...Scarce Resources Article Nurses depend on a variety of resources every day that affect patient care. Staffing issues and supply shortages are sometimes daily battles. A growing concern is drug shortages to hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices. Drug shortages can affect drug therapy, postpone medical procedures, and result in medication errors. An article published in the American Journal of Nursing in November 2011 discussed the national impact of the drug shortage on health systems. Since 1996 the problem of drug shortages has steady increased. As of 2011 there were 232 drugs on the national drug shortage list. “The areas most commonly reported shortages were surgery and anesthesia, emergency care, cardiovascular care, gastrointestinal and nutritional care, and pain management. Thirty-five percent of hospitals reported that the shortages had resulted in adverse outcomes” (Carter, 2011, p. 14). One specific example is the propofol shortage. Propofol is used for sedation during procedures and ventilated patients. Alternative medications are more difficult to titrate resulting in under or over sedation (Carter, 2011). There are several factors that contribute to the national drug shortage. The lack of available raw or bulk materials has a significant impact on drug shortages. “Raw material shortage can result from a number of factors, including a sole source manufacturer that ceases operation, suboptimal quality of the raw material, and wars that disrupts importation”...
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...The Nursing Shortage The nursing shortage has been a highlight of discussion for years. With healthcare reform now happening, the nursing shortage has become more urgent. Baby boomers are retiring making the nursing work force dwindle even further. More patients have insurance and are seeking care. Healthcare facilities are struggling with regulatory agencies that are directly linked to reimbursement and are try to do more with less staff which is leading to burn out. To further compound the issue, nursing professors are retiring and there is a decrease in the number of nurses entering the education work force due to lack of pay, increased amount of stress, and the increase in responsibility (Duvall & Andrews, 2010). With fewer professors, colleges are unable to accept as many students into nursing programs. The nursing shortage is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. There are a number of factors that are influencing the nursing shortage. First is the lack of nursing professors. With fewer professors, nursing programs cannot accept as many students, which contributes to lacking numbers. Second, many nurses are at or nearing retirement age. 55% of the workforce is over the age of 50. Third, is the demand for nursing is increasing as more patients are obtaining insurance and as the population ages. Fourth, is burnout. Nurses are working short staffed, causing increased stress levels, decreased job satisfaction, and a decrease in quality care. Finally, there is a high...
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...The Nursing Shortage The nursing shortage has been a highlight of discussion for years. With healthcare reform now happening, the nursing shortage has become more urgent. Baby boomers are retiring making the nursing work force dwindle even further. More patients have insurance and are seeking care. Healthcare facilities are struggling with regulatory agencies that are directly linked to reimbursement and are try to do more with less staff which is leading to burn out. To further compound the issue, nursing professors are retiring and there is a decrease in the number of nurses entering the education work force due to lack of pay, increased amount of stress, and the increase in responsibility (Duvall & Andrews, 2010). With fewer professors, colleges are unable to accept as many students into nursing programs. The nursing shortage is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. There are a number of factors that are influencing the nursing shortage. First is the lack of nursing professors. With fewer professors, nursing programs cannot accept as many students, which contributes to lacking numbers. Second, many nurses are at or nearing retirement age. 55% of the workforce is over the age of 50. Third, is the demand for nursing is increasing as more patients are obtaining insurance and as the population ages. Fourth, is burnout. Nurses are working short staffed, causing increased stress levels, decreased job satisfaction, and a decrease in quality care. Finally, there is a high turnover...
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...CHAPTER 6 Allocating Resources to the Project In this chapter we consider the problem of allocating physical and human resources to projects.* The physical and human resources are granted to and used by the project in order to meet the project’s performance objectives. The amount of resources that can be allocated, of course, depends on the timing of the allocation as well as on the total supply of resources available for allocation. Mainly, resource allocation concerns how we allocate specific, limited resources to specific activities (or projects) when there are competing demands for the same limited resources. Projects compete with each other for the same resources in two different ways. First, consider a resource that is limited but is not consumed when used, the services of a specific technical specialist for instance. The problem here is which project gets to use the resource first and which must wait. Second, consider a resource that is limited and is consumed when used, a specific chemical reagent for instance. In this case, the second project may have to wait until more of the reagent can be purchased and delivered. In both cases, the project that must wait may suffer a schedule delay that makes it late. Just as projects may compete for resources, different activities of the same project may compete. Two or more concurrent activities might require the same personnel, or equipment, or even work space. One activity will be given priority, and the other(s) must wait. In...
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...2010 pp. 524–548 Competition for scarce resources P´ ter Es˝ ∗ e o and Lucy White∗∗∗ Volker Nocke∗∗ We model a downstream industry where firms compete to buy capacity in an upstream market which allocates capacity efficiently. Although downstream firms have symmetric production technologies, we show that industry structure is symmetric only if capacity is sufficiently scarce. Otherwise it is asymmetric, with one large, “fat,” capacity-hoarding firm and a fringe of smaller, “lean,” capacity-constrained firms. As demand varies, the industry switches between symmetric and asymmetric phases, generating predictions for firm size and costs across the business cycle. Surprisingly, increasing available capacity can cause a reduction in output and consumer surplus by resulting in such a switch. 1. Introduction Standard models of industrial organization treat inputs as being in perfectly elastic supply and their trade disconnected from the downstream market. However, in many real-world industries, the firms that compete downstream also face each other in the input market where supply is inelastic. For example, jewelry makers that vie for the same customers also compete for precious stones whose supply is limited; competing airlines divide a fixed number of landing slots at a given airport; software companies that produce rival operating systems draw from the same pool of skilled programmers; retailers of gas (petrol) use a common input that is in scarce supply; and so on. In this article...
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...When considering the security of any culture’s life, it is clear that substinence is of the utmost importance. The quest for substinence looks different from culture to culture, but based on the research, seemingly unlikely comparisons can be drawn between the foraging group of the !Kung Bushmen in Botswana and ourselves here in America when it comes to this. Anthropologists have often cited the difficulties of foraging groups based on the ideas that they are forced to spend all of their time looking for food with less success than necessary to sustain their groups, however in his article The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari, Richard Borshay Lee shows that this is not necessarily the case. The !Kung do not face any such scarcity,...
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...conclude I will examine the best solutions possible for the problem of scarcity and the mistakes made by governments when handling the problem of scarcity and their use of economic theories by know economics. Overall I am going to prove scarcity’s hole in every action we take related, or not, to economics. Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human wants and needs in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be pursued at the same time; trade-offs are made of one good against others. It is a problem because the more one men wants the less the others can have because of the limited resources on the world. Scarcity relates to the amount of goods and services available for the human race and how much the population wants of a certain product. Economic goods are the products that exist in a limited amount on the world, that are scarce, free goods are the ones that exist in abundance such as seawater and air. Scarcity is not a new thing. Scarcity has always been with us and will be with us as long as we...
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...Scarce Resources-Nursing shortages Nursing shortages has become a global issue facing many countries. The scarcity of nurses is expected to increase as demands for health care services increase. Scarcity of resources in health care is a multi-faced problem with multiple causes ranging from nurses leaving the profession because of job dissatisfaction, retiring baby boomers, increasing health demands with decreasing number of those entering the profession, shortage of nurse educators and nursing school, and lack of nursing program funding (Buchan & Aiken, 2008). Nursing shortage is not only a shortage of individuals with nursing qualification but also a shortage of qualified individuals who unwilling to work under current conditions. The American health care system is on a time bomb waiting to explode. The Nursing Shortage Influencing Factors Nurses leaving the profession because of job dissatisfaction Inappropriate distribution of nursing resources through inadequate career support, in appropriate skill mix and utilization, and poor retention incentives lead nurse’s job dissatisfaction (Buchan & Aiken, 2008). Inability of nurses to advocate for patients’ safety causes job dissatisfaction leading to poor job performance and negative patient outcomes. Therefore, nurses will leave the profession because of guilt and dissatisfaction for inability to perform to their best abilities. Aging Registered Nurses (RN) Workforce The fewer RN population entering the profession,...
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...abundant, it does not necessarily mean it is not scarce. Scarcity which is “the condition of having to choose among alternatives” ( Rittenberg & Tregarthan ), simply implies that something can be abundant but a choice must be made to better utilize it. The economic definition of scarcity implies that supply of resources is bounded. Therefore something that is abundant can also be quantified and to this extent bounded. For example, a nation that possesses an excellent harvest of plantain will enjoy low prices as there is much plantain in the market. Plantain is still scarce in economic sense as it can still run out. On the other hand, emotions like love, courage, fear, and many others cannot be measured with the economic concepts of scarcity as these emotions cannot be bounded. This clearly indicates that their abundance do not affect their economic scarcity ( Prioktan, 2008 ) In economic sense, when something is abundant it means its supply exceed demand at zero price. In simplicity, if a good or service is free, there is no shortage. This indicates that there is no opportunity cost in supplying it. Free health care to the sick is still considered scarce in economic sense because the government have to incur the cost and thus the taxpayers. Air can be considered abundant since there hardly be shortage of air to most people to breathe most of the time. On the other hand, air is scarce if we want it clean or unpolluted as resources most be used to clean it in many part of the...
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...Scarcity, Choice, and Cost All choices mean that one alternative is selected over another. Selecting among alternatives involves three ideas central to economics: scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost. Scarcity Our resources are limited. At any one time, we have only so much land, so many factories, so much oil, so many people. But our wants, our desires for the things that we can produce with those resources, are unlimited. We would always like more and better housing, more and better education—more and better of practically everything. If our resources were also unlimited, we could say yes to each of our wants—and there would be no economics. Because our resources are limited, we cannot say yes to everything. To say yes to one thing requires that we say no to another. Whether we like it or not, we must make choices. Our unlimited wants are continually colliding with the limits of our resources, forcing us to pick some activities and to reject others. Scarcity is the condition of having to choose among alternatives. A scarce good is one for which the choice of one alternative requires that another be given up. Consider a parcel of land. The parcel presents us with several alternative uses. We could build a house on it. We could put a gas station on it. We could create a small park on it. We could leave the land undeveloped in order to be able to make a decision later as to how it should be used. Suppose we have decided the land should be used for housing. Should...
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...options for how to employ a resource. Any resource is considered scarce if more than one use exists for it. Opportunity cost is a direct creation of scarcity. When managing ones resources, one must choose an option. Opportunity cost is the trade off, the value of the best option you have given up for the decision you made. There are three questions that must be answered when choosing how to best use a resource: What should be produced? How should goods and services be produced? For whom should goods and services be produced? Resources are the things available to create a certain output. They are scarce and must be used in the most productive way possible. The three main resources are labor, capital and natural resources. Scarcity and shortage are two terms that, while they may sound similar, are actually quite different. Scarcity is the limit of resources for production, making necessary the choice between various items of production, and creates opportunity cost. Shortage is when demand for an item is greater than the supply at a given price available for distribution. If the price is below the equilibrium for a given product, a shortage will result. Economic theory states we “cannot have it all”. The reason behind this is primarily scarcity. Only so many resources exist to be used. Human nature is to never be satisfied, but rather want more and more. Therefore it is not possible for people to “have it all”, as resources could simply not meet...
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...competition intense market. Also the MSIL core operations are very much dependent on raw material and intermediate products (70 % of turnover) which create a lot of uncertainty regarding the resources. In this uncertain environment, Maruti has adopted different strategies in line with resource dependence Theory2. In the following few paragraphs we will discuss some Inter-organizational strategies used by MSIL for managing resource dependencies (Figure 1.1). These strategies are formal as well as informal. Figure 1.1 Explains strategies of resource dependence theory and their sub strategies. Resource Dependence Strategies :- 1. Reputation: Maruti, s esteemed reputation has always helped it to be in the good books of its vendors, suppliers and customers. Maruti has done this by timely payment of bills, equitable profit sharing, sustainable growth and high quality service. This informal method had helped and will help MSIL to retain its Number 1 Spot. 2. Co-optation: Maruti in the recent years have been conducting various dealer and vendor conferences in different part of worlds, where they share success stories and appraise the best performers. This strategy build an emotional connect between organizations and leverage out profits in terms of less uncertainty in resource supply. Foot Note 1# Instead of importing part you develop them in domestic market 2# The goal of an organisation...
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...Scarcity Scarcity is a “fundamental concept of economics that indicates that there is less of good/resources freely available from nature than people would like” (James Gwartney). These goods or resources can be Human, Physical or Natural resources such as workers, machines or acres of lands. In our textbook, Gwartney explains that by supplying our ever growing population, our natural resources just cannot provide an unlimited number of different goods and services. Scarcity also means that we all must make choices between these goods/resources. Should I buy a bag of flour or a loaf of bread? Should I plant tomatoes or roses? When we make these choices, we always face tradeoffs between attaining one desire or another. David R. Henderson in his article wrote: At a zero price (and not a price set at zero by government regulation or caused to be zero by a government subsidy), is there enough of the good to satisfy everyone’s demands? If not, the good is scarce. He states that the vast majority of goods, which are scare (not free) directly leads to tradeoffs, where if we want a certain good, another must be sacrificed. Scarcity and the choices we make when faced with tradeoffs are daily norms in every person’s life. The scarcity of time would be a great example that everyone faces every day. We all have the same 24 hours. If you spend 2 hours checking your Facebook or emails, that is time spent away from family members or friends. The Old Testament supplies us with many examples...
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...Journal 1996, Vol. 39, No. 3. 519-543. THE RESOURCE-BASED VIEW OF THE FIRM IN TWO ENVIRONMENTS: THE HOLLYWOOD FILM STUDIOS FROM 1936 TO 1965 DANNY MILLER Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, and Columbia University JAMAL SHAMSIE New York University This article continues to operationally define and test the resourcehased view of the firm in a study of the major U.S. film studios from 1936 to 1965. We found that property-hased resources in the form of exclusive long-term contracts with stars and theaters helped financial performance in the stable, predictable environment of 1936-50. In contrast, knowledge-based resources in the form of production and coordinative talent and budgets boosted financial performance in the more uncertain (changing and unpredictable) post-television environment of 1951-65. The resource-based view of the firm provides a useful complement to Porter's (1980) well-known structural perspective of strategy. This view shifts the emphasis from the competitive environment of firms to the resources that firms have developed to compete in that environment. Unfortunately, although it has generated a great deal of conceptualizing (see reviews by Black and Boal [1994] and Peteraf [1993]), the resource-based view is just beginning to occasion systematic empirical study (Collis, 1991; Henderson & Cockburn, 1994; Montgomery & Wernerfelt, 1988; McGrath, MacMillan, & Venkatraman, 1995). Thus, the concept of resources remains an amorphous one that is rarely...
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...Page 123 5 Analyzing Resources and Capabilities Analysts have tended to define assets too narrowly, identifying only those that can be measured, such as plant and equipment. Yet the intangible assets, such as a particular technology, accumulated consumer information, brand name, reputation, and corporate culture, are invaluable to the firm’s competitive power. In fact, these invisible assets are often the only real source of competitive edge that can be sustained over time. —HIROYUKI ITAMI, MOBILIZING INVISIBLE ASSETS You’ve gotta do what you do well. —LUCINO NOTO, FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN, EXXON MOBIL OUTLINE l Introduction and Objectives l The Role of Resources and l Organizational Capabilities Classifying Capabilities The Architecture of Capability l Appraising Resources and Capabilities Establishing Competitive Advantage Sustaining Competitive Advantage Appropriating the Returns to Competitive Advantage l Putting Resource and Capability Capabilities in Strategy Formulation Basing Strategy on Resources and Capabilities Resources and Capabilities as Sources of Profit l The Resources of the Firm Tangible Resources Intangible Resources Human Resources Analysis to Work: A Practical Guide Step 1 Identify the Key Resources and Capabilities 123 CSAC05 1/13/07 9:21 Page 124 124 PART II THE TOOLS OF STRATEGY ANALYSIS Step 2 Appraising Resources and Capabilities Step 3 Developing Strategy Implications l Developing Resources and Capabilities The Relationship...
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