Search results

This article is about the assessment of the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degrees that were developed in the UK in the 1990s. The article is based on a content analysis of the 16 DBA programmes in the UK at the end of 1999. It evaluates the assessment methods found against: the assessment of students’ achievement on traditional Doctor of Philosophy degrees (PhDs); the guidelines on the assessment of DBA candidates produced by the Association of British Business Schools; and the espoused intended learning outcomes of the DBA programmes themselves. The main conclusion is that there is a tension in the assessment methods employed by DBAs through their relationship with the traditional PhD. The tension is captured in the question: should programme developers follow the assessment methods of the “gold standard” PhD or should they use assessment methods that assess the learning outcomes of the DBA that distinguish it from the traditional PhD?

A huge upsurge in the growth of e‐mail is expected but there has been relatively little published advice on how to take a corporate view of electronic mail, despite demonstration of its operational benefits and of the consequences of its misuse in economic, human and lately in legal terms. This article contributes to formation of such advice. Employing a mix of questionnaire and interview methods, a set of disparate organisations was studied – a global financial services company, an upmarket hotel group, a well‐established mobile‐telecommunications company, and three universities. The results were used to devise a multi‐dimensional “positioning” model, for practical use by managers to understand their organisations’ present use of e‐mail on four dimensions: information management, people influences, corporate culture, and knowledge management. Shows how an organisation can find/change its present position on the model.

The investigation reported here aims to: adapt existing recruitment theory to add to tools available to small business recruiters for job matching; provide job‐specific scoring methods to help employers in recruitment processes; and enhance the consideration of reasonable adjustment issues in the possible employment of disabled individuals.

A total of 32 interviews were conducted on‐site with managers to devise and test templates combining person specifications with job characteristics, based on managers' judgements of what is important. The methods devised and used are an original adaptation of repertory grid principles. Where there were disabled employees, indications of the employees' success and difficulty were elicited.

A simplified derivative of repertory grid method to give a combined abilities/tasks matrix was found usable and clarifying by respondents.

The investigation was confined to hotel and leisure small to medium‐sized enterprises in Sussex, UK. As they stand, the methods could be used in business sectors beyond the sector to which the research reported in this paper has been confined, but further work is needed on resource consequences, and on the implications for state benefits and related support in the case of disabled applicants.

Results of the analysis could be used almost immediately by a company: for future applicants, the company could make direct use of the completed matrix by scoring the applicant on the matrix variables, superimposing the applicant matrix on the requirements matrix, and calculating the percentage of desirable scores met.

This article is about the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degrees that were developed in the UK during the 1990s. It looks at the range of programme structures, content and learning support used. The article is based on a content analysis of the 16 DBA programmes in the UK at the end of 1999. The main conclusion is that there is a tension in the form and function of DBAs through their relationship with the traditional PhD. The tension is captured in the question: To what extent do programme developers follow the design of the ’‘gold standard” PhD and to what extent do they design a programme aimed at meeting the learning outcomes of the DBA that distinguish it from a PhD?

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which employees have benefitted in the internet age and to identify research gaps that surround such activities.

The approach is a combination of a systematic literature review and an empirical analysis of secondary data drawn from press reports of emergent employee internet activities.

The internet continues to provide fresh and exciting opportunities for the employee to explore in relation to furthering employment‐related interests. However, the internet very much represents a “double‐edged sword” in that the many advantages of the internet can be quickly cancelled out by employer attempts to monitor, control, and exploit for themselves such activities, for their own ends. It is also evident that a full assessment of some activities cannot be made without further research.

The paper is reliant on extant literature and resources that are known to have limited scholarly application.

A broad and eclectic discussion of employee internet activities is likely to be of interest to academics and human resource practitioners whose interests are based on a blend of employee relations practices and new internet‐based technological developments.

The study addresses how a distinct actor in employee relations has faired in an age denoted by shrinking opportunities for collective action, yet also denoted by rapid developments in empowering user‐generated and social networking forms of information communication technology.

This paper synthesises literature and data from a wide range of largely incongruous academic and non‐academic sub‐disciplines to provide a fresh and authoritative account of emergent employee behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamics of the Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) in Australia through the lens of a changing higher education landscape. The paper reflects on issues raised in a previous analysis of DBA programmes undertaken a decade ago, and highlights persistent challenges and emerging opportunities for professional Doctorate programmes in the Australian context.

Interviews were undertaken with higher degree research directors, deans of graduate schools, and DBA programme directors from all 18 Australian institutions offering the DBA in 2013. Quantitative data on enrolments, accreditation requirements, course structures; and demographics are contextualised within a qualitative view of programme purposes, student and institutional motivations, rationales and concerns. Particular focus is given to perceptions of the difference between traditional research doctorates (PhDs) and professional doctorates, especially the DBA.

In the decade from 2003 to 2013 DBA enrolments are down but enquiries are up, indicating unmet demand. There is a shift in the players, with some smaller, regional universities dramatically increasing their enrolments, and larger, traditional institutions exiting the space altogether. Significant changes in accreditation criteria have generated a perceptual shift: where DBAs previously suffered from “academic snobbery” regarding their legitimacy, this perception is being challenged by standards which require DBA equivalence with a PhD. This shift in standards has also created some confusion amongst supervisors and candidates.

There is limited research into the DBA award or its candidates, and academic literature is generally silent on DBA supervision. This piece of research, one of very few that specifically examine the DBA, reflects on the past decade, analyses the present context and identifies emerging issues for the delivery of DBA programmes in Australia.

The Internet is causing fundamental changes in the economics of service industries as new, network‐based global e‐business models emerge, where small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have been identified as key users of Internet commerce. Initially the paper contextualises the research issues via a review of the theoretical opportunities afforded firms of all sizes. Correspondingly, an examination of the practical impediments from an SME perspective suggests that, among other things, there are major hurdles for SMEs going online including strategic appreciation of the dynamics of the Web and the development of capabilities for managing the information infrastructure for e‐business. To illustrate the inherent issues, the findings of empirical research are presented. Both inductive and deductive methodological approaches were employed to investigate e‐business awareness, attitudes and activities among a sample of Irish (north and south) service sector SMEs.

The current push for small firms to be “wired up to the digital marketplace” is evidenced by the number of initiatives targeting small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to promote this activity. Like other governments worldwide, UK Online’s SME targets (together with the supporting DTI adoption ladder) exemplify the “conventional wisdom” view of a homogeneous small business sector, within which firms take an ordered, sequential progression on the route to Internet technology adoption. This approach is questioned by grounding the official rhetoric in the reality of organisational and operational complexity of this important sector of the UK economy. These initiatives are compared and contrasted with similar models of small firm development, most of which neglected to address the diverse nature of small firm needs. The authors recommend a more discriminant approach, focused upon factors such as firm size, age, managerial structure and information and communications technology adoption stages.