dialysis facilities. Specifically, the results obtained by analyzing a dynamic panel data model show that chain organization size has an inverse U‐shaped curvilinear effect on quality outcomes and a U‐shaped curvilinear effect on efficiency. The findings suggest that dialysis facilities affiliated with chain organizations of varying sizes experience learning effects and causal ambiguities depending on the specific performance measure under consideration. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice and present directions for future research.

This ethnographic study of more than 90 surgeries (referred to as episodes of care) identifies the antecedents to operating room (OR) supply waste. The study specifically considers the role of planning instances and communication patterns among members of the surgery team on supply waste within the OR. We operationalize planning instances in terms of the number of changes to the physician preference card (PPC), the key document that is used to plan items needed for surgery. Communication patterns among members of the surgery team are captured by measuring the density of communication among the OR team members during an episode of care. The unplanned costs during an episode of care are used as a measure of OR supply waste. Hundreds of hours were spent observing episodes of care and tracking supplies. A combination of participant‐observation, survey, and secondary data were analyzed to extract theoretical and practical insights. The results show that planning instances have a curvilinear relationship with unplanned costs. In particular, as the number of changes to the PPC increases, unplanned costs first increase and then decrease. Higher density of the OR team's communication network is associated with lower unplanned costs. This study has significant theoretical and managerial implications that we discuss and offer directions for future research.

Purpose: Healthcare networks are becoming ubiquitous, yet it is unclear how hospitals with varying quality capabilities would fare by being affiliated with large healthcare networks. The purpose of this paper is to first consider the deductive configuration perspective and distinguish high and low quality hospitals by using clinical and experiential quality as two dimensions of quality capability. Next, it examines the impact of healthcare network size on operating costs of hospitals. Additionally, the paper investigates the interaction effect of hospital demand and healthcare network size on operating costs.Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses a dataset that was created by combining five separate sources. Cluster analysis technique is used to classify hospitals into four groups – holistic quality leaders (high clinical and experiential quality capability), experiential quality focusers (low clinical quality capability and high experiential quality capability), clinical quality focusers (high clinical capability and low experiential quality capability), and quality laggards (low clinical and experiential quality capability). The authors test the research hypotheses by means of regression analyses after controlling for several contextual characteristics.Findings: The results show that affiliation with large healthcare networks reduces operating costs for quality laggards, but increases these costs for experiential quality focusers and clinical quality focusers. The hypothesized positive relationship between healthcare network size and costs is not supported for holistic quality leaders. The authors find that clinical quality focusers and holistic quality leaders can complement higher utilization levels in their operations due to increased demand and healthcare network size to reduce their operating costs per day.Originality/value: There has been increasing evidence suggesting that hospitals must carefully manage both clinical and experiential quality. By focusing on both clinical and experiential quality, unlike experiential quality focusers and clinical quality focusers, holistic quality leaders are not adversely affected by the size of their network. The results suggest that experiential quality focusers and clinical quality focusers should either embrace holistic quality management or restrict the size of their networks to maintain their quality level and to reduce coordination costs.

Within the classroom it is often difficult to convey the complexities and intricacies that go into making sales and operations planning decisions. This article describes an in‐class simulation that allows students to gain hands‐on experience with the complexities in making forecasting, inventory, and supplier selection decisions as part of the sales and operations planning process. The activity may be run during one class period and is flexible enough to accommodate almost any class size. During the simulation, students may apply forecasting techniques, inventory management concepts, and supplier selection processes, while experiencing the effects of supply chain disruptions. This simulation is recommended to be used after forecasting, inventory management, and supplier selection topics have been discussed. An overview of the exercise and evidence of its effectiveness is provided.

IS Architecture emerges as a result of a sequence of IS project implementations. The architecture that emerges can be viewed as a network of software components linked by their interdependencies. The network influences, and is influenced by, the intra-organizational interdependencies in which it is embedded. IT management can influence the evolution of the network, and, by extension, the evolution of the organization. However, given time and cost constraints, IT management can most directly influence only a few of the components in the network, the architectural control points. In this research we show how a network perspective using research from social network analysis provides a useful abstraction for understanding architecture. We apply modular operators from design theory to enact changes to architecture. Finally, we show that by following a few simple rules, enterprises can improve the fitness of their architecture as the network emerges and the control points shift over time.