Search results
1 – 10 of over 20000Sarah Wise, Christine Duffield, Margaret Fry and Michael Roche
The desirability of having a more flexible workforce is emphasised across many health systems yet this goal is as ambiguous as it is ubiquitous. In the absence of empirical…
Abstract
Purpose
The desirability of having a more flexible workforce is emphasised across many health systems yet this goal is as ambiguous as it is ubiquitous. In the absence of empirical studies in healthcare that have defined flexibility as an outcome, the purpose of this paper is to draw on classic management and sociological theory to reduce this ambiguity.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the Weberian tool of “ideal types”. Key workforce reforms are held against Atkinson’s model of functional flexibility which aims to increase responsiveness and adaptability through multiskilling, autonomy and teams; and Taylorism which seeks stability and reduced costs through specialisation, fragmentation and management control.
Findings
Appeals to an amorphous goal of increasing workforce flexibility make an assumption that any reform will increase flexibility. However, this paper finds that the work of healthcare professionals already displays most of the essential features of functional flexibility but many widespread reforms are shifting healthcare work in a Taylorist direction. This contradiction is symptomatic of a failure to confront inevitable trade-offs in reform: between the benefits of specialisation and the costs of fragmentation; and between management control and professional autonomy.
Originality/value
The paper questions the conventional conception of “the problem” of workforce reform as primarily one of professional control over tasks. Holding reforms against the ideal types of Taylorism and functional flexibility is a simple, effective way the costs and benefits of workforce reform can be revealed.
Details
Keywords
Atul Mitra, Nina Gupta and Jason D. Shaw
The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative assessment of the relationship between types of pay plans and several workforce‐level outcomes in 214 organizations. The plans…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative assessment of the relationship between types of pay plans and several workforce‐level outcomes in 214 organizations. The plans include pay that is skill‐based, job‐based, and market‐based. The types of workforce‐level outcomes include workforce flexibility, attitudes, membership behaviors, and productivity. The paper also assesses the relationship between the success of pay plans and workforce productivity/membership behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data from 214 organizations are used to test the hypothesized relationships using hierarchical regression analysis and partial least square techniques.
Findings
Results support a significant and positive relationship between skill‐based pay plans, workforce flexibility, and workforce attitudes. Skill‐based pay plans, when compared with market‐based pay plans, are found to positively relate to workforce membership behaviors, and workforce attitudes mediate this relationship. Similarly, workforce flexibility mediates the positive relationship between skill‐based plans and workforce productivity. The success of skill‐based plans depends on significant improvements in workforce productivity and membership behaviors. The fit between the pay plan and the facility's climate/culture moderates the relationship between workforce productivity and the pay plan's success.
Practical implications
The results indicate that skill‐based pay plans are superior for achieving several organizational and employee outcomes. The authors discuss the implications of these results for research and practice.
Originality/value
Limited comparative empirical evidence exists on the effects of different types of pay systems on organizational outcomes. The paper seeks to address this gap.
Details
Keywords
Naser Shekarian, Ronald Ramirez and Jiban Khuntia
Crisis response has emerged as a salient concern for firms in the onset of COVID-19. While research suggests that resilience is critical during such disruptions, there remains a…
Abstract
Purpose
Crisis response has emerged as a salient concern for firms in the onset of COVID-19. While research suggests that resilience is critical during such disruptions, there remains a need to examine how firms build resilience during evolving situations. This study focuses on resiliency created through operational flexibility and examines how firms developed resiliency to COVID-19 through an adaptation of three technology-based levers of flexibility: change in a firm's product and service offerings, the channel it uses for sales and the location of a firm's workforce.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a unique cross-sectional dataset generated from a survey administered by a reputable financial institution, from March 20 to June 20, during the inception of COVID crisis. This study uses ordinary least squares to analyze data from 6,076 firms across 20 countries.
Findings
Results indicate that flexibility through a combination of a change in a firm's product and service offerings, with movement to selling through a digital channel, had a positive impact on firm sales. However, flexibility through a combination of change in product and service offerings with workforce location changes had negative impacts. Robustness analysis indicates that negative impacts worsen in countries with higher digitization and in manufacturing and retail firms as compared to service firms, indicating the inflexibility of physical goods–based business models. Results highlight dimensions through which technology-based flexibility can take place and the benefits of flexibility on firm performance.
Originality/value
This study provides managerial insights into technology-based operational flexibility mechanisms that can be employed for building performance resilience during unexpected disruptions. Research findings inform firms facing supply chain challenges and inflation pressures of business today.
Details
Keywords
Lisa van Rossum, Kjeld Harald Aij, Frederique Elisabeth Simons, Niels van der Eng and Wouter Dirk ten Have
Lean healthcare is used in a growing number of hospitals to increase efficiency and quality of care. However, healthcare organizations encounter problems with the implementation…
Abstract
Purpose
Lean healthcare is used in a growing number of hospitals to increase efficiency and quality of care. However, healthcare organizations encounter problems with the implementation of change initiatives due to an implementation gap: the gap between strategy and execution. From a change management perspective, the purpose of this paper is to increase scientific knowledge regarding factors that diminish the implementation gap and make the transition from the “toolbox lean” toward an actual transformation to lean healthcare.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional study was executed in an operating theatre of a Dutch University Medical Centre. Transformational leadership was expected to ensure the required top-down commitment, whereas team leadership creates the required active, bottom-up behavior of employees. Furthermore, professional and functional silos and a hierarchical structure were expected to impede the workforce flexibility in adapting organizational elements and optimize the entire process flow.
Findings
The correlation and regression analyses showed positive relations between the transformational leadership and team leadership styles and lean healthcare implementation. The results also indicated a strong relation between workforce flexibility and the implementation of lean healthcare.
Originality/value
With the use of a recently developed change management model, the Change Competence Model, the authors suggest leadership and workforce flexibility to be part of an organization’s change capacity as crucial success factor for a sustainable transformation to lean healthcare.
Details
Keywords
This paper discusses the pressures on intermediate care services to provide a flexible approach to staffing, including a constantly changing policy context, winter pressures and…
Abstract
This paper discusses the pressures on intermediate care services to provide a flexible approach to staffing, including a constantly changing policy context, winter pressures and different service remits. It suggests three ways that managers can address the issue of flexibility: the adoption of flexible team structures, flexible worker roles and flexible employment structures.
Details
Keywords
Chowdhury Jony Moin, Mohammad Iqbal, A.B.M. Abdul Malek, Mohammad Muhshin Aziz Khan and Rezwanul Haque
This research aims to investigate how manufacturing flexibility can address the challenges of an ever-changing and unpredictable business environment in Bangladesh’s…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to investigate how manufacturing flexibility can address the challenges of an ever-changing and unpredictable business environment in Bangladesh’s labor-intensive ready-made garment (RMG) industry, which is underserved and situated in a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling, this study empirically evaluated the relationships between manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty and firm performance. The analysis utilized 320 survey responses from potential RMG experts, representing 95 organizations.
Findings
The study achieved a decision-making model for implementing manufacturing flexibility in the RMG industry of Bangladesh with acceptable model fit criterion. The research pinpointed that workforce flexibility plays the maximum mediating among different types of manufacturing in coping with demand and supply uncertainty in the RMG sector.
Research limitations/implications
The study made valuable contributions to theoretical and practical knowledge in the context of manufacturing flexibility in Bangladesh’s RMG and other underserved labor-intensive sectors in developing economies. It suggests that managers should shift from defensive and risky business strategies to more aggressive and proactive approaches by utilizing workforce flexibility resources adaptively to enhance manufacturing capabilities and align with dynamic market demand. Additionally, the study offers recommendations for future research to build upon its findings.
Originality/value
This study is unique in its approach because it presents a decision model for implementing manufacturing flexibility in a labor-intensive industry in a developing economy, specifically the RMG industry in Bangladesh, whereas previous research has primarily focused on high-tech industries in developed economies.
Details
Keywords
Michael Riley and Andrew Lockwood
In situations where a volatile product market meets an unstable labour market, as is often found in customer contact service operations such as the hospitality industry, there is…
Abstract
In situations where a volatile product market meets an unstable labour market, as is often found in customer contact service operations such as the hospitality industry, there is a need for the constant manipulation of labour supply to match labour demand. Functional workforce flexibility, where multiskilled staff are able to move from jobs in one department to jobs in another, presents an opportunity for solving part of the problem. Presents an approach to calculating the need for functional flexibility dependent on the identified discrepancies in labour demand and supply. Having identified the size of the need, a strategy needs to be developed for fulfilling that need. In implementing this strategy, two approaches are identified: planned whole job substitution and boundary loosening. While the planned approach offers the rational course for maintaining quality and productivity levels, there is evidence that an evolving approach may help to stabilize a highly volatile situation by breaking down barriers from within.
Details
Keywords
Jim Hutchison and Sidhartha R. Das
To examine and analyze the decision process that a firm undergoes for acquiring an advanced manufacturing system to obtain manufacturing flexibility for its operations.
Abstract
Purpose
To examine and analyze the decision process that a firm undergoes for acquiring an advanced manufacturing system to obtain manufacturing flexibility for its operations.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach is used to examine these decision processes. A conceptual contingency‐based framework from the literature is used to guide the analysis. The framework proposes that four exogenous variables – strategy, environmental factors, organizational attributes, and technology – guide a firm's decisions on choice and adoption of manufacturing flexibility, which has an effect on the firm's performance.
Findings
The analysis shows that these decisions are aligned with the various relationships in the framework. The framework therefore helps understand and explain the above decision processes. Further, the paper expands the concept of “fit” between the variables in the framework.
Research limitations/implications
Several research propositions are developed based on the findings of this study. The findings in this paper are limited to this case study only. The paper does not attempt to validate theory but applies it in the context of examining and analyzing a company's decisions.
Practical implications
The suggested relationships in the conceptual framework are found to be applicable in a business setting. Practitioners can use the conceptual framework to guide them in making decisions when acquiring advanced manufacturing systems to obtain manufacturing flexibility.
Originality/value
This case study captures richness and detail in the decision‐making processes of an individual firm that are missed by other types of research studies. It helps both academics and practitioners to gain a better understanding of these processes.
Details
Keywords
Post‐industrial predictions of a rapid growth in new technologyhomeworking have gained widespread currency to become part of theconventional wisdom. However the evidence…
Abstract
Post‐industrial predictions of a rapid growth in new technology homeworking have gained widespread currency to become part of the conventional wisdom. However the evidence, including primary research material, suggests that the claims for new technology homeworking, both regarding its extent and its alleged benefits, have been considerably overestimated. In particular, new technology homeworking by itself does not appear to open up opportunities for women to improve their position in the labour market; the demographic changes predicted for the 1990s may provide a better bet. Nevertheless, there is a danger in assuming that all firms apply the same strategy when employing homeworkers; at least three different variations can be identified and this has important implications for personnel managers. The overestimation of new technology homeworking stands in stark contrast to traditional homeworking where the extent has been considerably underestimated. This marginalisation of traditional homeworking stems in large part from the distortion caused by the conceptual split between private and public realms. The failure to find evidence to support the growth of new technology homeworking leads to a consideration of how the arguments may better be considered as rhetoric designed to advance a certain set of ideas – in particular that set associated with “privatisation” as a political ideology.
Details
Keywords
Paula Apascaritei, Marta M. Elvira and María Rodríguez-García
Resource orchestration theory proposes that firms need resources, capabilities, and horizontal and vertical alignment to achieve high performance. Thus, we investigate which…
Abstract
Purpose
Resource orchestration theory proposes that firms need resources, capabilities, and horizontal and vertical alignment to achieve high performance. Thus, we investigate which combinations of horizontal fit of resources (commitment-based HR systems for managers and nonmanagers) and capabilities (HR flexibility) together with vertical fit with business strategy (innovation versus cost leadership strategies) relate to superior performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Our study is based on a sample of 113 Spanish firms from which we collected data on commitment-based HR systems for managers and nonmanagers, HR flexibility, business strategy and performance. We employ a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze which configurations lead to firm performance.
Findings
The empirical analysis shows that both HR practices and policies (commitment-based HR systems) and HR capabilities (HR flexibility) need to be aligned for high performance. The path for performance is comprised of a combination of commitment-based HR systems for staff and HR flexibility and by the absence of an innovation strategy or commitment-based HR systems for managers, HR flexibility, and a cost leadership strategy. We also find four paths where performance relies on efficiently combining an innovation and cost leadership business strategy.
Originality/value
Our findings make three key contributions to the literature. First, we help elucidate multicausal relationships inside the black box of the “HR–performance” relationship for firm performance. Second, we study the vertical fit with business strategy by considering innovation and cost leadership strategies. Third, we analyze multicausal pathways, thus uncovering different combinations of resources and capabilities for performance.
Details