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In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…
Abstract
In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.
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Laurie McLeod, Stephen MacDonell and Bill Doolin
The purpose of this research is to obtain an updated assessment of the use of standard methods in IS development practice in New Zealand, and to compare these practices to those…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to obtain an updated assessment of the use of standard methods in IS development practice in New Zealand, and to compare these practices to those reported elsewhere.
Design/methodology/approach
A web‐based survey of IS development practices in New Zealand organisations with 200 or more full‐time employees was conducted. The results of the survey were compared to prior studies from other national contexts.
Findings
The results suggest that levels of standard method use continue to be high in New Zealand organisations, although methods are often used in a pragmatic or ad hoc way. Further, the type of method used maps to a shift from bespoke development to system acquisition or outsourcing. Organisations that reported using standard methods perceived them to be beneficial to IS development in their recent IS projects, and generally disagreed with most of the published limitations of standard methods.
Research limitations/implications
As the intent was to consider only New Zealand organisations, the results of the survey cannot be generalised further afield. More comparative research is needed to establish whether the trends identified here occur at a wider regional or international level.
Practical implications
A significant proportion of organisations anticipated extending their use of standard methods. Growth in packaged software acquisition and outsourced development suggests an increasing need for deployment management as well as development management, possibly reflecting the increased visibility of standard project management methods.
Originality/value
The relevance of traditional standard methods of IS development has been questioned in a changing and more dynamic IS development environment. This study provides an updated assessment of standard method use in New Zealand organisations that will be of interest to researchers and practitioners monitoring IS development and acquisition elsewhere.
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The Nature of Business Policy Business policy — or general management — is concerned with the following six major functions:
Serina Al-Haddad and Timothy Kotnour
The purpose of this paper is to contribute a roadmap to the change management literature, and provide definitions for describing change types, change enablers and change methods…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute a roadmap to the change management literature, and provide definitions for describing change types, change enablers and change methods. This paper also proposes aligning the change type with the change method to find the effect on the change outcomes. New researchers can use this paper to get an overview of the change management discipline along with the main concepts that help in understanding the different dimensions of and relationships between the change types and methods in the literature. Managers can use this paper to describe and classify their organizational change situation and select an implementation method for systematic change and for change management.
Design/methodology/approach
This framework is designed based on literature review and experts judgment.
Findings
The results of the research propose a hypothesis that describes the relationships between the change types and methods and how this relationship can affect the change outcomes.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this research paper is to connect three main knowledge areas of change types, change methods and change outcomes. These three areas are standalone subjects in several publications in the literature. Some researchers connected the change types and change methods, while other researchers connected the change methods and change outcomes. But connecting the change types, change methods and change outcomes remains a new research territory to explore.
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Carlos F. Gomes, Mohammad Najjar and Mahmoud M. Yasin
As service organizations move toward the open system strategic customer orientation, they need to ensure consistency among competitive methods, performance measures and strategies…
Abstract
Purpose
As service organizations move toward the open system strategic customer orientation, they need to ensure consistency among competitive methods, performance measures and strategies utilized. This paper aims to examine the relationships among these important facets of today’s service organizations. The study at hand examines the relationship among competitive methods, implicit strategy and performance measures used by Portuguese service organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a survey-based methodology. Factor analysis, cluster analysis and regression analysis procedures are used to analyze the collected data from Portuguese service organizations.
Findings
Based on the results of this study, it appears that some of the studied service organizations are steadily moving toward the open system mode of strategy, competitive methods and performance measurement. However, the majority of the service organizations examined appeared to be in a state of strategic confusion, as they appear to lack the consistency among competitive methods, performance measures and desired strategic orientations.
Research limitations/implications
The sample used in this study is specific in nature, as it includes only Portuguese service organizations. Therefore, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution. Future research in other cultural service settings is recommended. Such research should emphasize the exploration of theoretical frameworks, which tend to practically integrate competitive methods, performance measures and strategic orientation.
Practical implications
This study has direct practical implications for service managers, as they attempt to integrate their organizational systems. As such, the research in this study paves the way toward the practical integration and consistency among competitive methods, performance measures and strategic orientations needed to enhance the customer orientation. In this context, such integration and consistency are essential to enhance the strategic competitiveness of today’s service organizations operating in a dynamic marketplace.
Originality/value
This research combines bodies of knowledge dealing with competitive methods, performance measures and their impact on strategic orientations. The conceptual framework offered in this research attempts to facilitate the understanding for consistent practice pertaining to the competitiveness of the open system service organization in a dynamic environment. Such consistency is essential to the competitiveness of the organization in a dynamic environment.
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Studies comparing the consequences of payroll cost reduction methods (i.e. cutting pay and downsizing) have been limited, with no studies comparing these methods' impact on…
Abstract
Purpose
Studies comparing the consequences of payroll cost reduction methods (i.e. cutting pay and downsizing) have been limited, with no studies comparing these methods' impact on job-seeker attraction. The current research tries to close this gap by comparing the effects of cutting pay and downsizing on job-seeker attraction outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Two studies are conducted. The first study compares the effects of the two payroll cost reduction methods (i.e. cutting pay vs downsizing) on job-seeker attraction through a within-subject design experiment of people in the United States. The second study analyzes secondary data in South Korea to compare the two methods' effects on the number of job applicants applying for job openings.
Findings
The results demonstrate that organizations with a history of pay cuts yield more favorable job-seeker attraction outcomes than organizations with a history of downsizing.
Practical implications
Although firms that choose to downsize may better maintain the morale of surviving employees, the decision of downsizing can have long-term costs, such as having a worse capability to attract job-applicants than firms that choose to cut pay and share the pain as a group.
Originality/value
The research provides an insight into which payroll cost reduction method yields better outcomes in terms of job-seeker attraction. The research responds to the call in the payroll cost reduction method literature of identifying a feasible alternative to downsizing in terms of various outcomes other than the morale of current (or remaining) employees.
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Noreen Heraty and Michael Morley
Reviews contemporary thinking on recruitment and selection in organisations. Draws upon data from a 1992 and a 1995 survey to explore the nature of current recruitment and…
Abstract
Reviews contemporary thinking on recruitment and selection in organisations. Draws upon data from a 1992 and a 1995 survey to explore the nature of current recruitment and selection practices in Ireland with particular reference to managerial jobs. Policy decisions on recruitment are examined, recruitment methods are reviewed, and the influence of ownership, size, unionisation and sector on the methods chosen is presented. Selection techniques employed are identified and the situations in which they are most likely to be utilised are highlighted.
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Charles R. McCann and Vibha Kapuria-Foreman
Robert Franklin Hoxie was of the first generation of University of Chicago economists, a figure of significance in his own time. He is often heralded as the first of the…
Abstract
Robert Franklin Hoxie was of the first generation of University of Chicago economists, a figure of significance in his own time. He is often heralded as the first of the Institutional economists and the impetus behind the field of labor economics. Yet today, his contributions appear as mere footnotes in the history of economic thought, when mentioned at all, despite the fact that in his professional and popular writings he tackled some of the most pressing problems of the day. The topics upon which he focused included bimetallism, price theory, methodology, the economics profession, socialism, syndicalism, scientific management, and trade unionism, the last being the field with which he is most closely associated. His work attracted the notice of some of the most famous economists of his time, including Frank Fetter, J. Laurence Laughlin, Thorstein Veblen, and John R. Commons. For all the promise, his suicide at the age of 48 ended what could have been a storied career. This paper is an attempt to resurrect Hoxie through a review of his life and work, placing him within the social and intellectual milieux of his time.
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Erik Frank and Charles Margerison
How far is training in your organisation concerned with developing individual skills or developing the overall performance of people to work together in the organisation more…
Abstract
How far is training in your organisation concerned with developing individual skills or developing the overall performance of people to work together in the organisation more effectively? Traditionally, training has been concerned with developing individual skills. The emphasis has been upon apprentice training where people develop the technical expertise to do particular tasks. Alongside this ran the professional training required for accountants and others so that a company had individuals with specific knowledge to undertake functional roles.
The purpose of this paper was to uncover the various difficulties that record-keeping professionals face when they maintain and use functional classification (FC) in Finnish…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to uncover the various difficulties that record-keeping professionals face when they maintain and use functional classification (FC) in Finnish public-sector organisations. An additional aim was to find out how they handle those difficulties in the course of their work.
Design/methodology/approach
In all, 22 record-keeping professionals, at three Finnish public-sector organisations, were interviewed. The data generated were then analysed with qualitative methods.
Findings
The study identified several difficulties that record-keeping professionals encounter in maintaining and using FC in various ways. In the main, however, the difficulties were not perceived as substantial. The participants had several methods of handling the difficulties in carrying out their work. The study also pointed to a clash between maintenance of FC systems and needs in other contexts of their use.
Research limitations/implications
The difficulties faced and the means of handling them were evaluated only from interviews with record-keeping professionals at three Finnish public-sector organisations. Observation of real-world situations or performance of usability tests might have highlighted different difficulties or even revealed unidentified issues.
Practical implications
Concrete improvements could be performed in organisations for better use of FC. The difficulties identified could be addressed also in FC design and in user training. The results of the study are of relevance for future research into FC’s use.
Originality/value
The study highlights difficulties faced in maintaining and using FC systems. Identification of the various perceptions linked to maintenance and concrete use could be of importance in implementation of FC in organisations.
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