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1 – 10 of over 42000Selim Ahmed, Shatha Hawarna, Ibrahim Alqasmi, Dewan Mehrab Ashrafi and Muhammad Khalilur Rahman
This study aims to investigate the mediating role of lean management on the relationship between workforce management and value-added time in private hospitals. This study also…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the mediating role of lean management on the relationship between workforce management and value-added time in private hospitals. This study also investigates the direct influences of workforce management and lean management on the value-added time of the hospitals.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied a quantitative approach to obtain data from the private hospitals’ staff in Peninsular Malaysia. A self-administered survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 287 hospital staff using a stratified random sampling method. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was used to determine the internal consistency, reliability, validity of the constructs. The PLS-SEM method was also used to test the hypothesised research model via SmartPLS 3.3.4 version.
Findings
The findings of the study indicate that lean management has a direct and significant effect on the value-added time of private hospitals. The findings also revealed that lean management significantly mediates the relationship between workforce management and value-added time in private hospitals. The analysis of the results indicates that both workforce and lean management have a significant impact on the value-added time of the hospitals.
Practical implications
This study provides empirical contributions to enhance the quality of workforce management, lean management and value-added time. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into how effectively managing the workforce and providing guidelines to augment the lean management practices can ensure value-added time in Malaysian hospitals and the overall health-care industry. The lean management framework provides useful insights for the policymakers to understand the significance of workforce management, lean management on ensuring value-added time through reducing waiting times, unnecessary delays, generating a higher degree of patient safety, satisfaction and loyalty.
Originality/value
The research findings provide some essential indications for the health-care service providers to understand how the lean management approach can be implemented to enhance value-added time and how lean management can play a mediating role in creating a link between workforce management and value-added time in hospitals. This study also contributes to the theoretical and practical perspectives. The present study contributes to a better understanding of workforce management and lean management in health-care sectors from theoretical and practical perspectives.
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Sam K. Formby, Manoj K. Malhotra and Sanjay L. Ahire
Quality management constructs related to management leadership and workforce involvement have consistently shown strong correlation with firm success for years. However, there is…
Abstract
Purpose
Quality management constructs related to management leadership and workforce involvement have consistently shown strong correlation with firm success for years. However, there is an increasing body of research based on complexity theory (CT) suggesting that constructs such as these should be viewed as variables in a complex system with inter-dependencies, interactions, and potentially nonlinear relationships. Despite the significant body of conceptual research related to CT, there is a lack of methodological research into these potentially nonlinear effects. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the theoretical and practical importance of non-linear terms in a multivariate polynomial model as they become more significant predictors of firm success in collaborative environments and less significant in more rigidly controlled work environments.
Design/methodology/approach
Multivariate polynomial regression methods are used to examine the significance and effect sizes of interaction and quadratic terms in operations scenarios expected to have varying degrees of complex and complex adaptive behaviors.
Findings
The results find that in highly collaborative work environments, non-linear and interaction effects become more significant predictors of success than the linear terms in the model. In more rigid, less collaborative work environments, these effects are not present or significantly reduced in effect size.
Research limitations/implications
This study shows that analytical methods sensitive to detecting and measuring nonlinearities in relationships such as multivariate polynomial regression models enhance our theoretical understanding of the relationships between constructs when the theory predicts that complex and complex adaptive behaviors are present and important.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates that complex adaptive behaviors between management and the workforce exist in certain environments and provide greater understanding of factor relationships relating to firm success than more traditional linear analytical methods.
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Shila Monazam Ebrahimpour, Fariborz Rahimnia, Alireza Pooya and Morteza Pakdaman
Workforce planning must answer how many workforces, in which positions, and talents, and when each organization is needed. To find the requirements workforce, organizations need…
Abstract
Purpose
Workforce planning must answer how many workforces, in which positions, and talents, and when each organization is needed. To find the requirements workforce, organizations need to know the organizational position and talents pools. Clarifying the number of workforces required in each pool requires attention to workforce flows, including hiring, promotion, degradation, horizontal movement, and exiting the organization. It is a dynamic issue and must be addressed over several periods over a specific duration, which adds to the complexity. According to the talent management presented in this research, all the above complex questions are answered by applying the optimal control (OC) model according to talent management presented in this research.
Design/methodology/approach
This research presents a dynamic model by using a linear-quadratic optimal control model, which was solved by Pontryagin's maximum principle, to achieve an optimal number of workforce requirements for each of the positions of nursing services manager, supervisor, head nurses and nurses in the health sector according to the required talents in each position.
Findings
The results have shown that the target value of workforce numbers has been achieved in the planning period, and the validation test and sensitivity analysis justified the model by reaching the workforce planning targets.
Originality/value
This study provides a dynamic model for achieving quantitative workforce planning targets; the model presented in this manuscript has included an important qualitative factor, namely workforce talents. According to the authors' review, there is no comprehensive research devoted to workforce planning through optimal control models by attention to workforces skills.
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Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman and Nadine Ibrahim Fouda
This paper aims to develop a cultural diversity management (CDM) framework to enhance the performance of architecture design firms (ADFs) in Egypt.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a cultural diversity management (CDM) framework to enhance the performance of architecture design firms (ADFs) in Egypt.
Design/methodology/approach
A research methodology consisting of literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire was designed to achieve the abovementioned aim. First, literature review was used to investigate the concepts of globalization, international construction, diversity, diversity management (DM) and organizational performance. Second, four case studies were presented and analyzed. The first two cases explored the role of CDM towards enhancing the performance of ADFs, while the last two cases showed initiatives carried out by NGOs to integrate architects of color into their communities through training programs that enhanced their skills and uplifted their societies. Third, a survey questionnaire was carried out with a representative sample of ADFs in Egypt to investigate their perception and application of DM towards enhancing organizational performance. Based on the results of the above, the research developed a framework to enhance the performance of ADFs through managing culturally diverse workforces.
Findings
Literature review showed that diversity is not limited to race and gender; however, it includes other types such as disability, socioeconomic status, thinking style, culture, personality, life experience, religious and spiritual beliefs. Despite the benefits that diversity brings to ADFs such as stimulating creativity and increasing productivity, poor management of diverse workforce leads to dysfunctional conflicts, frustration and confusion. Results of case studies showed that ADFs that adopt a CDM approach succeeded in enhancing their performance. In addition, training initiatives carried out by NGOs succeeded to integrate architects of color into their communities and uplifting their societies. Results of data analysis identified the barriers to integrating diverse workforce in ADFs. These barriers include “Poor communication and spirit of collaboration between diverse workforce”, “Resistance to change”, “Lack of maintaining wage equity and promotion between different workforces based on gender”, “Poor organization culture” and “Lack of Senior Management involvement”. This necessitated taking action towards developing a framework to overcome these barriers to manage diverse workforces towards enhancing the performance of ADFs in Egypt.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the conceptual nature of the proposed framework, it has to be tested and validated to ensure its capability to overcome the barriers of managing culturally diverse workforces as an approach for enhancing the performance of ADFs in Egypt.
Practical implications
This research presents a practical solution to enhance the performance of ADFs in Egypt through managing cultural workforce diversity.
Originality/value
The research identified and analyzed the barriers that obstruct the integration of diverse workforces in ADFs. The research tackled a topic that received scant attention in construction literature with particular emphasis on Egypt. In addition, this paper proposed a CDM framework to enhance the performance of ADFs in Egypt, which represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the body of knowledge.
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Kayhan Tajeddini, Taylan Budur, Thilini Chathurika Gamage, Ahmet Demir, Halil Zaim and Ramazan Topal
This paper investigates the effect of diversity management on employees' innovative work behavior (IWB) through human resource management (HRM) and affective commitment (AC).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the effect of diversity management on employees' innovative work behavior (IWB) through human resource management (HRM) and affective commitment (AC).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 358 employees of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The hypothesized model has been evaluated using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Findings suggest that workforce diversity management directly and significantly affected HRM and AC. Furthermore, findings revealed that HRM significantly influenced both employees' IWB and AC, while AC had a significant positive influence on IWB. Moreover, concerning the indirect effects, AC and HRM significantly mediated the relationship between DM and employees' IWB.
Research limitations/implications
A cross-sectional single source dataset is used to evaluate the hypothesized model.
Originality/value
Grounded in the social exchange and institutional theories, this research fills the gap in the literature by addressing the “black box” of how workforce DM influences employees' IWB while examining the mediating role of employees' AC and firm HRM policies.
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Lerato Millicent Aghimien, Clinton Ohis Aigbavboa, Chimay J. Anumba and Wellington Didibhuku Thwala
The South African construction industry (SACI) is a huge employer of labour as the industry depends mostly on human resources to carry out its activities. However, the industry…
Abstract
Purpose
The South African construction industry (SACI) is a huge employer of labour as the industry depends mostly on human resources to carry out its activities. However, the industry has also been noted for its poor workforce management and lack of attention to human resource management (HRM) issues. Therefore, this study aims to assess the challenges facing the effective management of the construction workforce in South Africa with a view to improving HRM activities in the industry and improve overall service delivery through an effectively managed workforce.
Design/methodology/approach
A pragmatic philosophical view using a mixed-method research design was adopted. The study’s qualitative strand was achieved through a Delphi, whilst the quantitative strand was achieved through a questionnaire survey. In addition, descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean item score, Kruskal-Wallis H-test, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were adopted for data analysis.
Findings
With high reliability, construct validity and model fit indices, the study found that for effective HRM to be attained within construction organisations, careful attention must be given to issues surrounding the nature of the industry, unhealthy working environment, employee-related issues, diversity and working condition in the industry.
Originality/value
Whilst several studies have been conducted on HRM, there is a lack of studies on the major challenges facing effective HRM in the SACI. The findings also offer future research studies a good theoretical platform to build upon.
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The question of health and safety at work is a central issue for trade unions. In Britain it is an area of concern where there were important legislative initiatives in the 1970s…
Abstract
The question of health and safety at work is a central issue for trade unions. In Britain it is an area of concern where there were important legislative initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, although surprisingly this has received relatively little attention in the debates about trade unionism. This neglect results in an aspect of union activity about which little is known. Explores through a detailed longitudinal study of a middle‐range engineering firm, from the late 1970s into the 1990s, the ways in which trade unions organize and act on health and safety questions. Argues that it is almost “routine” that workers face dangers and hazards at work, a central feature of the work and employment experience of most workers. However, this is often difficult to deal with as individual issues, or as matters which are subject to collective consideration. On the one hand, workers often appear to accept the dangers and hazards they face. On the other hand, managements are preoccupied with questions relating to production and finance, rather than the day‐to‐day problems faced by workers. This tension suggests that the future wellbeing of workers in unionized workplaces lies not so much with legislative provisions and rights at work, but in education and the organizing ability of workplace unions, raising and addressing what often seem like individualistic problems in collective ways.
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Cristina Fernandes, João Ferreira and Pedro Mota Veiga
The purpose of this study is use a bibliometric analysis to explore the relational nature of knowledge creation in WFM in operations. Companies live under constant pressure to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is use a bibliometric analysis to explore the relational nature of knowledge creation in WFM in operations. Companies live under constant pressure to find the best ways to plan their workforce, and the workforce emangement (WFM) is one of the biggest challenges faced by managers. Relevant research on WFM in operations has been published in a several range of journals that vary in their scope and readership, and thus the academic contribution to the topic remains largely fragmented.
Design/methodology/approach
To address this gap, this review aims to map research on WFM in operations to understand where it comes from and where it is going and, therefore, provides opportunities for future work. This study combined two bibliometric approaches with manual document coding to examine the literature corpus of WFM in operations to draw a holistic picture of its different aspects.
Findings
Content and thematic analysis of the seminal studies resulted in the extraction of three key research themes: workforce cross-training, planning workforce mixed methods and individual workforce characteristics. The findings of this study further highlight the gaps in the WFM in operations literature and raise some research questions that warrant further academic investigation in the future.
Originality/value
Likewise, this study has important implications for practitioners who are likely to benefit from a holistic understanding of the different aspects of WFM in operations.
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Seyyed Amin Terouhid and Robert Ries
This paper aims to find out how construction organizations can achieve excellence and enhance excellence through knowledge and workforce management. The combination of knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to find out how construction organizations can achieve excellence and enhance excellence through knowledge and workforce management. The combination of knowledge and workforce management, referred to here as the People Capability, is the key area of concern in this study.
Design/methodology/approach
The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model of organizational excellence is used as the basis for organizational excellence assessment and system dynamics is used as the modeling tool. Scenario analysis is conducted to identify the enabling factors that are more significant for organizational excellence, as well as how these factors operate and interact.
Findings
Based on the outcomes of the model, human resource development and training is the most important enabling factor that enhances organizational capabilities. Both workforce management and knowledge management are key components of People Capability, and they play crucial roles in the performance of construction firms. There is a high degree of dependence on these two components. Human resource development and training affect all capability areas and are key to the effective implementation of capability building programs.
Originality/value
Organizations might have various options in choosing different policies, and those policies can be planned and expressed in different manners and scales. How can an organization determine which scenarios end up producing desired performance results? Simulation techniques, especially system dynamics, have been used to answer these types of questions due to their ability to model causal relationships among various system components. The results of this research can help construction organizations identify effective knowledge and workforce management policies and capability-building programs that improve their organizational capabilities.
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Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and…
Abstract
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.
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