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Article
Publication date: 24 May 2013

Mahbub Rashid

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of colocation on office workers' perception of workplace design and interaction freedom in organizations.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of colocation on office workers' perception of workplace design and interaction freedom in organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was conducted at six different departments of an office organization that moved from geographically dispersed office buildings to one office building. The pre‐move data were collected three to six months before the move, and the post‐move data were collected almost one year after the move through questionnaire surveys. Out of 284 workers, 169 office workers filled out the questionnaire in the pre‐move survey, and 175 filled out the questionnaire in the post‐move survey.

Findings

Based on statistical analyses of the data, the study found that colocation did not help improve office workers' overall perception of interaction freedom in the organization, but it helped eliminate perceptual disparities concerning interaction freedom among its different departments. The study also found that office workers' perception of workplace design support for interaction and workstation location were strong predictors of their perception of interaction freedom in the organization. Overall, the findings of the study indicated that the purpose of colocation might be defeated if organizational behavior and culture were not modified simultaneously to promote workers' perception in support of interaction freedom.

Research limitations/implications

The study considered only one type of colocation that involved bringing people of different organizational units together from geographically dispersed places to one place. Therefore, these findings cannot be generalized for all other types of colocation.

Practical implications

The findings of the study are important for corporate real estate (CRE) strategists and organizational leaders who are actively considering colocation as a strategy to improve interaction and team effectiveness in the organization.

Originality/value

The study investigates different mechanisms involving the effects of colocation on office workers' perception of workplace design and interaction freedom in organizations; and identifies important distinctions to consider for achieving the benefits of colocation in terms of face‐to‐face interactions in the workplace.

Details

Journal of Corporate Real Estate, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-001X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 28 December 2021

Felichism Kabo

This study aims to examine the associations of social networks with the sense of community (SOC) construct and spatial colocation or having an office. The study site was an…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the associations of social networks with the sense of community (SOC) construct and spatial colocation or having an office. The study site was an institute for health-care policy research formed in 2011 by bringing together scientists from more than 20 different university units. Only 30% of the scientists were had an office or physical presence at the institute. Therefore, the institute was an ideal site to examine whether SOC was correlated with different dimensions of network position – connectedness, reachability and brokerage – even when the authors account for the lack of spatial colocation for the off-site scientists.

Design/methodology/approach

A two-part (sociometric and workplace) internet survey instrument was administered in 2014 to the institute’s population of 411 individuals. The sociometric data were used to create an undirected interaction network and the following dependent variables (DVs) or network centralities: normalized degree to measure connectedness; average reciprocal distance to capture reachability; and normalized betweenness to proxy brokerage. Separate node-level network regressions were then run with random permutations (N = 10,000) and listwise deletion for each of the DVs with SOC and spatial colocation as the independent variables, and variables that controlled for gender, organizational affiliation and job category.

Findings

SOC and spatial colocation are both positively and significantly correlated with network connectedness and reachability. The results suggest that both SOC and spatial colocation have a larger impact on reachability than connectedness. However, neither SOC nor spatial colocation are significantly associated with network brokerage. Finally, the findings show that SOC and spatial colocation are more reliable predictors of network connectedness and reachability than are key individual- and unit-level control variables, specifically the individual’s sex, job category and organizational affiliation. The controls were not significantly associated with any of the three network centralities, namely, connectedness, reachability and brokerage.

Originality/value

This exploratory study used social network analysis and node-level network regressions to examine the associations from SOC and spatial colocation to dimensions of network position. SOC is positively and significantly associated with network connectedness and reachability, suggesting that SOC is an important consideration when individuals are disadvantaged from the absence of spatial colocation. The findings have implications for work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic as they imply that interventions based on the SOC construct could potentially lessen the negative effects of remote work on workplace social networks due to factors such as the reduction of social contacts.

Details

Journal of Corporate Real Estate , vol. 24 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-001X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 May 2022

Christopher Boafo, Alexis Catanzaro and Utz Dornberger

The International Labor Organization (2020) estimates that eight out of ten enterprises (i.e. own-account workers and small economic units) are informal worldwide. However, less…

Abstract

Purpose

The International Labor Organization (2020) estimates that eight out of ten enterprises (i.e. own-account workers and small economic units) are informal worldwide. However, less is known about the internationalization of informal enterprises. Here, it is argued that economic blocs, such as sub-Saharan Africa, with a greater proportion of informal enterprises, may provide broader societal legitimacy for them to operate internationally. Thus, informal firms would need to collaborate with other firms to overcome their resource constraints. Geographic colocation is one way to facilitate positive interfirm interactions that promote networking and subsequently cooperation. The purpose of this paper is, thus, to addresses two questions. Firstly, how and to what extent does interfirm marketing cooperation in geographic colocation influence the internationalization of micro and small informal manufacturing enterprises? Secondly, how do the perceived benefits of local external economies moderate this relationship?

Design/methodology/approach

The study draws evidence from 125 randomly selected informal enterprises located in two major clusters in Ghana, using a mixed-method approach.

Findings

The partial least square - structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis applied revealed two central points. Firstly, sharing marketing costs allows informal firms to upgrade their phases of export development directly. Secondly, the linkage of increasing sales activities and local external economies encourages the progress of the phases of export development and the scope of internationalization. Results confirm that the cluster benefits of interfirm cooperation and local external economies on the informal firm internationalization process complement each other in addition to their linear relationship.

Originality/value

The study contributes to understanding the nexus of the informal sector, geographic colocation and the entrepreneurial internationalization literature. The results should motivate researchers and policymakers to approach informal firm internationalization through collaborative business activities.

Details

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol. 30 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1462-6004

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 1 May 2019

Per Fridtjof Larssen, Atle Engebø, Ola Lædre and Ole Jonny Klakegg

This paper aims to examine how a partnering contract facilitates project values and the culture in a construction project and the consequences of said facilitation. Hence, it…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how a partnering contract facilitates project values and the culture in a construction project and the consequences of said facilitation. Hence, it answers the following research questions: 1) How does the contractual framework in Bispevika facilitate relational culture? 2) What effects of this facilitation can be identified in the early phase of development?

Design/Methodology/Approach

An explorative approach is taken into a single case. A literature study into the topics of relational contracting and culture provides a backdrop for the study. The empirical work consists of a study of the construction contracts and six in-depth interviews with actors from the supply-chain.

Findings

Contractual elements affect the project organizations’ motivation. On the basis of existing literature, five contractual elements are identified explicitly in the contracts: “shared goals”, “incentives and bonus”, “open book”, “colocation”, and “design-build”.

Research Limitations/Implications

The data collection is restricted to a single point in time in a single project. Further research is necessary both at a later stage in the same case and in similar projects.

Practical Implications

The paper identifies the effects that proper use of contractual elements has on the relational culture in a construction project and is, therefore, important for subsequent research within the area.

Originality/Value

In addition to identifying the existing contractual elements, the interviews also revealed two additional practices that might be useful for subsequent research: “involvement of executive management” and “subsequent contracts dependent on previous project performance”.

Details

10th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-051-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 15 July 2020

Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury

This chapter argues that intra-firm geographic mobility is an understudied mechanism that can help mitigate coordination failures in a geographically distributed organization. The

Abstract

This chapter argues that intra-firm geographic mobility is an understudied mechanism that can help mitigate coordination failures in a geographically distributed organization. The chapter presents an organizing framework on how intra-firm geographic mobility creates value for firms and discusses how intra-firm geographic mobility can create value for individual workers. The chapter concludes by presenting a future research agenda for intra-firm geographic mobility in light of emerging phenomena such as global collaborative patenting by multinationals, temporary colocation of knowledge workers, and nonstandard work.

Details

Employee Inter- and Intra-Firm Mobility
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-550-5

Article
Publication date: 8 February 2013

Jayachandra Bairi, B. Murali Manohar and Goutam Kumar Kundu

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the major critical success factors involved in knowledge acquisition from an aging oil and gas workforce by outsourced

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the major critical success factors involved in knowledge acquisition from an aging oil and gas workforce by outsourced service providers and find the outcome. In addition, the authors are also interested in finding out the outcome for the client and the service provider by following these critical success factors.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors shortlisted two outsourced firms for studying, primarily because they deliver lots of service support work to oil and gas firms. For the exploratory nature of this case study, a structured, open‐ended interview was conducted. Through face‐to‐face interviews with 12 senior managers, primary data were collected. Upon content analysis of data collected, the framework was evaluated.

Findings

The results of this study indicate that both client and service providers can benefit by following major critical success factors for knowledge acquisition. From the open‐ended interview with the two companies, it can be concluded that the service providers are able to grow their technical and domain capability through knowledge acquisition from ageing workforce and reduce the cost to client.

Research limitations/implications

The study has been restricted to two service providers, with majority of operations carried out of India, focusing only on US/UK‐based oil & gas firms. Implication on theory is, by following these critical success factors, it is likely to be easier to acquire the knowledge from an aging oil and gas workforce.

Practical implications

The service provider firms can build their knowledge capability, reducing the cost to both client and service provider. Further study with more service providers at the global level may help in pooling larger data. The primary contribution of the paper is in introducing the critical success factors with various associated activities that drive knowledge acquisition from an aging workforce.

Originality/value

The primary contribution of the paper is in introducing the critical success factors with various associated activities that drive knowledge acquisition from an aged workforce in the oil and gas industries. Second contribution is in highlighting the role of these critical success factors in gaining various benefits to client as well as to service providers.

Article
Publication date: 23 May 2019

Issam Kouatli

Cloud computing is relatively a new type of technology demanding a new method of management techniques to attain security and privacy leading to customer satisfaction regarding…

Abstract

Purpose

Cloud computing is relatively a new type of technology demanding a new method of management techniques to attain security and privacy leading to customer satisfaction regarding “Business Protection” measure. As cloud computing businesses are usually composed of multiple colocation sites/departments, the purpose of this paper is to propose a benchmark operation to measure and compare the overall integrated people-process-performance (PPP) among different departments within cloud computing organization. The purpose of this paper is to motivate staff/units to improve the process performance and meet the standards in a competitive approach among business units.

Design/methodology/approach

The research method was conducted at Cirrus Ltd, which is a cloud computing service provider where a focus group consists of six IT professionals/managers. The objective of the focus group was to investigate the proposed technique by selecting the best practices relevant criteria, with the relevant sub-criteria as a benchmarking performance tool to measure PPP via an analytic hierarchy processing (AHP) approach. The standard pairwise comparative AHP scale was used to measure the performance of three different teams defined as production team, user acceptance testing team and the development team.

Findings

Based on best practice performance measurement (reviewed in this paper) of cloud computing, the proposed AHP model was implemented in a local medium-sized cloud service provider named “Cirrus” with their single site data center. The actual criteria relevant to Cirrus was an adaptation of the “Best practice” described in the literature. The main reason for the adaptation of criteria was that the principle of PPP assumes multiple departments/datacenters located in a different geographical area in large service providers. As Cirrus is a type of SMEs, the adaptation of performance measurement was based on teams within the same data center location. Irrelevant of this adaptation, the objective of measuring vendors KPI using the AHP technique as a specific output of PPP is also a valid situation.

Practical implications

This study provides guidance for achieving cloud computing performance measurement using the AHP technique. Hence, the proposed technique is an integrated model to measure the PPP under monitored cloud environment.

Originality/value

The proposed technique measures and manages the performance of cloud service providers that also implicitly act as a catalyst to attain trust in such high information-sensitive environment leading to organizational effectiveness of managing cloud organizations.

Details

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 69 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 October 2022

Ekaterina Turkina and Nasrin Sultana

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and cities and how the relationship between multinational enterprise (MNEs) and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and cities and how the relationship between multinational enterprise (MNEs) and local firms facilitates regional cleantech innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a combination of social network analysis, regression analysis and interview analysis, the authors map and analyze a cleantech cluster to investigate the relationship between MNEs and local firms and the resulting effects on cleantech innovation.

Findings

The findings of the paper indicate that FDI plays a crucial role in cities and their local clusters by acting as a broker between a diverse set of actors: firms, institutions, universities, financial and other intermediaries. Additionally, connectedness to MNEs improves local firms’ innovation.

Research limitations/implications

This study is not free of limitations, mainly, because of the aspects that the analysis is based on one city and one cleantech hub. Further research could verify whether the findings of this paper hold in other cities and industries.

Practical implications

The findings, elucidating the connection between MNEs and local firms, as well as MNEs being important brokers in the local system, and the resulting impact, will help policymakers to take appropriate actions and support the local cleantech innovation. It is important to not only attract high-quality FDI into local clusters, but also to create and support collaborations between foreign firms and local actors, because colocation does not automatically leads to positive spillovers and a lot depends on how MNEs are integrated into the local milieu.

Social implications

The present paper argues that FDI plays an important role in local cleantech innovation and it is important to integrate foreign firms in local social networks.

Originality/value

The authors analyze FDI patterns in an emerging industry at the city and local cluster level using a unique database containing the information on relationships between MNEs and local firms, as well as interview data.

Details

Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal , vol. 33 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1059-5422

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 July 2019

Christophe Midler

The last few decades have seen the rapid emergence of two transformative streams in large firms. The first is the development of project management, aimed at improving the…

1193

Abstract

Purpose

The last few decades have seen the rapid emergence of two transformative streams in large firms. The first is the development of project management, aimed at improving the performance of innovation management, while the second, the internationalization of innovation organizations and processes in response to strategies of redeployment toward emerging countries. Both streams have been closely analyzed in the fields of project management and international management, respectively. However, the links between the two have been less studied. The purpose of this paper is to consider the hypothesis that a firm’s projectification might have an important impact on its pattern of internationalization in innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

First, we present the models of internationalization of innovation processes used in the multinational corporation literature. This field essentially focuses on the components of permanent organizations: global internationalization strategy and legacy, R&D footprint, characterization of local subsidiaries and the role of central head offices. Projects figure only as a context in which those elements operate, not as a structuring variable of the global innovation process pattern. The authors challenge this view by exploring whether the specificities of the firm’s projectification pattern can influence how it builds its global innovation process. The paper is based on a longitudinal case where the authors analyze the organizational transition within the Renault group, an emblematic case of a multinational that implemented a spectacular internationalization transition in the 2000s.

Findings

Our results demonstrate project organizing’s major impact on the internationalization patterns of innovation processes within the firm. They show how the deployment of a polycentric innovation footprint has been the consequence of a specific projectification transition, giving the project and program functions the autonomy to transgress centralized product development norms to adapt their project to the local environment; use the initial breakthrough project as the foundation for a new and specific global product development network through a lineage logic; and sustain this innovation global network as a permanent process of the firm.

Research limitations/implications

The paper demonstrates the importance of the organization’s projectification characteristics as an important vector for successfully implementing the most advanced internationalization strategies (i.e. reverse innovation) and innovation processes models (i.e. integrated networks).

Practical implications

The paper characterizes project management related conditions that can govern the success of innovation strategies in high-growth emerging countries: the autonomy and empowerment of project functions; colocation and integration of teams; existence of a program function; and HR policies capable of supporting lineage management and project-to-project learning processes.

Originality/value

Bridging project management literature with multinational management literature. Demonstrate the key impact of projectification on internationalization pattern of the firm. Longitudinal analysis of a firm internationalization transition on a ten-year period.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 June 2020

Emily Anderson, Ayesha Khurshid, Karen Monkman and Payal Shah

This chapter explores the colocation of ethnographic and discourse approaches in gender-focused research in comparative and international education. Drawing from the authors’…

Abstract

This chapter explores the colocation of ethnographic and discourse approaches in gender-focused research in comparative and international education. Drawing from the authors’ scholarship in the fields of girls’ education, women’s empowerment, and international education policy and development, this chapter highlights opportunities to interrogate culture in qualitative data through ethnographic and discourse approaches. The chapter concludes with reflection and future directions for these authors and for the field.

Details

Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2019
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-724-4

Keywords

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