Reflections: US Coronavirus Crisis Management–Learning From Failure January–April, 2020

Empowering leadership: A conflict resolver and a performance booster for organizations

Organizational sustainability has become a critical challenge in the current era. This research purpose is to determine the impact of empowering leadership on conflict management and employees' performance for organizational sustainability. Furthermore, it also investigates the moderating impact of emotional stability on the relationship between empowering leadership, conflict management, and employee performance. Quantitative data for this research was collected from 512 middle-management-level employees from manufacturing firms in China. The partial least squares structural equation modelling results highlighted that empowering leadership positively impacts conflict management and employees' performance. Furthermore, the study showed that the organization's sustainability is possible with conflict management and employee performance when there is emotional stability. The theoretical grounding of this research closed a loop in the literature, and the findings are reliable for practice for organization sustainability.

International health initiative: Development and pilot testing of a molecular diagnostics training program in Romania

OBJECTIVES

The implementation of nucleic acid testing in laboratory medicine has revolutionized clinical diagnosis. Unfortunately, incorporation of these technologies in less developed countries remains a challenge. Despite Romania's recent economic growth, the country is in dire need of medical and laboratory staff trained in modern technologies. The aim of the study was to develop a curriculum that could easily be delivered to laboratory professionals in Romania and to pilot test the effectiveness of the training in increasing their understanding of molecular tests.

METHODS

The program was developed in accordance with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) quality training standards. It was offered to 50 laboratory professionals and consisted of online, asynchronous lectures and optional synchronous review sessions. Training effectiveness was evaluated using CDC guidelines based on pre- and postassessment questions answered anonymously.

RESULTS

Forty-two people participated in the program, and 32 (81%) completed the training successfully. Based on 16 participants' self-assessment, the course was successful in improving learners' overall knowledge of molecular diagnostics-specifically, their understanding of molecular techniques and how to interpret results. Those participants were highly satisfied with the overall training.

CONCLUSIONS

The piloted platform presented here is promising and can be a foundation for future larger-scale studies in countries with developing health systems.

Führen und Entscheiden unter Unsicherheit

Dieser Artikel der Zeitschrift „Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)“ gibt einen Überblick über die Herausforderungen des Führens und Entscheiden unter Unsicherheit. Diese Herausforderungen werden am Beispiel des deutschen Corona-Managements illustriert und auf Problemlagen in organisationalen Entscheidungsprozessen bezogen. Der Text verfolgt vorrangig den Anspruch, Dilemmata des Entscheidens in einer Kombination organisationspsychologischer und organisationssoziologischer Perspektiven herauszuarbeiten und vor dem Hintergrund sozialer Kontextbedingungen aufzuschließen, gibt aber auch Empfehlungen für die Gestaltung einer Organisations- und Führungskultur, die den Anforderungen des Entscheidens unter Unsicherheit Rechnung trägt.

When disaster management agencies create disaster risk: a case study of the US's Federal Emergency Management Agency

PURPOSE

Disaster management agencies are mandated to reduce risk for the populations that they serve. Yet, inequities in how they function may result in their activities creating disaster risk, particularly for already vulnerable and marginalized populations. In this article, how disaster management agencies create disaster risk for vulnerable and marginalized groups is examined, seeking to show the ways existing policies affect communities, and provide recommendations on policy and future research.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The authors undertook a systematic review of the US disaster management agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), examining its programs through a lens of equity to understand how they shape disaster risk.

FINDINGS

Despite a growing commitment to equity within FEMA, procedural, distributive, and contextual inequities result in interventions that perpetuate and amplify disaster risk for vulnerable and marginalized populations. Some of these inequities could be remediated by shifting toward a more bottom-up approach to disaster management, such as community-based disaster risk reduction approaches.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Disaster management agencies and other organizations can use the results of this study to better understand how to devise interventions in ways that limit risk creation for vulnerable populations, including through community-based approaches.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This study is the first to examine disaster risk creation from an organizational perspective, and the first to focus explicitly on how disaster management agencies can shape risk creation. This helps understand the linkages between disaster risk creation, equity and organizations.

Governing by Polling Public Opinion: A Potentially Dangerous Idea for Our Healthcare System

Kaplan and Baron-Epel advanced the notion that findings from public surveys should inform health policy decision making with respect to funding allocation. This approach to governing can draw large support from the populace, legislators, and the academic community alike. Yet, it has the potential to undermine evidence-based health policy decision making. In this paper, I delineate six drawbacks and several related corollaries drawn from historical events that have occurred during the recent coronavirus pandemic. These examples illustrate the dire downstream consequences (e.g., disregard for the needs of minority groups; diminution of critical services not broadly supported by the public; promotion of fringe group or foreign actor agendas; advancement of poorly informed opinions; shift from a forward-thinking, proactive perspective to a retroactive one; and reliance on potentially biased estimates) that may follow if public surveys become embedded in healthcare policy decision making. Without solutions to the drawbacks delineated in this paper, health policy driven by public opinion is likely to cause more harm than good.