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Faced with declining government funding support and rising student loan debt, recently timely graduation in higher education has become a focal point of discussion at many institutions, particularly public universities. Timely graduation requires a student to successfully enroll in and complete a set of required and elective courses, the relationship of which is bound by the courses’ prerequisite requirements. However, due to the fact that class capacity is oftentimes limited and wrongly timed, many students find it challenging to stay on track. A well-structured degree roadmap that takes all factors into consideration and specifies the right courses to take by semester will better guide students’ course selection and thus increase their chance of earning their degrees within the four-year time window. Additionally, it will also allow administrators to do better capacity planning, and hence increase course accessibility to students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this research, some operational techniques such as line balancing and simulation are applied to restructure and improve degree roadmaps, and assess the resulting outcomes. Some innovative methods are proposed to improve the processes on which students proceed to degree.

The results based on historical data that contains millions of student records spanning over eight-year time window demonstrate that the improved degree roadmaps can substantially increase students’ chance of completing the degree in a four-year time window. The research findings provide university administrators with cost-effective solutions.

This research breaks a new ground in literature due to its unique approach and focus. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the first attempts to systematically study the impact of degree roadmap on timely graduation. This research focuses on finding solutions that are within the institution’s control, hence the proposed solutions are implementable and will provide university administrators with new tools and perspectives to enhance student success.

Resource allocation is an important area of strategic planning in any organization, including higher education. In comparing two case examples of a college's efforts in shared governance in allocating budget to its five departments, the purpose of this paper is to show the importance of a college's awareness and understanding of team behavioral mindsets and contextual factors when practicing continuous improvement each time it applies shared governance.

The authors propose five models that represent five distinct behavioral mindsets. The authors examine the fit of real data based on two case examples, and then identify and compare the behavioral mindsets and possible coalition formed in each case.

The results show the type of behavioral mindset evolves over time, and the contextual factors such as changes in the macro-environment, the composition of decision makers, and their personalities, play an important role in shaping the final outcome. Continuously monitoring and learning, which leads to a more thorough understanding and awareness of the changes in contextual factors, is imperative.

Team decision making involving resource allocation is a critical problem in higher education when applying shared governance. A clear understanding of the type of behavioral mindset exhibited in the process and its causes is critical. The paper proposes a model that can help higher education administrators identify the behavioral mindset. In addition, the authors find support from established theories for the evolution of team behavioral mindsets in a college's budget allocation.

This paper aims to: provide theoretical analysis and empirical study on the relationship between organizational socialization and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); analyze the mediating role of organizational identification in their relationship; and draw from both of these to suggest practical implications to organizations aiming to effectively socialize employees, and for employees themselves.

First, the paper reviews the literature regarding organizational socialization, OCB and organizational identification. Second, it develops a theoretical model linking organizational socialization, organizational identification and OCB, and then proposes a series of research hypotheses. Third, drawing on samples of seven high‐tech manufacturing enterprises in China, it tests hypotheses based on a series of measurement and statistical analysis.

Organizational history, language, values and goals socialization are positively related to OCB and organizational identification. Further, organizational identification fully mediates the relationship between language, values and goals socialization and OCB, and partially mediates the relationship between history socialization and OCB.

The cross‐sectional design prevented the making of causal statements. Data are from employees' self‐report, giving rise to concern about possible common source bias.

The paper explores the relationships between organizational socialization and OCB, and proposes and tests the mediating role of organizational identification.

As a multinational corporation (MNC) implements a new innovation campaign at its worldwide operations, varying degrees of success stories are reported. The extent of how an innovation campaign and methodology can be transferred from its corporate office to its overseas operations has been the subject of considerable debate. Implementing an innovation methodology such as the total quality management (TQM) can be challenged by the organizational culture unique to each operation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational culture stemming from national culture and TQM implementation performance.

In total, 186 managers of MNCs are surveyed in their cultural orientations and TQM implementation experiences. The survey result is analyzed by regressing cultural elements on TQM elements.

Our result suggests that an organization's TQM practices are significantly influenced by the organization culture. However, each dimension of organization culture is related to TQM in different fashions. For instance, power distance influences all the TQM elements, but masculinity has positive impact on business performance of TQM practice only.

Our findings may assist MNCs in explaining varying success stories of quality management implementation efforts. Furthermore, MNCs can focus their efforts towards improving certain organizational culture that is more significantly related to a certain quality management element.

No previous research has reported on how organizational culture stemming from national culture affects quality management methodology implementation.

The study aims to explore and develop a smart route planning system for the cross-docking delivery operations of a large supermarket chain using an action research (AR) approach and assessing through a design science research (DSR) lens.

This study took a problem-solving AR (PAR) approach toward the delivery operational issue of the case firm. The research process has accorded with the solution incubation and the refinement phases defined by a DSR framework. An intervention-based research framework for DSR is developed to assess the validity of this study as a DSR research and derive mid-range theories.

Dramatic operational and financial improvements were achieved for the case firm. Significant and unintended environmental and social benefits were also found. A design proposition (DP) and several mid-range theories are proposed as an extension of AR research to DSR research.

A problem-solving DSR research can be better assessed by the intervention-based DSR framework developed in this study. DSR studies should be encouraged for both practical and theoretical advancement purposes.

A challenging business problem-solving study can be tackled effectively through an industry/academic collaboration taking a PAR approach to deliver substantial values and organization transformational results.

Drivers and store associates are safer with smart delivery operations in the case firm.

There are still limited PAR design science case studies in the supply chain/logistics research literature. The research experience and findings gained from this study provide more insights toward how this type of research can be conducted and assessed.

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors determining collaborative innovation effect of manufacturing firms in emerging economies.

Based on a survey of 1,206 Chinese manufacturing firms and using structural equation modelling, this study explores the factors determining the effect of collaborative innovation among manufacturing firms (namely, internal capabilities, government policies, collaboration mechanisms and social networks) and examines the relationship between collaborative innovation effect and innovation performance.

The study finds that there are significantly positive relationships between firms’ internal capabilities, government policies, collaboration mechanisms and social networks and collaborative innovation effect among firms.

These findings reveal that policymakers should create an effective institutional culture and market environment to facilitate firms’ collaborative innovation.

This paper draws on the resource-based view of firms and contributes to understanding of how the development of factors determining firms’ collaborative innovation effect can improve innovation performance. This study extends established frameworks on collaborative innovation in relation to four dimensions, namely, firms’ internal capabilities, government policies, collaboration mechanisms and social networks, uniquely identifying the limits of specific dimensions. Moreover, this study addresses government policies and “Guanxi culture” specific to China that provide new insights into how firms’ collaborative innovation is improved from the perspectives of business–governmental relations and social networks.

This paper aims to provide an introductory overview of internal business intelligence (BI) and the role that technology plays in its management and exploitation. BI represents the tools and systems that play a key role in the strategic planning process of a corporation, allowing the integration of applications, databases, software and hardware essential to users and enabling the analysis of information to optimise decision-making.

In reviewing the existing literature, this paper examines the core components, current trends and operational issues of a typical internal BI system architecture. The implications of these trends and their effects on business processes and culture are also explored.

The successful implementation of an internal BI system should include the core components and address operational issues, whilst also providing meaningful output to the organisation. It is contended, however, that to be truly successful, the internal BI system must be embedded within organisational processes and be adaptable to changing technologies, allowing the exploitation of the organisation’s internal BI.

This general review is the first to provide a high-level overview of internal BI and explores the role of technology in the management and exploitation of internal BI.

After the Collective Forest Tenure Reform (CFTR) in China, the enthusiasm of farmers for forestry management is stimulated. However, the forest tenure security varies among farmers, making the research conclusions of its impact on forestry management efficiency inconsistent. Based on the survey data of 1,627 households from the collective forest regions in 6 provinces of China in 2017, this paper not only discusses the differences of farmers' forestry management efficiency after the reform, but also further explores the heterogeneous impact of forest tenure security on forestry management efficiency in combination with different forest management types.

This study employed the stochastic frontier production function model to measure the forestry management efficiency of farmers. Then, Tobit models were used to discuss the influencing factors of farmers' forestry management efficiency.

The results demonstrate that the improvement of farmers' forest tenure security can effectively improve forestry management efficiency, but the effect is affected by forest management types. For farmers who manage economic forests and non-timber forests, safe tenure promotes the forestry management efficiency; while for those who manage ecological public welfare forests, tenure security plays an opposite role.

Therefore, satisfying farmers' differentiated demands for forest tenure according to forest management types to improve forest tenure security and further refining supporting policies of collective forestry reform is of great significance to improve the efficiency of farmers' forestry management in collective forest regions.