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The purpose of this paper is to examine the process in which organizational members construct and enact public relations (PR) functions as well as how the organization accommodates local values in the PR enactment.

A case study of three large mining companies representing multinational, state-owned, and privately owned mining companies in Indonesia was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 key informants (three top executives and 34 members of PR units).

The Indonesian private mining company and the multinational corporation actively engaged in their environment during the post-Suharto era. They perceived the local community to be more powerful than ever before as a result of the socio-cultural and political changes in the country. They changed their organization designs to gain organizational legitimacy by establishing independent PR divisions at the mining sites and assigning field officers who had the same cultural background as the community. These companies enacted the role of PR as relationship agents and cultural interpreters. Unlike these two companies, the state-owned mining company did not actively search for information from its environment. It relied on the government support for its organizational legitimacy and ignored the environmental changes.

This study is one of the first few studies examining the enactment of PR functions in Indonesia, an emerging country that is under-represented in the marketing and PR literature.

To provide a new way of conceptualizing the leader's role in managing conflict for increased task and social outcomes in culturally heterogeneous workgroups (CHWs).

The objectives of the paper can be met by hypothesizing the proposed relationships and testing them quantitatively using multiple regression.

Finds that the effect of conflict in CHWs depends, in part, on the way the parties concerned manage it, and in particular the group leader.

The major limitation of the current research is that it is theoretical. Future research will now need to test the propositions put forward in this paper.

The paper conceptually identified some skills and behaviors that are pertinent to effective leadership in culturally heterogeneous workgroups.

The model presented in the paper and the research emanating from it should assist in training leaders for these workgroups.

The purpose of this paper is to use strategic resource management (SRM) model and data envelopment analysis (DEA) for benchmarking Indian retailers. The study ascertains, how a retailer can benchmark its performance at company level, global level, store level and finally at merchandise category level using diverse strategies for inventory, space and people.

The paper aims to use SRM model, for evaluating and comparing the performance of two generalized retailers Shoppers Stop and Trent. These two generalized retailers are benchmarked with another best-in-class retailer, Wal-Mart using the SRM model. The benchmarking exercise brings out improvement directions for the Indian retailers. In the next part of the study, economic efficiencies of 11 generalized retailers are ascertained using DEA model. Finally, a study is conducted to understand, how SRM model can be used as a planning tool for deciding alternative inventory, space and people strategies at store level as well as at merchandise category level.

Based on the data for the year 2011-2012, Trent’s performance is comparatively better than Shoppers Stop. The paper offers suggestion to improve its performance. Next, it was found that the performance of Wal-Mart is superior to the two Indian retailers. The study offers direction to the two retailers to devise appropriate strategies to improve their performance. The study further ascertains the relative efficiencies of 11 generalized retailers in the country. Finally, an illustration of how a retailer can use the SRM model as a tool for planning alternative strategy for inventory, space and people in a particular merchandise category is offered using data from a retail firm. The study has used “Jeans” and “Toys” as two categories to demonstrate this concept.

The examples considered in this paper can be used by practicing retailers to plan and benchmark their performance.

The study proposes a method, by which retailers can examine ways to plan and improve their operations and profitability by using the SRM and DEA model. The study is therefore relevant to practicing retailers as well as academicians.

The purpose of the present paper is to advance a testable model, rooted on well‐established control and self‐regulation theory principles, explaining the causal links between change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, readiness and subsequent behavioural action.

Following a review of the two motivation theories and clarification of change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, and readiness concepts, the paper proposes a series of research propositions (illustrated by a conceptual model) clarifying how these concepts interact with self‐regulating mechanisms. In addition, the feedback model exemplifies how cognitive processes triggered by new knowledge structures relate to behavioural action.

The model expands upon other existing frameworks by allowing the examination of multi‐level factors that account for, and moderate causal links between, change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, readiness, and behavioural action. Suggestions for future research and guidelines for practice are outlined.

The variables and processes depicted in the model provide guidelines for change management in organisations, both for individuals and for groups. By eliciting important self‐regulating functions, change agents will likely facilitate sensemaking processes, positive interpretations of change, change readiness, and effective change behaviours.

This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, it offers a comprehensive and dynamic account of the relationships between change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, readiness, and behavioural action decision‐making. Second, it elucidates the impact of human agency properties, namely the interplay of efficacy perceptions, social learning, and self‐regulating mechanisms on these change‐related cognitive processes and subsequent behavioural outcomes.

This is a preliminary study that explores the nature of decision making in the implementation process through an examination of environmental scanning and interpretation activities of project managers tasked with implementing offshore outsourcing activities.

The model utilized for this study suggests that individual scanning is filtered through distinct organizational types and control that will influence implementation efforts to find solutions to major issues associated with offshore outsourcing. The methodology uses a semi‐structured detailed set of interviews to gather data.

The preliminary findings suggest that project managers entrusted with implementing complex offshoring arrangements to achieve strategic short term cost reduction goals receive relatively little scanning information from senior management to guide them, must learn by doing, and are confronted with multiple external challenges centering on culture and communication with individuals performing work offshore that they were not initially prepared for.

Suggestions for future research include expanding the study to complete comparative interviews with senior management scanning, comparisons between industries, comparisons between client and provider organizations and comparisons between organizational countries of origin.

Practical implications include a more accurate definition of decision‐making and implementation of offshore outsourcing by individuals and how this impacts organizations.

The study fulfills a void in organizational literature by examining scanning and interpretation as performed by mid‐level managers.

Even though design as a purposeful activity naturally fits into the realm of cybernetics, the emphasis on control has limited the scope of using cybernetic principles in design. The idea of organization, another fundamental concept in cybernetics, has received less attention in design research and seems worthy of further exploration. The purpose of the paper is to review the two concepts and clarify their role and meaning in design. Overall, using insights from complex systems science, the paper attempts to recast the relationship between cybernetics and design.

The treatment uses category theory as a language and methodological approach in order to formally express the concepts of “organization” “control” and “design” and then study the relations between them.

Organization is defined using the mathematical concept of sketch, i.e. as a characterization of the complementary relation between theories and models. The paper demonstrates that the peculiarity of design rests on the fact that the distinction between theories and models is an anticipated but emergent state. In contrast, control‐based representations assume that the theory‐model distinction is given in advance, as an intrinsic characteristic. The paper demonstrates that design is a distinct paradigm in relation to control, yet it falls within the domain of cybernetic and complex systems enquiry.

The paper contributes to the understanding of design as a distinct type of problem in cybernetics by exposing differences between control and design problems. The paper also further lays the foundations for developing a cybernetic theory of design based on the concept of organization.

Traditional methods of assurance outlined by current professional standards are risk-based models where the emphasis is on the veracity of published data rather than on the rigour of the interpretation or analysis of information provided to users. As such, they are not well suited for expressing an opinion on qualitative, subjective or forward-looking assessments typically included in integrated reports. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to describe an alternate approach to assurance and identifies the initial elements of an “interpretive assurance model”.

The research is exploratory/interpretive. It relies on detailed interviews with experienced auditors and preparers to develop an initial approach for providing some level of assurance over an integrated report.

The research identifies elements of an interpretive assurance model which focusses on providing assurance on the interpretation and analysis of information included in an integrated report rather than on underlying data. These include an examination of the completeness of the explanation of the value creation process provided in an integrated report; the methods used to support management discussion and analysis; and the reasonability of the review process used to ensure the reliability of qualitative, subjective and forward-looking representations contained in an integrated report.

The study is conducted in a South African setting. While limiting the study to a single jurisdiction may be seen as a limitation, local preparers and auditors have had at least five years of experience with the application of an integrated reporting framework and are in a strong position to provide detailed insights.

An interpretive assurance model shifts the focus from objective verification of data using defined test procedures to evaluation of the interpretation and analysis process used to prepare an integrated report. Application of the proposed model will require practitioners and auditing students to be trained extensively in qualitative analytical techniques. The inherent complexity of contemporary business models and the multi-dimensional focus of integrated reports will also result in changes in the composition of audit teams which are currently dominated by experts in financial reporting rather than integrated or strategic business management.

The paper is the first to offer a practical approach for providing assurance over an integrated report. It responds to calls form the International Integrated Reporting Council and International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board for more innovative assurance models for addressing the reporting needs of contemporary organisations.

Since corporate real estate management (CREM) emerged in the 1990s, it has been modelled in many ways. The Delft model views the corporate real estate management function as a coordinator of four distinct accommodation perspectives. Although the model has been used in education and practice for years, there is no consensus on its interpretation and application, and various versions circulate. This paper aims to first reconstruct the history of the conceptualisation of the Delft CREM model and then seeks to develop an understanding of its nature that provides clearer interpretations of the model.

Because the developers of the Delft CREM model did not maintain archives, the reconstruction of the model’s genesis is based on the developers’ publications from 1985 to 2015 and eight semi-structured interviews conducted with these developers in 2017 and 2018. The collected information, which was by its very nature incomplete and imperfect, was triangulated, contextualised and assembled chronologically. This served as the basis for an analysis of the model’s nature, which in turn generated a list of practical implications for its future application.

The historical reconstruction revealed two parallel but distinct lines of reasoning, whose resulting models appear similar but are distinct. One line of reasoning models CRE viewpoints, while the other models CRE management activities, i.e. the first line of reasoning models CREM across the organisation, while the second models CREM within the function. These two lines of thought have converged in the research-through-design approach of the developers, which evolved against the backdrop of a growing interest in the contribution of organisational resources to organisational objectives and the emergence of the demand-supply model in management practices in general and in the built environment in particular.

The research is limited to reconstructing the genesis and analysing the nature of the Delft CREM model. It is not intended to provide a conclusive narrative, update the model or compare it to other CREM models. As is typical in oral history, it is based on imperfect documentary evidence and imperfect recollections. The reconstruction and analysis are stepping stones towards a more precise interpretation and application of the model in both research and practice, and may eventually contribute to its evolution. When using the model, it is recommended to (1) be clear about whether the model applies to the CREM department, the entire organisation or the organisation’s environment; (2) be clear about what is being modelled (activities, viewpoints or something else); and (3) use labels that reflect the selections made in (1) and (2).

The value of this paper lies in the historical reconstruction of the intentions of the developers of the four-view scheme, including the detailed analysis of its consecutive graphical representations and the investigation of its relationship with the seminal strategic alignment model.

Drawing broadly from the technology frame (Davidson, 2002) and organizing vision perspectives (Swanson and Ramiller, 1997) which consider the business value of information technology as resulting from actors' efforts to make sense of new technology, the study applies Ojala's (2016) business model framework to examine how different sets of actors understand the value of blockchain within the healthcare sector.

To include the perspective of different sets of actors, the research combines a systematic literature review to capture academic research, semi-structured interviews with blockchain experts, with an analysis of blockchain healthcare vendors.

The study finds a high degree of congruence between the perspective of different actors, with key sources of blockchain value concentrated around value proposition, particularly enhancing privacy and security; value capture, specifically cost savings, and value network, mostly enhancing data accessibility and reducing intermediation. Value delivery is the least emphasized value creation mechanism and concerns primarily improvements in supply chain transparency. Minor variations between actors' interpretations of value exist, mostly around the contribution of blockchain to support the value proposition and include the provision of social value, the creation of trust, supporting automation and improving employment.

Recognizing that the value of new technology is as much the result of actors' interpretations, as the objective outcome of its deployment, this study takes a multi-stakeholder perspective to examine blockchain's business value and highlights new aspects of value associated with blockchain deployments. The findings include a value outcome framework that allows systematic comparisons between blockchain implementations across contexts.

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.