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Contemporary organizations are facing an operating environment characterized by volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and “permanent whitewater.” To sustain high performance in this context, organizations must be able to change and develop as efficiently and effectively as possible. Within organizations, there are actors who catalyze and advance change in this manner; these actors are known as “champions.” Yet the scholar who wishes to conduct research concerning champions of change and organizational development is likely to be met by a highly fragmented literature. Varying notions of champions are scattered throughout extant research, where authors of articles cite different sources when conceptualizing champions; often superficially. Furthermore, many types of highly specific and nuanced non-generalizable champions have proliferated, making it difficult for practitioners and researchers to discover useful findings on how to go about making meaningful changes in their context. The purpose of this study was to address these problems for practitioners and researchers by engendering thoroughness, clarity, and coherence within champion scholarship. This was done by conducting the first comprehensive, critical yet insightful review of the champion literature within the organizational sciences using content analysis to re-conceptualize champions and develop a meaningful typology from which the field can be advanced. The chapter first suggests a return to Schön (1963) as the basis from which to conceptualize champions and, second, offers a typology consisting of 10 meta-champions of organizational change and development – Collaboration, Human Rights, Innovation, Product, Project, Service, Strategic, Sustainability, Technology, and Venture Champions – from which change practice and future research can benefit.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the application feasibility of information technology (IT) for achieving agility in a typical manufacturing organisation.

A literature study was conducted. It was found out that IT is not fully utilised for achieving agility in certain traditional manufacturing sectors. An implementation study was conducted in an Indian electronics switches manufacturing organisation to identify the causes of this insufficient utilisation. Finally, a feedback session was conducted to explore the practitioners' views of this research.

The outcome of this research indicated the feasibility of adopting IT for infusing agility in contemporary manufacturing organisations.

This research was conducted in only one electronics switches manufacturing organisation situated in India. This may lead to the impression that the findings from this research may not represent all manufacturing organisations. However, the environment prevailing in the above organisation is similar to that which is prevailing in any other contemporary manufacturing organisation. Hence, the outcome of this research could represent other manufacturing organisations situated throughout the world.

The research reported in this paper has shown the way of adopting IT for achieving agility and examined the hindrances that have to be overcome in future to integrate IT in practical scenarios.

Significant researches have been pursued in agile manufacturing and IT fields. However, no researcher has attempted to examine the practicality of adopting IT for infusing agility in a practical scenario. Hence, this work is original and valuable.

One of the most cited literature in SHRM is Schuler and Jackson’s (1987) behavioural model. This model proposes that organisational performance is dependent on the extent to which HRM practices can be effectively connected to competitive strategy and desired employee behaviours. Importantly, this model recognises the salient role of employee behaviour in performance outcomes and, moreover that different competitive strategies imply both promulgation and reinforcement of different sets of employee skills and behaviours. Surprisingly, despite its significant influence on SHRM, studies rarely examine this model in its entirety. Motivated by the need to better understand this model’s arguments in contemporary settings, our study uses a multi-actor design to explore the connections between competitive strategies (cost reduction and differentiation), employee behaviours, and HRM practices in service environments.

Adopting a multi-level, multi-actor survey design, our exploratory deductive study assesses the utility of strategic HRM’s (SHRM) behavioural model. Drawing on data from a sample of service organisations and using univariate analyses, we compare operationalised HRM practices and employee behaviours across different strategy types.

Results lend provisional support for the behavioural model, particularly in the case of a differentiation strategy where notable differences in HRM practices and employee behaviours were observed. Findings suggest growing levels of memetic and competitive isomorphism may be occurring, with this likely attributable to the increased incidence of idea generation and information sharing about best practices occurring amongst practitioners, as well as a growing nuance in operating markets, managerial preferences, employee expectations, stakeholder objectives, and the like.

Our study suggests refinements to the behavioural model are needed. Some support for the model’s key tenets is found, but these appear context specific. Thus, the merit in developing a priori typologies linking strategy type to HRM practices and employee behaviours where organisations operate in environments which are particularised and tumultuous appears debatable.

This study highlights the behavioural model’s nuance to modern service organisations and, by doing so, practitioners are provided with a behavioural pathway for achieving competitive advantage through their HRM practices. Findings also suggest that increasingly competitive environments might be encouraging practitioners to engage in isomorphic behaviours.

The use of a comparative research design allowed our study to contribute much needed empiricism to the largely conceptually informed stylised typologies depicting the linkages between different competitive strategies, implied employee role behaviours and HRM practices, thereby supporting the need for model refinement.

Organizations are typically diverse, and differences among team members may present challenges. Considering the values of humanism presents an opportunity for organizational leaders to address concerns related to diversity. Effective and respectable leadership involves innovation and it is within this context that hospitality offers a new approach. Hospitality has the potential to provide a conducive and suitable environment for developing members’ talents and potential to contribute to the organization. This chapter aims to analyze the role of hospitality in the management of modern-day organizations. Hospitality is considered an essential and important factor that guarantees an atmosphere of harmony. It is a binding force that supports the complexities of managerial work.

Business process management (BPM) is a key concept in information systems (IS) research that helps to connect business strategy with the use of technology in an organization. Contemporary BPM research is no longer only about methods, procedures, or tools for managing or modeling processes but about assessing and developing BPM capability in organizations. For this purpose, a vast collection of maturity models has been designed by practitioners and scholars alike. Such models are used to assess the status quo and benchmark it against other organizations, and, most important, to guide the development of BPM capability. With this study, the paper challenges the maturity model perspective of such development models.

In this study, methods of qualitative IS research are employed to address the research objectives.

The paper shows that maturity model-based guidance would be inadequate. Instead, other concept-external factors resulting from organizational and environmental characteristics appear to be important indicators. The theory discussion introduces alternative takes on BPM capability development, lays out implications for BPM practice, and presents potentially fruitful paths for future research in the area of BPM capability development.

This paper challenges the current perspectives and contributes a new direction for conceptualizing BPM capability development.

The purpose is to map and discuss two schools of thought in knowledge organization research. The objective of this mapping is to examine the conceptual views and the derived questions and concerns voiced in these two schools and whether they fit with concerns in contemporary digital culture.

The approach is a comparative analysis and discussion.

The comparative analysis and discussion point out the different sets of questions the two schools are concerned with distinct epistemological and ontological implications.

The originality of this article is the naming, mapping and discussion of two schools of research in knowledge with a view to how they fit with problems of ordering, archiving and searching in digital culture.

This paper's aim is to examine the application feasibility of Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technologies for achieving agility in a typical manufacturing organization.

A literature study was conducted. It was found out that CAD/CAM technology is not fully utilised for achieving agility in certain traditional manufacturing sectors. An implementation study was conducted in an electronics switches manufacturing company to identify the causes of this insufficient utilisation. Finally, a feedback session was conducted to explore the practitioners' views of this research.

The outcome of this research indicated the feasibility of adopting CAD/CAM as a technology for infusing agility in contemporary manufacturing organisations.

This research was conducted in only one electronics switches manufacturing company situated in India. This may lead to the impression that the findings from this research may not represent all manufacturing companies. However, the environment prevailing in the above company is similar to that prevailing in any other contemporary manufacturing organizations. Hence, the outcome of the research could represent other manufacturing organisations situated throughout the world.

The research reported in this paper has shown the way of adopting CAD/CAM as a technology for achieving agility and examined the hindrances that have to be overcome in future to integrate CAD/CAM in practical scenario.

Significant researches have been pursued in agile manufacturing and CAD/CAM fields. However, no researcher has attempted to examine the practicality of adopting CAD/CAM as a technology for infusing agility in practical scenario. Hence, this work is original and valuable.

The practical applications of emerging theory, “complexity theory”, to business are sometimes less obvious than the theory itself, which drives the need, though arguably subjective, for enlightening applications for the potential use of emerging theory in business. Examines whether complexity theory has merit in the design of company procedures not just to challenge the functionalist dogma of traditional organizational structures, but also to encourage a process of self‐organization, self‐motivation, and learning. Focuses on three businesses of a private company in manufacturing, construction and trading and uses one procedure, which outlines the mechanism for charging operating units for the use of working capital. Investigates whether a process of self‐organizing and self‐motivating patterns can emerge if the structure of a procedure is developed under the methodology of complexity theory. Research findings were obtained from a focus group using the computer based qualitative research approach of Ideas Unlimited^TM and further examined in subsequent focus group discussions.