Search results

Some manufacturing and service organizations have made efforts to work on continuous improvement in the form of Kaizen, lean thinking, Six Sigma, etc. The elimination of problems and waste (MUDA for the Japanese) plays a fundamental role in the reduction of operational costs and quality rejections of finished products both internally in the organization and in the supply chain. Some of these efforts use quality control tools to remedy it. Kaoru Ishikawa proposes seven basic quality tools. In this group of quality tools is the cause-and-effect diagram (CED), also known as “The Fishbone” and “Ishikawa diagram”. Exploring this questioning can shed light on the first indications to ratify the arguments of Ishikawa and Deming, that the main problems of companies are found in their processes and perhaps, in a deep way, in some of these cornerstone root causes that have to do with the way organizations are managed. The purpose of this study is to investigate cornerstone root causes through the application of CEDs in 40 Mexican companies that began an effort to improve some of their organizational processes.

An exploratory qualitative study was conducted. As a research strategy, the case study method was applied. Using theoretical sampling, the Ishikawa diagrams of 40 companies were analyzed, and 24 semi-structured interviews in depth were conducted.

The results of this research confirm the main research question: Are there cornerstone root causes that give way to one or several problems or effects of problems in organizations regardless of their sector? In other words, there were at least seven typical patterns that show the first signs of cornerstones root causes in organizations.

The method itself is a limitation; 40 case studies are not enough to generalize the results. In addition, the research was conducted only in a single Latin American country; in some cities of Mexico. However, 60 per cent of these companies are multinationals.

This paper is fundamental to delve into the cornerstones causes that give rise to the problems of organizations of the twenty-first century. The authors understand that these are the first indications, and that they cannot be considered a conclusion of these causes. However, this first theoretical sampling presents a first light on the subject.

The study contributes to the limited existing literature on total quality management and Kaizen in quality control tools and subsequently disseminates this information to provide impetus, guidance and support toward improving the problems of the organizations of twenty-first century.

Defective stakeholder management has frequently resulted in conflicts and partial failures. Integrated project delivery (IPD) and team integration provides opportunities for organizations to achieve more than they could on their own. The purpose of this study is to analyze the level and challenges of team integration. In addition, study tries to recognize the cornerstones for creating integrated teams in construction projects.

This paper discusses the characteristics and level of team integration in a construction project, but the main purpose is to derive the cornerstones for creating integrated teams. Results are derived from the analysis of current literature and an empirical case study.

This paper describes the 12 characteristics of an integrated project team. In addition, the cornerstones for creating integrated teams were recognized as the early involvement and assessment of stakeholders, continuous communication and interaction, cultural change, and making the IPD process well known.

The construction industry is aware of the need to improve control over its delivery processes. In addition, the customers are aware of waste and have started to demand more value. Because IPD and team integration supports the controlling over delivery processes and enables the more efficient value creation, these are extensive issues in developing construction industry.

Team integration is an important part of value creation. Limited research attention has been directed at what the level of integration is compared with the characteristics of integration. This paper also advances team integration research by identifying the cornerstones for integration.

Middle leaders are educators whose practices of building relational trust are critical for generating the kind of strong and sustainable professional learning communities necessary for leading productive site-based education development in their school. This chapter specifically focuses how building an ethic of relational trust, experienced in five interrelated dimensions, aligns with establishing core foundational conditions for building community. Building trust and communities of professional learners are not mutually exclusive – in fact, each reciprocally facilitates, progresses, supports, and sustains the development of the other. The foundations for community building, described as cornerstones, form over time and progressively involve, and achieve, contextuality, commitment, communication, collaboration, criticality, and collegiality. Reflection questions are provided throughout; these are designed to directly focus the attention of middle leaders towards understanding and developing their own trust practices, that with time, create conditions for generating strong viable communities of professional practice.

Partnerships between the public and private sectors represent one of the strongest means to detect, deter, disrupt and deny terrorist and other criminal organizations illicit profits and material support required to fuel their evil acts. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and illustrate through case study, the importance of public and private sector partnership in combating terrorist financing and other financial crimes.

Two case studies are presented demonstrating how the public and private sectors can collaboratively work to target how criminal organizations earn, move and store their illicit profits. Highlighted is US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE's) outreach and partnership program, Cornerstone. Through working partnerships with US financial, trade, manufacturing and transportation sectors, Cornerstone's goal is to eliminate systemic vulnerabilities that could be exploited by terrorist and other criminal organizations.

ICE provides the private sector with information on trends, patterns, and “red flag” indicators that are identified during criminal investigations. This information can be used by the private sector to assist in establishment of internal controls and systems designed to protect their institutions from criminal exploitation.

Sharing identified vulnerabilities and information with trusted private sector partners, is the first line of defense against financial crimes, and the cornerstone of private/public partnership.

The paper stresses that all nations must recognize that any criminal act – whether driven by profit or ideology – threatens a nations economic security and integrity. In today's global economy, this impact can have devastating consequences transcending many borders.

U.S. state governments own a large array of fixed assets and lease a great number of parcels of private real properties for public uses. The purpose of this paper is to explore the public asset management system of the U.S. state governments. First, this paper analyzes the major, current public asset management systems and the public procurement systems created by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Based on the analysis, this paper constructs a comprehensive public asset management system that consists of six cornerstones. Second, this paper verifies the comprehensive public asset management system using the data collected from thirty-seven surveyed state governments. The data analysis demonstrates that the comprehensive public asset management system is supported. However, each cornerstone of the comprehensive public asset management system presents different strengths. Third, this paper suggests that further research may delve into particular areas of capital asset management at the state government level to identify critical issues and to provide appropriate resolutions.

This paper aims to summarize a three‐year federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a statewide digital collection.

This paper describes the Cornerstone Project: its background, the processes used to determine appropriate standards, guidelines, and best practices for digital collections, the technology selected for the digital production centers and the web portal, and its plans for the future. The project is a collaborative statewide initiative to make unique historical treasures from Alabama's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories electronically accessible to Alabama residents as well as students and scholars around the world.

The project has demonstrated a successful model for statewide collaboration among all types of repositories. NAAL member institutions are helping other repositories create digital collections of unique Alabama historical resources.

The Cornerstone Project offers practical procedures that can be replicated by any consortia considering distributed digital collection building.

The project offers training to help librarians, archivists, and other staff successfully plan, implement, and complete digitization projects. Three shared digital production facilities at the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH), Auburn University, and The University of Alabama serve as training centers and assist with local digitization efforts.

Federal agencies are relying increasingly on contractors to perform their missions. With hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent each year on goods and services, it is essential that federal acquisition be handled in an efficient, effective, and accountable manner. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), however--as well as other accountability organizations, inspectors general, and the agencies themselves--continue to identify systemic weaknesses in key areas of acquisition. In fact, the acquisition function at several agencies has been on GAO's high-risk list, which identifies areas in the federal government with greater vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. In January 2005, we added interagency contracting to this list. Far too often, the result of poor acquisitions has been an inability to obtain quality goods and services on time and at a fair price. We can no longer afford such outcomes. Given current fiscal demands and the fiscal challenges we are likely to face in the 21st century, the federal government must improve its ability to acquire goods and services in a cost-effective manner. GAO developed this framework to enable high-level, qualitative assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the acquisition function at federal agencies. Such assessments can help senior agency executives identify areas needing greater management attention, and enable accountability organizations (including GAO) to identify areas requiring more focused follow-up work. The framework consists of four interrelated cornerstones that our work has shown are essential to an efficient, effective, and accountable acquisition process: (1) organizational alignment and leadership, (2) policies and processes, (3) human capital, and (4) knowledge and information management. The framework supports an integrated evaluation approach, but each of these cornerstones can stand alone so users of this framework may tailor evaluations to an agency's specific needs.

This paper aims to provide an analysis of securities class action filings in 2017 along with related trends over time and a comprehensive current view of the securities class action landscape.

The paper details 2017 securities class actions and related trends by measures including the number and size of filings; market capitalization losses; litigation likelihood for US versus non-US exchange-listed companies; status and outcomes of filings (settled, dismissed, continuing); core versus merger and acquisition filings; individual versus institutional investors as lead plaintiffs; and concentration of class action activity by industry sector, stock exchange and court circuit.

The number of federal securities class action lawsuits filed in 2017 reached a record high for the second straight year. The jump was spurred by a sharp increase in lawsuits targeting mergers and acquisitions. The 412 securities class action filings in 2017 represented a more than 50 per cent increase from the previous record of 271 filings in 2016.

This paper details analysis by legal and industry experts.

Recently many European countries have incurred crises in public finance despite the fact that EU institutions have pushed the national governments toward the sustainability of public finance with compulsory and voluntary rules regarding fiscal governance. This paper investigates the relations between the quality of fiscal governance and the financial virtuosity of national fiscal policy. We proposed a general framework for analyzing the fiscal governance issue and we empirically tested the correlation between the dimensions of fiscal governance and the budgetary performance of EU countries. The results showed a positive correlation between the quality of fiscal governance in the EU countries and financial surplus in the period concerned. However further investigations are needed and an effort should be made to collect uniform data on fiscal governance in the European Union.

This study aims to illustrate how one medium‐sized academic library was able to use a web‐based digitization and repository project to increase and promote communication and relationships between the library and the university community. This case study traces the history and development of the Cornerstone Project – the Network of Alabama Academic Library's (NAAL) state‐wide digital repository project.

The paper describes the steps taken by a medium‐sized academic library to participate in a state‐wide institutional repository project to improve on liaison activities, and form new relationships with departments across the campus.

Using the digital repository project to help bridge gaps between departments that had limited or no involvement with the library and its services, one medium‐sized academic library found that its involvement in the repository project resulted in a new and improved interdepartmental relationship.

The results have encouraged the library to open the door for new and different relationships to be formed with other departments. The implications and value for other libraries to become involved in such repositories are also discussed.