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1 – 10 of over 9000Thommie Burström and Timothy L. Wilson
– The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the role of requirement managers in new product development projects.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the role of requirement managers in new product development projects.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a case study of an industrial platform project. Sixty-eight persons were interviewed and project prerequisites and requirement specifications documents were studied. The roles of specific individuals and their formal role as requirement managers are reported.
Findings
The requirement manager's role fulfillment is performed through five major activities described as developing, anchoring, re-organizing, routinizing, and positioning. These activities are essential in order to manage working with a large flagship project.
Research limitations/implications
Because the research was based on a single case study, there are of course limitations. The findings in this study may therefore not be generalized, but merely suggest other areas of research.
Practical implications
This paper argues that functional roles should not be taken for granted. Even though significant efforts may have been performed in order to establish a new role within a project management setting, the process of establishing new work practices is complex. Managers should therefore investigate inter-functional integration on ongoing bases.
Originality/value
This paper provides important insights into aspects of requirement manager's ongoing project activities.
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Thommie Burström and Timothy L. Wilson
The purpose of this paper was to explore the relationship between projects and intrapreneurial self-renewal activities. In particular,the approach a specific firm has made to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to explore the relationship between projects and intrapreneurial self-renewal activities. In particular,the approach a specific firm has made to renew itself is examined through two lenses commonly used to analyze such efforts – as a platform project and as an intrapreneurship effort based on intrapreneurial ambidexterity.
Design/methodology/approach
An in-depth case study was conducted in a manner that the contextually sensitive,empirical research for which Nordic studies are known. The common denominator in these studies is a fascination on the practitioners. In other words,what the project managers say and do are of particular interest. Initially,68 in-depth interviews were performed,which were complemented by observations and secondary information.
Findings
The platform project approach recognized chief project managers and requirement managers as essential elements in development. Further,it suggested there was no obvious champion in the project,nor did slack resources appear as a prerequisite. On the other hand,an intrapreneurship insight provided appreciation for the processes that developed for implementation.
Practical implications
It is argued that,flagship projects as studied here,in particular,infuse parallel and collective activities since such projects call for significant organizational self-renewal.
Originality/value
Intrapreneurship tends to be neglected at the expense of entrepreneurship. This study focuses on the former in a Swedish environment in which a major firm bets its future. Observations are interpreted in terms of both platform project and intrapreneurship concepts. We present and define the concept of intrapreneurial ambidexterity.
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John Cheese, Abby Day and Gordon Wills
An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence…
Abstract
An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.
Nethmin Malshani Pilanawithana and Y.G. Sandanayake
Facilities Management (FM) is a dynamic profession, which supports core business functions by creating cost-effective and risk-free built environment aligned with the strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
Facilities Management (FM) is a dynamic profession, which supports core business functions by creating cost-effective and risk-free built environment aligned with the strategic business directives throughout the building life cycle. This study aims to investigate and position the Facilities Manager’s role during building life cycle based on the stages of RIBA Plan of Work 2013.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature survey and in-depth interviews with experts were used to investigate the role of a Facilities Manager at the different stages of RIBA Plan of Work 2013. The gathered data were analysed using content analysis technique to explore the role of a Facilities Manager.
Findings
Research findings assert that advising the Client on cost-effective building expansion options as a vital role of a Facilities Manager at Strategic Definition stage. Further, briefing the Client’s requirement is a foremost undertaking of a Facilities Manager at Preparation and Brief stage. During the Concept Design and Developed Design stages, Facilities Manager plays a key role in value engineering exercises to ensure value for client?s money and also prepares operations and maintenance strategies to be used at the In Use stage. Moreover, Facilities Manager must have a technical training on buildings, services and systems at Handover stage to manage them at the In Use stages.
Originality/value
The role of a Facilities Manager identified in this study can be used as a guide by the Clients and project teams in obtaining their services during the building life cycle to enhance building performance.
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The evolution of an increasingly systematic approach to management training, recruitment, appraisal and development has spawned an increasing interest in the nature of managerial…
Abstract
The evolution of an increasingly systematic approach to management training, recruitment, appraisal and development has spawned an increasing interest in the nature of managerial jobs as both a reference point towards which training and development may be pertinently oriented and a yardstick against which managers' performance and potential may be appraised. Any discussion of managers' training needs, potential, performance strengths and weaknesses, incentives and rewards or development needs is predicated on some idea, perhaps implicit, of what managers should be doing and, hence, some assessment of the extent to which managers are doing or could do it. But whilst managerial performance and potential have been variously investigated and measured, the question of what managers should be doing in their respective jobs has not been so systematically addressed. Certainly, there has been increasing use of managerial job descriptions as formal statements of managers' responsibilities, tasks and, perhaps, detailed activities. However, these “descriptions” often contain a heavy dose of prescription, not to say exhortation, and tend to be non‐behavioural, abstract and open to considerable interpretation. In particular, it is often difficult to deduce unambiguously from them which observable behaviours or performance indicators would be consistent with “doing the job” or, indeed, doing it well. Moreover, the content of managerial job descriptions tends to derive from limited sources — either the manager's immediate boss's beliefs about what the manager should be doing, or a process of negotiation between manager and immediate boss. Both of these approaches are at odds with the general recognition that managers' jobs are neither static nor neatly circumscribed, but lie at the intersections between shifting networks of organisational relationships. In short, there has not, hitherto, been a serious attempt to evolve, through a process akin to triangulation, accurate descriptions of managerial jobs as they are constituted by the expectations, demands and requirements of the managers' network, and then to use those descriptions as a yardstick for training, development, recruitment, appraisal and reward.
A striking feature of Jaques' work is his “no nonsense” attitude to the “manager‐subordinate” relationship. His blunt account of the origins of this relationship seems at first…
Abstract
A striking feature of Jaques' work is his “no nonsense” attitude to the “manager‐subordinate” relationship. His blunt account of the origins of this relationship seems at first sight to place him in the legalistic “principles of management” camp rather than in the ranks of the subtler “people centred” schools. We shall see before long how misleading such first impressions can be, for Jaques is not making simplistic assumptions about the human psyche. But he certainly sees no point in agonising over the mechanism of association which brings organisations and work‐groups into being when the facts of life are perfectly straightforward and there is no need to be squeamish about them.
Li Ma and Yongqiang Lu
The purpose of this study is to examine how construction project managers’ conflict management styles (CMSs) affect project team resilience from the perspective of social identity…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how construction project managers’ conflict management styles (CMSs) affect project team resilience from the perspective of social identity theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and collected paired data from 110 construction project managers and 474 employees in China. Based on the data collected, the authors tested the proposed hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis.
Findings
The results show that a project manager’s cooperative CMS positively affects team resilience, and a project manager’s competitive and avoidant CMS negatively affects team resilience. Team followership plays a mediating role in this relationship. The team power distance moderates the effects of a project manager’s cooperative and avoidant CMSs on team followership.
Originality/value
This paper enriches the existing literature on conflict management in construction projects and have potential guiding significance and application value for team resilience management practices.
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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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This paper seeks to discuss the roles and responsibilities of a metadata manager in collaborative digital projects.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to discuss the roles and responsibilities of a metadata manager in collaborative digital projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper describes the general requirements for metadata management, and introduces some scenarios in the practices of digital projects by the Rutgers University Libraries to support the generalized definition. A workflow of metadata management is illustrated.
Practical implications
With an explicit definition of the roles and responsibilities of the metadata manager, many other digital libraries that need to develop a new or optimize the existing workflow may find the Rutgers experience useful as a reference.
Originality/value
Very few papers have explored this topic, although the functions of metadata in the development of digital projects have been talked about extensively.
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