SAM ADVANCED MANAGEMENT JOURNAL

Volume 85 Edition 1

Volume 85 Edition 1 | Winter 2020

A Cross-Disciplinary Framework to Measure Workplace Wellness Program Success

Dewaynna Horn, Natasha W. Randle, and Stacey R. McNeil

Workplace wellness has emerged as an area of importance in organizations, particularly for human resource management and healthcare administration professionals. As the safety and health human resource function has increasing significance to productivity and profitability, many organizations offer these wellness programs. Most employers believe the programs are mutually beneficial to employees and to organizations. Past literature on this topic remains scant and inconsistent regarding the factors that create success in workplace wellness programs. The objective of this study is to address this gap by adapting a popular model from the Information Systems (IS) literature, the DeLone and McLean Model of Information Systems Success (DeLone and McLean, 1992), as an alternative framework to evaluate wellness program success. We offer propositions to accompany the model in assessing the success of wellness program success factors in organizations. The importance of this conceptual work lies in its potential value to organizations evaluating the success and effectiveness of workplace wellness programs.

The Case for an Inclusive Workplace: Beyond Rhetoric and Rote Policy

Jacqueline A. Gilbert and Jacqueline N. Hood

This manuscript describes the difference between workplace cultures that emphasize surface level diversity, consisting of attributes like gender, race, and color, with ones that focus on inclusion—defined as a community where employees are encouraged to speak, dress, and behave how they would normally, absent norms and company policy that direct them to do otherwise. Organizations that wish to cast an inclusionary net must undergo an overhaul of how they approach business practice.
Inclusive leadership, policy change/enactment that benefits a broad spectrum of employees, and HR initiatives comprised of training; systematically monitored, equitable, and annually adjusted compensation programs, along with family friendly policies are presented as the building blocks of inclusionary practice. Snapshots of what organizational community should look like and a rationale for why organizations should embrace inclusionary policy are provided. The paper includes a description of firms that have overhauled their cultures to achieve competitive advantage.

Do Accounting Researchers Investigate Topics of Interest to Accounting Practitioners?  Preliminary Evidence

Lou X. Orchard, Andrew Sbaraglia, Khamis Bilbeisi, and Dustin Micah Grant

A large portion of an academic accountants job is research. At many universities, research quality is the primary factor in promotion and tenure decisions, with more weight given to publications in higher quality journals. Some universities also use citation counts to measure research impact. However, neither metric measures the impact that academic research has on the accounting profession. While some argue that academic accounting research has made a positive impact on the accounting profession through standard setting, others argue that academic accounting research fails to address topics concerning practitioners. Thus, there is a potential “gap” between accounting research and practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this gap.
Specifically, we provide preliminary evidence of the extent that topics recently covered in the academic accounting literature also appear to be of interest to accounting practitioners. We selected two pure academic journals, The Accounting Review and Accounting Horizons and three practitioner journals, The Journal of Accountancy, Strategic Finance, and The Tax Advisor. The practitioner journals are our proxy for what is interesting to accounting professionals. Using a key word search methodology, we find significant overlap between the topics covered in the practitioner and academic journals. We conclude that there is no research practice gap.

Bringing Institutional Research Closer to Industry and Policy Makers: A Diagnostic Study for Synergetic Convergence

Anu Singh Lather, Simarn Kaur, and Mannat Singh

The ultimate driver of economic growth in any country is the rate at which a country can create and transfer knowledge, leading to innovations in the economy (Romer, 1990). Nowadays Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are not only restricted to traditional teaching assignments; rather they are now engaging different stakeholders to deliver outcomes as per societies‟ needs (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). The findings of this study have strong implications for Indian HEIs, Industries and policymakers. The present study was an attempt to highlight the factors hindering the synergetic convergence of the collaborative efforts of HEIs, Industries, and policymakers. One of the significant theoretical implications of the current study is the proposed model which is based on seven hindering factors. The results show that the most protruding barriers are “Inadequate Research Ecosystem”, “Lack of early research orientation” and “Inadequate Funding”. Conducive environment for the collaborative institutional research can be ensured by improving the research ecosystem of the country and by developing research orientation in the early days of education.

Business Curricula: Coverage of Employability Skills in a Strategic Management Course

Forest R. David, Meredith E. David, Fred R. David

College textbook publishers such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Cengage increasingly are requiring authors to provide coverage of employability skills. This requirement is in response to various accrediting organizations such as AACSB and SACS, as well as managers and students alike requiring that business courses better prepare students to enter the working world. This publisher requirement is also in response to MBA applications falling 6.9 percent globally in 2019 according to MBA entrance test administrator, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). This decline follows four straight years of declines. This paper examines how Pearson’s leading strategic management textbook responds to this requirement to be more practical, skills-oriented, and relevant. Specifically, this paper summarizes how that textbook meets and exceeds expectations for coverage of employability skills. Additionally, in order to determine which employability skills presented in the Pearson book are considered to be most important in business, this paper provides results of a survey of 104 individuals who currently or recently used that book, and who are (or plan to be) practicing managers. Our results reveal that the most important “broad” employability skill is “Critical Thinking” and the most important “specific” employability skill to gain from the capstone course is to learn how to “Develop a three year strategic plan for any for-profit or non-profit company or organization.” The findings reported herein accent the importance of (and need for) “practicality” in strategic management pedagogy. Implications of this research can provide guidance for academicians globally who continuously make decisions regarding “broad” and “specific” employability skills to include in business curricula, textbooks, syllabi, and lectures.