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Research on performance management, as it applies to public sector organizations, has been addressed most often from a static perspective. A process-oriented view on performance is undertaken through use of perceived obstacles, garnered through two large surveys of U.S. government managers, to infer the adaptive paths federal agencies have followed. By applying a learning-based model founded on March’s framework of exploration and exploitation, the ideal-typical ways that public organizations adapt to a performance initiative can be distinguished, opening a window into the processes such learning entails. Structural equation modeling provides the statistical capacity to interpret exploration and exploitation as cohesive paths. Exploratory adaptation appears to have been largely counterproductive, as the obstacles associated with this dynamic indicated a roadblock rather than a path forward. But exploitation had the opposite effect, as its associated obstacles corresponded with greater use of performance measures for management activities and enhanced results orientation.

The system of information technology (IT)-oriented resources and processes that organizations need to develop to achieve operational agility remains unclear. The study research seeks to extend existing competency literature by incorporating the unique contextual nuances of the relationship between IT capabilities and operational agility.

Using a multi-method approach, this paper presents a theoretical framework of IT-enabled operations strategy that conceptualizes the role of IT capability in leveraging resources and processes for operational agility. Drawing on operations and information systems research, the authors advance that IT enables operational agility through two dimensions. From the perspective of a resource-based operations strategy, the authors explore the role of IT in resource-leveraging activities by investigating the nonlinear relationship between IT infrastructure and IT reconfiguration. From the perspective of a process-oriented operations strategy, the authors explore the role of IT in process-enhancing activities by investigating the nonlinear relationship between IT coordination and IT integration.

The study results, based on a sample of 113 organizations in Europe, Asia and North America, show that the interaction between IT infrastructure and IT reconfiguration positively influences operational agility, hence showing complementarity between the two constructs, while the interaction between IT coordination and IT integration negatively affects operational agility, hence indicating substitutability between the two constructs. A series of 62 interviews and a case study of Carrefour were further conducted to validate the field survey's results and to provide a finer grained explanation of the research model and quantitative findings.

The study findings offer an alternative explanation of the inconsistent relationship between IT capability and operational agility.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the practice of new principal coaching in schools from the coaches’ perspective.

Six coaches of new principals were interviewed over a one-year period. Through the use of a qualitative, constant-comparative approach, the participants’ voices were used to discover their views. Data analysis employed emergent coding (Creswell, 2008; Denzin, 2005; Glaser and Strauss, 1998; Spradley, 1979). The study took place in the San Francisco Bay Area, a linguistically and ethnically diverse area, in the state of California, USA.

Thematic analysis of interview data from principal coaches revealed a process-oriented focus within principal coaching as a primary finding. Process-oriented coaching, rather than specific, skill-focussed content, was the main mechanism coaches used to support new principals.

Findings are limited to the sample of principal coaches used for this analysis, although there are potential applications to similar school settings in other locations. Researchers are encouraged to examine new principal coaching in other contexts.

The results of this inquiry point to the importance of process skills in new principal coaching, suggest the need for new approaches in principal mentoring programs, and call for further research on specific process tools in coaching to promote reflection and inquiry.

The paper identifies process-oriented coaching as a valuable support mechanism for new principals, particularly during their first year in the role.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of managerial performance in the success of men‐owned businesses (MOB) and women‐owned businesses (WOB) for Canadian and Israeli entrepreneurs.

A process‐oriented approach, a relatively overlooked perspective in this field, was used for this assessment. The methodology used was based on two national samples from Canada and Israel (n=235) which included mostly members of a private business networking organization. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents; only entrepreneurs with at least one employee were included.

Multilevel analyses revealed that gender is significantly associated with some managerial functions, but except for the business longevity – it is not directly associated with measures of business success; nationality is associated with two measures of business success: turnover and growth. Women entrepreneurs, both Canadian and Israeli, ranked significantly higher in some functions of their managerial performance compared to their male counterparts.

This study's main implications are in deciphering the major role of managerial performance and nationality and the relatively marginal effect of gender in business success measures, implying that the gender gap in successful entrepreneurial businesses is decreasing. These findings can become foundations for better understanding broader entrepreneurship questions and practice‐based researched endeavors.

This paper's main contribution is in the identified need for developing training and education programs for entrepreneurs in the areas of managerial skills and practices; as well as in opening future avenues for cross‐national assessments of a process‐oriented perspective in these areas.

The purpose of this paper is to explore notions of career success from a process-oriented perspective. The authors argue that success can be usefully conceptualized as a subjectively malleable and localized construct that is continually (re)interpreted and (re)shaped through the interaction between individual agency and macro-level structures.

The paper employs a qualitative methodology drawing on 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female academics from eight countries in the Arab Middle East.

Findings of this study provide an empirical validation of the suggested Career Success Framework and moves toward an integrative model of objective and subjective career success criteria. More specifically, the findings showed that women's definitions of success are: first, localized in that they capture considerations relating to predominant institutions in the region (i.e. family and gender ideology); second, subjectively malleable in that they capture women's agency embedded in specific macro-level structures; and finally, process oriented in that they reflect a dynamic interaction between the structure agency as well as the subsequent actions, strategies, and behaviors women adopt to alleviate tension and reach their personal notions of career success.

The authors suggest that there may be value in customizing human resource management policies in the region around the salience of family and community service. Moreover, organizations can play a pivotal role in supporting women to work through the experienced tensions. Examples of such support are mentoring programs, championing female role models, and designing corporate social responsibility initiatives geared toward shifting mandated gender structures in the region. Finally, the authors argue that organizations could benefit by supporting women's atypical patterns of career engagement to allow for interactions with wider circles of stakeholders such as the community. This requires organizations to rethink their career success criteria to allow for the integration of non-traditional elements of career.

Adopting a more process-oriented view of career success avoids reification by drawing attention to local macro-level structures as well as individual agency. It also suggests that existing norms for how “success” is understood are only one element in a wider process of what it means to be “successful”, thereby opening space for more diverse and localized conceptualizations.

This paper provides a more process-oriented consideration of career success, highlighting the importance of understanding how perceived tensions shape an individual's behaviors, actions, and career strategies. The value of this contribution is that it allows us to better understand the complex interaction of structure and agency in shaping an individual's notions of career success.

This study analyzes in-depth how knowledge-intensive small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can achieve higher new product development (NPD) process performance in the epidemic era and examine the internal development mechanism of knowledge-intensive SMEs in the process of continuous digital transformation.

This issue is tested with partial least squares on data collected via a survey conducted from November 2021 to February 2022. The sample comprises 487 knowledge-intensive SMEs operating in China.

The results indicate that one form of cross-functional ambidexterity, market development strategy (MDS), plays an important role in process performance from an inside-out financial perspective and an outside-in customer perspective. Simultaneously, product innovation efficiency (PIE) mediates the relationship between MDS and the above results. Big data analytics capabilities (BDACs) positively regulate the relationship between MDS and PIE.

The authors do not consider other contingency factors. Future research should introduce influential factors such as leadership and competitive intensity to further distinguish the effects of MDS on NPD process performance.

The study findings offer suggestions to help knowledge-intensive SME managers better manage their NPD process by making better use of their limited resources in developing countries such as China.

This study is one of only a few to adopt a process-oriented perspective to specifically examine how one form of cross-functional ambidexterity, MDS, impacts knowledge-intensive SME process performance in the epidemic era. This study also extends the theoretical framework of cross-functional ambidexterity to BDAC research.

Regardless of who or where we are and when we get sick, we expect healthcare to make us well and to handle us and our information with care and respect. Today, most healthcare institutions work separately, making the flow of patient information sub‐optimal and the use of common standards practically unheard of. The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the use for standards to improve information security in process‐oriented distributed healthcare.

The paper introduces a real‐life case which is analysed to highlight how and where standards can and should be used in order to improve information security in process‐oriented distributed healthcare.

In total, 11 flaws or problems in information security and process‐orientation are identified. From these, six changes are suggested which address how information is handled, and how organizational routines should be standardized.

The case setting is Swedish healthcare, but problems can be shared across international borders. The purpose is to highlight the issues at hand.

If suggested changes are implemented, healthcare processes will be more streamlined and focused on patients. Routines will be standardized and uncertainties thus removed in terms of how to act in certain situations.

Healthcare and academia has yet to address both document and process issues concerning standardization in distributed healthcare. There are also few actual cases from a patient perspective. This paper provides lessons learned from a real‐life case, where results may impact how standardization is addressed in healthcare organizations.

This work explores the potential benefits of aligning the strategic planning process with a BPM program in a clinical research center (CRC). The purpose of this paper is to define a process for executing strategic planning oriented towards the promotion of a BPM program.

The method applied is action research. This allowed the solution of a practical problem and at the same time the proposition of a new approach to promote BPM in alignment with strategy, which was synthesized in the model presented.

The analysis and structuring of the strategic planning process, with the assessment of the as-is situation, were adequate as a preparation step for the first cycle of a BPM program in the CRC. Based on lessons learned along the research project, a model was proposed for the strategic planning process oriented towards promoting BPM.

The model was conceived from a single application at a CRC, through a cycle of action research. This is one of the limitations of this work. The model was not yet sufficiently tested in other contexts. This represents opportunities for future research.

The evaluation step in the action research cycle revealed that the organization in focus was satisfied with the results. New management practices in the organizations in focus were implemented as a result of this work.

Process improvement initiatives are a novelty in the CRC context, and this work may serve as a reference for CRC managers seeking to improve overall performance. The proposed model in this work indicates that a BPM program should start with strategic planning. An initial assessment of the as-is situation of the organization in focus was performed based on the analysis of the undesirable effects in the organization’s management practices, using a technique of the Theory of Constraints. The use of this technique facilitated the identification of solutions to the root causes identified in the assessment. The level of the assessment was deeper in comparison to results obtained with traditional tools used in strategic planning processes. The assessment supports the definition of actions oriented to solving the majority of the management dysfunctions of the organization in focus.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the extent to which corporate strategy is reflected in lower managerial levels, and problem addressed by the author has been analysed with reference to a functional as well as a process-oriented system.

This paper is empirical in nature, as it refers to results of a survey conducted in 30 Polish enterprises. The author’s attention has been focussed on identification and analysis of the actions comprising implementation of a strategy on different levels of management, with particular consideration of the process level.

Based on the measurements undertaken by the author, it was established which methods were most frequently applied for the sake of strategy implementation, the existing barriers were highlighted and the correctness of the strategy deployment on the strategic, the tactical and the operating level was assessed. It was also assessed to what extent the strategy becomes reflected on the level of key processes.

The results obtained are, in the first instance, legitimate with regard to large and medium-size organisations, and second, to businesses which have matured in the scope of strategic management and process management.

The practical aspects addressed by the author are linked with identification of the most problematic obstacles encountered in strategy implementation as well as the solutions proposed for their elimination.

The paper provides an innovative solution for studying the degree of successful strategy implementation in a functional as well as a process-oriented system. The research results presented in the paper are up-to-date and reflect the latest trends observed in the enterprises examined.

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review that aims to provide insight into the characteristics and effectiveness of supply chain visibility (SCV), as well as to identify metrics that capture these aspects in business processes.

A systematic review of the supply chain literature is conducted to identify the characteristics and the effectiveness of SCV. The synthesis of SCV effectiveness and its metrics are based on the process-oriented approach which relates the effectiveness of SCV to improved business performance.

This study reveals that the characteristics of SCV can be captured in terms of the accessibility, quality, and usefulness of information. The benefits of SCV are found to extend beyond improvements to operational efficiency of business processes or to the strategic competencies of an organization.

This study underlines that clear agreements between all players involved in the SC can help to solve problems caused by information completeness (type and amount of information), and unlock the full potential of SCV projects.

By using a process-oriented approach, this review provides a comprehensive explanation of the functions of SCV, as well as its first-order effects, in terms of automational, informational, and transformational characteristics.