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This paper aims to find out how construction organizations can achieve excellence and enhance excellence through knowledge and workforce management. The combination of knowledge and workforce management, referred to here as the People Capability, is the key area of concern in this study.

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model of organizational excellence is used as the basis for organizational excellence assessment and system dynamics is used as the modeling tool. Scenario analysis is conducted to identify the enabling factors that are more significant for organizational excellence, as well as how these factors operate and interact.

Based on the outcomes of the model, human resource development and training is the most important enabling factor that enhances organizational capabilities. Both workforce management and knowledge management are key components of People Capability, and they play crucial roles in the performance of construction firms. There is a high degree of dependence on these two components. Human resource development and training affect all capability areas and are key to the effective implementation of capability building programs.

Organizations might have various options in choosing different policies, and those policies can be planned and expressed in different manners and scales. How can an organization determine which scenarios end up producing desired performance results? Simulation techniques, especially system dynamics, have been used to answer these types of questions due to their ability to model causal relationships among various system components. The results of this research can help construction organizations identify effective knowledge and workforce management policies and capability-building programs that improve their organizational capabilities.

Although there has been an increase in workplace studies on professional agency, few of these have examined the role of emotions in the enactment of agency at work. To date, professional agency has been mainly conceptualised as a goal-oriented, rational activity aimed at influencing a current state of affairs. Challenged by this, this study aims to elaborate the nature and quality of emotions and how they might be connected to the enactment of professional agency.

Data are collected in the context of a leadership coaching programme that aimed to promote the leaders’ professional agency over the course of a year. The participants (11 middle-management leaders working in university and hospital contexts) were interviewed before and after the programme, and the data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Findings showed that emotions played an important role in the leaders’ enactment of professional agency, as it pertained to their work and to their professional identity. The study suggests that enacting professional agency is by no means a matter of purely rational actions.

The study suggests that emotional agency can be learned and enhanced through group-based interventions reflecting on and processing one’s own professional roles and work.

As a theoretical conclusion, the study argues that professional agency should be reconceptualised in such a way as to acknowledge the importance of emotions (one’s own and those of one’s fellow workers) in practising agency within organisational contexts.

Alternative hypotheses for the personnel function are presented, based on findings from four case study organisations which have devolved personnel responsibilities from a designated personnel department to line managers. The views of line managers and employees are sought to assess the effects of these changes. The study finds that devolved responsibilities of personnel are formally geared to securing commitment from employees by promoting an integrative culture of employee management through line managers. In practice, though, we find little evidence that personnel has succeeded in catalysing such changes. The case study findings do not point to any clear evidence of a general increase in influence for personnel practitioners following devolution. Tensions exist between line managers and personnel and the function appears to be vulnerable to further contraction. The study concludes that prospects for personnel following devolution are at best uncertain.

The virtual organization is upon us, or so we are led to believe. No longer will we have to worry about finding enough space for so many workstations, as people will be sitting in cyberspace waiting either to send or receive their next communication. It will not matter where in the universe someone is, provided that they can communicate. People will be working in physical isolation, but this does not matter as they can, yes you’ve guessed it, communicate! There is no doubting that communicating is good and absolutely necessary, but it is quality of communication which is needed, not just any old garbled message. Are standards of communication deteriorating? The media by which we are sending messages are improving, of that there is little doubt, but it is the content and usefulness of this content which must be brought to question.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Health Manpower Management is split into five sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Management tools; Participation/roles; Types of change; Management Implementation.

This chapter promotes the call for more research and practice in promoting comprehensive parent involvement policies, practices, and procedures that honors and respects racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse parents and families, in particular those of Hispanic descent. Furthermore, this chapter serves as a guide not only for Hispanic parents and families but also for those schools, districts, and other providers that work directly with them and their children. A primary emphasis is placed on information useful for Hispanic parents and families with a child identified as gifted, advanced, or high ability.

Examines the human resource strategy undertaken at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. Gives the business content then goes on to consider the process and impact of work on line functions and the personnel department. Concludes with a list of areas of improvement indicated by the planning of the strategy.

Although extensive research exists regarding job satisfaction, many previous studies used a more restrictive, quantitative methodology. The purpose of this qualitative study is to capture the perceptions of hospital nurses within generational cohorts regarding their work satisfaction.

A preliminary qualitative, phenomenological study design explored hospital nurses’ work satisfaction within generational cohorts – Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1980) and Millennials (1981-2000). A South Florida hospital provided the venue for the research. In all, 15 full-time staff nurses, segmented into generational cohorts, participated in personal interviews to determine themes related to seven established factors of work satisfaction: pay, autonomy, task requirements, administration, doctor–nurse relationship, interaction and professional status.

An analysis of the transcribed interviews confirmed the importance of the seven factors of job satisfaction. Similarities and differences between the generational cohorts related to a combination of stages of life and generational attributes.

The results of any qualitative research relate only to the specific venue studied and are not generalizable. However, the information gleaned from this study is transferable and other organizations are encouraged to conduct their own research and compare the results.

This study is unique, as the seven factors from an extensively used and highly respected quantitative research instrument were applied as the basis for this qualitative inquiry into generational cohort job satisfaction in a hospital setting.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.