Performance Pressure and Resource Allocation in Washington

Based on interviews with state, district, and school officials, explores how performance pressures have changed resource allocation decisions. Examines reform goals and how Washington's finance system impedes efforts to link resources to student learning

Design Challenges for Innovation Management on Agro-Food Sector

Current status of research indicates that we assist to location-specific factor supremacy as determinants in regional attractiveness and sustainability being territorial driven, we offer strong arguments for policy makers in order to enable this long term strategy. We also address another issue heavily disputed between academics-that is the return to local and regional offerings as complementary to global assumption. Assisting today to a hybrid innovation process, relying upon territorial marketing-an umbrella for too many issues cvasi- exploited: eco-clusters, local and regional offerings; traditional products/services exploiting, regional clusters competing for funds; we are focusing on complex industrial -rural system reconfiguration relying upon dynamic evolution of territorial branding into competitive identity, as the disruptive behavior we need in sustainable development. Successful development strategies are based on the ability to build an institutional territorial coherence-social and environmental sustainability being inextricably interdependent, such a complex coordination structure relies on territorial knowledge sharing through expertise polls consultation- as key concept of good governance. This model of innovational resource allocation coordination on agro food chains, relying upon clusterisation through patterns of innovational management deficit, offers a relevant solution for synergic orientation of assistance and mentoring efforts on the sector, enable the capitalization of relevant capabilities and increase the addressability from innovation demand side. Based upon auditing 500 SME’s from agro food sector in Europe and 51 in SE region, the paper is fully documented on there years of data analyzing from Agro Food sector on 10 European countries in the framework on FP6 SPAS European Project.territorial knowledge sharing, innovation resource allocation, disruptive territorial solution, community supported agro food chains

Retail positioning through customer satisfaction: an alternative explanation to the resource-based view

Through exploring factors influencing effective retail positioning strategies in an emerging market environment, this paper challenges the role of isolation mechanism and heterogeneous idiosyncrasy argued by the resource-based view theory. By drawing on a sample of 11,577 customers from hypermarkets, electronic appliance specialty stores and department stores in major Chinese cities, we set up ten hypotheses and confirm a nine-item model for customeroriented retail positioning (perceived price, store image, product, shopping environment, customer service, payment process, after-sales service, store policies, and shopping convenience). Our results show that different retail formats achieve success through the implementation of similar positioning strategies, in which case, it is not heterogeneity but homogeneity that contributes to retailers' success greatly at the development stage of retail expansion. Our results challenge previously proved effectiveness of inimitability to success by the resource-based view, and support homogenous idiosyncrasy of retailers in the implementation of customer-oriented positioning strategies in an emerging market

Elastic Business Process Management: State of the Art and Open Challenges for BPM in the Cloud

With the advent of cloud computing, organizations are nowadays able to react rapidly to changing demands for computational resources. Not only individual applications can be hosted on virtual cloud infrastructures, but also complete business processes. This allows the realization of so-called elastic processes, i.e., processes which are carried out using elastic cloud resources. Despite the manifold benefits of elastic processes, there is still a lack of solutions supporting them. In this paper, we identify the state of the art of elastic Business Process Management with a focus on infrastructural challenges. We conceptualize an architecture for an elastic Business Process Management System and discuss existing work on scheduling, resource allocation, monitoring, decentralized coordination, and state management for elastic processes. Furthermore, we present two representative elastic Business Process Management Systems which are intended to counter these challenges. Based on our findings, we identify open issues and outline possible research directions for the realization of elastic processes and elastic Business Process Management.Comment: Please cite as: S. Schulte, C. Janiesch, S. Venugopal, I. Weber, and P. Hoenisch (2015). Elastic Business Process Management: State of the Art and Open Challenges for BPM in the Cloud. Future Generation Computer Systems, Volume NN, Number N, NN-NN., http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2014.09.00

Rakennusprosessin Digitalisointi ja Teollistaminen - Tapaustutkimu

This thesis presents an overall description of industrialization and digitalization in construction industry and pipe repair sector and a framework to assess organization's industrial maturity. Industrialization in construction industry strives to make production effective by repeating work processes in factories, design offices and at building sites by the coordination of different activities. In the core of industrialization is the relocation of activities from on-site to specialized off-site factories (e.g. pre-assembly) and to remote digital units (e.g. designing). The two theoretical contributions of this study are i) the new framework for industrial maturity measurement in construction industry and pipe repair sector and ii) the detailed description of case company's current industrial maturity. The industrial maturity framework defines organization's current industrial maturity in six different process categories related to production. These contributions also have managerial relevance as they can be utilized to evaluate and plan a transformative process towards higher industrialization with digitalization as an enabler. The empirical evidence of this study proposes that the existing literature on industrialization might focus too strongly on industrialization as a concept and has not considered the potential of a framework to assess the level of industrialization. By having a framework to assess the current status, organizations can approach industrialization in a more strategic manner, focusing to enhance the weakest areas in the organization.Tämä tutkimus esittelee yleisen kuvauksen teollistumisesta ja digitalisoinnista rakennusalalla ja putkiremonttisektorilla, sekä viitekehyksen organisaation teollisen maturiteetin mittaamiseen. Teollistuminen rakennusalalla pyrkii tekemään tuotannosta tehokkaampaa luomalla toistettavia työsuoritteita tuotantolaitoksissa, suunnittelutoimistoissa ja rakennustyömaalla aktiviteetteja koordinoimalla. Teollistumisen ytimessä on työmaan aktiviteettien uudelleensijoittaminen erikoistuneisiin tuotantolaitoksiin (esivalmistus) ja digitaalisiin yksikköihin (suunnittelu). Tämän tutkmuksen kaksi pääasiallista teoreettista kontribuutiota ovat i) uusi viitekehys teollisen maturiteetin mittaamiseen rakennusalalla ja putkiremonttisektorilla, sekä ii) yksityiskohtainen kuvaus tapaustutkimuksen yrityksen nykyisestä teollisen maturiteetin tasosta. Teollisen maturiteetin viitekehys määrittelee organisaation teollisen maturiteetin nykytilan kuudella eri tuotannon osaalueella. Näillä kontribuutioilla on myös johtoryhmän relevanssia, sillä niiden hyödyntäminen mahdollistaa digitalisaation avulla korkeampaan teollistumiseen tähtäävän muutosprosessin arvioimisen ja suunnittelemisen. Tutkimuksen empiirinen näyttö osoittaa, että nykyinen teollistumista koskeva kirjallisuus on saattanut painottaa liiaksi teollistumista yleisen tason konseptina ja ei ole huomioinut teollisen maturiteetin mittaamiseen käytettävän viitekehyksen arvoa organisaation teollistumisen mittaamiseen. Tutkimuksessa rakennetun viitekehyksen avulla organisaatiot rakennusalalla pystyvät lähestymään teollistumista strategisemmin ja osoittamaan kehityskohteita saavuttaakseen korkeamman teollistumisen taso

Facilitating Distinctive and Meaningful Change Within U.S. Law Schools (Part 2): Pursuing Successful Plan Implementation Through Better Resource Management

In Part 1 of this series, one of the current authors used institutional theory, behavioral economics, and psychology to explain why U.S. law schools have had difficulty evolving faster and better. The author then used institutional entrepreneurship to propose a seven-step, faculty-led, operational change process designed to overcome institutional isomorphism and to enable each law school to formulate a distinctive, meaningful, strategic plan. In Part 2, the current article addresses the typical implementation challenges to be expected within the context of existing law school governance. The article begins by discussing the Resource Based View of the firm and the role of resource management in achieving competitive advantages. These considerations lay the foundation for the critical role of faculty engagement and law school leadership in successful strategic plan implementation. Next, within this context, the article discusses four questions whose answers may foreshadow implementation problems. Lastly, the article discusses the results of several Monte Carlo Simulations. The simulations provide insight into the likely performance problems caused by faculty misaligned with, or disengaged from, their law school’s strategic goals. The results suggest that even minimal faculty misalignment can have a significant deleterious effect on the ability of a given law school to achieve any distinctive position. All told, the article concludes that U.S. law schools can successfully implement distinctive and meaningful strategic plans within existing shared governance structures. However, success will be difficult to achieve. It requires the full engagement and leadership by both the faculty and the Dean, sustained operational support for strategic change, and the active management of law school resources

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