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This study aims to explore psychological safety as a potential moderating mechanism for the relation between functional diversity and individual perceptions of learning, and functional diversity and team performance in self-assembled teams.

To test these relationships, the authors conducted a cross-level, time-lagged, quasi-experiment, using a sample of 143 self-assembled teams. In one condition, participants formed into functionally diverse teams, and in another condition, participants formed functionally homogeneous teams.

Results suggest that functional diversity and psychological safety have an interactive effect on both individual learning and self-assembled team performance, albeit in different directions. Specifically, low psychological safety was more deleterious for individuals on functionally diverse teams than functionally homogeneous teams when it came to perceptions of learning, but the opposite was true when it came to team performance.

The results of this study indicate that it is critical to train team members on developing psychological safety, both in traditional and functionally diverse contexts.

The third-party logistics (3PL) provider has faced significant change since containerisation with the broadening scope of supply chains and technological developments. With these changes, the required supply chain skills discussions have covered mostly graduate skills or employees' skills with a limited discussion to what extent and whether senior management skills were changing. Hence, 3PL senior management skill requirements will be compiled based on existing studies and assessed to check whether these are still relevant and if so to what extent for today's 3PL senior managers.

A questionnaire has been devised based on 3PL senior management skills identified in the academic literature and sent out to senior managers via professional social networks of 3PL. Based on the previous literature, the senior managers selected had to fulfil the selection criteria of a minimum five years' managerial experience in a 3PL, and a minimum of ten years' experience in general, which limited the sample size to twenty-seven senior managers in the 3PL sector.

The findings indicated that 3PL senior managers’ skills highlighted an increasing dependence on and importance of relational and behavioural skills, particularly when compared with the more traditional functional and managerial skills. The study indicated that the 3PL senior managers highlighted an increasing dependence and importance upon relational and behavioural skills, particularly when compared with the more traditional functional skills.

The study has explored the senior management skills in 3PL in the UK, albeit the respondents possessing diverse backgrounds. Therefore, it would be beneficial to test whether these findings are exemplary across the wider 3PL sector, not only in the UK but also across Europe to see how corporate agenda for executive supply chain skills could be devised.

Corporate supply chain training and development staff can develop specific programs based on the 3PL senior management skill sets especially on relational and behavioural skills, which are needed for future managers as well as up-skill senior managers' skills which are deemed to be most important in the current 3PL market.

This paper contributes to the supply chain skills discussion and reports subject relevant challenges for today’s senior management in the 3PL industry. The findings have generated preliminary discussions on whether senior management skills are changing with the broadening scope of supply chains.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the upper echelon theory with signaling theory and examine the impact of top management team (TMT) on the initial public offering (IPO) performance of Chinese firms in the USA.

This study used Security Data Corporation (SDC) that is a central database for foreign IPOs in the USA. The authors identified 142 Chinese firms that issued stocks on the US markets between 2003 and 2014. This study used firm’s final prospectuses to collect data manually.

This study finds that the TMT characteristics such as functional heterogeneity and international exposure convey the positive signal of firm’s legitimacy to the US investors and increase the IPO performance.

This study extends the upper echelon perspective that has previously overlooked the signaling value of TMT characteristics in the foreign IPO studies. The top management plays an important role to the firm’s successful foreign market listing. Since China joined the WTO in 2001, a large number of Chinese firms have started IPOs in the USA, but there is a dearth of research on these firms. This study aims to contribute to the study of international business and management and describes that the TMT functional heterogeneity and international exposure have a significant role in the success of Chinese foreign IPOs.

The traditional cost accounting‐based business performance measures used today fail to provide adequate support to allow the use of modern management techniques and development of optimum business and functional strategies. Although these traditional techniques have a certain value they must be supported by alternative non‐financial performance measures which promote organizational integration by ensuring that all strategic and operational activities are streamlined towards common objectives. Describes, with case studies, a methodology which leads to development of an integrated set of performance measures on which measurable business and functional strategies may be developed. The methodology described has been proven through a number of industrial consultancy assignments and results in considerable benefits.

Identifies the need for a formal mechanism aiming to integrate operational decisions both horizontally, between different functional areas, and vertically, within the manufacturing function. Outlines some of the desired characteristics of a potential method to fulfil the aforementioned need and proposes that the integration should be done under the domain of the production planning process. Partial results of a running field research on the theme among manufacturing companies in Brazil are presented and discussed.

There have been many approaches to answering the question, “What is management?” This article outlines a further, strategic‐operational approach. The discussion is intended to contribute to the development of a theory of management which managers can use to analyse and improve their individual performance and the performance of their organisations.

A Just‐in‐Time system crosses functional lines and therefore requires support throughout the organisation. A survey of one‐hundred firms actively pursuing JIT implementation found relatively high commitment from top and middle level management. Lack of functional support, especially from engineering, finance, and marketing has been reported as barriers in JIT implementation. The non‐commitment of functional groups has been related to their failure to understand JIT. This study found the size of the firm, the type of productive system, and the type of business did not exhibit strong influence over management and functional group commitment levels for JIT implementation.

Many factors in today's competitive and global business environment contribute to an organization's financial success. A business enterprise's management must adopt a strategy that fully exploits information technology's power as a key element in order to optimize the organization's competitiveness. Recent spectacular technological advances and breakthroughs have made the effective use of modern information technology a critical, competitive business weapon.

As the number of organizations that have implemented enterprise resourceplanning (ERP) systems unsuccessfully increase, it is necessary to establish the impediments in ERP implementations and the extent to which these impact the success of ERP projects. This study aims to identify the critical impediments that large organizations face in the implementation of ERP systems, and the impact of these impediments on overall success of ERP projects by a survey of Fortune 500 organizations.

A survey was prepared based on 47 impediments identified from previous ERP implementation studies.

This study finds that most of critical impediments are from functional coordination problems related to inadequate support from functional units and coordination among functional units, the project management related to business process change, and change management related to resistance of users. In this study, impediments are categorized based on project phases, and differences in the impediments the organizations faced between less successful and more successful organizations are found.

This research provides significant implications for industry managers engaged in large‐scale enterprise system implementations. Our survey results suggest that understanding new requirements for ERP implementation such as functional coordination is more critical issues than understanding technical features of ERP system.

This paper examines how the management control practices of organization members enable the alignment of product development projects with potentially conflicting corporate strategies during the product development process.

Using an ethnomethodology informed research approach, we carry out a case study of an innovative New Zealand food company. Case study data included an internal company document, interviews with organization members, and an external market analysis document.

Our case study company had both sales growth and profit growth corporate strategies which have been argued to cause tensions. We found that four management control practices enabled the alignment of product development projects to these strategies. The first management control practice was having the NPD and marketing functions responsible for different corporate strategies. Other management control practices included the involvement of organization members from across multiple functions, the activities they carried out, and the measures used to evaluate project performance during the product development process.

These findings add new insights to the management accounting literature by showing how a combination of management control practices can be used by organization members to align projects with potentially conflicting corporate strategies during the product development process.

While the alignment of product development projects to corporate strategy is not easy this study shows how it can be enabled through a number of management control practices.

We contribute to the management accounting research in this area by extending our understanding of the management control practices used during the product development process.