Systems management techniques and problems

Systems engineering and management applied to urban development, education, water management, inventory management, Saturn-Apollo project, and ecolog

Why design matters? Making the case for the smaller companies in the automotive industry

This research focuses on industrial design and strategic management and more specifically on the way the development of design capabilities can influence the strategic product market position of the Portuguese small and medium supply companies for the automotive industry. Industrial design is not usually highlighted as a cornerstone skill of most small-scale automotive supply companies. Instead, it is usually established as a process in resource-capability combinations due to the highly dynamic environments that characterize this industry. Practice suggests a double bias either in the definition of design, sometimes emphasized as style and associated with carmakers, or in design’s role in developing the position of small and medium enterprises in supply networks. This line of reasoning supports the lead research question: why design matters for smaller companies in the automotive industry? The theoretical constructs and context field supported through the literature and the automotive industry profile (international and Portuguese) review reveal a research procedure supported on an interdisciplinary work process. The exploratory nature of this study calls for a qualitative type of research to be conducted as the use of case studies is the most appropriate research strategy. Three firms from the Portuguese automotive cluster were selected for the case study representing an appropriate automotive industry supplier sample for cross-case analysis. The analysis of the gathered data required three phases: analysis and report of individual cases; analysis and report of cross cases; and the conclusions and implications of the cross cases for both theory and practice. As a result, it is revealed the importance of the development of design capabilities for a determined business strategy. The development of design capabilities is key for the development of high added value products for the supply of complex parts or modules. Hence, a list of suggested positive and negative industrial design practices are proposed

Book of abstracts of the ICIEOM-CIO-IIIE International Conference 2015

BOOK OF ABSTRACTS OF THE ICIEOM-CIO-IIIE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2015: ENGINEERING SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS: The way ahead for industrial engineering and operations managemen

Links between devolution and changes in curriculum policy : a case study of year 8-10 social studies curriculum in Western Australia since 1987

This study investigates the links between devolution and Year 8-10 Society and Environment (SAE) curriculum policy in Western Australia (WA) since 1987. It explores whether changes to the structure within which SAE resides, the process through which curriculum decision making occurs, and the content of SAE are consistent with the principles and practice of devolution. An attempt is made in the study to determine whether these changes would have occurred anyway, even if devolution had not been introduced. The investigation is based on a radical humanist model of social inquiry, As such, it uses a critical theory conceptual framework to inform a qualitative research paradigm. Two sources provide qualitative data for the study, namely, interviews and documentary material. The interview material comes from discussions with twenty six senior education officers, school staff, academics and other stakeholders. The documentary material includes key system-wide policy documents, Year 8-10 curriculum frameworks, guidelines and syllabi, and relevant school level publications. Generally, the analysis of data gained from those two sources support the claims made by critical theorists about the impact of devolution upon curriculum policy. More specifically, the findings show that in WA, since 1987, state curriculum development has contributed to a reinforcement of social control, a widening of social inequality and an intensification of the school\u27s role as an agent of narrowly defined economic interests. These links are shown to be consistent with the critical theory argument that devolution is underpinned by corporate managerialism and that it involves not only a decentralisation of responsibility but also a recentralization of power. The study concludes by suggesting that the implications of WA\u27s experience of devolution for China depend largely on whether China\u27s context and needs are examined in terms of a consensus model or a critical theory model of society

BlockNet Report: Exploring the Blockchain Skills Concept and Best Practice Use Cases

In order to explore the practical potential and needs of interdisciplinary knowledge and competence requirements of Blockchain technology, the project activity "Development of Interdisciplinary Blockchain Skills Concept" starts with the literature review identifying the state of the art of Blockchain in Supply Chain Management and Logistics, Business and Finance, as well as Computer Science and IT-Security. The project activity further explores the academic and industry landscape of existing initiatives in education which offer Blockchain courses. Moreover, job descriptions and adverts are analyzed in order to specify today's competence requirements from enterprises. To discuss and define the future required competence, expert workshops are organized to validate the findings by academic experts. Based on the research outcome and validation, an interdisciplinary approach for Blockchain competence is developed. A second part focuses on the development of the Blockchain Best Practices activity while conducting qualitative empirical research based on case studies with industry representatives. Therefore, company interviews, based on the theoretical basis of Output 1, explore existing Blockchain use cases in different sectors. Due to the interdisciplinary importance of Blockchain technology, these skills will be defined by different perspectives of Blockchain from across multiple mentioned disciplines. The use cases and companies for the interviews will be selected based on various sampling criteria to gain results valid for a broad scale. The analysis of the various use cases will be conducted and defined in a standardized format to identify the key drivers and competence requirements for Blockchain technology applications and their adoption. On the one hand, this approach ensures comparability, on the other hand, it facilitates the development of a structured and systematic framework.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2102.0322

Am I My Neighbor\u27s Keeper : Toward a Community-Based Model of Local Violence

The purpose of this exploratory concurrent mixed methods study is to better understand the community context of domestic batterer intervention systems (Gondolf, 2002) by converging demographic trends in crime and arrest, family income, and marriage and divorce rates with community status indicators and marital conflict themes. In the study, county-level Uniform Crime Reports data, US Census data, and Vital Statistics data will be used to analyze community differences in social context and patterns of domestic violence in Cabell County, WV and Lawrence County, OH. At the same time, the local domestic batterer intervention system in Cabell County, WV, will be explored using ethnographic interviews, qualitative content analysis, and participant observation with individuals and organizations in Cabell County and at the state level in order to begin building a grounded theory of community violence

Managing enterprise resource planning and multi-organisational enterprise governance:a new contingency framework for the enterprisation of operations

This research has been undertaken to determine how successful multi-organisational enterprise strategy is reliant on the correct type of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) information systems being used. However there appears to be a dearth of research as regards strategic alignment between ERP systems development and multi-organisational enterprise governance as guidelines and frameworks to assist practitioners in making decision for multi-organisational collaboration supported by different types of ERP systems are still missing from theoretical and empirical perspectives. This calls for this research which investigates ERP systems development and emerging practices in the management of multi-organisational enterprises (i.e. parts of companies working with parts of other companies to deliver complex product-service systems) and identify how different ERP systems fit into different multi-organisational enterprise structures, in order to achieve sustainable competitive success. An empirical inductive study was conducted using the Grounded Theory-based methodological approach based on successful manufacturing and service companies in the UK and China. This involved an initial pre-study literature review, data collection via 48 semi-structured interviews with 8 companies delivering complex products and services across organisational boundaries whilst adopting ERP systems to support their collaborative business strategies – 4 cases cover printing, semiconductor manufacturing, and parcel distribution industries in the UK and 4 cases cover crane manufacturing, concrete production, and banking industries in China in order to form a set of 29 tentative propositions that have been validated via a questionnaire receiving 116 responses from 16 companies. The research has resulted in the consolidation of the validated propositions into a novel concept referred to as the ‘Dynamic Enterprise Reference Grid for ERP’ (DERG-ERP) which draws from multiple theoretical perspectives. The core of the DERG-ERP concept is a contingency management framework which indicates that different multi-organisational enterprise paradigms and the supporting ERP information systems are not the result of different strategies, but are best considered part of a strategic continuum with the same overall business purpose of multi-organisational cooperation. At different times and circumstances in a partnership lifecycle firms may prefer particular multi-organisational enterprise structures and the use of different types of ERP systems to satisfy business requirements. Thus the DERG-ERP concept helps decision makers in selecting, managing and co-developing the most appropriate multi-organistional enterprise strategy and its corresponding ERP systems by drawing on core competence, expected competitiveness, and information systems strategic capabilities as the main contingency factors. Specifically, this research suggests that traditional ERP(I) systems are associated with Vertically Integrated Enterprise (VIE); whilst ERPIIsystems can be correlated to Extended Enterprise (EE) requirements and ERPIII systems can best support the operations of Virtual Enterprise (VE). The contribution of this thesis is threefold. Firstly, this work contributes to a gap in the extant literature about the best fit between ERP system types and multi-organisational enterprise structure types; and proposes a new contingency framework – the DERG-ERP, which can be used to explain how and why enterprise managers need to change and adapt their ERP information systems in response to changing business and operational requirements. Secondly, with respect to a priori theoretical models, the new DERG-ERP has furthered multi-organisational enterprise management thinking by incorporating information system strategy, rather than purely focusing on strategy, structural, and operational aspects of enterprise design and management. Simultaneously, the DERG-ERP makes theoretical contributions to the current IS Strategy Formulation Model which does not explicitly address multi-organisational enterprise governance. Thirdly, this research clarifies and emphasises the new concept and ideas of future ERP systems (referred to as ERPIII) that are inadequately covered in the extant literature. The novel DERG-ERP concept and its elements have also been applied to 8 empirical cases to serve as a practical guide for ERP vendors, information systems management, and operations managers hoping to grow and sustain their competitive advantage with respect to effective enterprise strategy, enterprise structures, and ERP systems use; referred to in this thesis as the “enterprisation of operations”

Information technology capability within small-medium enterprises

The study presented in this thesis investigates the influence of IT capability on the relationship between IT expenditures and long term business performance. To do so, the Resource Based View (RBV) has been used as the theoretical framework, and, within such a framework, the concept of sustainable competitive advantage has been used as a point of reference. IT capability, a term often mentioned in the scientific literature dealing with the applications of RBV in the IS field, has been the subject of this study. Within the IS discipline, IT capability is perceived to have considerable influence on the effect of IT expenditure on the long term results of an organization. However, few studies have identified the extent of this influence and indeed the very definition of IT capability has been so ambiguous that no measurement instrument has been developed and universally accepted. In this thesis we recognized this lack and carried out a multi-method study, to first identify a comprehensive definition of IT capability and then to develop and validate a measure of IT capability and evaluate its role on business performance. The empirical study was performed within the context of small-medium enterprises (SMEs),which implies a lower level of organizational complexity but in order to reflect the reality ofmodern business all such organisations were involved in inter-organisational networks within industrial aggregations in Italy. Eleven SMEs were involved in a multiple case study, and 77 SMEs (belonging to the textile and the mechanical industrial districts in Italy) were surveyed and these results analysed and aggregated to form some conclusions with respect to the meaning and influence of IT capability. The study was conducted over a number of stages to allow an initial definition of IT capability to be evaluated within a case study context and then expanded prior to the main survey. As such the literature review and analysis of previous studies was carried out in two different time periods as the scope of the study was refined

Modern megachurch organization in the United States (2005-2013) : an exploratory organizational study of the American megachurch phenomenon.

This dissertation study explores the applicability of two for-profit organizational theories on a non-profit sector. Theoretical concepts from organizational ecology (OE) and new institutional sociology (NIS) provide the framework for exploring modern megachurches as an organizational phenomenon in the United States between 2005 and 2013. Modern megachurches are modern in the sense they really began to be an organizational population starting in the 1970s and 1980s. These churches are distinctively from the Protestant Christian tradition having 2,000 or more attendees (Thumma & Travis, 2007; Hartford Institute for Religion Research, n.d.). Three empirical chapters test several hypotheses germane to these aforementioned theoretical paradigms. The dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter One argues that megachurches closely resemble for-profit businesses making them worthy of organizational research. Chapter Two explores OE’s density dependence theory – how or if legitimacy and competition effects megachurch founding events. Chapter Three explores the applicability of OE’s inertia and niche width, and NIS’s isomorphism effects on megachurches with one geographic location (a.k.a. single-site megachurch or SSM) switching to a megachurch with two or more geographic locations (a.k.a. multi-site megachurch or MM). Chapter Four explores niche width interactions with concentration and their effects of being on Outreach Magazine’s 100 Fastest-growing Churches list as a proxy for church growth. The results from the empirical chapters did not support many of the hypotheses. However, Chapter Two did show that density was broadly significant as a predictor, but it operates differently for megachurches. Chapters Three and Four showed partial support for diversity measures suggesting the effects of niche width is greatly limited when applied to megachurches. Chapter Four also failed to support many of the interaction hypotheses, suggesting the transfer of generalism and specialism is not as clear for megachurches as it is for businesses. I conclude that modern megachurches in the U.S. require greater exploration using OE and NIS theoretical concepts. Nuanced application of these organizational concepts will be indicative of understanding modern megachurches as organizational populations

Examination of existing facilities management approaches to climate change and future directions

It is widely accepted that human activities have contributed to changing the world’s climate and that the pace of this change is ever increasing. Two approaches are being promoted by the international community to address the issue of climate change (1) Mitigation, seeking to reduce the amount of CO2; (2) Adaptation, which seeks to alter the way humankind live and work in response to the changing climate. Whilst facilities managers and their organisations have prioritised mitigation action, there is less evidence to suggest that they are addressing the implications that a changing climate may have on the demands being placed on their organisation’s hard and soft facilities (adaptation). This paper reports findings from a case study and questionnaire survey to ascertain the present approach taken by facilities managers to address mitigation and adaptation, their respective drivers, their view on climate change and their environmental inclination. It concludes that the facilities manager's approach to climate change is derived by a combination of factors; namely a) Organisation approach to climate change b) Legislation and c) the facilities mangers perception of the risks posed by future climate change and of the use of risk assessment methods and climate change projection data. The study concludes that the prevailing measure for addressing climate change impacts is reactive in nature, taking the form of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning. The practical implication of the work is in the realization that mitigation, being quantifiable and legislative driven, is viewed as a strategic issue and of importance to an organisations Corporate Social Responsibility agenda which can be planned over the longer term (10-20 yrs). Adaptation on the other hand is measured through successful survival, increased resilience and adaptive capacity (absence of quantitative performance target), each of which are viewed as short term operational issues and as such adaptation struggles to find strategic importance. If organisations are to adapt to inevitable climate change then this situation needs to change