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1 – 10 of 306
Article
Publication date: 1 April 1985

Frederick W. Gluck

If corporate America's love affair with 1970s‐style strategic planning is not over, it is certainly on the rocks. Planning that relies on past experience, extrapolation, and…

Abstract

If corporate America's love affair with 1970s‐style strategic planning is not over, it is certainly on the rocks. Planning that relies on past experience, extrapolation, and incremental moves cannot meet today's challenges, such as unexpected competition, saturated markets, and changing technologies.

Details

Journal of Business Strategy, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0275-6668

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1994

Carol M. Lawrence and Robert W. Parry

This paper develops and tests a descriptive model of management accounting system choice through an empirical analysis of the adoption of innovative cost accounting systems in…

Abstract

This paper develops and tests a descriptive model of management accounting system choice through an empirical analysis of the adoption of innovative cost accounting systems in not-for-profit hospitals. The logistic regression analysis indicates that management accounting system design is impacted by organi zational objectives, technological complexity, and other features of the organizational control system. Descriptive statistics indicate limited use of management accounting techniques common in manufacturing firms, such as standard costing and variance analysis. A cross-lagged model suggests that implementation of an innovative management accounting system may be causally linked to decreasing operating costs.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Article
Publication date: 1 June 1991

Stephanie Newport, Gregory G. Dess and Abdul M.A. Rasheed

Managers need to be sensitized to the undesirable consequences of implementing plans that contain incongruent elements.

Abstract

Managers need to be sensitized to the undesirable consequences of implementing plans that contain incongruent elements.

Details

Planning Review, vol. 19 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0094-064X

Article
Publication date: 13 October 2014

Mirella De Lorenzo

– This paper aims to describe how performance management may inadvertently expose employees with a hidden mental illness to disciplinary procedures.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe how performance management may inadvertently expose employees with a hidden mental illness to disciplinary procedures.

Design/methodology/approach

It outlines how to manage possible cases of hidden mental illness to ensure HR specialists are providing valuable resources in this area, rather than pursuing a performance-management plan that may be inappropriate and/or ineffectual.

Findings

It highlights the importance of putting into place policies to deal with the high numbers of employees who make the conscious choice to keep their mental disorder hidden.

Practical implications

It explains that stigma and shame will often cause employees to remain silent about such illnesses, but when the symptoms of hidden mental disorders affect attendance and/or performance, the organization can consider adopting policies to deal with this area rather than ignoring it.

Social implications

It reveals that, on average, 20 per cent of employees attend work in any calendar year with a common mental illness.

Originality/value

It provides useful guidance on dealing with mental illness, which is often hidden.

Details

Human Resource Management International Digest, vol. 22 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0967-0734

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 May 2021

Fabrice L. Cavarretta

So far, the simplicity of heuristics has been mostly studied at the rule level. However, actors' bounded rationality implies that small bundles of rules drive behavior. This study…

Abstract

Purpose

So far, the simplicity of heuristics has been mostly studied at the rule level. However, actors' bounded rationality implies that small bundles of rules drive behavior. This study thus conducts a conceptual elaboration around such bundling. This leads to reflections on the various processes of heuristic emergence and to qualifications of the respective characteristics of basic heuristic classes.

Design/methodology/approach

Determining which rules – out of many possible ones – to select in one's small bundle constitutes a difficult combinatorial problem. Fortunately, past research has demonstrated that solutions can be found in evolutionary mechanisms. Those converge toward bundles that are somewhat imperfect yet cannot be easily improved, a.k.a., locally optimal bundles. This paper therefore identifies that heuristic bundles can efficiently emerge by social evolutionary mechanisms whereby actors recursively exchange, adopt and perform bundles of rules constitute processes of heuristic emergence.

Findings

Such evolutionary emergence of socially calculated small bundles of heuristics differs from the agentic process by which some simple rule heuristics emerge or from the biological calculation process by which some behavioral biology heuristics emerge. The paper subsequently proceeds by classifying heuristics depending on their emergence process, distinguishing, on the one hand, agentic vs evolutionary mechanisms and, on the other hand, social vs biological encodings. The differences in the emergence processes of heuristics suggest the possibility of comparing them on three key characteristics – timescale, reflectivity and local optimality – which imply different forms of fitness.

Research limitations/implications

The study proceeds as a conceptual elaboration; hence, it does not provide empirics. At a microlevel, it enables classification and comparison of the largest possible range of heuristics. At a macrolevel, it advocates for further exploration of managerial bundles of rules, regarding both their dynamics and their substantive nature.

Practical implications

In the field, practitioners are often observed to socially construct their theory of action, which emerges as a bundle of heuristics. This study demonstrates that such social calculations provide solutions that have comparatively good qualities as compared to heuristics emerging through other processes, such as agentic simple rules or instinctive – i.e. behavioral biology – heuristics. It should motivate further research on bundles of heuristics in management practice. Such an effort would improve the ability to produce knowledge fitting the absorptive capacity of practitioners and enhance the construction of normative managerial theories and pedagogy.

Social implications

Bundles of rules may also play a crucial role in the emergence of collective action. This study contributes to a performativity perspective whereby theories can become reality. It demonstrates how the construction of a managerial belief system may amount to the launching of a social movement and vice versa.

Originality/value

Overall, many benefits accrue from integrating the bundles of rules expressed and exchanged by practitioners under the heuristic umbrella. So far, in management scholarship, such emergent objects have sometimes been interpreted as naïve or as indicative of institutional pressures. By contrast, this study shows that socially calculated bundles may efficiently combine the advantages of individuals' reflective cognitive processes with those provided by massive evolutionary exchanges. In conclusion, the social calculations of small heuristic bundles may constitute a crucial mechanism for the elaboration of pragmatic theories of action.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 59 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 October 2004

Elaine Enarson and Lourdes Meyreles

This article provides an introduction and assessment of the English and Spanish literatures on gender relations in disaster contexts. We analyze regional patterns of differences…

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Abstract

This article provides an introduction and assessment of the English and Spanish literatures on gender relations in disaster contexts. We analyze regional patterns of differences and similarities in women’s disaster experiences and the differing research questions raised by these patterns in the scholarly and practice‐based literature. The analysis supports the claim that how gender is theorized makes a difference in public policy and practical approaches to disaster risk management. We propose new directions in the field of disaster social science and contribute a current bibliography in the emerging gender and disaster field.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 24 no. 10/11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1987

Betty A. Dobratz

This article explores the negative attitudes towards the United States that exist in present day Greek society. The anti‐US attitudes in Greece are greater than in other EEC…

Abstract

This article explores the negative attitudes towards the United States that exist in present day Greek society. The anti‐US attitudes in Greece are greater than in other EEC member countries and exist across various social and economic characteristics of the Greek population. Possible reasons for and sources of these attitudes are explored.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 7 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1992

JAY A. ISSA and RICHARD B. NELSON

A numerical analysis of the micromechanical behaviour of a granular material is described using a new program MASOM based on Cundall's discrete element method. In the analysis the…

Abstract

A numerical analysis of the micromechanical behaviour of a granular material is described using a new program MASOM based on Cundall's discrete element method. In the analysis the individual grains which make up the material are taken to be deformable 2D polygons of arbitrary size and shape. Contact forces between the grains are calculated according to Mindlin's solution for frictional contact between elastic bodies. The material in each grain is taken to be linear elastic but limited by the fracture strength of the material. Fracture is permitted along any one of a number of candidate fracture planes if an associated compressive load tending to split the gain reaches a critical level. Fragments of fractured grains are carried until they become too small to track using the explicit time integration algorithm used to advance the solution. The MASOM program is able to consider a number of different classes of elements and different types of contact between the various classes. Thus, in addition to the granular material the program can also model containers and loading devices. The program is used to simulate uniaxial and triaxial compression tests for geological materials. The results are shown to give results for stress‐strain and stress difference versus pressure which are in qualitative agreement with test data. The numerical results reveal a very complex micromechanical behaviour in granular materials, including highly variable and rather unstable load paths and a very inhomogeneous load distribution within a representative sample of the material. A video of the response of a typical frictional material to applied loads shows an interesting localized effect near sample boundaries involving crowding together of grains which cannot be observed using conventional static field plots.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 9 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 April 2009

Karin Tollin and Richard Jones

This paper aims to address two issues facing marketing management: firstly, the need to make marketing a more central function of the firm; and secondly to explore ways in which…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to address two issues facing marketing management: firstly, the need to make marketing a more central function of the firm; and secondly to explore ways in which marketing can be more innovative.

Design/methodology/approach

The logic of marketing management as practised by corporate marketing executives (CMEs) is investigated. Logics describe the sensemaking activities of managers which help explain the disparate ways in which marketing managers approach similar marketing problems. The paper develops a framework for analysing managerial decision making. The research applies a grounded theory technique and 15 personal in‐depth interviews are carried out with top managers in marketing (CMEs) in three financial services companies, three telecommunications and IT companies, and nine pharmaceutical companies.

Findings

The results suggest four main logics, i.e. performance, communication, stakeholder and innovation. These are then defined in terms of management and marketing capabilities.

Research limitations/implications

The paper develops a framework in which to examine the use of logics in marketing management. In the actual survey the authors examined only a relatively small sample of organisations in a few industries, but in considerable depth. The research does however give the basis for a more quantitative study to generalise the existence of these logics and investigate their links with company performance.

Practical implications

This paper gives important managerial insights into the ways in which managers' logics both limit and provide opportunities for managerial action. The findings will help managers become more reflexive towards the tacit assumptions they make about the business environment, the tasks that they undertake and the capabilities that they need to develop.

Originality/value

The paper represents a new and unique way of addressing marketing management. Management logics and sensemaking have been studied in the management literature but their repercussions for marketing managers have not been fully explored. The paper paves the way for further research into the role of marketing logics in influencing managerial action.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 43 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 October 2020

Nathanaël Betti and Gerrit Sarens

This paper aims to gain an in-depth understanding of how the internal audit function evolves in an increasingly digitalised business environment.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to gain an in-depth understanding of how the internal audit function evolves in an increasingly digitalised business environment.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on 29 semi-structured interviews with members of management committees and internal auditors based in Belgium.

Findings

The analysis reveals that a digitalised business environment affects the internal audit function in three respects. First, it impacts its scope. The agility of the internal audit planning and the required digital knowledge are expected to increase and information technology (IT) risks gain importance, especially cybersecurity threats. Second, the demand for consulting activities performed by internal auditors is higher and third, digitalisation modifies the working practices of internal auditors in their day-to-day tasks. New technologies such as data analytics tools are being implemented progressively in internal audit departments and digital skills are considered a critical asset.

Research limitations/implications

This research was conducted in the European Union and gathers opinions of members of management committees and internal auditors. Future research could focus on other internal auditing stakeholders in other legal contexts.

Practical implications

The internal audit function needs to integrate IT and data analytics skills. In addition, the internal audit function should develop consulting activities to help organisations deal with the digitalisation of the business environment.

Originality/value

The impact of digitalisation on the internal audit function and its effect on internal audit practices is an underexplored area.

Details

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1832-5912

Keywords

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