Managing workforce agility through bureaucratic leadership and organizational culture in public service mediated by psychological empowerment

This study aims to analyze the influence of bureaucratic leadership and organizational culture in public service on workforce agility mediated by psychological empowerment in East Kalimantan.  This is an explanatory survey of local government organizations/LGOs in East Kalimantan with an observation unit, consisting of 238 employees who were selected randomly. Data analysis was then carried out using the covariant SEM procedure. The results showed that workforce agility was influenced by leadership and organizational culture. Therefore, leaders who are able to maintain balance in local political dynamics, administrative demands, and running strategy execution are needed. This is because they can ensure the readiness of subordinates to participate in acceleration. Additionally, the organizational culture ensures the orientation of employees to workforce agility through an effective empowerment process. Psychological empowerment mediates the influence of bureaucratic leadership and organizational culture on workforce agility.  Agility concept in the organization is one of the major focuses, and itsimplementation is a strategic and operational framework for public institutions. Integrating the idea of ​​agility, leadership, and workforce is a framework to design methods and taxonomies to set priorities for workforce agility in public institutions from a new public service perspective

Modelling the critical success factors of agile software development projects in South Africa

There are several critical success factors suggested for why agile software development projects succeed, including organisational and process factors. Although there are an increasing number of identified critical success factors, IT professionals lack the modelling techniques and the theoretical framework to help them meaningfully understand their influences. To solve this problem, this study developed a model by employing the following theories: Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to create a fit model for agile software development projects. The research sought to answer the question: What are the critical success factors that influence the success of agile software development projects? The literature review considers the continued failure of agile and traditional software development projects which have led to the consideration of, and dispute over, critical success factors — the aspects most vital to a methodology’s success. Though TRA, TPB and UTAUT have previously been applied to agile methodologies, empirical models have not been completely integrated to develop a fit model. This research sought to fill this gap. Data was collected in South Africa through a web-based survey using structured questionnaires and an interview guide. Face-to-face interviews were done to identify the critical success factors in agile projects. The data was captured and analysed for descriptive statistics, convergent and discriminant validity, composite and internal reliability, and correlation in order to inform the structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM was used to test the research model and hypotheses to answer the research questions. The results informed development of a comprehensive model that could provide guidelines to the agile community. The study contributes towards understanding the critical success factors for agile projects. It examined direct, indirect and moderating effects, and the findings contribute towards developing a framework to be used by agile professionals. These key result shows that organisational factors have a great influence on performance expectancy characteristics. To ensure success of agile projects, managers are advised to focus on the effect of the organisation’s environment, culture and policies on performance and effort expectancy.School of ComputingPh. D. (Computer Science

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Digital leadership: transitioning into the digital age

Aims and Objectives: Today's globally competitive digital business environments drive CEOs quest for Australian corporates to find global sustainability. Such Australian corporate CEOs see business success as more than simply competition defined by financial profit. These CEOs likely recognise digital business models should encompass strong customer focus, and a need to improve performance for betterment of society. In doing so, today's Australian corporate CEOs generally recognize both they and their corporate need to be digitally savvy and engaged in jointly managing digitally-enabled business models. Consequently, many Australian corporates are undergoing some form of digital transformation yet estimates of only 8% of Australian corporates are getting their desired results. Therefore, a Digital Leadership framework supports Australian corporate CEOs development in the digital age is important, and to develop a transitioning model to help Australian corporate CEOs understand how to digitally transform in an easy simplified manner is also important. Scope: Even though tomorrow's digital frontier remains partly unknown, new digital business models are emerging, shaping and disrupting existing global business environment. Australian corporate CEOs are now competing for a finite global marketspace in a competitive digital environment. Thus, these CEOs are exploring smart strategies to digitally advance their corporate. This is known as digital transformation. Previous research indicates only 5% of corporate CEOs possess strong Digital Leadership credentials, but 72% are wanting to develop new Digital Leadership programs. While projections into the future indicate by 2025 adoption and use of digital technologies may add around $250B to Australia's GDP, further projections to 2050 indicate China expects greater GDP than United States and India expects to be 3rd globally in GDP. Therefore, Australian CEOs need to be prepared to lead their corporates through radical digital transformation using strong Digital Leadership. However, outlook indicates 86% of Australian business leaders are 'overwhelmed' by digital transformation projects, and 70% are struggling to keep pace with digital innovation. Globally, today's corporate leaders display a competitive global focus, flexibility with using one or more leadership approaches creating dynamic, digital engagement strategies energize and motivate their workforce to promote collaboration. Countries such as China acknowledge technologies shape demand for digital skills, and indicate skills in business analytics, mobile connectivities and cloud data shall be needed across the next five years, at least. Global CEOs must also pursue similar digital transformations to remain competitive. Although Australian corporate CEOs acknowledge need to digitally transform, they may need a cutting-edge leadership approach to lead digital transformation in order to outperform global competition. This required cutting-edge leadership approach is known in this research as Digital Leadership. Literature support best leadership approach in the digital age is a combination of leadership approaches with broad leadership strategies and skills sets. Hence, this research proposes a Digital Leadership framework encompassing a combination of three macro leadership approaches (authentic, transactional, and transformational). A Digital Leadership framework is developed to define Digital Leadership; and further develops a Digital Leadership Conceptual Model to explain Digital Leaders influence on digital transformation processes. This research then proposes this conceptual model as the Digital Leadership Research Model, ready for testing. Methodology: This research uses mixed methods to test the Digital Leadership Research Model. Measurement items are developed from existing measures and compiled into a survey structure. This on-line survey is conducted with Australian corporate CEOs, with N=165 usable responses. Quantitative data supports testing of the Digital Leadership Research Model. While qualitative data provides further support and interesting analysis of Australian CEOs opinions on most important factors a corporate leader should have in the digital age. Data analysis plans to use appropriate software for; data preparation, frequencies and factor reduction (SPSS), structural equation modelling (SEM) path analysis (AMOS), and qualitative analysis (NVivo). Results Summary: Data validates through comparing demographic information with previously published data. Descriptive statistics analysed, and data found to have normal distribution. Overall SEM measures of goodness-of-fit of the Digital Leadership Research Model are excellent. Qualitative results provide support for the SEM path model and demonstrate how Digital Leadership may be measured in a three-dimensional space. Further analysis provides insight into how Australian corporate leaders are thinking with interesting word frequency effects. Conclusions: Although qualitative responses from Australian corporate CEOs suggest strong digital transformation understanding, they demonstrate transformation is not top-of-mind. There appears to be a mismatch between Australian corporate CEOs level of digital savviness and ability to implement digital transformation. This research makes real-world contributions to how Digital Leaders may achieve digital transformation, through various pathways; and supports conceptualisation of Digital Leadership. This is discussed comparatively with digitally transforming corporates. Further contributions include defining Digital Leadership, and foundations for development of a Digital Leadership theory. Future contribution includes developing the Digital Leadership Research Model as a theoretical transformation model

Human performance in agile production systems : a longitudinal study in system outcomes, human cognition, and quality of work life.

This dissertation examines a research objective associated with human performance in agile production systems, with specific attention towards the hypothesis that system outcomes are the causal result of worker human cognition and quality of work life attributes experienced in an agile production system. The development and adoption of world class agile production systems has been an immediate economic answer to the world-wide competitive call for more efficient, more cost-effective, and more quality laden production processes, but has the human element of these processes been fully understood and optimized? Outstanding current literature suggests that the recent movements toward higher standards in systems outcomes (i.e. increased quality, decreased costs, improved delivery schedules, etc) has not been truly evaluated. The human-machine interaction has not been fully comprehended, not to mention quantified; the role of human cognition is still under evaluation; and the coupling of the entire production system with respect to the human quality of life has yielded conflicting messages. The dissertation research conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate the interrelationships occurring between system outcomes, applicable elements of human cognition, and the quality of work life issues associated with the human performance in agile production systems. A structural equation modeling analysis aided the evaluation of the hypotheses of the dissertation by synthesizing the three specific instruments measuring the appropriate latent variables: 1. system outcomes – empirical data, 2. human cognition – cognitive task analysis, and 3. quality of work life – questionnaires into a single hypothesized model. These instruments were administered in four (4) waves during the eight month longitudinal study. The study latent variables of system outcomes, human cognition, and quality of work life were shown to be quantifiable and causal in nature. System outcomes were indicated to be a causal result of the combined, yet uncorrelated, effect of human cognition and quality of work life attributes experienced by workers in agile production systems. In addition, this latent variable relationship is situational, varying in regards to the context of, but not necessarily the time exposed to, the particular task the worker is involved with. An implication of this study is that the quality of work life attributes are long-term determinants of human performance, whereas human cognition attributes are immediate, activity based determinants of human performance in agile production systems