Archives-December 

Abstract In the health care industry today, failed programs cost organizations a loss of revenues on daily basis. Therefore, management strategies in these organizations need a balance (equilibrium) between program implementation control and the relationships that goes along. These relationships exist between the organization and defined individuals or groups who are directly or indirectly part of the organization’s hierarchy. These groups or individuals comprise the so-called stakeholders and they do have a stake in the organization. A major factor for a program success with any organization is the proactive involvement and management of its strategies with its component staff, including the stakeholders (Thomas, Delisle & Jugdev, 2002). The argument is organizations should look at their stakeholders as part of core management objectives for maximum return of investment. Many organizational programs have failed due to lack of direct top management involvement and support (Jiang and Klein, 1999). The importance of this problem therefore, requires that every organization examine its relationships with its stakeholders constantly since its success or failure revolves around these relationships. Findings: Findings from this study were of great economic importance. The identification, prioritization, and engagement strategies of evaluation of the key stakeholders in Mission Hospital, USA, was an effective tool that could help any organization to know the individuals or groups with power within their organization and how such powers are used. The second importance was the power of teamwork; how individuals or groups may collaborate for a common good; here both the executive management of Mission Hospital, USA, collaborating with the stakeholder management to affect the objectives and goals of the hospital. Third, it showed improved relationships between two former unaligned managers with informal power structures and possible outcome. The conclusion here was that collaboration, involvement, negotiations with the use of inducements; all play major roles in straightening relationships, be it personal or corporate. Statement of the problem: The specific statement of the problem of this study examined management and program implications when upper management and related management (stakeholder management) do not collaborate and involve in pursuing the strategic objectives and goals of the corporation. Many projects, and indeed corporations, have failed for lack of management involvement of component staff in management strategies. Description of design method: The design methodology was in three phases. Phase1 involved the interaction process of identifying, prioritizing, and engaging the key stakeholders of the hospital. Phase2 involved the data gathering techniques, including workshops exercises with the participants. Survey questionnaires were designed separately for the hospital’s management and the identified key stakeholders. The exercises were open-ended and interactive processes with the participants. The outcome was important in that it provided the necessary factors for effective stakeholder management. From the collection and analysis of data, phase 3 was a descriptive case study designed to effect phase 2, through the process of planning, implementing, and monitoring – used in the incremental process improvement management (Carroll & Swatman, 2000). The investigator went further with fact-finding interviews with employees of the hospital. The results findings were spectacular. Design of the study: The purpose of this study was to examine and encourage upper management strategy of Mission Hospital, USA, in order to improve its stakeholder relationships. The study used rationale to establish and analyze outcomes, allowed prediction, and aim for generalization. In order to articulate the stakeholder’s perception of values to the organization pertinent questions were designed to affect the study. The main research question of the study was directed to the hospital’s executive management, challenging them to commitment to teamwork for the overall benefits of the hospital’s objectives and goals attainment. A stakeholder management methodology workshops exercises were designed to assist them in this process. The subject sample group was small. The criteria for the small group were to use a phenomenological approach to find out how a few groups or individuals of important status in an organization feel as a sub-set; making it a qualitative descriptive case study. Significance of conclusions: The implications of notice in this case study on stakeholder management in Mission Hospital, USA, was exploratory yet unique, and based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative designs with limited results. The study is unique in that no similar study exits presently with direct involvements of inside power brokers. Nevertheless, the analysis should be viewed as suggestive, and not one hundred percent definitive. Certain unresolved issues still remains, the resolution of which should challenge practicing health care managers on how to manage their stakeholders to attain the objectives and goals of their organization. However, this investigator presented many suggestions to the management of Mission Hospital, USA, to any promising manager of health care, and to future researchers of health care management in general. Recommendations: The confirmation of the “Pilot study” of this case study should encourage a more detailed research study of economic benefits with stakeholder management collaborations. Such study should be broadened and without any restrictions, as was witnessed in this case study.

An electrophilic substitution reaction of indole with variety of carbonyl compounds catalyzed by stannous chloride dihydrate in presence of aqueous medium has been investigated. The offered green method provided the target molecules in better yields and less reaction time at room temperature.

To evaluate chemical composition, antibacterial, antioxidant and anticancer activity of Pinus wallichiana essential oil. The oil was extracted by hydro-distillation which was analysed through GC-MS. The antibacterial activity was evaluated by agar well diffusion method and antioxidant activity was evaluated through DPPH assay while as anticancer activity was evaluated through MTT method. Beta-pinene and alpha-pinene were the major constituents present in the oil. This oil showed significant antibacterial, antioxidant and anticancer activity.

The objective of this study was to design a singulation system for proper presentation of rice kernels to be analyzed by vision-based rice inspection systems. In order to achieve this goal, several ideas were examined and the preference of each design over the others was evaluated using the Multi-Criteria-Analysis (MCA) method. The proposed designs included a grooved conveyor belt, dual conveyor singulation device, vibrating tray, circular positioning device, and ejection nozzles. The assessment criteria considered in this research included complexity, fabrication cost, feasibility of implementation, singulation speed, and singulation accuracy. After executing the MCA method, the dual conveyor singulation design was selected as the best design for implementation. A prototype of the selected idea was then constructed and its performance was evaluated practically at different transmission frequencies (TFs) of the conveyor’s variable speed drive and discharge rate (DR) of kernels on the conveyor surface. Results of evaluation showed that in all of the DRs the singulation efficiency increased with transmission frequency. The results also revealed that for all of the evaluated TFs, increasing the discharge rate decreased the singulation efficiency. For all of the evaluated DRs, a somewhat irregular increase was observed in the number of singulated kernels with increasing TF. The highest singulation efficiency was equal to 93.09 % which was obtained at DR of 60 g/min and TF of 60 Hz. The highest number of singulated kernels was equal to 94.75, on the average, which was achieved at DR of 60 g/min and TF of 50 Hz

We are very happy to announce that from 14th March 2014, Dr. Tahmina Monowar has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Medical and Clinical Microbiology, Bacteriology, Parasitology and Immunology. Dr. Tahmina Monowar is currently working as Senior Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, AIMST University, Semeling-Bedong Road, 08100 Bedong, Kedah, Malaysia. The appointment of Dr. Tahmina Monowar as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to elixirpublishers@gmail.com. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

We are very happy to announce that from 1st September 2014, Dr.V.Ananthaswamy has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Applied Differential Equations and Mathematical Modeling. Dr.V.Ananthaswamy currently working as Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, The Madura College (Autonomous), Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. The appointment of Dr.V.Ananthaswamy as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal.

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of statutory allocation on the development of Niger Delta area. Basically, the study examines the extent to which statutory allocation to different states has improved economic growth of the different states and Niger Delta at large. In particular, the study considered three hypotheses to ascertain the effect of statutory allocation on GDP which is the proxy for economic growth in the three Niger Delta states. The researchers collected data from Federal Ministry of Finance of Nigeria and Canback Global Income Distribution database (C-GIDD). The data collected were subjected to both OLS regression to determine the overall effect on Niger Delta and the three states respectively. Econometric-views software 7.0 is used for the study. The result of the study indicates that there is a significant relationship between statutory allocation and GDP of Niger Delta area. The study also shows that the three hypotheses formulated for the study were significant. The overall impact of the study concludes that statutory allocation to the region impacted the economic growth of Niger Delta positively. The study therefore recommends that statutory allocation to the different states should be channelled to economic friendly projects that will cause efficient growth of those states and the region at large. Keyword: Statutory allocations, GDP, Fiscal Policy, Niger Delta Development

In this paper, an investigation is made regarding the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance of companies. Firstly, it examines the theories which support the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance of companies. To prove this relationship a sample of ten companies listed on the Karachi stock exchange are selected which are making investment in corporate social responsibility. To measure corporate social responsibility, content analysis of annual reports and other corporate documents is used while financial performance is evaluated using accounting based measures i-e ROE (return on equity), ROCE (return on capital employed) and GPS (gross profit to sales ratio) for the periods between 2007 to 2009. There is one year lag between measure of corporate social responsibility and financial performance to analyze the relationship between the two. The company size and risk is used as a control variable. The analysis concludes that better financial performance (past) will lead to engaging in more socially responsible activities and similarly more investment in corporate social responsibility will result in increased subsequent financial performance. However the author failed to find significant relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. This paper will help in improving the performance management system through understanding the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance of companies although it has the limitation regarding the size of the sample.

The leadership of an organization to adapt changes and in order to survive and grow in new environments ,requires specific features that commonly managers face many problems to respond to them .One of the most important features that can help leaders and managers in responding to these changes, is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a subject that tries to explain and interpret the place of emotions in human capabilities. Managers with emotional intelligence are effective leaders who reach the goals with maximum productivity and employee’s satisfaction and commitment. Due to the importance of emotional intelligence in management, this article examines the dimensions of emotional intelligence in management, leadership growth and development in working environment and emotional intelligence training in the organization.

Table of contents for the month of August 2015