Search results

Recent lapses in the management of high hazard organizations, such as the Fukushima event or the Deepwater Horizon blast, add considerable urgency to better understand the complicated and complex phenomena of leading and managing high reliability organizations (HRO). The purpose of this paper is to offer both theoretical and practical insight to further strengthen reliability in high hazard organizations.

Phenomenological study based on over three years of research and thousands of hours of study in HROs conducted through a scholar-practitioner partnership.

The findings indicate that the identification and the management of competing tensions arising from misalignment within and between public policy, organizational strategy, communication, decision-making, organizational learning, and leadership is the critical factor in explaining improved reliability and safety of HROs.

Stops short of full-blown grounded theory. Steps were made to ensure validity; however, generalizability may be limited due to sample.

Provides insight into reliably operating organizations that are crucial to society where errors would cause significant damage or loss.

Extends high reliability research by investigating more fully the competing tensions present in these complex, societally crucial organizations.

In light of and due to the spike in concern regarding high hazard industries, in general, and nuclear power plants (NPPs) in particular, resulting from the Japanese earthquake and crisis at Fukushima, the purpose of this paper is to offer an innovative organizational development (OD) intervention that may enhance safety and operational performance directed at these critical organizations.

Drawing on and integrating key elements of strategy, leadership coaching and development and assessment, the authors describe and detail an intervention designed to bring a troubled NPP to a state of reliability.

It was found that performance improved in a relatively short amount of time from implementing this OD tool.

The findings contained herein may apply to any organization aiming to improve on safety and operational performance.

The paper's findings should appeal to high hazard and high reliability organizations, such as those found within the energy industry, that must continuously strive toward improved operational and safety performance.

This study aims to offer insights into the contextual and situational variables that influence volunteering choices.

An analysis of European and US business students’ volunteering experiences is performed. Cross-cultural and experiential outcomes are compared and contrasted at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

A majority of volunteering decisions are made without thoughtful reflection, based on convenience in an effort to reduce personal hardship, and influenced heavily by institutional and organizational structures.

These results call into question the notion that volunteering-related choices are deeply personal, purposeful and/or reflective decisions. Moreover, the findings begin to explain why volunteerism continues to be dogged by labels such as “ineffective”, “inefficient” or “lacking in value” when benchmarked against expectations.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Effective management is a must for any business organization. In certain sectors though, such capabilities become even more imperative. Industries defined as being extremely hazardous are a case in point. Nuclear power plants illustrate this perfectly. Safety is obviously paramount in these complexes to the point where even a minor mishap can have grave consequences. When more serious accidents occur, devastating effects on humanity and the environment is virtually inevitable. Think Chernobyl. You'd be forgiven then for assuming that performance in all nuclear energy stations would be comparable and of the required standard. And why not? After all, the structural design and technology used is largely homogenous. Any differences in these respects are inconsequential.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) represents a new approach to understanding the process of human communication. Developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the early 1970s, it is derived from linguistics, psychology, neurophysiology, kinetics, and cybernetics. NLP is designed to help its users—whether they are therapists, salespersons, or teachers—more quickly gain rapport with their subjects.

There is no argument among serious researchers that a mongoloid stock first colonized the New World from Asia. Nor is there controversy about the fact that these continental pioneers used the Bering Land Bridge that then connected the Asian Far East with Alaska.– Gerald F. Shields, et al.American Journal of Genetics (1992)

Librarians have been urged to emphasize social justice and human rights issues in their library mission, but they may find themselves challenged to provide additional services, such as access to legal information for those who cannot afford an attorney. Social justice services in libraries are seldom adequately funded and providing services in this area is labor intensive. In addition, there is an emotional intensity in library services for social justice that is often not considered in the initial enthusiasm of providing services in this area. Yet there seems to be no limit to the need. An interesting and useful perspective on how a public agency such as a library responds in circumstances of limited resources and unlimited demand can be found in the book Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service, by Michael Lipsky. In this perspective, lower level civil servants who interact directly with members of the general public exercise a level of discretion in the amount of services provided and how those services are administered. This chapter explores how this can generate tensions between more traditional library bureaucracy and social justice services, such as providing public access to justice resources in law libraries. However, the “street-level” response is evolving into a sustainability perspective as librarians embrace a more social justice–oriented outlook in library service planning.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine the effects of different touch points on customer experience, second, effects of customer experience on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and third, the moderating role of motivation orientation on these effects.

By recognizing the importance of capturing customer experience assessments at the “time of the experience”, a smartphone technology mobile app was developed for the purpose of this study. Real time customer experience data were collected at individual touch points.

The results show that the real-time touch point evaluations significantly effect overall customer experience and that these effects significantly differ for utilitarian and hedonic motivation orientations. The effects of technology, atmospherics, employee–customer interaction and service/product interaction touch points on overall customer experience are significantly stronger for hedonic orientation than for utilitarian orientation. In contrast, the effect of process touch point on overall customer experience is significantly stronger for utilitarian than hedonic orientation. Also, favorable overall customer experience evaluations exert significant positive influence on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and these influences are significantly stronger for consumers with hedonic than utilitarian motivation orientations.

The findings of this study will enable companies to manage customer experience programs effectively by providing an understanding of the distinct touch points that occur along the customer journey and the relative importance of each of these touch points in enhancing customer experience.

This is the first empirical study that offers important insights on the effects of different touch points on customer experience, and on the moderating role of consumer motivation orientations on the touch points – customer experience – loyalty link by using real-time data.