Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Project Management Issues In It Offshore Outsourcing, Kathy Schwaig, Stephen Gillam, Elke M. Leeds

Faculty Articles

Global partnerships are forming to take advantage of the cost savings associated with offshoring as well as other strategic benefits. Not all information technology offshoring projects, however, are successful. Cost overruns, increased complexity and defective code cause organizations to rethink their offshoring strategy and their methods for managing these projects. In this paper, project management issues associated with offshore information technology outsourcing projects are identified and specific recommendations for addressing these issues are presented.

Is Support For Strategic Flexibility, Environmental Dynamism, And Firm Performance, Michael J. Zhang

WCBT Faculty Publications

Increasingly, strategic flexibility has been viewed as a critical organizational competency that enables firms to achieve and maintain competitive advantage and superior performance. In this study, the relationship between IS support for strategic flexibility and the bottom-line performance of firms is investigated, as well as the moderating effects of environmental dynamism on that relationship. Using both survey and archival data, IS support for strategic flexibility was positively associated with profitability and labor productivity only when there was a high degree of environmental changes and uncertainty.

Competitive Priorities As Trade-Offs Or Mutually Supportive: Can We Call The Question Yet?, Ravi Kathuria

Business Faculty Articles and Research

As the field of operations strategy matures, we need to refine the theories and abandon weak models through cumulative research. This study contributes to the debate on whether competitive priorities present potential trade-offs or are mutually supportive.

Designing And Implementing A Balanced Scorecard: Lessons Learned In Nonprofit Implementation, Andra Gumbus, Tom Wilson

WCBT Faculty Publications

The balanced scorecard has been referred to as the management innovation of the century, and extensive articles have been written using case studies of organizations that use this performance measurement system. This article addresses the key issues of design and implementation with a step-by-step guide to how to design a balanced scorecard and lessons to avoid implementation problems in government and nonprofit settings.

Obesity, Educational Attainment, And State Economic Welfare, Martin W. Sivula Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

For the first time in history, estimates of the overweight people in the world rival estimates of those malnourished. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) ranked obesity among the top 10 risks to human health worldwide. In the early 1960s, nearly half of the Americans were overweight and 13% were obese. Today some 64% of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5% are obese. Even more alarming, twice as many U.S. children are overweight than were twenty years ago, a 66% increase. Non-communicable diseases impose a heavy economic burden on already strained health systems. Health is a key determinant of development …

A Comparative Study Of Selected Measures Of Performance Of Organizations Before And After Obtaining Iso 9000 Certification As Compared To The S&P 500 Index, Gregory K. Arbuckle

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"One of the most significant changes in international business is the recent movement toward quality awareness. Although still embryonic, acceptance of the importance of quality and reliability is being recognized as a critical factor for the sale of many products and services in business operations and in performance worldwide" (Joubert, 1998, ,i 1 ). Over time, there have been many management systems developed to improve quality such as TQM, Malcolm Baldrige and Six Sigma; two of the largest and/or newest being ISO 9000 and QS 9000. The literature is unclear as to which systems actually work and which do not. …

Some Key Questions About Stakeholder Theory, Robert A. Phillips

Management Faculty Publications

As businesses emerge as some of the most powerful institutions in the world, business ethics have never been more important, and given very recent history, more open to question. Corporations are relative newcomers to power, and for evidence of this we can look to Europe, where the oldest, largest, most elaborate buildings are the churches and cathedrals. For thousands of years, the church and its leaders were arguably the most powerful institution, but as the liberal notions of the Enlightenment supplanted church orthodoxy, the state supplanted religion as the more powerful institution. But at the dawn of the third millennium, …

Designing A Strategy To Effectively Communicate The Balanced Scorecard, Andra Gumbus, Bridget Lyons, Tom Wilson

WCBT Faculty Publications

As increasing numbers of organizations adopt the balanced scorecard (BSC) to align strategy with operations and measure progress toward meeting strategic goals, the importance of successful communication of the scorecard throughout the organization has become apparent. Successful implementation and effective use of the BSC occurs when organizational stakeholders recognize its role, use, and benefits. In the March/April 2003 issue of Cost Management, we detailed how Bridgeport Hospital, a member of Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS), adopted the BSC and used the scorecard to align capital investment decisions with strategy.1 In this article, we will profile how the hospital designed …

Looks Aren't Everything: Aren't Managers Concerned With Actually Being Fair, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Cecily D. Cooper

Management Faculty Articles and Papers

The justice literature has unequivocally noted how important it is employees feel they are treated fairly. Accordingly, managers often find themselves in predicaments of injustice which they must resolve. Research on social accounts describes strategies managers can use to make themselves “seem fair,” thus, alleviating their predicament. But in taking an impression management perspective of justice, this literature fails to acknowledge that many managers actually want to “be fair.” Based on the latter assumption, we propose an alternative framework for understanding how managers will address justice-related predicaments.

Validity Of Scandura And Ragins' (1993) Multidimensional Mentoring Measure: An Evaluation And Refinement, Stephanie L. Castro, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Ethlyn A. Williams

Management Faculty Articles and Papers

The establishment of a mentoring relationship can be important to an individual‘s career for multiple reasons. However, in order to study this construct, we must be able to accurately measure it. In this paper, three separate studies were conducted to examine and refine Scandura and Ragins‘ (1993) multidimensional mentoring measure. In Study 1, an empirical assessment of the content validity of the measure was conducted. The convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and item-total correlations were then examined in Study 2, and the measure was reduced to nine items. The convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and item-total correlations of this reduced …

Higher Education And The Public, Private And Non-Profit Sectors: Equal Partners In Promoting Regional Economic Development, Aaron W. Hughey

Counseling & Student Affairs Faculty Publications

Institutions of higher education throughout the world are increasingly aware of the importance of working more systematically and productively with community and business leaders in order to create better local economies and, ultimately, better societies. This article presents an overview of how colleges and universities can assist with the identification and implementation of specific strategies for enhancing the economic development of the regions in which they are located. Also included is a discussion of the emerging advantages associated with developing these kinds of collaborative partnerships, as well as a brief overview of the major approaches to regional economic development.

The Impact Of Increasing User Expectations On Machine Replacement, Robert F. Marsh, Seong-Hyun Nam

WCBT Faculty Publications

This study explores the traditional equipment maintain or replace decision under scenarios of increasing customer expectations, loss due to process deviation, and process drift. Customer expectations are operationalized by tighter product specifications. The Taguchi loss function is employed to estimate the loss due to target deviation. In this paper we characterize the machine drift, uncertainty about future technological change, and the learn-and-break-in process by a generalized Brownian-Motion-Ito-Process. The photolithography process is analyzed in numerous scenarios varying demand, rejection levels, and quality losses.

The Implications Of Mentoring Programs On Employee Career Development And Retention In Selected Manufacturing Industries In Central Indiana, Frederick B. Asay

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of mentoring programs and determine the extent that mentoring programs facilitate employee career development and retention. This study was focused specifically on manufacturing industries of selected standard industrial codes (SIC) in Central Indiana. By identifying the advantages and disadvantages of mentoring programs the researcher was able to recommend that manufacturing industries consider implementing a mentoring program if one is not currently in place. A questionnaire and interviews were used to collect the data for the study. The sample population for the study consisted of 100 randomly selected manufacturing …

Class Distinctions For The Global Economy, Aaron W. Hughey

Counseling & Student Affairs Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of Leader-Member Exchange, Organizational Justice And Performance, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Manuel J. Tejeda

Management Faculty Articles and Papers

Recently, the concept of organizational justice has been employed to re-examine the Leader-member exchange (LMX) literature. LMX, and three forms of justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) examined using a sample of N = 275 leader-member dyads. Results indicated procedural justice moderates the relationship between LMX and performance.

Nsu Doctor In Education In Organizational Leadership August 2002, Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice College Archive

No abstract provided.

Sampling Concepts, Paul Boyd, Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

The usefulness of any research is dependent upon how well the group studied represents the group about which decisions are to be made or conclusions drawn. That is, it depends upon how well the sample reflects relevant characteristics of the population. When it is possible to study every member of that group there is no problem, for on these occasions we can easily calculate the exact attribute (parameter) of interest for our population.

For example, if we were interested in determining the average number of gallons of gasoline sold to customers at our service station yesterday, we …

An Empirical Study Of Relationships Between Business Culture And Organizational Learning Of Malaysian Organizations, Soh Ping Low

Student Works (2000-2009)

In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. Organizations must learn better than their best competitor or their business is doomed to fall behind. Learning has become the key to organizational survival. The main aim of this research is to explore how business culture affects organizational learning of Malaysian organizations. It is also to understand whether different nationalities of Malaysian organizations possess different business culture. Additionally, the research analyzed the effect of organizational learning on the consequences in term of individuals' self-rated competency and satisfaction with development since joining …

The Role Of Governance In National Development., Nathaniel C. Ozigbo

Bullion

One of the principal issues in the analysis of development is the extent to which the state and corporate organizations influence it. Prevailing ideas about the links among democracy, good governance and economic growth have come almost full circle over the past three decades. Governance is defined as the good government of society. Good government guides the country along a course leading to the desired goals, in this case development. The paper has focused on the various discussions about the conditions for good governance, which raises questions about the structure and functioning of the state, its relationship to society and …

Recreating The Corporation : A Design Of Organizations For The 21st Century By Russell L Ackoff, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999., Vijay Padaki

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

Why Can't We Wait (To Spend) And The Law Of Unintended Consequences: Potential Negative Impact On Minority Employees From Well-Intentioned Organizational Compensation Practices, James R. Jones

Marketing and Management Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

In this time of increasing uncertainty about business viability and stability, many organizations are looking to gain control of their "bottom line" by strengthening the link between organizational outcomes and employee rewards. Long gone are the days of steadily and automatically increasing worker salaries as a hoped-for method of expanding productivity. Indeed, there is a school of thought that suggests that automatic pay increases act as a "demotivator" for many individuals. The more common approach currently is to utilize incentives (i.e., additional compensation/rewards given for performance beyond normal expectations) as a way of enhancing employee work motivation, thereby leading to …

Determination Of The Impact Of A Human Capital Decision Cost Model On The Economic Performance Measures Of A Technical Services Company, Jeffery A. Temple

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Human Capital has a major impact on cash flow management decisions in a Technical Services company. Decisions to hire or terminate employees to meet contract requirements affect the company's economic value. The objective of this research is to develop a model that assists management in establishing a starting point in making, as efficiently as possible, those decisions that impact employees' lives. To understand that impact, the operations and economic parameters of a Technical Services company are compared with those of a manufacturing company. This analysis establishes two · essential points for Technical Services organizations; first, that the capital investment decision …

When Things Go Wrong: Organizational Failures And Breakdowns Edited By Helmut K Anheier, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999., Abhoy K Ojha

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Study On Projected And Actual Manufacturing Times To Identify The Source Of Customer Delinquency, Zaki Kuruppalil

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was an investigation of the projected lead time and the actual lead time for a part manufactured at Tri-Industries Inc., Terre Haute, Indiana. The research was focused on a single part produced in Tri-Industries. The problem was that there is a difference in the projected lead time and the actual lead time of the part under investigation. The actual lead time was longer than projected lead time, which resulted in the company being delinquent in customer delivery. This investigation was conducted to find out the source for customer delinquency for a single part in Tri-Industries. The conclusion was …

Short Term Effects Of The Retrenchment Exercise On Individual And Organisational Performance In The Uganda Civil Service: Part Ii, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

IBPP Note. The concluding segment of this article provides theory, empirical data, and analysis on some political psychological consequences of organizational retrenchment in a political bureaucracy within a country often unattended to by Western researchers. It was written by Dr. Peter Baguma, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, and International Editor, IBPP. Dr. Baguma can be reached at [email protected].

Abstract. This study set out to assess the short-term effects of a retrenchment exercise on individual and organisational performance in the Uganda civil service. In all, 247 senior and lower rank employees from 6 civil service ministries were …

Short Term Effects Of The Retrenchment Exercise On Individual And Organisational Performance In The Uganda Civil Service: Part I, Peter Baguma

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This study set out to assess the short-term effects of a retrenchment exercise on individual and organisational performance in the Uganda civil service. In all, 247 senior and lower rank employees from 6 civil service ministries were administered a questionnaire that measured individual performance, factors hindering employee performance and suggestions on how performance could be improved, and organisational performance factors. The majority of participants reported retrenchment had positive or unknown effects on individual performance. Factors hindering employee performance were inadequate funding, lack of motivation, work overload, and lack of tools--to mention but a few. Providing a living wage, improved incentives, …

Corporate Training Programmes: Lessons For Colleges And Universities, Aaron W. Hughey

Counseling & Student Affairs Faculty Publications

Employee training programmes have long been considered one of the keys to corporate success. The primary focus of this article is on what higher education professionals can learn from their counterparts in business and industry with respect to training in a collegiate environment. The elements of a successful training programme are discussed along with how the process can be adapted by colleges and universities. The distinction between training and education is explained, with a discussion of why 'soft skills' training initiatives are often less effective than skills-based approaches. The critical role of the training coordinator in facilitating a programme is …

The Transformation Of Management By Mike Davidson, New York: Macmillan Press, 1995., Maj Gen V Uberoy

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

How Does The Retail Clerk Make Sense Of His Environment, Tyler L. Watson

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The retail clerk is a common feature of today's society. However, the role of the retail clerk has been largely overlooked from the sociological perspective. More precisely from the ethnomethodological perspective. Currently most of the body of research on the retail clerk is from the business perspective and sheds little light on what it is like to be a retail clerk. This study was designed to gain access to the other side of the retail scene, that is, the side of the retail clerk. Most Americans are already familiar with the store but do not know how things are experienced …

Variations In Organization Science : In Honor Of Donald T Campbell Edited By Joel A C Baum And Bill Mckelvey, Sage, 1999, Pp 452, Price: $ 39. 95., Abhoy K Ojha

IIMB Management Review

Organisation science, as a field of study, is relatively young. Although the study of human behaviour has a long history, and studies examining human behaviour in organisations were prevalent in the early twentieth century, the field as we know it today has emerged after World War II, particularly during the 1960s. As a result, like any other discipline in its early stages of evolution, organisation science has many competing paradigms jostling for dominance. Organisational ecology (also known as population ecology) is one of the few paradigms that have had a significant influence on the knowledge of organisations.