BACKGROUND Ensuring Cultural Competence (CC) in health care is a mechanism to deliver culturally appropriate care and optimise recovery. In policies that promote cultural competence, the training of mental health practitioners is a key component of a culturally competent organisation. This study examines staff perceptions of CC and the integration of CC principles in a mental healthcare organis...

Achieving dramatic cost savings through outsourcing is one avenue managers can choose for value creation. Another is capitalizing on a strategic focus. Organizations that have identified the core or distinctive competence of their business, including IT core processes, are theoretically better able to concentrate on competitive strengths. By divesting themselves of activities unrelated or margi...

This study describes how IT can be strategically used as a source of differential performance outcomes in rapidly changing environments. Drawing from the dynamic capabilities view (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen 1997), a sustainable competitive advantage results from the ability to continuously improve, innovate, and reconfigure resources to match evolving environmental needs. ‘Resource reconfigurabi...

Absorptive capacity confers an ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it and apply it to commercial ends. It is well believed that the stronger absorptive capacity means the greater competitive advantage. However, this perception of firms’ knowledge transferring seems to misunderstand real learning due to three characteristics of absorptive capacity: path dependence, rela...

Structural problems in modern societies, such as climate change and congestion problems, require ‘transitions’ towards a more sustainable fulfilment of social needs. Recent research shows that experimenting in niches is crucial for learning about social challenges and stimulating transitions. Through a series of ‘transition experiments’ in different niches, social innovations can be improved an...

The knowledge and the competence of the firm members are substantial success factors in the world-wide competition. For a "Hidden Champion" like the middle-sized manufacturer of Top-Class Concrete Pumps and Plastering Machines, Putzmeister, Inc./Germany, a systematic and anticipating Competence Development System is essential. The article describes a pilot project started in spring 2002 to gain...

Despite the development of employability skills being firmly entrenched in higher education’s strategic agenda worldwide; recent graduates’ standards in certain skills are not meeting industry expectations. This paper presents and tests a model of undergraduate competence in employability skills. It highlights those factors which impact on competence in employability skills and identify ways in...

This paper presents a new model for project portfolio selection, paying specific attention to competence development. The model seeks to maximize a weighted average of economic gains from projects and strategic gains from the increment of desirable competencies. As a sub-problem, scheduling and staff assignment for a candidate set of selected projects must also be optimized. We provide a nonlin...