Practices for strategic capacity management in Malaysian manufacturing firms

While the notion of manufacturing capabilities is a long-standing notion in research on operations management, its actual implementation and management has been hardly researched. Five case studies in Malaysia offered the opportunity to examine the practice of manufacturing managers with regard to strategic capability management. The data collection and analysis was structured by using the notion of Strategic Capacity Management. Whereas traditionally literature has demonstrated the beneficial impact of an appropriate manufacturing strategy on the business strategy and performance, the study highlights the difficulty of managers to set the strategy, let alone implementing it. This is partly caused by the immense pressure of customers in these dominantly Make-To-Order environments for SMEs. Current concepts for manufacturing capabilities have insufficiently accounted this phenomenon and an outline of a research agenda is presented

Digital Preservation as an Albatross

‘Digital Preservation’ as a concept is an albatross. The complex and somewhat arcane nature of the practice has kept it from being embraced by those that perhaps need it most. Changes in terminology, misunderstandings of meanings and a lack of direct business planning have brought about a state of affairs that has the digital preservation community fighting the problem of technological obsolescence without sustained support from organisations that supposedly need it most. Organisations care about ensuring their continued existence and profitability. Investment is only undertaken after reflection on business cases. In creating a business case most people focus primarily on cost, but there must be a counter-veiling focus on value. There is no point in making an investment unless it has worth to the investor. A good business case will display a strong understanding of the value of information objects that organisations create. Information professionals must ensure that their desire to ensure longevity of information is tied coherently and explicitly to that of the organisation’s future and detail why the digital materials are of value to it. Exploring value in this way allows engagement with senior management as it wraps the need for action in the terminology of their strategic vision and allows for a strong and successful business case to be made

What are Best Practices for Retaining Employees During Mergers and Acquisitions?

The purpose of this report is to guide decision makers at this company, by offering the most recent theories and practices regarding talent retention programs. Recently mergers and acquisitions have become a major part of global business. During the M&A, it is important to manage the organizational and human resource issues. Our team focused on gathering real business cases. Then we highlight some suggestions from the best practices to create successful M&A. It is our intent that the research findings in this report will help to enlighten and inform the company’s leaders to guide the effective human management program centered on key talent, ultimately leading to organizational success

Conceptualising the research–practice–professional development nexus: mobilising schools as ‘research-engaged’ professional learning communities

This paper argues the need for coherent, holistic frameworks offering insightful understandings as well as viable, connected and synergistic solutions to schools in addressing pressing problems arising from the acknowledged gaps between research, practice and professional development. There is a need to conceptualise a comprehensive conceptual framework that rationalises, constructs and connects salient professional development concepts and practices fit for purpose in twenty-first-century schools. Specifically, three themes conceptualise existing problems faced by schools and their possible solutions: first, bridging the research–policy–practice gap by mobilising knowledge more effectively through knowledge producers and consumers working collaboratively; second, valuing and integrating both tacit knowledge and academic coded knowledge; and third, raising the professionalism and reflectivity of teachers and leaders. However, a new organisational and human infrastructure is needed to enable these solutions to be realised in school practice. Arguably, three responses are critical to this challenge of knowledge mobilisation; all are achievable through the powerful unifying concept of the ‘research-engaged school’. The three responses are: research engagement on the part of all teachers and leaders; creating schools and school networks as professional learning communities; and adopting a workable methodology (namely, research–design–development) for teachers and leaders to put research into practice and tailor innovations to specific school contexts

IT Management in Local Government:Engaged Problem Formulation

The use of information technology (IT) is increasingly important for local governments (municipalities) in adhering to their responsibilities for providing services to citizens and this requires effective IT management. We present an engaged scholarship approach to formulating the IT management problems with local government – not for local government. We define such engaged problem formulation as joint learning and definition of a contemporary and complex problem by researchers and those who experience and know the problem. This engaged problem formulation process was carried out as an initiation of action research and design science research activities at multiple levels in Danish municipalities. In this paper we present the IT management problems identified in our study and discuss the engaged problem formulation process in relation to engaged scholarship and implications for action research and design science research activities

A Professional Development Approach to Improve Practice at an Upstate Community College

A federal Call to Action was mandated to reform community colleges across the nation, challenging college officials to enhance instructional methodology on college campuses towards increasing student completion rates. In addressing this mandate, college officials at the upstate NY community college identified a need for professional development that would increase student learning and enhance the instructional methodologies of facilitating faculty through improved alignment. Accordingly, this study investigated the alignment of faculty instructional effectiveness with the institution\u27s core mission. The purpose of this study was to examine faculty perceptions of the instructional methodologies used to facilitate student learning. Informed by Knowles\u27s theory of andragogy, the research questions examined instructional strategies and existing professional development of the faculty members to explore the problem of faculty alignment. The study employed a qualitative intrinsic case study design, with a purposeful sample of 6 part-time and 2 full-time faculty participants. The data were collected and analyzed through the use of a semi structured Likert-type survey and open-ended interview questions. Utilizing an open coding format, data revealed a lack of computer-based instructional strategies and a need for implementation of technological professional learning opportunities at the college. Faculty expressed desire for professional learning. These findings may inform college officials as to the importance of a professional development growth plan policy, and may contribute to positive social change by increasing student completion rates at the college level

External managers, family ownership and the scope of SME internationalization

SMEs are important to world business and the majority of SMEs are family firms. Yet some family SMEs are inert, local firms while others are dynamic and international. Do certain governance structures encourage the scale and scope of their internationalization? We jointly apply social capital and corporate governance theories to explain the scope of family SMEs internationalization, and find that professional managers externally recruited from outside the family are important, but only for lower levels of family ownership, suggesting synergistic combinations of ownership and management. It is the combination of external capital with external managers that really works

Moving beyond 'refugeeness': problematising the 'refugee community organisation'

This paper explores processes of change and development within asylum seeker and refugee-led associations in Glasgow. I argue that adopting a life-cycle approach to association emergence and continuity (Werbner 1991a: 15) provides a more rounded and sophisticated understanding of not only the factors giving rise to such groups, but also of processes of change within groups. By problematising the ‘refugee community organisation’ label, I suggest that the focus on ‘refugeeness’ fails to attend to internal diversity, specifically relating to changing and differentiated immigration status within such associations. Exploring an externally constructed fictive unity using Werbner’s framework provides one way to challenge these effects. Rather than see this framework as made up of linear stages, I argue that groups move through and between stages of associative empowerment, ideological convergence and mobilisation simultaneously and that features differentiating stages may be co-present. This paper is relevant for policy-makers, practitioners and third sector organisations and can aid thinking about how to move beyond labels in approaching broader questions, practices and experiences of ‘settlement’, integration, belonging and social cohesion