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The purpose of this paper is to investigate a subject accounting firm’s existing workflow processes for preparing individual tax returns with an emphasis on identifying predominant areas of waste.

Specific Quality and Lean tools were applied to qualitative data secured from on-site visits to the firm. Quantitative data analysis of productivity measures was performed to identify additional sources of muda (waste) as well as validate the findings from the qualitative analysis. Corrective actions were recommended as applicable.

This case study of the subject firm identifies predominant wastes in the individual tax return process as defects and waiting. The authors propose that these categories of waste (waiting and defect) may indeed be the predominant forms of waste in service organizations and require further research.

At least two limitations exist. The first was the inability to capture exact cycle times for each of the process steps. A second limitation was that the data on staff performance were gathered via interview rather than through direct observation.

Individual income tax return preparation (Form 1040) provides a significant revenue stream for many accounting firms. Managing the processes involved in an effective and timely fashion is critical to profitability. Additionally, other service industries, including financial and accounting firms of similar size or function, may find these areas of waste relevant and adopt similar strategies for eliminating or reducing them in service-processes.

Negligible literature exists concerning wastes in accounting firms. However, accounting firms in the USA earn an average of more than 50 percent of their total fees from tax services, including income tax return preparation.

Repression is an integral part of a class-based society. In these societies a relatively small number of people own a very large share of productive resources. This concentration of asset ownership inevitably leads to a highly unequal distribution of income and with it a division of society into a small number of haves and a much larger number of have-nots. The haves constantly fear that the have-nots will seize their property either by outright force or through legislation. Over the centuries they have devised methods of social control to preserve the existing property relationships.

Why and in what direction do organizations change?¹ Early responses to these questions generally fell into two camps. Adaptationist scholars proposed theories based on the assumption that organizations have wide latitude to change their structure, strategy, and scope. In the adaptationist view, organizations are able to change in the direction dictated by their environment or by the choices of organizational decision makers, whether in the pursuit of rational action (e.g., Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Williamson, 1985) or blind action (Weick, 1979). In its extreme form, the adaptationist view implied that firms can and do adapt nearly frictionlessly, suggesting that if there is a performance penalty associated with inappropriate organization, misaligned firms will change so as to reduce or eliminate this misalignment. Alternatively, selection-based theories, notably structural inertia theory within organizational ecology, contended that inertial forces tend to stymie attempts at organizational change (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). In its extreme form, the selectionist view implied that firms can rarely change successfully; instead, if there is a performance penalty associated with misalignment, misaligned firms will be “selected out” of the population.

American society has undergone many changes since World War II. Perhaps the most notable of these has been its transformation from an industrial to a post‐industrial society, a society that is no longer primarily goods‐producing but one that has increasingly been providing a greater variety of services.

To resolve an inherent dilemma in extant research on geographically dispersed research and development (R&D), this study explores interdependencies between formal and informal network structures. Firms that seek to benefit from the decentralization associated with disperse R&D must align it with an informal structure that enhances organizational members’ motivation to share and assimilate their unique knowledge and skills. On the basis of an investigation among 424 US biotechnology firms between 1973 and 2003, this study reveals the moderating effect of the firm’s informal social structure on the effect that geographically dispersed R&D personnel have on the exploration of new technological opportunities. Specifically, the higher the social network density among R&D members, the more likely geographic disparity is to affect exploration; however, this likelihood decreases with an increase in power asymmetries. These results offer insights into the conditions in which the appropriate management of geographically dispersed R&D varies.

In this paper a systematic and well-defined student participation assessment scheme for college courses is proposed. The scheme supports the involvement of students in a variety of areas of participation within and outside the classroom with the aim of improving their learning. The scheme addresses mostly the challenges related to the practicality of the structure and design of the assessment. It also addresses the subjectivity of grading student participations. Areas of participation are widened to allow the faculty more accurate information about the conduct of each individual student towards more objective assessment. In addition, it provides the faculty with the flexibility to select areas that best fit the learning outcomes, nature of the course, availability of time and resources, and class atmosphere. The proposed scheme is initiated and developed using feedback from the teaching staff of Nizwa College of Technology, (NCT) through a survey and open discussion. The results indicate that over two thirds of the surveyed staff show agreement with the concept of assessing participation and find the scheme design clear and systematic, while 82% of them perceive the scheme as effective in improving the motivation and learning of students.

This paper aims to examine the role strategic problem identification and resolution played in identifying and capturing new sources of competitive advantage as CSL Limited (CSL) transformed itself into the world’s fifth-largest biotechnology company. Historical accounts of superior business growth are usually explained by looking back to identify a firm’s sources of competitive advantage. However, what managers really want to know is how to identify opportunities to create and capture competitive advantage ahead of competitors.

The authors examined CSL’s journey between 1994 and 2019 through a case study approach and the lens of the problem-identification and problem-solving perspective (PSP). The PSP assumes strategic problems act as antecedents to discovering and capturing new sources of competitive advantage. The problems a firm identifies and resolves influences whether or not, in what direction and for whom an organization creates value.

The authors provide examples of the strategic problems CSL identified and how they acted as the catalyst to proactively identify new sources of competitive advantage. The formulated problems helped manager to see in advance what resources, capabilities and governance mechanisms would be required to create and capture value.

Generalizing the lessons learned, the authors propose a business-problem classification framework and portfolio approach to encourage managers to identify, formulate and resolve different types of strategic problems. These problems could motivate firms to tackle problems beyond which they have successfully tackled before and discover new sources of competitive advantage ahead of competitors.

Relationship development is required for any group working together. As members coordinate to accomplish tasks, some level of relationship is created through interaction between group members. However, most group development models focus on task accomplishment and may briefly address relational concerns. Communication research has furthered our understanding of group relationship development based on communicative changes that demonstrate emerging relationships among members. This chapter summarizes research on relationship development in groups. First, the chapter reviews research on group relational messages and relational outcomes. Second, the chapter outlines a framework for explaining group relationship development based on group interaction and development research. Four progressive stages (investigating, initiating, integrating, and interconnecting) are presented that show the communicative changes in group relationship development. Investigating focuses on testing boundaries and getting to know members, while initiating highlights how members become more direct about individual goals and handle conflict. During integrating, members shift to a group mind and tentatively form relationships with members, whereas interconnecting is a sense of we-ness among members and the use of shared group symbols. Future research directions for relational development and the four stages are presented at the end.

One of the most well-known, seminal models in the tourism marketing field is the one proposed more than 40 years ago by Stanley Plog. His venturesomeness model has been widely cited in journal articles, textbooks, and has also been used as a reference for planning and designing tourism marketing projects. However, empirical research on Plog’s psychographic model has yielded varied, inconclusive results, and the postulates of his conceptual framework are still subject to academic scrutiny. While some empirical investigations have corroborated the model, others have found partial or no support for it. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to offer an exhaustive review of 26 studies in the literature which have employed Plog´s venturesomeness concept to examine travellers’ personality traits, attitudes, and behaviour, as a way to synthetise empirical findings and draw conclusions from the cumulative results. A discussion of the model’s contribution to the current body of knowledge and managerial implications for tourism marketing practitioners are presented.

Many scholars have noted the critical skills needed for leaders in the face of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). These skills include self-awareness, listening, communication, adaptability, critical thinking, and collaboration. Students who are able to develop these skills would be better equipped to lead in settings where the answers—and even the questions—are unknown. This paper details an approach to developing leadership skills to prepare undergraduate leadership students for a VUCA world, through the use of a classroom workshop on improvisational comedy. I have refined this improv workshop over sixteen course iterations spanning the past nine semesters, and students commonly point to the workshop as one of the most challenging and rewarding class sessions of the course. In this paper I review the literature that has informed my approach, explain the learning objectives addressed by the improv workshop, describe the approach I use, share quantitative and qualitative data that illustrate the success of the approach, and share my lessons learned, all in service of supporting colleagues who wish to try this approach.