SMEs and Certified Management Standards: The Effect of Motives and Timing on Implementation and Commitment

Existing research on certifiable management standards (CMS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) tends to focus on large companies and is characterised by disagreement about the role of these standards as drivers of CSR. We contribute to the literature by shifting the analytical focus to the behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that subscribe to multiple CSR related standards. We argue that, in respect of motive and commitment, SMEs are not as different from large companies as the literature suggests, as they are guided by similar institutional and economic motives. Results, based on ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified SMEs in Greece, demonstrate that later adopters are more susceptible to coercive and mimetic motives and are less likely to commit fully to the CMS requirements, while earlier adopters react to normative motives and considerations of internal efficiency gains and tend to carry out CMS requirements with greater diligence

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data

The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (i~HD, www.i-hd.eu) has been formed as one of the key sustainable entities arising from the Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research (IMI-JU-115189) and SemanticHealthNet (FP7-288408) projects, in collaboration with several other European projects and initiatives supported by the European Commission. i~HD is a European not-for-profit body, registered in Belgium through Royal Assent. i~HD has been established to tackle areas of challenge in the successful scaling up of innovations that critically rely on high-quality and interoperable health data. It will specifically address obstacles and opportunities to using health data by collating, developing, and promoting best practices in information governance and in semantic interoperability. It will help to sustain and propagate the results of health information and communication technology (ICT) research that enables better use of health data, assessing and optimizing their novel value wherever possible. i~HD has been formed after wide consultation and engagement of many stakeholders to develop methods, solutions, and services that can help to maximize the value obtained by all stakeholders from health data. It will support innovations in health maintenance, health care delivery, and knowledge discovery while ensuring compliance with all legal prerequisites, especially regarding the insurance of patient's privacy protection. It is bringing multiple stakeholder groups together so as to ensure that future solutions serve their collective needs and can be readily adopted affordably and at scale

Measuring Up: A Study on Corporate Sustainability Reporting in Canada

In response to the growth in corporate sustainability reporting in Canada, CGA-Canada commissioned a sustainability reporting survey in the fall of 2004. The survey sought to advance understanding of sustainability reporting, advocate for business value and transparency in reporting, and look to enjoin participation by all stakeholders. The results of the survey show the growing trend towards sustainability reporting in Canada. Some 18% of all companies produce a dedicated sustainability report, while approximately 5% spend more than $100,000 annually to report on sustainability issues. Regulatory requirements, stakeholder pressure, and corporate image objectives influence the most the decision to adopt a corporate sustainability reporting practice. In turn, added cost and potential information overload were two of the main reasons why organizations have not adopted a comprehensive sustainability reporting function. Concerns regarding the credibility and the vagueness of reporting practices and guidelines were also expressed.sustainability reporting, corporate social responsibility, reporting practices, sustainable development, socially responsible investment

NEW CHALANGES FOR THE FINANCIAL AUDIT IN THE CONTEXT OF MEASURES TO SURPASS ECONOMIC-FINANCIAL CRISIS

In order to find the antidote of the actual economic and financial crisis it is necessary to know the real causes that brought it about. Many companies and banks reached collapse or are closely there due to various ranges of reasons but among them there afinancial audit, independence, audit standards

First Nations Child and Family Services and Indigenous Knowledge as a Framework for Research, Policy and Practice

This paper provides an overview of the exciting national developments in First Nations child and family service delivery in Canada with a focus on progressive research, policy and practice. Examples of how traditional concepts of interdependence and the holistic worldview inform program design and delivery within First Nations communities are reviewed. In addition, the paper introduces the mandate, strategic directions and services of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. This national organization brings together the 105 First Nations Child and Family Service Agencies in Canada to share best practices, develop professional development programs and conduct research. Emerging policy and research programs within the society are highlighted. FNCFCS, with the generous support of the Voluntary Sector Initiative, will be developing resources and programs to foster effective policy making and program design between First Nations child and family service programs, the public, private and voluntary sectors. These programs are intended to enhance interdisciplinary cooperation and practice in order to meet the needs of First Nations children, families and communities. Special emphasis is also be placed on the First Nations research agenda and the associated steps to increase research capacity within First Nations communities through the Health Canada Child Welfare Centre of Excellence First Nations Research Site in Winnipeg Manitoba

Early Learning Innovation Fund Evaluation Final Report

This is a formative evaluation of the Hewlett Foundation's Early Learning Innovation Fund that began in 2011 as part of the Quality Education in Developing Countries (QEDC) initiative.  The Fund has four overarching objectives, which are to: promote promising approaches to improve children's learning; strengthen the capacity of organizations implementing those approaches; strengthen those organizations' networks and ownership; and grow 20 percent of implementing organizations into significant players in the education sector. The Fund's original design was to create a "pipeline" of innovative approaches to improve learning outcomes, with the assumption that donors and partners would adopt the most successful ones. A defining feature of the Fund was that it delivered assistance through two intermediary support organizations (ISOs), rather than providing funds directly to implementing organizations. Through an open solicitation process, the Hewlett Foundation selected Firelight Foundation and TrustAfrica to manage the Fund. Firelight Foundation, based in California, was founded in 1999 with a mission to channel resources to community-based organizations (CBOs) working to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families in Africa. It supports 12 implementing organizations in Tanzania for the Fund. TrustAfrica, based in Dakar, Senegal, is a convener that seeks to strengthen African-led initiatives addressing some of the continent's most difficult challenges. The Fund was its first experience working specifically with early learning and childhood development organizations. Under the Fund, it supported 16 such organizations: one in Mali and five each in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya. At the end of 2014, the Hewlett Foundation commissioned Management Systems International (MSI) to conduct a mid-term evaluation assessing the implementation of the Fund exploring the extent to which it achieved intended outcomes and any factors that had limited or enabled its achievements. It analyzed the support that the ISOs provided to their implementing organizations, with specific focus on monitoring and evaluation (M&E). The evaluation included an audit of the implementing organizations' M&E systems and a review of the feasibility of compiling data collected to support an impact evaluation. Finally, the Foundation and the ISOs hoped that this evaluation would reveal the most promising innovations and inform planning for Phase II of the Fund. The evaluation findings sought to inform the Hewlett Foundation and other donors interested in supporting intermediary grant-makers, early learning innovations and the expansion of innovations. TrustAfrica and Firelight Foundation provided input to the evaluation's scope of work. Mid-term evaluation reports for each ISO provided findings about their management of the Fund's Phase I and recommendations for Phase II. This final evaluation report will inform donors, ISOs and other implementing organizations about the best approaches to support promising early learning innovations and their expansion. The full report outlines findings common across both ISOs' experience and includes recommendations in four key areas: adequate time; appropriate capacity building; advocacy and scaling up; and evaluating and documenting innovations. Overall, both Firelight Foundation and TrustAfrica supported a number of effective innovations working through committed and largely competent implementing organizations. The program's open-ended nature avoided being prescriptive in its approach, but based on the lessons learned in this evaluation and the broader literature, the Hewlett Foundation and other donors could have offered more guidance to ISOs to avoid the need to continually relearn some lessons. For example, over the evaluation period, it became increasingly evident that the current context demands more focused advance planning to measure impact on beneficiaries and other stakeholders and a more concrete approach to promoting and resourcing potential scale-up. The main findings from the evaluation and recommendations are summarized here

The role of organisational culture during the implementation of internal succession planning within Malaysian research universities

Succession planning is not new to academia and many institutions have supported these programs for years. Few, however, have adopted formal succession planning strategies that are both strategic and deliberate and encompass the full spectrum of succession planning activities. However, less is understood about the role of culture on succession planning within public universities in Malaysia. Nevertheless; there is an absence of a comprehensive conceptual model of the culture-succession relationship in the literature that includes the impact of moderators such as national culture. A mixed mode design was adopted by the study where qualitative data was first collected, analyzed and then used to develop a survey instrument for the quantitative phase of the study. The study surveyed 375 academic staff of the five research universities in Malaysia, and the results were analyzed using the IBM SPSS for Windows and PLS-SEM. A structural model was built to identify the relationship between the organisational culture and succession planning and the moderating effect of the national culture in public research universities. The study's findings showed that succession planning is still new to public universities in Malaysia and training and development are still unstructured. Although there was a positive and significant relationship between organisational culture and succession planning, whereas, findings suggested national culture showed a moderating effect on the relationship of organisational culture and succession planning. The model can help to analyze organisational culture in order to change the Malaysian public universities’ strategy to implement succession planning