Abstract Balance Score Card (BSC) has been adopted broadly in organization performance evaluation as well as strategy development and evaluation, especially when the business environment is growingly competitive. The effectiveness of BSC has been shown through its practice in many large-size companies by enhancing cross divisional communications. However, for 90% of companies in Taiwan are small and medium sized and these companies contributed over 70% of job opportunities, it is important to investigate whether BSC can provide such effectiveness for these Taiwanese firms. Thus, this research develops a case study of an emerging company. By observing the decision and introduction of BSC to the company, this research has found below conclusions: 1. Small and medium sized firms are simpler, thus easier to focus and result to shorter introduction time of BSC. 2. BSC has provided effective design of indicators to connect strategy and actions and further provide good means for management team to evaluate performance and report to the board. 3. In the development phase of SMEs, the financial phase of BSC reminds the firms to emphasize the growth of revenue. With the help of BSC, management team can balance the focus of customer value, internal process and organizational learning.

Taiwan's location in the typhoon-beset western Pacific and on the Pacific-rim fault belt makes it the target of frequent natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, and earthquakes. Ever-increasing population densities due to social evolutions and technology advances, along with the diffusion of international terrorist attacks, further threaten to maximize the potential damages that all forms of disasters might inflict. According to the domestic laws, the responsibilities of the fire departments in Taiwan have evolved from traditional fire control and the supply of ambulance service to including emergency rescues for typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and accidental or criminal explosions. With the current limited resources and expanding responsibilities, to improve the management capabilities and efficiencies poses a major challenge to the fire department. This study chooses the fire department of Kao-Hsiung County as the research case in an attempt using the Balanced Scorecard to develop an performance management system that puts the strategies into action and to establish an objective and feasible performance standard. This system is aimed to give a timely evaluation of the performance in the execution of the fire department's work, which, along with the endeavor of the fire department, will be made available to the general public as well as to the fire department itself. Through interviews at the management level and bibliography reviews, we obtain 25 strategy objectives and 39 evaluation indices, which are reduced to 20 strategy objectives and 28 evaluation indices by questionnaire investigation. The results indicate that the indices of public services, internal management, employee training, and financial resources show a stronger consensus than the that of community safety, suggesting that the fire department has a strong agreement of task on increasing the financial resources, streamlining the internal workflow, and improving the job-related training to strengthen its capabilities. On the other hand, we find a lesser agreement on the adoption of positive actions of fire safety inspections to solidify the community safety. ANOVA and Independent t test show significant differences of index choices among different age groups. Notable differences due to the discrepancies in ages and work areas are also observed on recognition of the feasibility of the performance evaluation system. It is found that the elements of current performance evaluation system of the institution in this case study are scattered in various laws and regulations and are designed to merely meet the minimum requirements as specified by the laws. By the design of balanced scorecard and the statistical analysis, we reach the following conclusions and related recommendations: 1. To simplify the service procedure, based on the customer-oriented concept, more authorization should be granted. 2. A crucial factor in the success of fire control and ambulance supply is the reaction time, which should be minimized by the development of a standard operation procedure (SOP). 3. To eliminate the most common complaint about the lack of timeliness regarding the fire department's service, it is suggested that a computerized information management system be developed to facilitate the supervisor's work of control and evaluation. 4. As an incentive, a performance-feedback mechanism should be established as the criteria for the distribution of resources, which include, among others, the award, the staff size, and the budget. 5. To gain the satisfaction, recognition, and support of the public to elevate the fire department's social status and morale, innovation should always be stressed and encouraged. 6. As an impetus for the high-level management to push the performance-based management, publicity through internet or traditional media is an effective tool.

In recent years, since the external environment changes rapidly, the medical institutes of Taiwan face the unprecedented challenges. Striving for the survival, hospitals seek various kinds of development strategy to improve the competitive advantages. The role of the information department of hospitals has changed from the work-support level to the strategy-decision level to help hospitals reach their strategic goals. National Health Insurance System is now closely linked with all the national welfare. The financial pressure of National Health Insurance System can be reduced if hospitals can share medical resources to reduce the unnecessary waste. The information department, in this respect, plays an important role. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a framework that provides the measure for a strategic management system. It is noticed by practical circles and academia fields recently and has been widely applied in enterprise now, however, in the Information Department of the medical institutes, it is still new. The purpose of this research is to build the balanced scorecard of the information department of the hospital , to take a balance between multi-domain as the demand , and to develop a strategic measurement framework which gives consideration to the financial affairs, customer, inside procedure, learning and growing. It is expected that by improving the whole performance of the information department can help hospitals reach its strategic goals. The research method adopts a case study which sets up an information department's balanced scorecard framework. The framework and performance measurement were revised by the interview results of administration team, users and information department members in this case . The conclusions of this research are as follows: 1.Information department can develop its own mission, key value, vision and development strategy to support the organization to reach the strategic goals. 2.Information department can develop the Strategy Map and indicators of measurement to guide striving directions of staff. 3.The measurement method related to measuring achievement indicators should reasonably and objectively show the effect of execution. 4.The performance management system of the information department should possess strategy management and communication functions, and must set up a mechanism for feedback and revision. The main contribution of this research is to investigate the balanced scorecard of the information department and set up a BSC framework suitable for the information department in this case. The measurement indicators of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) are used as the measurement indicators of BSC. By introducing CMMI, the information department can make the performance evaluation more objective and meaningful.

Be a competent marketer-- The study of the marketing program for Kaohsiung Hsin-Hsing Community University Abstract In this study, the marketing action executed by Kaohsiung Hsin-Hsing Community University was investigated through questionnaire survey and interviews. The perceived importance and satisfaction of students were also explored. After that, the concrete and feasible marketing program was brought up for Hsin-Hsing community university¡¦s reference. The study is comprised of two parts. The first part is the questionnaire survey of ¡§The perceived importance and satisfaction of marketing action¡¨ for the students in Hsin-Hsing community university. The questions contain four dimensions ¡§the course planning and charge of fees¡¨, ¡§the faculty structure and teaching¡¨, ¡§the location and equipment facilities¡¨, and ¡§the advertisement and service¡¨. The second step is to interview in depth based on the result of the questionnaire survey, and to realize the general situation of Hsin-Hsing community university. The results were divided into the questionnaire survey and interviews. In questionnaire survey, the students thinks the university having ¡§reasonable fees¡¨, ¡§experienced faculty¡¨, ¡§comfortable learning environment¡¨, and ¡§well trained administrative staff¡¨ was very important, and were not satisfied with ¡¨using the resource of community to assist teaching¡¨ and ¡§The advertisement of alliance between the school and community¡¨. In the interviewing part, the product strategy was emphasized on giving consideration to fuse the ideal of community university and the requirements of students at the same time. Secondly, the charge strategy should obey the law of the government, and the faculty strategy should be emphasized on the teaching quality. Finally, the channel strategy and the program should be diversified. Key words: community university, marketing program, case study

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Since federal legislation in 1917 and the widespread program growth in the 1930’s, agricultural mechanics has been a major part of the high school agricultural science and technology curriculum. Local programs integrated individual problem -solving, practical applications of mathematics and technical science skills in to the curriculum. However, recent financial constraints and a perceived lack of interest have led to reductions in course offerings in agricultural mechanics in some universities that are responsible for the maintenance and future of the disciplinary area. These curricular issues gave rise to a research problem examining the perspectives of successful agricultural science and technology teachers of agricultural mechanics and the education and experiences that were associated with their success. This study used qualitative measures to identify factors that enabled certain agricultural science and technology teachers who were more noted in teaching of agricultural mechanics to be more successful than their peers. It examined factors that motivated teachers to excel and examined the influences that determined what portions of the curriculum were included or deleted. Finally, this study focused on the recommendations of experts regarding improvements for future teaching of high school agricultural mechanics. Data were collected, analyzed, and reported using accepted a qualitative protocol to develop emergent themes. Successful agricultural science and technology teachers agreed that their undergraduate course work did not adequately prepare them to teach the current curriculum. Unanimously, the respondents expressed a concern for the lack of depth, scope, and technical skills in agricultural mechanics currently being taught to future agricultural science teachers. This concern for the pre-service curriculum led teachers to agree that the three-week agricultural mechanics certification workshop is essential for successful instruction of agricultural mechanics. Furthermore, teachers espoused a formal mentoring program to aid the professional development of agricultural science and technology teachers. The respondents alluded to the need for more quality workshops on the part of the Texas Education Agency, the VATAT professional organization and the agricultural education community as a whole to improve the quality, scope, depth, and technical skills in the instruction of Agricultural Science and Technology in the high schools of Texas.

This report accounts the experience of a faculty member’s intention of creating an innovative interactive learning simulation in the field of pharmacokinetics to support the faculty member’s teaching and addresses his students’ learning needs. The report also describes the collaboration process between the faculty member and the instructional technology support units through the different phases of design, development, implementation and assessment on the simulation. It also discusses a faculty member’s role in using technology to enhance teaching and learning under university context. / text

This formative case study sought to explore the effectiveness of a remedial intervention based on Tier 2 word meanings for students whose primary deficit is phonological. Within the framework of a formative design research study, collaboration between a special education teacher and the researcher allowed for adaption and delivery of content while providing an opportunity to develop teacher capacity as well as student ability. The study found that focusing on the teaching of word meaning enhanced the remedial program due to the inclusion of a greater range of teaching strategies. Too few words were taught in order to bring about a significant improvement in vocabulary knowledge or spelling skill; however, most of the students believed they had improved in spelling and their attitude to writing was more positive at the end of the study. Several students showed improvement in written expression.

This formative case study sought to explore the effectiveness of a remedial intervention based on Tier 2 word meanings for students whose primary deficit is phonological. Within the framework of a formative design research study, collaboration between a special education teacher and the researcher allowed for adaption and delivery of content while providing an opportunity to develop teacher capacity as well as student ability. The study found that focusing on the teaching of word meaning enhanced the remedial program due to the inclusion of a greater range of teaching strategies. Too few words were taught in order to bring about a significant improvement in vocabulary knowledge or spelling skill; however, most of the students believed they had improved in spelling and their attitude to writing was more positive at the end of the study. Several students showed improvement in written expression.

Background: Moving knowledge into healthcare practice and the implementation of innovations in healthcare organizations remain significant challenges. The objective of this study was to examine the key interpersonal-, organizational-, and system-level factors that influenced the implementation and use of an innovation – synoptic reporting tools – in three specific cases of cancer care. Methods: Using case study methodology, this study examined three cases in Nova Scotia, Canada, wherein synoptic reporting tools were implemented within clinical departments/programs. Three theoretical perspectives guided the design, analysis, and interpretation of the study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with key informants across four units of analysis (individual user, implementation team, organization, and larger system), document analysis, nonparticipant observation, and examination/use of the synoptic reporting tools. Analysis involved production of case histories, an in-depth analysis of each case, and a cross-case analysis. Results: Numerous factors – which existed at multiple levels of the system and which were often related – were important to the implementation and use of synoptic reporting tools. The cross case analysis revealed five common factors that were particularly influential to implementation and use across the three cases studied: stakeholder involvement, managing the change process, administrative and managerial support, the presence of clinical champions, and attributes of the tools themselves. Key factors distinct to one or two of the cases were: implementation approach, project management, resources, culture, leadership, monitoring and feedback mechanisms, and components of the healthcare system (e.g., care delivery structures, system infrastructure, and socio-historical context). The analyses suggested that several contextual factors, including the timing of implementation and technical requirements of the tool, contributed to the differences across cases. Discussion: This study contributes to our knowledge base on the multi-level factors, and the relationships amongst factors in specific contexts, that influence implementation and use of innovations such as synoptic reporting tools in health care. Importantly, the findings add to our understanding of several important issues that are under-developed in the existing literature in this area: organizational management; healthcare system components; interpersonal aspects of implementation, including stakeholder involvement; and the complex nature of implementation processes.