Search results

Errors are inevitable, resulting from the human condition itself, system failures and the interaction of both. It is essential to know how to deal with their occurrence, managing them. However, the negative tone associated with them makes it difficult for most organizations to talk about mistakes clearly and transparently, for fear of being harmed, preventing their detection, treatment and recovery. Consequently, errors are not managed, remaining accumulated in the system, turning into successive failures. Organizations need to recognize the inevitability of errors, making the system robust, through leadership and an organizational culture of error management. This study aims to understand the role of these influencing variables in an error management approach.

In this paper, the authors applied the methodology of a quantitative nature based on a questionnaire survey that analyses error management, leadership and the organizational culture of error management of 380 workers in Portuguese companies.

The results demonstrate that leadership directly influences error management and indirectly through the organizational culture of error management, giving this last variable a mediating role.

The study covers companies from different sectors of activity on a topic that is little explored in Portugal, but part of the daily life of organizations, which should deserve greater attention from directors and managers, as they assume a privileged position to promote and develop error management mechanisms. Error management must be the daily work of leaders. This study contributes to theoretical knowledge and business practice on error management.

Just think: about half the children in the schools the nation provides leave them at the earliest chance they get. We spend £2000 million a year on education, five per cent of the gross national product; we bend every effort to provide ‘roofs over heads’ in building programmes of £100 million a time; we take three years to train each new teacher; we debate the need, nay the inevitability, of a new Education Act; there are no fewer than five Ministers in the Department of Education and Science — and every year well over 300 000 boys and girls tell us in the most certain and unequivocal terms what we can do with it all. Of those who stay on, a third can stick it for only one year longer. It is customary in education to seek reasons for this failure in the children, their families, their backgrounds — even their with others, objectives which attracted middling support from the pupils. More important, only 47 per cent of teachers attached importance to helping towards a career and even fewer (33 per cent) to things of direct use to jobs. The report itself reflects the teachers' attitudes by expressing this conflict of view in terms of the ‘short term’ interests of the pupils and the ‘long term’ objectives of teachers. Well, it depends how you look at it, but one cannot get away from the conflict.

Changing manufacturing policy and manufacturing technology has had serious implications for production managers. A survey to identify the nature and extent of the impact of changes in manufacturing technology on the jobs of production or manufacturing managers shows that managers are concerned about the changing nature of their jobs and are increasingly dissatisfied with their roles. Their jobs are diminished but more stressful because they must maintain responsibility over a system over which they have little control. Yet they need a wider range of skills, e.g. people management and a broad knowledge of different subjects, to perform this role. The inevitability of change and the future directions in this area are discussed.

As the nation's manufacturing base continues to shed jobs, the role of services as an alternative source of employment has increasingly come into focus. There are those who see the service industries at the forefront of the fight against unemployment. There are others who dispute this inevitability because they see the recent growth in service employment as a temporary phenomenon, sparked off by a combination of exceptional events.

Management theory and practice place undue emphasis on vertical, superior‐subordinate relationships in organisations. Yet much interaction occurs horizontally, between departments such as marketing, finance, personnel and production. Interdepartmental conflict, in particular, is an underresearched issue and that which does exist tends to emphasise certain aspects at the expense of others. Relatively underemphasised elements of interdepartmental conflict are analysed here in terms of a conceptual model linking the variables in a chain of causality. Attention is drawn to such issues as the co‐ordinative and delegatory responsibility of general management, the intrinsic incompatibility of departmental objectives, overspecialisation and intra versus intergroup differentiation.

The recent spate of acquisitions, redundancies and CEO casualties ensure that change is an inevitability for many organizations. However, nearly two‐thirds of major change programs prove unsuccessful, and, according to Fortune 500 executives, the primary reason for this is not a lack of skill or resources, but resistance …

Having recognized the importance and inevitability of doctors becoming involved in the management of National Health Service (NHS) Trusts, the Leicester Royal Infirmary NHS Trust initiated its own in‐house management development programme for senior medical staff. Describes the programme and identifies some of the benefits already realized and its role in facilitating a shift in the management agenda from managers to doctors.

This paper aims to assess how prepared public bodies are for the transfer of born-digital records to the National Archives (TNA) of the UK in line with the reduction in the transfer rule from 30 to 20 years.

The change in the transfer rule means that records of UK public bodies will be transferred to TNA for permanent preservation at 20 years as opposed to 30 years old. This move, which has been described as a major change that is going to be introduced in a manageable and affordable way (20-year rule, The National Archives), will inevitably witness the transfer of born-digital records to the archives much earlier than would have been the case if the change in the transfer rule had not been made. This paper reports on research carried out in the winter of 2017 on the extent to which UK public bodies are prepared for the transfer of born-digital records to TNA. Research was based on a survey of 23 public bodies which included ministries, charities and non-departmental public bodies. The target population was predominantly public bodies that had the highest level of transfer of records to TNA. The justification for this lies in the fact that these bodies, amongst others, transfer the most records to TNA, thus it would be interesting to gain an insight into how prepared these relatively larger public bodies are with regard to born-digital transfer. The remaining public bodies were chosen randomly amongst non-ministerial departments. The primary areas under analysis are plans of public bodies for the transfer of born-digital records, processes for transfer to be undertaken such as selection, appraisal etc., the use of technology in sensitivity review and the trigger date for the transfer of records.

An analysis of the research findings found that while a few UK public bodies surveyed had transferred datasets within the framework of the TNA Government Datasets (NDAD) initiative or as part of an inquiry, only one public body had transferred other born-digital records to TNA. The findings also reveal that most public bodies are yet to plan for, or to adjust, their current archival processes to take into account the different mind-set and skills required for the transfer of born-digital records. The level of preparedness is therefore limited primarily because public bodies have yet to undertake a transfer of born-digital records to the archives. The research findings also revealed that public bodies had not as yet made adjustments or changes to current practice to take into account the issues relating to the processing of born-digital records prior to transfer.

The findings of the research at hand are based on a survey submitted electronically to twenty-three public bodies with the aim of assessing how prepared they are for the transfer of born-digital records to the National Archives (TNA). The survey was sent to 27 public bodies with responses received by 23 public bodies. The survey sent to these bodies comprises eight questions that were deemed to be important in the current digital landscape with regard to the processes involved in the transfer of records, beginning from their creation. Thus, an element of subjectivity exists with regard to the outcome of the research, as the public bodies chosen were guided in prioritising any issues about digital transfer through the questions posed. The research carried out is also limited in that it focuses primarily on ministerial departments (14 of the 23 surveyed) and also constitutes a very small sample of UK public bodies overall. However, the originality of the data obtained through the study carried out by far outweighs the limitations of the research methodology.

This paper highlights that the transfer of born-digital records through original research amongst the 23 public bodies surveyed is not widespread, and that processes and procedures specifically for the management of processes for born-digital records are yet to be implemented. The study concludes that long-term planning for the transfer of born-digital records is yet to be undertaken and that public bodies are more likely to deal with the issue when their digital records are closer to reaching the point of transfer.

Given the voluntary nature of our further education system, the reported decline in the number of students attending day and block release courses in recent years should generate not surprise, but a feeling of hopeless inevitability. For support for further education is being withdrawn as many parts of industry react to the general economic malaise afflicting Britain by recruiting fewer apprentices and/or insisting on a full week's labour from those traditionally released. It serves to remind us that education plays only a dependent role, the absence or presence of students being determined not by educational policy but by decisions reached within individual firms.