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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.

On the basis of a survey of 1,300 employees from the Australian telecommunications industry, examines the impact of computer usage on job satisfaction. Results reveal that job satisfaction is positively influenced by the extent of computer usage, aspects of computer‐related training and demographic characteristics such as tenure and job position. However, by catering for different areas of computer‐usage and by controlling for job‐position and tenure, it was found that usage in different functional areas (by different sub‐groups) tended to affect user satisfaction to a different degree. The results illuminate some of the human resource and training issues and challenges that organizations engaged in extensive computerization may need to address.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a new conceptual model in an online service context. The model focuses on an important, yet often neglected customer-oriented construct, i.e., user “control”, which is embedded in consumer behaviour when accessing the internet. The study examines the relationship between control, online dependency, online encounter satisfaction and overall satisfaction. It explains the strategic implications surrounding customer control and online dependency as means for enhancing customer satisfaction.

A questionnaire was developed drawing on a combination of existing and new measurement items for the constructs in question. The instrument was later pilot tested on two consecutive occasions ahead of the main survey. A random sample of Hong Kong banking consumers was approached and interviews were undertaken via telephone. The data were analysed via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses relating to the model.

The findings reveal positive relationships between control and online dependency, and control and online encounter satisfaction. Meanwhile control, online dependency and online encounter satisfaction lead to overall satisfaction.

This study proposes a counterintuitive argument that while online service customers gain control of the online service process, they become more dependent on it, and their control and dependency also lead to their satisfaction, at both the online service encounter level and corporate level. Drawing on the pertinent literature, this is the first study to examine the importance of two information system constructs, i.e., control and online dependency, as predictors of consumer psychological fulfilment, i.e., satisfaction. The findings confirm that control as an initiator and driver of customer satisfaction in an online context, and online encounter satisfaction, further contributes to overall satisfaction at the corporate level.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

The purpose of this paper is to present an intelligent data-driven framework which provides an effective group-buying aggregation service and thus offers a new opportunity for personalized services in recommendation and advertisement.

The work presented in the paper analyzes the aggregated group-buying data and creates a compact view of the data which eliminates the potential redundancy and noise. In doing this, the dependencies are discovered from the data in a reverse engineering way. A noise-tolerant method is appreciated, as noise and exception is inevitable in massive data.

The paper finds that, through the implementation of the intelligent framework, the aggregator will provide a compact view of the group-buying data to customers. According to the empirical study, a 38 percent average decrease of redundancy and noise in the searching results is achieved through the newly built views and corresponding data.

The paper presents the innovative process of discovering the dependencies and creating views in a data-driven and noise-tolerant way. The proposed intelligent framework improves the aggregation performance and forms the basis of personalized services.

It has proved useful in studies of the personal social services, and in other areas of social policy, to make a distinction between final and intermediate outputs. Final outputs measure changes in individual client well‐being compared with changes in well‐being in the absence of a caring intervention. In other words, final outputs measure the degree of success of a service or a care unit in meeting its client‐level policy objectives, where due consideration is paid to client states had care not been available. In contrast, intermediate outputs are operationally defined in terms of the care services themselves rather than the effects of these services on clients.

To identify and examine the origins of complexity in a mass customization system and to propose an effective application sequence of variety management strategies in order to cope with this complexity.

Through the application of Suh's complexity theory an understanding of the causes of complexity in the specific context of a mass customization environment is developed. This facilitates the identification of the strategies that are adequate to tackle the problems induced by complexity.

The mass customization system is a coupled system that cannot be mastered simply. It is definitely impossible to transform it to an uncoupled system with a low complexity level. However, the effective and targeted implementation of variety management strategies at the product and process levels enables the management of this complexity by making the system more decoupled.

Complexity can be decreased if managers ensure less dependency between the satisfaction of customer requirements and position of the decoupling point. It is also advantageous to reduce the coupling level between fast delivery requirement in mass customization and the decoupling point placement. Furthermore, an effective variety management calls for the implementation of the identified strategies in an ascending order of complexity reduction potential.

The article relates the complexity theory of Suh to mass customization system, provides a framework for the classification of variety management strategies and derives managerial recommendations so as to reduce the complexity in a mass customization environment.

The aims of this article are to introduce a modularization framework and a method for the formation of modules.

A methodological framework is presented to guide designers and engineers in the formation and selection of suitable modules in developing customized products. Detailed explanations of the framework are presented theoretically. This framework interacts with different product development participants such as resources, customers' preferences, design architecture for planning, and scheduling a custom‐built product. A new method is proposed with a case example to facilitate the formation of modules.

This paper investigates the potential of the modularization framework, usable for prioritizing the components dependencies and creating required number of modules. It also explains the overall concept, usability and rules/methods for the module formation applied to product design, to allow a greater degree of freedom for the designer, and the opportunity to reduce development time and increase customer satisfaction. A method, based on the rules for modularity concept is proposed within the scope of this paper.

The framework and the method of modularization as illustrated in this article are based on a theoretical hypothesis. Both the approaches require implementing in a real industrial environment in order to generalize their effectiveness, applicability and consistency in the manufacturing arena.

Since product architecture is an important element in determining the value and flexibility of the product development process, the relationship pattern between the architecture and productivity is therefore worthy of careful investigation. The aims of modular framework and rules for modularity are to incorporate design variables and dependency structure with a view to enhancing product development lead time and will contribute to the exploitation of overall bottlenecks of manufacturing systems.

The implementation framework for modular product architecture seems unique as its potential value could be applied in the industrial environment for production flexibility and reducing bottlenecks. Along with the framework, the presented modularity rule or method will contribute to business architecture with a view to providing more reliable operation, easier maintenance and faster product development time.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.