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This study examined the impact of cultural differences (individualism‐collectivism) on potential users' receptivity towards distance learning. Using a sample of 424 students enrolled in two northeastern universities, we addressed three research questions: Would an individual's culture affect his or her receptivity towards distance learning? Would an individual's culture affect his or her preference for particular distance learning media? Would an individual's culture affect his or her preference for distance learning in a particular course type? Findings reveal that an individual's culture affects his or her overall attitude towards distance learning. Specifically, we found that individualists' motives and communication patterns are in synch with distance learning as a medium of instruction or communication; whereas collectivists' motives and communication patterns shun any form of mediated instruction or communication as in distance learning. Implications and direction for future studies are discussed.

The Internet is increasingly being used as a potential library substitute for a wide variety of business information tasks. However, little comparative research exists on the impact of such uses on task performance. This study examined performance differences (perceived, actual, and temporal) for a strategic business information acquisition experimental task when subjects used a library or the Internet. It was found that task performance decreased and time to completion increased when using the Internet as compared to the library. This paradox of performance enhancement expectations and actual outsomes when using the Internet may be temporal or idiosyncratic, or it may signal that our assumptions about traditional and electronic repositories are invalid. In any case, it is imperative that research on task performance continues to be done in order to ascertain the viability of this repository for information tasks. Implications of these findings and avenues of future research are discussed.

To improve our understanding of the impact of organizational learning and knowledge on competitive advantage, we propose a framework that includes the constructs of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Each of these constructs is then associated with a different type of learning. We further argue that wisdom is an important, albeit missing, construct in the knowledge‐based theory of the firm. A key to organizational wisdom is judgement and decision making, which requires an understanding of the complexity of a situation, but also requires the ability to make sense and simplify so that action can be taken. Three important drivers for the development of organizational wisdom are experience, a passion to learn, and spirituality. Processes for acquiring organizational wisdom such as transformational leadership, organizational culture and knowledge transfer are also discussed.

Delineating where stability occurs in a contract provides the window of opportunity for procurement officials to positively affect cost and schedule outcomes. While the concept of a Cost Performance Index (CPI) "stability rule" has been routinely cited by Earned Value Management (EVM) authors since the early 1990's, more recent research questions the veracity of this stability rule. This paper resolves the controversy by demonstrating that the definition of stability matters. We find a morphing of the stability definition over time, with three separate definitions permeating the literature. Next, an analysis of Department of Defense contracts for both cost and schedule stability properties finds that the veracity of the stability rule is intricately tied to the definition used.

This paper is a theoretical review of the logic of appropriateness. First, it defines what is meant by a logic of appropriateness in the work of March and Olsen and then discusses the dynamics of the logics of appropriateness and consequence. Second, it examines how the rules of appropriateness have developed and changed and discusses the advantages of using the logic of appropriateness. Third, it illustrates some applications of the logic of appropriateness by focusing on studies of public sector reforms and suggests how the logic of appropriateness might be used to understand the handling of COVID-19. Fourth, some of the critiques and elaborations of the logic of appropriateness are discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn and needs for future research indicated.

The chapter summarises findings from a study on administrative reforms covering all central government ministries and agencies in 19 countries, examining reform trajectories seen from the top of the central administrative apparatus. Core structural features of the central bureaucracy are described, along with role perceptions, values and motivation of administrative executives. Reform processes, trends, content and management tools are addressed, leading up to similarities and differences between the Nordic countries and between them and other European families of countries. A main finding is that the Nordic bureaucracy represents a layered, complex and hybrid system combining different reform trends and that there is a clear North–South divide in Europe when it comes to administrative reforms.

The discussion about public sector performance is still present today, despite the profound research that has already tried to address this subject. Furthermore, theory links negative effects on organizational performance with increased levels of organizational complexity. However, literature thus far did not succeed to put forward a successful theory that explains why and how public organizations became increasingly complex. To answer this question, we argue that increased organizational complexity can be explained by viewing public organizations as the hybrid result of different institutional logics, which are shaped by various management views. However, former research mainly concentrated on the separate study of management views such as traditional public management (TPM), NPM, and post-NPM. Although appealing, research that approaches hybridity from this perspective is fairly limited.

We conducted a literature review in which we studied 80 articles about traditional public management, NPM, and post-NPM.

We found that these management views essentially differ on the base of three fault lines, depending on the level of the organizational culture. These fault lines, according to the management view, together result in nine dimensions. By combing dimensions of the different management views, we argue that a public organization becomes hybrid. Furthermore, in line with findings of contingency theory, we explain the level of hybridity might depend on the level of tight coupling for a given organization. Finally, we developed propositions that explain hybridity as the result of isomorphic forces, organizational change, and organizational resistance to change and that link hybridization with processes of selective coupling.

The value of this chapter lies in its real-life applicability.

Within earned value management, the cost performance index (CPI) and the critical ratio (CR) are used to generate the estimates at completion (EACs). According to the research in the 1990s, estimating the final contract’s cost at completion (CAC) using EAC_CR is a quicker predictor of the actual final cost versus using EAC_CPI. This paper aims to investigate whether this trend stills holds for modern department of defense contracts.

Accessing the Cost Assessment Data Enterprise (CADE) database, 451 contracts consisting of 863 contract line item numbers (CLINs) were initially retrieved and analyzed in three stages. The first replicated the work conducted in 1990s. The second stage entailed calculating 95 per cent confidence intervals and hypothesis tests regarding percentage accuracy of EACs for a contract’s final CAC. Lastly, regression analysis was conducted to characterize major, moderate and minor influencers on EAC reliability.

For modern contracts, EAC_CR aligns more with EAC_CPI and no longer demonstrates early accuracy of a contract’s final CAC. Contract percentage completion strongly reduced the per cent error of estimating CAC, while cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts and those with no work breakdown structure greater than Level 2 negatively affected accuracy.

To militate against optimism of early assessment of a contract's true cost.

This paper provides empirical evidence that EAC_CR behaves more like EAC_CPI with respect to modern contracts, suggesting that today’s contracts have relatively high SPI. Therefore, caution is warranted for program managers when estimating the CAC from contract initiation up to and slightly beyond the mid-point of completion.