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Contract management is an important activity in public procurement especially on executing development projects while aiming at value for money. On the contrary, reports from the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority show that funds have been wasted due to poor contract management practices hindering value for money achievement. Hence, the study aimed at assessing the contribution contracts management practices towards value for money achievement. Questionnaires and Interviews were used for data collection and findings revealed that contracts contained all the necessary conditions, contracts practices of time management, quality management and costs control were effective and resulted into value for money achievement. Therefore, value for money was achieved above average scale by considering qualitative measures and it was recommended that more efforts are needed to enhance supervision and enforce defect liability clause.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of public value in practice by applying Moore's (1995) strategic triangle as an analytical framework to study strategic management and management control practices in relation to public value.

The paper uses an interpretative longitudinal case study approach including qualitative methods of document studies and interviews between 2017 and 2019.

In the strategic triangle, the three nodes of authorising environment, public value creation and operational capacity are interdependent, and alignment is a necessity for a strategy to be successful. But this alignment is vulnerable. The findings suggest three propositions: (1) strategic alignment is vulnerable to management control practices having a strong focus on performance measurements, (2) strategic alignment is vulnerable to standardised management control practices and (3) strategic alignment is vulnerable to politically driven management control practices.

With the strategic triangle as a base, this paper tries to understand what kind of management control practices enable and/or constrain public value, as there has been a call for this kind of research. In this way it adds to earlier research on public value, to the growing interest in the strategic triangle as an analytical framework in analysing empirical material and to the request for more empirical studies on the subject. The strategic triangle also embraces political factors, government agendas and political leadership for which there has also been a call for more research.

The aim of this study is to examine how national cultural values influence and impact management practices and styles in the Sultanate of Oman. Administrative and managerial performance, especially in developing countries, is thought to be shaped to a large degree by traditional social values, which prevent managers from effectively implementing sound management processes.

This study uses empirical research to explore and determine the link between Oman’s cultural values and managers’ managerial practices and styles. The aim is to examine the correlations between the influence of cultural values on managerial practices and styles using Schwartz’s (1992) Value Survey, the Portrait Value Questionnaire and Managerial Style and Practice.

It was found that in Oman, cultural values affect the efficiency of managerial performance and lead to a limited interest in management theory and sound managerial practices.

This study was limited to managerial practices in Oman. Further study could include other developing countries in the Arabian Gulf States.

While management performance in developing countries has received wide attention during the past three decades, few studies have researched the area of management and managerial practices and styles in Omani organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perception of Lean management practices by public servants of a Higher Education Institution (HEI) and its influence on the organizational performance. The underlying assumption is that Lean management practices may have perceived even without a whole dissemination of the Lean Thinking way in the institution, and they exercise a positive influence on organizational performance.

A questionnaire of Lean management practices applicable to HEIs was developed and a survey was carried out in a public HEI in Brazil. A valid sample of 748 respondents was obtained.

The results demonstrate that some Lean management practices (leadership support and employee involvement, focus on the internal customers, long-term thinking, community services value, elimination of waste and continuous improvement) have a positive influence on the organizational performance of the studied HEI. These results extend the applicability and foster the initiation of Lean management practices in the public service scenario and HEIs.

This study supports HEI leaders and managers in developing and/or promoting better management practices to improve organizational performance. In addition, it promotes the advancement of Lean initiatives in the organizational environment of the HEI, allowing for a better quality to the “beneficiaries” of the services provided.

Despite the broad evidence of Lean in the manufacturing and industrial sectors, this study advances by exploring the perception of Lean management practices in the HEIs context and their influence on organizational performance. This paper also initiates and fosters the discussion of internal costumers and community services value as basic practices of an HEI.

This study aims to investigates the effect of three customer orientation components – customer information-processing, responsiveness and values and norms – on a firm’s decision to adopt environmental management practices. Consistent with the literature on strategy and industrial marketing, the authors also examine the moderating effect of marketplace characteristics.

The authors use a linear model on a sample of 4,324 French firms with ten or more employees.

Based on a large-scale survey of firms across industries, the results indicate that customer information-processing and values and norms directly contribute to the adoption of environmental management practices. Furthermore, the effect of customer information-processing is shown to be contingent on market competition.

The findings have direct practical implications. When managers recognize the importance and usefulness of customer orientation, they understand the need to formulate organizational strategies in terms of environmental management practices that reflect customer expectations. In addition, following the strategic fit approach, customer orientation should fit with the specific market environment to stimulate the adoption of environmental management practices. In other words, the findings are useful for managers, who can assess the specific environmental characteristics they are facing and align these with customer orientation to build competitive advantage.

The findings indicate that the different dimensions of customer orientation distinctly affect a firm’s decision to adopt environmental management practices. In this sense, the authors argue that they capture different facets of the customer orientation measure, which points to the importance of analyzing the dimensions of customer orientation separately. Furthermore, rather than analyzing aggregate measures of corporate social responsibility, the authors selected environmental orientation as a specific dimension, which has received less attention in the industrial marketing literature. Finally, the main findings mark an important contribution to the literature because they provide deeper insights into the conditions under which customer orientation dimensions drive the adoption of environmental management practices.

This paper aims to investigate the nature and extent of value management (VM) practice by professional quantity surveyors in South Africa. The survey explores practitioners' awareness and understanding of VM and the nature and extent of the use of VM techniques within their organisations.

A web‐based, online questionnaire survey is employed to establish VM practice by South African registered quantity surveyors. Descriptive statistics are used to analyse the survey response data.

The results suggest that, while VM (and more particularly its value engineering antecedent) is generally known among quantity surveyors in South Africa, it is less widely practiced. VM is seen predominantly as a cost reduction tool. This misperception, and the lack of awareness of the potential benefits of VM, must be remedied if quantity surveyors in South Africa are to provide clients with services that meet world's best practice standards. Quantity surveyors also need to know what those standards are.

Refresher courses in contemporary VM theory and practice are recommended, as well as exploration of the impacts on VM of other techniques such as risk, quality and environmental management.

The findings are important given the increasing globalization of construction services, especially given the international ties between designers, quantity surveyors and other built environment professionals.

This paper seeks to investigate the nature and extent of value management (VM) practice in the South African manufacturing industry. It aims to explore engineers' and designers' awareness and understanding of VM and the nature and extent of the use of VM techniques within their companies.

A web‐based, online questionnaire survey is employed to establish value management practice within the manufacturing sector. Descriptive statistics are used to analyse the survey response data.

The results suggest that, while VM (and more particularly its value engineering antecedent) is generally known among engineers and designers in the manufacturing sector in South Africa, it is less widely practised. VM is seen predominantly as a cost reduction tool. This misperception, and the lack of awareness of the potential benefits of VM, must be remedied if the South African manufacturing industry is to remain competitive. The industry needs to adopt best practice VM techniques and standards.

It has proved extremely difficult to obtain survey data from manufacturing organizations, resulting in a low response rate. While this is a limitation, the information sourced provides useful direction for future case study investigation.

Refresher courses in contemporary VM theory and practice are recommended, as well as exploration of the impacts on VM of other techniques such as risk, quality and environmental management.

Against a background of increasing globalization, the findings are important if the South African manufacturing sector is to remain competitive. The results provide pointers for future research using a case study method.

The paper's aim is to show three different styles local managers around the world use to hybridize global corporations' and local management practices and values.

The approach is qualitative research based on managers' stories.

The paper provides data of the styles of hybridization of management produced by local managers in Thailand, Mexico, and Israel of two global corporations headquartered in Sweden and the USA.

Through a focused inspection of 24 managers in three different countries (two offices in each country) this paper attempts to identify local styles of hybridization –obviously, further research is needed to confirm the findings of this research. Managers who were interviewed are in urban sites in Thailand, Mexico and Israel, senior managers with academic degrees in engineering or business, and they manage highly trained workers. The cultural processes this paper develops are most applicable to people like those interviewed

Recognizing the styles of hybridization shown in this paper can be of assistance for global corporations in setting the conditions not only for the transfer but also for the appropriate integration and adaptation of their management values and practices to the local.

The paper suggests seeing local managers of global corporations as acknowledgeable agents who do not absorb the corporations' management forms as they are but use different styles to integrate them in their own.

The purpose of this paper is to address the research-practice gap in management and advocate the need for an independent organization, called the evidence-based management (EBMgt) collaboration to facilitate generation and dissemination of knowledge that is rigorous, relevant, and actionable.

The authors use a theory-building approach to collaboration. They identify existing challenges in the research-practice gap literature and argue that EBMgt offers the most viable alternative to narrow this gap. They offer a theory of collaboration with supporting propositions that engages the generators, disseminators, and users of management knowledge in an ongoing sustainable collaboration toward EBMgt.

The authors envision evidence at the center of the EBMgt collaboration. They offer a process model of EBMgt incorporating a collaboration that ensures the fusion of rigor, relevance, and actionability of management knowledge toward the production of strong evidence that is of value to a decision maker. They suggest that the collaboration generate evidence in the form of a systematic review (SR) using a standard template and make it available online to management decision makers around the world in real time. They outline the parameters of the SR and offer details on the design of the Template.

The theory of collaboration brings together various competing ideas and recommendations made over the past few decades to close the research-practice gap in management. The theory can be used as a guideline to establish and maintain the operation of an EBMgt collaboration.

The authors offer details on the format and content of a standardized SR along with a template to execute it. They believe it would appeal to a practicing manager to know the state-of-the-art knowledge that applies to a decision that he or she is about to make in real time.

The work provides a theoretical platform for the idea of EBMgt collaboration that was not available before. The authors add value to the research-practice gap literature by addressing critical concerns including the identification of relevant research questions, evaluating and grading evidence, fostering communication between researchers and practitioners, and translating research to practicing managers. The integration of research and organizational knowledge in the form of an SR that provides decision support to a practicing manager is of significant value to the profession. The conceptualization of the collaboration, not as a research method but as a separate social system that links key management knowledge stakeholders together adds originality to collaboration research.

Value management is a conceptual process that ensures the use of alternative materials to increase the function, reduce time and eliminate unnecessary cost. This process spreads from when the client has given the brief to the used stage of the project. It involves gathering the professionals involved in the project by a value management facilitator for 40 hours of brainstorming and finding alternative materials to be used. Furthermore, the ways to avoid difficulty in the project are devised by looking critically into the brief and outline design, removing unnecessary costs found in the design or brief before the project comes to execution and achieving more functionality for the project while at the same time getting value for money. Australia experienced an improved economy with the implementation of value management into construction some years ago. This study is aimed at evaluating how value management is practiced in Australia and correspondent application of its tools on construction projects in Australia. This entails details relating to its application in the country's construction, history and methodology, the application of the practice, challenges faced, benefits and measures to enhance the industry. The study was rounded up with a conclusion to summarize the salient observations made during the study.