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This paper seeks to explore whether strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR), the latest stage of conceptual development in CR, is evident in real business practices.

Using Thailand as a context, the paper responds to the call for study beyond the developed economic regions. With a limited number of proactive companies in CSR in the country, this qualitative study employs in‐depth interviews supplemented with reviews of sustainability reports and other available corporate documents to explore the frontier of CSR practices in Thailand. The informants include key executives directly in charge of CSR and corporate direction in the organizations.

The assessment finds that a small group of recognized CSR leaders have started integrating CSR into their corporate strategy to gain competitive advantages, suggesting a gradual emergence of strategic CSR with various benefits. However, a mixed response from the market implies conditions for management consideration.

CSR can be viable in competitive strategy particularly in gaining a social license to operate and for corporate reputation. Nevertheless, balancing stakeholder interests should be managed with extra care. Positive stakeholder reaction in one issue may alleviate but cannot offset deeply rooted problems in another.

Based on the synthesis of several CSR models, this paper proposes a new stratification scheme to identify the stage of CSR development. The empirical results also indicate the development of strategic CSR in the context of emerging economy.

Measuring organisational effectiveness in a health care delivery context is a challenging task. Although there are numerous performa]nce assessment models, audit tools and managerial diagnostic tools, they all tend to fall short in their attempts to closely scrutinise how health care organisations deploy their capabilities to deliver optimum quality in service provision and what performance levels they achieve as a result of their approach. The project reported here attempted to address the aforementioned issues. It set out to examine health care providers from an integrated perspective and to assess the key drivers of effective organisational performance using an adapted model based on the 7s’ principles. The research project culminated into a major report highlighting best practices found to be inherent in 18 well performing health care providers. This paper reflects the experience of one of a series of Trusts whose approach to organisational effectiveness was closely examined.

Bureaucratic red tape involves communications that are not only informative, but also performative, representing the exercise of bureaucratic authority. Automation efforts, to be effective in reducing red tape, will need to include these authority aspects as design variables. A concept of bureau‐cratic software is suggested.

The Art of Innovation model posits that it is possible to make uncreative organizations creative and creative organizations more so. To succeed, leaders must work on a set of innovation drivers to develop the SOURCES of creativity (Talent, Energy, Method); establish a STRUCTURE for innovation (Individual, Team, Target, System) and shape a CULTURE that promotes innovation (Ideas, Freedom, Engagement, Humor, Risk) [1]. This approach is as valid for public as it is for private organizations. There are however some differences between private and public sector. First, while innovation has clear value-adding potential for the public sector, there is no competitive impetus to innovate and the temptation to leave things as they are is larger. Second, certain innovation drivers when implemented in the public sector may require a different approach from the private sector. Target, for example asks where the organization is situated on the innovation "continuum" and ideas such as radical innovation and differentiation may be quite alien to the public sector. This should not however stop government from pursuing continuous improvement and assigning innovation objectives clearly to each and every department, team and individual. Freedom too is often stifled by outdated regulations or legislation that may be hard to change. And Risk, while always controversial, is more so in government where civil servants are often criticized by their (changing) political bosses obliging them to resort to unproductive risk avoidance.

Because of the special “State of the States” issue of Library Hi Tech and other circumstances beyond my control, the four quarterly “Comp Lit” compilations for 1996 appear here in a single and possibly peculiar chunk. A lot changes in a year of personal computing, but on reflection it seemed useful to include the citations and comments as I originally wrote them.

The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative approach for the strategic design of public–private partnerships (PPP) and private finance initiatives (PFI) based on ontology.

Adopting a historic approach, it introduces a posteriori knowledge, deriving from the scheme’s stakeholders at the construction and implementation phase of PPPs. Continuous failures of these collaboration schemes and initiatives underline the necessity for a novel project structure. The conceptual argument is based both on empirical and epistemological approaches. It integrates the value-added (VA) of the ontological theory in the PPP/PFI business strategy.

The research emphasises contemporary design gaps of their current structure and proposes an ontological redesign. The proposed redesign produces a conceptually innovative scheme, which enhances the VA business strategies and their objectives to the structure of these collaborating schemes.

The ontological design of this paper is useful for academics and business consultants around the world and especially in Europe for the successful growth and development of such dynamic collaborations.

Enterprise ontology bridges conceptual and structural gaps of strategic objectives, which are primarily responsible for the failures of PPP collaboration.

The creation of a target market strategy is integral to developing an effective business strategy. The concept of market segmentation is often cited as pivotal to establishing a target market strategy, yet all too often business‐to‐business marketers utilise little more than trade sectors or product groups as the basis for their groupings of customers, rather than customers' characteristics and buying behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to offer a solution for managers, focusing on customer purchasing behaviour, which evolves from the organisation's existing criteria used for grouping its customers.

One of the underlying reasons managers fail to embrace best practice market segmentation is their inability to manage the transition from how target markets in an organisation are currently described to how they might look when based on customer characteristics, needs, purchasing behaviour and decision‐making. Any attempt to develop market segments should reflect the inability of organisations to ignore their existing customer group classification schemes and associated customer‐facing operational practices, such as distribution channels and sales force allocations.

A straightforward process has been derived and applied, enabling organisations to practice market segmentation in an evolutionary manner, facilitating the transition to customer‐led target market segments. This process also ensures commitment from the managers responsible for implementing the eventual segmentation scheme. This paper outlines the six stages of this process and presents an illustrative example from the agrichemicals sector, supported by other cases.

The process presented in this paper for embarking on market segmentation focuses on customer purchasing behaviour rather than business sectors or product group classifications ‐ which is true to the concept of market segmentation ‐ but in a manner that participating managers find non‐threatening. The resulting market segments have their basis in the organisation's existing customer classification schemes and are an iteration to which most managers readily buy‐in.

Despite the size of the market segmentation literature, very few papers offer step‐by‐step guidance for developing customer‐focused market segments in business‐to‐business marketing. The analytical tool for assessing customer purchasing deployed in this paper originally was created to assist in marketing planning programmes, but has since proved its worth as the foundation for creating segmentation schemes in business marketing, as described in this paper.

The purpose of the study is twofold: first, it is to develop each aspect of maṣlaḥah ḍarūriyah (essential needs), i.e. dīn (faith/religion), nafs (soul), ʿaql (intellect), naṣl (descendants) and mal (wealth), into various aspects of organisational essential needs; second, it is to formulate maṣlaḥah-based performance measurement.

The research is an exploratory study that uses a two-stage design: defining the research question and developing the research design. The research question is how each element of maṣlaḥah ḍarūriyah can become an element of organisational essential needs. The research design developed is to formulate maṣlaḥah-based performance measurement.

The study concludes that maṣlaḥah ḍarūriyah could be developed as a basis for identifying organisational essential needs. The five elements of maṣlaḥah ḍarūriyah are developed into the following organisational essential needs: worship orientation, internal process orientation, talent orientation, learning orientation, customer orientation and wealth orientation. Maṣlaḥah-based performance measurement uses five variables: strategic objective, measure, formula, target and strategic initiatives and applies the modified plan – do – check – action cycle: performance planning, performance implementation, performance evaluation and performance action.

Organisational essential needs can be developed by Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) into performance measurement. IFIs have six essential needs that can be developed into performance variables. Key performance indicators that can be developed for each need are worship orientation (social responsibility, regulatory compliance and Sharīʿah compliance); internal process orientation (innovation process, digital adaptation and employee satisfaction); talent orientation (career development, talent pool, compensation and benefits); learning orientation (training programme, training evaluation and return on training investment); customer orientation (customer engagement, customer satisfaction, customer survey and promotion programme); wealth orientation (profitability, cost-cutting, share prices, dividends, cost efficiency and financial sustainability).

This paper contributes to new knowledge. The study attempts to discuss the organisational essential needs based on the maṣlaḥah ḍarūriyah concept, while previous studies discussed organisational needs based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In developing performance measurement, organisational performance is measured in a balanced manner. According to the concept of maṣlaḥah, not only financial factors but also worship, internal processes, talents, learning and customers define organisational needs. Thus, organisational needs are considered not only in terms of material factors but also in terms of spiritual (worship) factors.

Want to keep up with personal computing periodicals? It's not easy. One look at the magazine racks in any good bookstore will show you that there are too many PC magazines out there for any sane person to follow in their entirety. That's particularly true if you're a librarian or otherwise have a life.