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1 – 10 of over 71000Dora Abidi and Nakagawa Koichi
This paper aims to examine the management approaches that play a key role for innovation success in a stable and unstable environment.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the management approaches that play a key role for innovation success in a stable and unstable environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Tunisia and Japan were chosen as a research sites to assess the accuracy of management approach adopted in each environment. Japan, as a developed, stable and predictable market, involves a traditional/conventional management mode known as administrative control approach (ACA) for successful innovation. However, we argue that a developing country is characterized by its unstable environment and requires an opportunity-based approach (OBA) that lies in the firm’s openness to search and benefit from environmental opportunities.
Findings
The paper confirms that OBA improves product innovation success in an unstable environment, for innovation in a stable one.
Originality/value
The paper provides a comprehensive comparison between innovation driven management approaches towards stable and unstable environments through multi-group structural equation modeling.
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Huiying (Cynthia) Hou, Hilde Remøy, Tuuli Jylhä and Herman Vande Putte
Triggered by public concerns over office workplace safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study sheds light on the office workplace environment and aims to investigate how…
Abstract
Purpose
Triggered by public concerns over office workplace safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study sheds light on the office workplace environment and aims to investigate how organisations respond to forces from the external environment (impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic) and how they modify their office workplace management strategically and operationally to suit the stakeholders’ needs and future development in the post COVID-19 period.
Design/methodology/approach
A desktop study was conducted to provide the framework for the in-depth interviews with five corporate real estate (CRE) managers and three workplace consultants. Thematic analysis including coding technique was adopted to analyse the qualitative data.
Findings
The findings show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the intended and implemented office workplace modifications are mainly related to two types of risk control: administrative control and personal protection. At a strategic level, organisations react to the external forces by re-modelling their businesses and working towards re-orienting their CRE strategies, such as portfolio transformation, agile portfolio strategies and redesign of the office workplace, etc.
Originality/value
This is a topical and timely study that presents the general practice of office workplace modification during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the related CRE management (CREM) strategies developed for the new normal. The findings obtained through in-depth interviews have well supported the CREM strategic alignment theory. It is foreseen that office workplace management will encounter other challenges due to uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study provide a practical lens to look at the future changes of office workplace environment.
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Much has been written about student accountability, teacher accountability, and school accountability. More limited research is available on administrator accountability. Recently…
Abstract
Much has been written about student accountability, teacher accountability, and school accountability. More limited research is available on administrator accountability. Recently there have been substantial initiatives undertaken world‐wide to increase educational accountability. With increasing demands and changing expectations in the role of school administration, researchers, practitioners and policy makers and departments of education have become socially preoccupied with educational accountability. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive literature review on accountability of school administrators over the last two decades to demonstrate how aspiring, new and practicing school administrators understand and meet the demands of accountability in a time of tumultuous change when the stakes are high.
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David P. Lepak, Hui Liao, Yunhyung Chung and Erika E. Harden
A distinguishing feature of strategic human resource management research is an emphasis on human resource (HR) systems, rather than individual HR practices as a driver of…
Abstract
A distinguishing feature of strategic human resource management research is an emphasis on human resource (HR) systems, rather than individual HR practices as a driver of individual and organizational performance. Yet, there remains a lack of agreement regarding what these systems are, which practices comprise these systems, how these systems operate, and how they should be studied. Our goal in this paper is to take a step toward identifying and addressing several conceptual and methodological issues regarding HR systems. Conceptually, we argue that HR systems should be targeted toward some strategic objective and operate by influencing (1) employee knowledge, skills, and abilities, (2) employee motivation and effort, and (3) opportunities for employees to contribute. Methodologically, we explore issues related to the relationships among policies and practices, sampling issues, identifying the appropriate referent group(s), and who should serve as key informants for HR system studies.
Mary A. Kaidonis and Lee C. Moerman
This paper looks at a resource allocation technique used in the public sector reforms of Indonesia, a developing country, which involves decentralisation of fiscal…
Abstract
This paper looks at a resource allocation technique used in the public sector reforms of Indonesia, a developing country, which involves decentralisation of fiscal responsibilities. The decentralisation occurred to quell secessionist aspirations of resource‐rich regions. To enable all regions to participate in regional autonomy, an elaborate system of equalisation grants was introduced to compensate for regional inequities. These grants rest on notions of ‘Western rationalism’ which value the role of calculative apparatus to achieve a sense of objectivity. We demonstrate that the equalisation formula used to determine grants is calculated using a series of estimates, proxies and indices. Hence, the formula, which determines the resource allocation for a region, obfuscates several compounding subjectivities. In this way, the politically contentious resource allocations can be perceived as objective so that the outcomes can be afforded legitimacy and authority necessary to assuage regional disputes.
Han Lin, Saixing Zeng, Hanyang Ma and Hongquan Chen
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms by which symbolic commitment to self-regulation influences corporate environmental performance…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms by which symbolic commitment to self-regulation influences corporate environmental performance through the adoption of substantive actions.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of Chinese listed private firms in manufacturing sectors, this paper empirically investigates whether and how corporate symbolic commitment to environmental self-regulation really improves the consequences of corporate activities with respect to environmental issues under the current Chinese context. A moderated mediation analysis is employed to test the hypotheses and examine the relationships proposed in the research framework.
Findings
The authors argue that making a commitment to environmental self-regulation could motivate firms to implement effective means of being green. The intriguing and robust results show that firms with higher ranking environmental commitment are more likely to use political connections to obtain resources (green subsidies), and then improve environmental performance.
Practical implications
The results of this study provide a snapshot of the mechanism between symbolic promises and real outcomes.
Originality/value
The authors theorize about and test both direct and indirect effects of commitment to self-regulation on real outcomes which provide empirical evidence for the incipient but growing understanding of self-regulation.
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Our purpose in this paper is three‐fold. First, we shall briefly describe what is almost a truism— that is, the classical (especially the Greek) intellectual heritage of the…
Abstract
Our purpose in this paper is three‐fold. First, we shall briefly describe what is almost a truism— that is, the classical (especially the Greek) intellectual heritage of the Arab‐Islamic scholars upon which the latter, imbued by their young faith, developed their own comprehensive synthesis. Second, as part of that synthesis, we shall explore briefly the economic thought of a few early‐medieval Arab‐Islamic scholastics who extended that heritage and wrote on numerous issues of human concern, including economics. Those discourses took place during what is sometimes called the “golden age” of Islam — a period that coincided roughly with the so‐called Dark Age of Europe. Parenthetically, it might be noted that one of 20th century's most prominent economists, the late Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) had, unfortunately for the continuity and evolution of human intellectual tradition, declared that period as “the Great Gap,” representing “blank centuries,” during which nothing of significance to economics, or for that matter to any field, was said or written anywhere — as though there was a complete lacuna over intellectual evolution throughout the rest of the world (Schumpeter, 52, 74; see Ghazanfar, 1991). And finally, we will provide some evidence as to the historically influential linkages of the Arab‐Islamic thought, including economic thought, with the Latin‐European scholastics‐a phenomenon that facilitated the European intellectual evolution. An underlying theme of this paper is predicated on the premise that the classical tradition (i.e., Greek knowledge, though not exclusively) is part of a long historical continuum that represents the inextricably linked Judeo‐Christian‐and‐Islamic tradition of the West. This theme, though not common appreciated, is amply corroborated through the writings of well‐known scholars from the East and the West (see, for example, Durant, Haskins, Myers, O'Leary, Said, Sarton, Sharif, and others).
The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of…
Abstract
Purpose
The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.
Design/methodology/approach
One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.
Findings
The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.
Originality/value
The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.
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Accounting for quality and improved organizational performance has recently received attention in management control research. However, the extent to which process innovation…
Abstract
Accounting for quality and improved organizational performance has recently received attention in management control research. However, the extent to which process innovation changes have been integrated into management control research is limited. This paper contributes to that integration by drawing from institutional adaptive theory of organizational change and process innovation strategies. The paper utilizes a 2 by 2 contingency table that uses two factors: environmental conditions and organizational change/learning strategies, to build a process innovation framework. A combination of these two factors yields four process innovation strategies: mechanistic, organic, organizational development (OD) and organizational transformation (OT).
The four process innovation typologies are applied to characterize innovations in accounting such as activity based costing (ABC). ABC has been discussed as a multi-phased innovation process that provides an environment where both the initiation and the implementation of accounting change can occur. Technical innovation can be successfully initiated as organic innovation that unfolds in a decentralized organization and requires radical change and double loop learning. Implementation occurs best as a mechanistic innovation in a hierarchical organization and involving incremental change and single loop learning. The paper concludes that if ABC is integrated into an OD or OT intervention strategy, the technical and administrative innovation aspects of ABC can be utilized to manage the organization’s operating activities.