The U.S. healthcare system is a complex segment of our society that is constantly evolving with changes to various areas such as education, financing, safety, and health. There continues to be a critical examination of how healthcare professionals are trained and utilized as healthcare demands increase. One category of healthcare professionals that has evolved over time to address societal needs is pharmacists. Pharmacists have kept their traditional function of dispensing medications while expanding into multiple areas of expertise and training from patient counseling and drug therapy, to being part of multidisciplinary teams treating acute care patients. According to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) in 2009 there were approximately 265,000 licensed pharmacists in the U.S. (NABP, 2010). The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reported the settings with the largest number of positions are chain pharmacies (77,300), hospitals (49,200), and independent pharmacies (36,200) (DHHS, 2008). The ratio of pharmacists per 100,000 population is expected to increase from 68.9 pharmacists per 100,000 population to 76.7 per 100,000 between 1995 and 2020 (Gershon, Cultice, & Knapp, 2000). This increase in the pharmacist to population ratio is consistent with a growth rate of 13% during this time period of time. Until 1998, the supply of pharmacists in the U.S. appeared to be in reasonable balance with demand. Market forces gradually upset the delicate balance between the supply of pharmacists and the demand for their services between 1998 and 2009. In particular, a precipitous increase in the volume of prescription written and filled during this time period contributed to upsetting this delicate balance between the supply of pharmacists and demand (Cooksey, Walton, Stankewicz, & Knapp, 2003). Researchers have noted a number of environmental factors affecting the pharmacist supply in the U. S. This inquiry explores these factors within the context of the population ecology theoretical framework. In addition to the volume of prescriptions, additional environmental factors believed to have a discernible impact on the pharmacist supply include, the number of physicians, size of the business industry and insurance coverage. Previous studies on pharmacists supply have pointed to income, physician population, and population among other variables that predict the demand for pharmacists (Walton, Cooksey, Knapp, Quist, & Miller, 2004; Cherry, D.K., Woodwell, D.A., & Rechtsteiner 2007; Walton, Knapp, Miller, & Schumock 2007). U. S. physicians wrote over 4 billion prescriptions in 2007 (Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 2008). Physicians are the primary healthcare providers that generate prescriptions to be filled. Consequently, the number of physicians is believed to be a significant environmental factor affecting the supply of pharmacists. There were approximately 940,000 physicians in the U. S. in 2008. Projections call for continuous growth of the number of physicians well into the future (Smart, 2010). Another important environmental factor potentially impacting the demand for pharmacists is the size of the business industry. In 2006, the health plan offer rate for large or medium organizations (50 or more employees) was 96.7% compared to 61.2% for small organizations (50 or less employees) (Sommers & Crimmel, 2008; Crimmel & Sommers, 2008). Insurance cov¬erage has the potential to have a positive impact on the demand for pharmacists because it provides the opportunity to obtain required prescriptions (Ranji, Wyn, Salganicoff, & Yu, 2007; Weinick, Byron, & Bierman, 2005). The population ecology theoretical framework has been used in the study of restaurants, newspapers, and physicians and their interactions with their surrounding environments. The theoretical framework proved to be beneficial in the exploration of the pharmacist supply vis-á-vis the environment. The primary constructs in the population ecology theory are carrying capacity and density. Carrying capacity consists of two sub-constructs: munificence and concentration. Density points to the current pharmacists supply and its impact on the future pharmacist supply. Numerous variables have been used in previous empirical studies of the pharmacist supply. Among the indicators of munificence in previous studies in the extant literature on pharmacist supply are total population, elderly population, hospitals, and median household income. In the present inquiry, total population was found to be a statistically significant environmental factor affecting the pharmacist supply. This was hypothesized that there is a positive linear relationship between total population and the pharmacist supply. The number of hospitals with pharmacies was also found to be a statistically significant environmental factor affecting the pharmacist supply. Hospital pharmacies are important venues wherein pharmacists can demonstrate their unique expertise and make discernible contributions to desirable health care outcomes when pharmaceutical interventions are required. In light of this empirical finding, it seems reasonable that a growth in hospital pharmacies corresponds with an increased demand for pharmacists (Kaboli, Hoth, McClimon, & Schnipper, 2006). Measures of the concentration dimension included the number of hospital beds per 100,000 population, employer volume and size and the number of insured. The only putative indicator of concentration that was found to be statistically significant in this inquiry was the number of employers with 20 or more employees. Previous pharmacist supply was found to be a significant environmental factor affecting the pharmacist supply in the future. Thus, density is a significant environmental factor affecting the pharmacist supply. Five of the 13 hypotheses tested in this inquiry were accepted. These findings are consistent with related findings in the extant literature on the pharmacist supply. Empirical findings from this inquiry are believed to make significant contributions to the literature on the pharmacist supply. The population ecology theoretical framework appears to be a suitable tool for exploring environmental factors affecting the pharmacist supply. Recommendations for future research are presented in the final chapter.

M.Com. (Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The objective of this thesis is to propose an approach or a process by which a national industrial training system can be instituted for the Philippines; and specifying the role which the National Manpower and Youth Council should play in the undertaking. The thesis outlines some of the general features of the manpower development systems in several selected countries, followed by an outline of the Philippine manpower development system, and the environment in which the Industrial training system in the Philippines would operate. The existing organization of the National Manpower and Youth Council is described and a plan of action for the creation of a new system outlined. The plan of action includes a detailed outline of the steps necessary for the successful creation of a pilot industry training board and a discussion of the subsequent requirements and strategy needed to develop the entire national training system.

Although most working adults possess a lay understanding of understaffing in the workplace and may, in fact, feel they are experiencing such a stressor, a review of the research literature reveals a general lack of empirical work on understaffing and its consequences. Hudson and Shen (2013, Development and testing of a new measure of understaffing. Paper presented at the Southern Management Association 2013 Meeting, New Orleans, LA) recently proposed a new model of understaffing that distinguished between two types of personnel deficiencies, manpower and expertise shortages, and linked these dimensions to worker well-being and attitudinal outcomes and identified likely mediating mechanisms. However, Hudson and Shen focused exclusively on the individual level of analysis. Therefore, the current study extends their work by investigating whether prior findings also hold at the group level of analysis. Participants in this study were members of 66 intact work groups and their supervisors (N = 57 for groups with matched supervisor data) from a variety of industries and organizations, who filled out a one-time survey. Results supported that perceptions of understaffing, both manpower and expertise, are shared within work groups and that there is some convergence between work groups and their supervisors regarding levels of understaffing. Results from correlational and regression analyses also supported differential relationships between manpower and expertise understaffing and group outcomes. Finally, structural equation models generally upheld Hudson and Shen's (2013) framework at the group level of analysis; results were consistent with group quantitative workload, potency, and role ambiguity serving as key mediators in the relationships between shared group perceptions of understaffing and unit well-being and attitudinal outcomes (i.e., group emotional exhaustion and cohesion). This study broadens our understanding of the construct of understaffing and presents a number of promising directions to be pursued in future research.

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This thesis is about solving the manpower planning problem concerning stangand transitioning of pilots. The objective of the planning is to have enoughpilots to satisfy the demand while minimizing the cost. The main decisions totake are how many pilots to hire, which pilots to train and which courses toschedule. The planning problems that arise are both large and dicult whichmakes it important to use ecient solution methods. Seniority rules betweenpairs of pilots are the most complicating factor.A major part in the solution process is the solving of mixed integer programs.The emphasis in the thesis is to develop and test adaptations of the branch andbound algorithm to solve mixed integer programs faster. One of these is abranching principle that takes a problem specic structure into account. Agraph of implications is constructed from the seniority rules and this graph isthen used to estimate the impact of each branching candidate. The implementedmethods outperform the software XPRESS on some instances, while for mostinstances the performance is comparable.

With the transformation of the industrial structure environment and the coming knowledge economy era, the demand of enterprise for professional human resource is steadily on the increase, which makes the enterprise have diversified needs on manpower dispatch. In regard to the application of manpower dispatching, it has been transformed from the early labor force of blue-collar employees or the administrative personnel of white-collar staff in the basic level to the roles of skilled professionals or professional managers. There are two objectives in this research. The first objective is to probe into the current situation of professional dispatching, and the second is to probe into the management mechanism of professional dispatching in Taiwan, which are probed in the case study method on the basis of its research subject, interviewing the third dispatched party, and the interview details will be concluded and analyzed. It is discovered in this research that the dispatch triplicities think that the professional dispatch will become the development direction of manpower dispatch in the future. It is thought that dispatching agency should pick up the speed of recruitment and improve the professional degree in the practice of manpower dispatch. The ready-dispatch enterprise plays the role of reducing the otherness of professional dispatched personnel, the service charge of reasonably assessing the manpower dispatch, and the payment of professional dispatched personnel. And the dispatched personnel hope to strengthen the basis of mutual trust and improve the sense of job achievements. There are still a lot of challenges to meet the requirement of the dispatch triplicities. It is the common goal to find how to strengthen trilateral interaction and make the performance of professional live up to the standard of enterprise, which are the concerted efforts of dispatch triplicities.

¡@In recent years, the industry environment has been affected by the globalization and the dramatic changes of industrial competition, thus the enterprises, considering cost, flexibility and speed, show a yearly rising employment rate of foreign workers in Taiwan and some of them even reach the top limit. In addition, they gradually stop employing full-time or long-term workers, but start to employ the outsourced and dispatched personnel. As a result, the traditional employment relationships are confronted with challenges. According to the survey issued by CHEER magazine in April, 2004, more than 12% enterprises possess 10~20% contract-based employees of their total staff, and in the future more than 35% enterprise will continue to enlarge the scale of contract-based employees. Hence, the long-term official employment relationship is no longer the only choice, the enterprises tend to use multiple and flexible employment modes. ¡@¡@From 2008 to now, after experienced the financial crisis, have the enterprises added the application of flexible manpower employment strategies, or examined and adjusted their current flexible employment strategies? Therefore, the study further explores the current situation of enterprises¡¦ application of flexible employment strategies. ¡@¡@This study hopes to utilize the interview to collect the enterprises¡¦ current situation of flexible manpower employment, application reasons and effectiveness, as well as the relevant management regulations and practical operations derived from the application of flexible manpower employment in the enterprises, so as to explore the influences of flexible manpower employment strategies on the enterprises. Finally, it can be served as references for the enterprises of different fields to utilize the flexible manpower employment and the government to draft relative policies and labor laws in the future. ¡@¡@From the interview data, the flexible manpower mainly takes charge of the peripheral work like administrative support and elementary manufacturing or service works. However, it is extraordinary that the enterprises related to credit cards of financial service sector often employ the dispatched manpower, or assign the core business to the atypical employees. ¡@¡@As for the reasons for applying flexible employment, taking cost into consideration, serving as bridge to employ the regular workers are the primary. The benefits of flexible employment strategies are mainly shown in the cost reduction in welfare, training and recruiting and the flexibility of personnel application. During the financial crisis of 2008 when the case company conducted the organizational adjustment and downsizing, it primarily controlled and downsized the dispatched manpower by means of non-renewal of contracts upon labor termination or early termination of contract. However, it didn¡¦t downsize all the dispatched personnel but reserved the excellent ones. In addition, the regular workers without an outstanding performance were also handled. Moreover, the issues faced by dispatching companies such as high labor turnover rate, hard to recruit, low personnel quality, and unable to recruit the excellent personnel are also the important subjects to be faced and solved for the enterprises.

Since the ¡§Reinventing Government¡¨ trend started in 1980s, it soon became a sweeping fashion around the world. Looking into the objectives of these ¡§reinventing government¡¨ projects, they mainly expect to build an innovative, flexible and responsive government by introducing corporate management mechanism, so that governmental departments may provide efficient, flexible, innovative and governable services as private enterprises do, and hence the country¡¦s competitiveness can be greatly enhanced. Promoting the ¡§reinventing government¡¨ project is the goal of all countries around the world nowadays, and Taiwan and China are no exception. Content of the ¡§reinventing government¡¨ project mainly includes: organizational restructuring, manpower and service restructuring and legal restructuring. No matter in what direction the government reform takes place, formulation and execution of the government policies have to be carried out by civil servants. Therefore, a good official training system is critical for the achievement of the government reform, and also the focus of this study. In Taiwan area, different reforming emphases are set down in response to the government¡¦s reform, and for meeting the needs of different periods. Major reforms have also been presented in the manpower restructuring of civil servants. The training concept and goal of ¡§lifelong leaning¡¨ has been introduced recently, representing a lively and spirited effort in upgrading both quality and quantity of the civil service manpower. In China, since the adoption of the open-door policy in the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Communist Party Congress in 1978, the country has progressed towards a modern performance-based personnel administration system, and importance has been attached to the training of civil servants. Moreover, the country¡¦s accession to the WTO will definitely constitute another major impact on the training of civil servants in China. This thesis starts from the common base on the two governments¡¦ reform, to deduce the future ¡§civil service manpower development¡¨ from their respective ¡§governmental organization¡¨ trend and ¡§governmental operation¡¨ trend. In addition, the actual civil official training situation of the both sides of Taiwan strait is analyzed for discussing the sticking points of their respective civil official training systems and recommending the necessary amendment in the future. It is expected to provide a reference for subsequent researchers and for legislation or amendment of the official training system of the two governments

Traditionally human resource functions are performed in house, but recently the subject on outsourcing human resources is becoming more and more popular. According to an article published in 2004 by the INC. 500 magazine, 18 human resource service providers were chosen to be the most fast growing corporations in the US, in the mean time, the Fortune 500 and Forbes 500 corporations lists both had human resource business process outsourcing firms listed inside. The development of global temporary help service industry has been around for more than fifty years and the growth rate of temporary help industry in each country has been increasing steadily. Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan of Taiwan has chosen this business as one of the most industry among its 12 selected important developing service industries. The competition in temporary help has getting more and more severe than usual, but restricted to its uncompleted legal regulation, there are many staffing vendor didn¡¦t obey the legal regulation, besides the difference between temporary help service and outsourcing is still ambigious. In this study, case study approach and the in-depth interview technique were employed. The main objective is to find out what current difficulties are the temporary help agencies facing and what kind of solution do they use to cope with the business needs. Furthermore, by applying relevant solution to form the suggestions to provide to staffing industry for the operation reference The inference of this study is that Taiwan is more cost oriented compared with other countries in US, Japan and Germany in the consideration of using temporary help service; as for the development of professional temporary help service, there is no clear definition on it, besides, the temporary help service agency in Taiwan is not yet able to provide this service. The temporary help service agencies in Japan expect relevant law in temporary help service can be loosen to develope this industry better, the temporary help service agencies in Taiwan expect a clearer definition between responsibility and obligation in user enterprise and temporary help service agency. The pricing war in this industry in Taiwan would form the barrier of better service due to limited profit while other countries had understood different service level deserves different price. New pension policy implemented in Taiwan in 2004 would encourage more enterprises understand the advantage of using temporary help service, but not definitely boost the promising development of this industry.