Search results

Top management support is recognized as the most critical factor for the success of large information system (IS) projects. However, getting this support is often difficult, because top management has multiple priorities and one has to compete with others to obtain such support. Political maneuvering is thus an integral and necessary part of the process of obtaining top management support. In this chapter the authors review current research on this topic and organize and synthesize our findings into a framework. The authors then propose four specific strategies which can be used to obtain top management support, including the following: (1) social capital, (2) social engagement, (3) rational persuasion, and (4) exchange strategies. While the authors argue that all four strategies should be applied, the specific circumstances in which they should be applied vary. A two-stage process is proposed that identifies the appropriate criteria for determining the most appropriate strategy. The criteria are: (1) the type of top management support needed (i.e., durable vs immediate) and (2) the level of top management-project team trust (i.e., high vs low).

This study investigates the relationship between lean manufacturing practices, management accounting and performance measurement (MAC & PM) practices, organizational strategy, structure, and culture, and facility performance. We extended past research by examining the relationships between lean manufacturing, MAC & PM practices and performance in a broader organizational context. Our study was performed using survey data provided by managers and executives at 368 facilities that had contacted the Shingo Institute for information or that had entered a Shingo Prize competition. Consistent with past research we found a significant positive association between lean manufacturing practices and lean MAC & PM practices. We found that greater employee empowerment, use of process performance measures, and use of lean accounting practices were driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. We also found that changes in organization structure to support lean are driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by lean manufacturing practices. Change toward lean culture, on the other hand, is driven by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. Further, we found that emphasizing process performance measures does not reduce emphasis on results performance measures and emphasizing results performance measures leads to improved financial performance. Process and results measures are being used in tandem and value stream costing has not replaced traditional accounting. The results of our study provide important insights for managers of companies engaged in lean transformation and for academics who teach or research lean accounting.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

We study the decision-making process behind business model change, focusing specifically on the tactics managers employ to gain support for such changes. We first argue for the prominent role of middle management in business model change, and second, we revisit the literature on issue selling and championing as they may apply to business model change decision-making. We subsequently analyze the case of a business model change initiative in the Dutch water authority sector, revealing two specific tactics that middle management employed to obtain top management’s agreement to business model change: leveraging external agreements and continuously informing top management. We discuss how these findings extend and in some ways suggest a rethink of the literature on organizational change. Finally, we describe the specificities of business model change that distinguish it from other types of change. In sum, this paper demonstrates the interest of research at the nexus of business models and organizational change.

The purpose of this study was to develop and empirically examine a model of cloud-based human resource information systems (HRIS) adoption by small businesses based on the technology–organization–environment model (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990).

This study utilized a survey of 41 small- to medium-sized enterprises in the northeastern United States to examine what HR functions were being supported by cloud-based HRIS and the relationship between three technology factors, three organizational factors, and three environmental factors, and their relationship with the adoption of cloud-based HRIS.

Findings indicated that small businesses are most likely to implement cloud-based HRIS to support day-to-day HR operations. In addition, the findings indicated that top management support (positive), vendor support (positive), and anticipated growth (negative) were each related to organizational adoption of cloud-based HRIS.

The study illustrates how the adoption of a cloud-based HRIS is motivated by different factors than those underlying the adoption of other types of information systems. Executives and small business owners will need to adapt their strategy when considering cloud-based HRIS compared to other types of systems.

Given that small- to medium-sized organizations are the backbone of most global economies, findings from this study can help support society by helping these businesses better understand how to best consider the factors that will support the implementation of cloud-based HRIS.

This chapter represents one of the first to empirically validate a model of the factors affecting adoption of cloud-based HRIS by small businesses.

This chapter describes two change efforts involving participatory action research within the pharmacy operations division of Kaiser Permanente. Focus is on a parallel learning mechanism that has been used to support communications and change during two large-scale information technology interventions. It begins with basic background information on participatory action research in organizations. Since the case setting is Kaiser Permanente, the chapter provides some information on the U.S. healthcare industry context and then shifts to Kaiser’s communication forum, a learning mechanism that has been in place for 35 years. Cognitive, structural, and procedural aspects of the learning mechanism are explored, and the chapter features interviews with some of the key forum players. Both in the forum’s infancy and in its current more institutionalized state, the pharmacy organization has been in crisis. Implications for the use of parallel learning structures on a long-term basis to support long-term participatory action research are explored along with contributions to theory on insider/outsider action research.

This chapter explores the adoption and implementation of a conflict management system (CMS) in a hospital setting. In particular, it uncovers the different motivations and challenges associated with a CMS across various stakeholders within the organization.

The chapter is based on qualitative research conducted in a large American hospital that adopted and implemented a CMS over the course of 15 months. The author conducted extensive interviews with stakeholders across the organization, including top management, union leaders, middle managers, clinicians, and frontline staff. Findings are also based on an array of observations, including stakeholder meetings and conflict management sessions.

The case study demonstrates the centrality of underexplored, generalizable, and industry-specific pressures that may lead organizations to reconsider their use of traditional dispute resolution practices and to institute a CMS. It also highlights the inherent organizational ambivalence toward the design and adoption, initiation and implementation, and routine use of a CMS and it documents the different types of outcomes delivered to various stakeholders.

The chapter provides a nuanced portrait of the antecedents to and consequences of the transformation of conflict management within one organization. It contributes to the existing body of research exploring the 30-year rise of alternative dispute resolution and CMSs in a growing proportion of firms in the United States. The use of an in-depth case-study method to examine this CMS experience offers a number of important insights, particularly regarding different stakeholder motivations and outcomes.

This chapter examines the changing nature of frontline supervision in light of the supervisory training and development programme which was provided to shift-bosses in order to complement the workplace change processes that AfricaGold embarked on to improve operational efficiency, productivity and safety of its mining operations. Although the training course was an important workplace change initiative taken by top management to improve organisational, individual and team performance at the rock-face where it mattered most, lack of organisational and managerial support prevented frontline supervisors from effectively implementing what they learned on the training course. The chapter highlights the importance of not only providing organisational change-focused training, but also systematically and strategically involving frontline supervisors in the conceptualisation, design, execution and evaluation of workplace change initiatives. It is only when frontline supervisors are supported, managerially and organisationally, that they can be deal-makers rather than deal-breakers for a successful introduction and execution of change initiatives on the shop-floor.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

This chapter goes into deeper discussion and consideration of holistic leadership through the concept of holistic leadership presented in Part 1 and analysis of a number of case studies presented in Part 2. The chapter first analyzes and considers the concept of dialectical leadership, which is an element for achieving a balance between centralized leadership and distributed leadership at the psychological boundary layer located at the boundary layer between the formal organizational layer and the informal organizational layer from the perspective of four dimensions: the time axis, spatial axis, strategic axis, and management axis. This is because there is new knowledge gained from multiple case analyses and because dialectical leadership has an impact on management elements in these four dimensions when companies execute strategic knowledge creation processes to achieve business innovation. Second, the chapter discusses the concept of leadership interaction which occurs among leaders at the individual boundaries of the three-layered structure (practice layers) of the informal organization layer located in the business community, the psychological boundary layer located in the boundary layer of the business community, and the formal organization layer located in the formal organization, and the three management layers. Third, as demonstrated in the cases of Apple, Cisco Systems, Dyson, SoftBank, and Sony, strategic collaboration with other companies including customers is extremely important for those practitioners who are promoting business ecosystem strategies across different companies. To achieve this, synchronization of leadership at the three practice layers and three management layers in holistic leadership through boundary negotiations among individual leaderships across different companies is important. These concepts are discussed in this chapter. Fourth, this chapter indicates that excellent holistic leadership is necessary for practitioners to achieve strategic knowledge creation high in quality, but this requires leadership for value creation for the formation of new business communities that originate in the formation of “Ba.” The chapter also indicates that “practical wisdom” is an important element for practitioners in such value creation, and the presence of this element is a necessary condition for generating excellent holistic leadership.