Search results

This paper seeks to report on the findings of a recent study which explores the ways/factors which influence and/or determine the effectiveness of the senior management in the Muscat Municipality, Oman, by assessing the perception of senior managers concerning the influences (parameters) on their effectiveness.

The research has utilized a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Analoui's model of “eight parameters for effectiveness” has been used as a basis to explore the awareness, perceptions, skills, organizational standards, motivation, degree of demands and constraints, and the presence of choices and opportunities for effectiveness.

Analoui's model of “managerial effectiveness” is applicable to the public sector in Oman. Senior managers are aware of their own effectiveness and better understanding of their effectiveness requires paying attention to the identified parameters and contexts in which they perform their tasks. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to their management development.

It is suggested that senior managers should be enabled: to communicate effectively with other people; to manage their own time and use it effectively; to make decisions/resolve problems; and to lead and motivate employees effectively at work. The reward system needs revising and a learning environment ought to be established to foster transformational leadership.

This first time study contributes to the present stock of knowledge and understanding of the subject by contextualising the concept of “managerial effectiveness” in Oman's public sector.

There is a wealth of studies which suggest that managers' positive perceptions/expectations can considerably influence the organisational performance; unfortunately, little empirical evidence has been obtained from development studies. This research aims to focus on the perceptual and behavioural trait differences of successful and unsuccessful aid workers, and their relationship with organisational performance.

Through web‐based survey, 244 valid responses were obtained from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)‐aid managers worldwide. Five perception related factors were extracted and used for cluster analysis to group the respondents. Each cluster's perception/behaviour‐related factors and organisational performance variables were compared by ANOVA.

It was discovered that Japanese's positive perception/expectation about work and their local colleagues was related to higher organisational performance, and conversely, the negative perception on their part was generally associated with negative behaviour and lower organisational performance. Moreover, in a development context, lower work‐related stress and feelings of resignation toward work were strongly associated with the acceptability of cross‐cultural work environment.

The differences in perceptual tendencies suggest that cautious consideration is advised since these findings may mainly apply to Japanese aid managers. However, as human nature is universal, positive perception and behaviour would bring out positive output in most organisations.

This study extended the contextualised “Pygmalion effect” and has clarified the influence of perception/expectation on counter‐part behaviour and organisational performance in development aid context, where people‐related issues have often been ignored. This first‐time research provides imperial data on the significant role of positive perception on the incumbent role holder.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of managers in the strategic management process, particularly its application in non‐governmental organizations (NGOs).

The study examines the relationship between managers’ demographic characteristics and the impact of strategic awareness on their part upon NGO performance. It is based on a recent empirical survey of NGOs located in the Gaza Strip (GS) in Palestine. Survey questionnaire supported by selected interviews and secondary data formed the main data collection instruments.

There is no disparity of opinion of the correspondence about the identification of NGOs manager's perceptions and attitudes toward developing and implementing effective strategies at significant level due to age, years of experience, level of education and gender. Moreover, it was discovered that the awareness of the managers plays an important part in the formulation and implementation of strategy in NGOs.

The findings of this first‐time study are specific to the NGO sector in the Gaza Strip, though there are a number of policy implications for other developing countries.

The research has far reaching implications for selection, training and development of managers of NGOs, because of their significant role as strategists concerned with suitable allocation of resources, human and otherwise, to guide and improve strategic performance.

The original contribution is concerned with the managers’ awareness of the strategic management processes in Palestinian NGOs. It has a particular value for human resource management (HRM) decision processes towards recruitment, selection and management development of the managers.

This paper seeks to explore and understand the public sector reform (PSR) as it affects local governments in Ghana within the context of challenges facing human resource capacity building and development policies.

Adopting an exploratory case study design, the research triangulated both secondary and primary sources of data. Primary data generated from self‐completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools covering 105 local government employees selected from national, regional and district levels. Semi‐structured interviews also solicited views from 16 senior public officers and managers in nine public and quasi‐public organizations. These primary sources were complemented with relevant secondary documents from the organizations investigated.

Amongst others, it was found that Ghana's PSR has significantly influenced the strategic direction of human resource development policies of the decentralized local government service. Major human resource capacity challenges manifest three‐dimensionally as: policy, task/skill/organization and performance motivation induced.

Addressing the human resource capacity challenges has enormous strategic and financial resource implications for policy makers in transition and developing economies, due to their over‐reliance on external donors for funding.

Unlike previous studies, this empirical study did not explore human resource capacity issues of elected officials; rather, it focused on public servants (technocrats) implementing local political decisions. Of much value is that the results were from the perspective of the frontline local government staff whose day‐to‐day inputs are critical for effective decentralization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and try to understand the human side of public sector reform (PSR) in local government in Ghana in the context of the challenges facing human resource capacity building and development policies.

Adopting an exploratory case study design, the paper triangulates both secondary and primary sources of data. Primary data were generated from self‐completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools covering 105 local government employees selected from national, regional and district levels. Semi‐structured interviews also solicited views from 16 senior public officers and managers in nine public and quasi‐public organizations. These primary sources were complemented with relevant secondary documents from the organisations investigated.

It was found that Ghana's PSR has significantly influenced the strategic direction of human resource development policies of the decentralized local government service. Major challenges in human resource capacity manifest themselves as related to policy, task, skill and organisation issues and performance motivation.

Addressing the human resource capacity challenges has enormous strategic and financial resource implications for policy makers in transitional and developing economies, due to their over‐reliance on external donors for funding.

Unlike previous studies, this paper did not explore HR capacity issues of elected officials; rather, it focused on the public servants (technocrats) implementing local political decisions. Of much value is that the results were derived from the experience of frontline local government staff, whose day‐to‐day inputs are critical for effective decentralization.

The paper aims to highlight the challenges faced by international organisations such as the United Nations when facing the ever‐changing demands for change through the adoption of a holistic reform process.

The paper uses the UN as a case for understanding the reform process undertaken by international organisations. Based on the evidence in hand both from the UN and the literature on public sector reform, leadership and governance, a case has been prepared for the development of a holistic model for achieving the goals of an effective and sustainable reform.

The evidence supports the view that attention ought to be paid to treating international organisations such as the UN as operating in an open system environment where there is a constant need for adaptation to the environment and adoption of change. To achieve this, attention should be paid to the development and capacity building of human resources, whose changing values, behaviour and attitudes are of the utmost importance for the success of reform.

The paper proposes a realistic model for bringing about change and reform in international organisations. It provides a useful framework for all major international organisations, including large public sector institutes and international donor agencies, to follow.

The purpose of this paper is to review a collection of research papers concerned with challenges commonly faced when initiating, implementing and evaluating the results of reform in an international context.

A review of the literature on reform, mainly in the public sector, was undertaken.

Reform, in particular within the public sector, has been undertaken in many countries and has proved to be challenging and difficult to manage. The challenges involved in managing reform, as experienced by Western as well as developing economies, have many aspects in common. These include the need to pay attention to appropriate structure, relevant skills and competencies, legislative support, appropriate behaviour and attitudes, and most importantly a visionary leadership.

The reform experiences and concepts documented and reviewed in these papers are original in nature and offer value to scholars, researchers and students of public administration, government, as well as reform policy makers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether non‐governmental organizations' (NGOs') managers think and use strategy in their daily operations, to assess the impact of its applications on the performance of NGOs and to test the validity of the “dynamic model of strategic management” originally used for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.

This empirical study is concerned with NGOs' managers located in the Gaza Strip in Palestine. Survey questionnaire was the main data collection instrument. A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, triangulation, is employed for data analysis.

It was discovered that most NGOs used strategic management systems and perceived strategic management as an important tool for increasing the quality of service delivery, achieving goals and increasing overall organizational performance. Moreover, the principles of the “dynamic model” developed for SMEs are applicable to the NGOs in Palestine.

This research focused on local NGOs in Gaza Strip, while the contribution and significance of local NGOs and the civil society sector as a third sector is recognized around the world, inclusion of a number of international NGOs in the study would have yielded more significant results and would have helped to identify best practices in the sector.

NGOs in Palestine and elsewhere must become more strategic in their planning and operations in order to increase their performance, productivity and efficiency in providing quality service.

This first‐time study contributes to the current stock of knowledge and our present understanding of strategic management, as perceived by NGO managers, by contextualising its use in Palestine.

The influences of perception have been studied in educational, army, sports and business settings but never in the development field. The Pygmalion effect generally suggests that the perceiver's positive expectation enhances the target's performance. This first time research seeks to explore how managerial perceptions of the aid workers of the local staffs affect their behaviour and performance in cross‐cultural project settings.

With the cooperation of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 244 valid responses were obtained from the aid workers through a web‐based survey. Using factor analysis, five perception‐related factors and two behaviour‐related factors were extracted. Subsequently, in order to clarify the causal relationship, the above factors and one observed organisational performance variable were tested using path analysis.

Positive causal relationships were confirmed between two perception‐related factors and one behaviour‐related factor, and also between the behaviour‐related factor and the organisational performance variable. These results strongly suggest that aid workers' positive perception causes positive behaviour in local colleagues and will result in higher organisational performance.

Whilst avoiding generalisation, nevertheless, the results suggest that there is a need for people‐related and cross‐cultural management skills to ensure successful future activities, and stress management competencies to maintain the positive managerial perception on the part of the aid workers.

Despite the considerable influence of donor staff's managerial perception on the quality of the human relationships and organisational performance, this field of enquiry has remained neglected. The study provides first‐time empirical evidence on its significance.

In Iran the role of entrepreneurs in developing communities is considered to be a special issue by planners and policy‐makers; thus the aim of this paper is to explore and examine some of the main structural, behavioural and environmental barriers faced by entrepreneurs in Iranian public industrial corporations.

A survey (questionnaires and interviews), observation and available documentation formed the main methods (triangulation) for the generation of relevant data. Thirteen public organisations responsible for social affairs in the country's budget document were involved. Using an unlimited sampling formula and a categorised random sampling method 220 organisations were accessed, from which 169 questionnaires were received and analysed.

There is a direct relationship between managerial characteristics and organisational entrepreneurship. Also, there is a significant correlation between employees' characteristics and organisational entrepreneurship in public social cultural organisations. However, a host of constraints such as low income and a lack of research have caused a decrease in organisational entrepreneurship.

The survey is concerned with managers in public organisations. Future studies should include private‐sector organisations, which ought to provide a basis for comparative analysis.

There is a need for sustained structural and managerial reform. To achieve this, realistic human resource development policies should be formulated which lead to changes of attitude and behaviour in managers.

This is a first attempt to study managers and their entrepreneurial tendencies in public sector organisations. It has policy implications for future development of the sector.