The work of financialisation: an ethnography of a global management consultancy in post-Mao China

This thesis examines and exposes the work of one of the most enigmatic of capitalist institutions – the management consultancy – as that of financialisation. In recent decades financial markets have played an increasingly important role in the operations of the global economy, which has led to fundamental changes to managerial practices of the modern corporation. In particular, many authors, from a variety of disciplines within social sciences, have discussed the ascendancy of shareholder value as the ideology of corporate governance. But what is rarely examined is how shareholder value has been disseminated and installed as a corporate good. At the same time, there continues to be widespread ignorance about one of the major proponents of shareholder value – management consultancies. In short, we still do not know what consultancies do. I attempt to address this lacuna by examining how management is practised within management consultancy. Through an ethnography based on 16 months of fieldwork inside one of the world’s largest management consultancies, I show that shareholder value is an ethic of production which has to be made through a set of sociotechnical practices which are deployed in the pursuit of an ontological transformation – the enactment of the corporation as a financial asset. I highlight the importance of information technology (IT) in this endeavour, specifically, how it is incorporated in managerial techniques of “corporate culture”, which attempt to not only orientate employees towards the “needs” of financial markets, but also constructs them as financial objects. The work of consultancies is to establish the practice of managing labour as financial capital. This thesis draws on analytical approaches from science and technology studies to examine complex managerial systems and how they operate to produce an ethics of capitalism; it contributes to existing anthropological scholarship on the “new economy”, financial markets, corporate subjectivities and theories of value, and provides a novel example of how “fast capitalism” can be captured, ethnographically, through a methodology of collaboration

Studies on Risk and Occupational Health Hazards in Industrial Context: Some Case Research

This work articulates few case empirical studies on some aspects of risk management and occupational health hazards in the context of Indian Industries. Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. The study focuses on five important domains investigating (i) the interrelationships among critical risk factors associated with software engineering project, (ii) risk management for IT outsourcing, (iii) risk management in metropolitan construction project, (iv) health hazard risk management, and (v) appropriate safety measure system selection for improving workers’ safety in an underground coal mining industry. In this research, an ISM approach has been applied to understand the significant interrelationships among the twenty three identified risk factors associated with the software engineering projects. In relation to IT outsourcing project, a hierarchical risk-breakdown structure has been proposed comprising sixty eight risk influencing factors under eleven risk dimensions. A case study has been conducted in a famous IT sector located at the eastern part of India. An improved fuzzy based decision making approach has been proposed for assessing overall IT outsourcing project risks. The degree of risk of identified risk factors have been shown in crisp values rather than the fuzzy numbers. A logical risk categorization framework has been proposed to categorize the risk factors into different risk levels. A unique action requirement plan has been suggested for effectively controlling the risks towards IT outsourcing project success. In the later part, total twenty one occupational health hazards have been identified and assessed their risk extent based on the exposure assessment procedure. Consequently, a constructive control measure plan has been suggested for different health hazards in view of their risk extent level. A novel risk-based decision making framework has been proposed for selecting the appropriate safety measure system in an underground coal mining industry. In addition to this, a case study has been conducted using twenty potential risk factors associated with five risk dimensions for assessing metropolitan construction project risks. Decision-makers’ risk bearing attitude has also been considered in this study. This study also explores the concept of risk matrix for categorizing the risk factors in different risk levels which would provide guidelines towards controlling risks for enhancing the overall project performance. Risk analysis models delignated herein have been case studied in relation to Indian industries. However, the model or hierarchy of various risk dimensions, risk sources; and classification of health hazards can be applicable to appropriate industries all over the globe. Some alteration may incur depending on the geographic situation of coal mining industry in analyzing occupational health hazards and associated risks. The framework for analyzing risks and occupational health hazards based on fuzzy based decision making approach can be applied in industrial context of different countries. Apart from the case studies mentioned above, the work also proposes a risk based decision support framework for selection of safety measure system for underground coal mines. In this case, occupational risks and alternative safety measure systems have been identified through literature survey. This part is a purely a theoretical formulation followed by analysis of assumed data which has not been case studied in reality. The novelty of the proposed framework is to analyze various risk dimensions in software engineering projects, IT Outsourcing, construction projects; also occupational health hazards in underground coal mining industry in a fuzzy based decision making framework. Instead of exploring historical data, survey report of the company; an experienced decision making group has been appointed to provide subjective judgement in regards of likelihood of occurrence and impact of various risks; consequence of exposure, period of exposure, and probability of exposure of various health hazards. Subjective decision making data have been transformed into appropriate fuzzy number sets to quantify overall risks extent. Thus, the proposed framework provides a platform to quantify extent of risk in industrial context

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2020, which was planned to be held during June 8-12, 2020, at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was postponed until an undetermined date. XP is the premier agile software development conference combining research and practice. It is a hybrid forum where agile researchers, academics, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers get together to present and discuss their most recent innovations, research results, experiences, concerns, challenges, and trends. Following this history, for both researchers and seasoned practitioners XP 2020 provided an informal environment to network, share, and discover trends in Agile for the next 20 years. The 14 full and 2 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 37 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: agile adoption; agile practices; large-scale agile; the business of agile; and agile and testing

A framework for outsourcing facilities management services in Nigeria's public hospitals

Literature has established FM as a global business model that continues to explore how organisation can grow faster through expansion into new markets, find new ways of fostering innovation through collaborative outsourcing that will achieve right balance between the decision to outsource, risks and legal requirements embedded in the service level agreement (SLA) between client organisations and their FM outsourcing vendors. The study aims to develop and test a framework for outsourcing facilities management services using data from Nigeria’s public hospitals. The specific objectives are among others; to determine a set of key factors that influence the decision to outsource facilities management services in public hospitals; to conduct an empirical survey of facilities management services outsourced in public hospitals; to access the satisfaction of users of outsourced FM services and model the satisfaction of users on quality of outsourced facilities management services using SEM; and assess the probability and severity of risks associated with outsourcing of facilities management services in public hospitals. Data for this study were collected using a cross sectional 2-strand questionnaire survey and case study. During the first strand of questionnaire survey, a total of 85 responses were received from the six states comprising the study area while 11 of them were discarded due to missing data resulting in 74 usable responses. This gave an overall response rate of 45.4%. A total of 246 survey responses were received during the second strand of questionnaire survey. Of these, 38 were not fully completed and therefore discarded leaving 208 as usable responses. This resulted in an overall response rate of 25.1%. The case study component involved semi-structured interview section with 4 participants representing 4 cases (3 hospitals and 1 FM organisation). Findings revealed that 25 of the 31 factors were significant in explaining the decision to outsource FM service in Nigeria’s public hospitals; while 15 of them grouped into 5 broad categories were recommended for framework construction based on their factor loadings during analysis. Also, 6 facilities management services including plant management and repairs; general cleaning services; waste disposal and environmental management; landscape maintenance; security; and catering/restroom management are completely outsourced in all the 74 hospitals. Findings additionally revealed that service quality in relation to catering, plant maintenance, waste management, security, landscape maintenance, and cleaning services received very high satisfaction ratings from respondents. Findings also established 24 out of the 35 risk factors as critical, 4 factors as somehow critical, and 5 factors as not critical. Besides, 9 risk factors were selected based on their factor loadings from PCA to develop the outsourcing framework. Drawing on theoretical analysis and input from the questionnaire survey and case study, an outsourcing framework comprising 4 components was developed to assist public hospitals administrators achieve sustainable best practice resource management. It is recommended among others that further research be conducted to develop standardised criteria for vendor selection processes

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Value co-creation characteristics and creativity-oriented customer citizenship behavior

For the competitive advantage of service organization, it is important to improve the creative performance of human resources in the organization. For example, when employees perform creatively, in other words, if they generate novel and useful ideas, it will contribute to organizational competiveness. Therefore, there has been an increased focus in identifying its antecedents and consequences. Unfortunately, little is known about the creative performance of customers. According to service-centered dominant logic, customer is the value co-creator, it emphasizes co-opting customer involvement in the value creation process as an additional human resource. In addition, customers can be a valuable resource for service improvement efforts for firms. For instance, companies might benefit greatly from customer feedback and complaints regarding their offerings and can enhance their productivity in terms of quality and quantity. In this paper, the type of novel, creative-oriented customer behaviors highlighted in the preceding paragraph are referred to as creativity-oriented customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs). In the customer value co-creation context, creative-oriented CCBs refer to extra-role efforts by customers with regards the development of ideas about products, practices, services, and procedures that are novel and potentially useful to a firm. According to the intrinsic motivation perspective, the context in which customers create values, influences their intrinsic motivation, which in turn affects creativity-oriented CCBs. The intrinsic motivation perspective suggests that high intrinsic motivation is affected by information from both task characteristics (i.e., autonomy) and social characteristics (e.g., supplier support). Specifically, complex and challenging task characteristics such as high levels of variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback are expected to increase customer intrinsic motivation. Under these conditions, customers should increase the likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, customers are expected to be most creative when they experience a high level of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, complex and challenging task and social characteristics can have the opposite effect to customers. For example, in a high level of variety task, increased autonomy can lead to increased workload because they must take on related extra responsibilities and accountability. Increased workload, in turn, is expected to lead to decreased likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the impact of task characteristics and social characteristics on creativity-oriented CCBs. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has examined the possibility that creativity is affected by personal characteristics. As such, in addition to the relevant task and social characteristics, the moderating influence of several trait variables is also considered. This article makes several contributions. First, this study investigates the trade-off effect of the customer value co-creation related task and social characteristics by examining the underlying opposing mechanism of motivation and work overload. Second, this research provides a deeper understanding of contingency factors that systematically strengthen the relationships under consideration. Third, this study may indicate that companies seek to promote the creativity of their industrial customers and should design the tasks and social characteristics of their industrial customers in a way that maximizes their creativity. But, companies should be aware of the negative impact of specific tasks and social characteristics that may minimize the creativity of industrial customers

Challenges of outsourcing systems integration - Lessons learned from the public sector

Purpose of the study The purpose of this study was to identify the challenges of outsourcing systems integration by examining systems integrator service offered to the public sector. The focus was turned also to organizational and strategic aspects of integration instead of mere technical ones. The challenges were looked from external perspective through transaction cost economics and from internal one through capabilities. With internal challenges the goal was to identify if they relate to the customer, the service provider or if they are shared between the two. Methodology The research framework was built based on previous research in the fields of TCE, capabilities, information systems outsourcing and service co-production. The research was conducted as a single case study concentrating on one large systems integration service provider to gain full understanding of the complex research phenomena. The main data collecting was done through semi-structured interviews to enable modifying the questions according to the interviewee. Additional data sources were public reports, newspaper articles, workshop and case company internal material. Furthermore, the research is abductive, which means that some of the theoretical discussions were revised after pilot interviews. Findings The key findings of the study include the description of the external and internal challenges of systems integration. The external challenges relate to the characteristics of the service and the transactions, which combined with outsourcing, would require long lasting relationships or elaborate contracts. When the customer is a public organization, long lasting relationships are challenging due to competitive bidding. The internal challenges are due to lack of capabilities. Most of the capabilities required for successful service production are shared between the service provider and the customer because of the co-creative nature of the service. From a skills perspective, interpersonal and communication skills were identified to be more critical than technical skills

What a feeling: An empirical study of the nexus of emotion and cultural friction in the context of intra-MNC knowledge transfer

This thesis examines the interactions between emotion and cultural friction in the context of intra-MNC knowledge transfer. The research is based on 60 interviews, 9 month fieldwork and documents collected from one largest Chinese I.T. service company. A qualitative single case study framed with an interpretive lens was used as research design. The thesis has examined the source, process and consequence of discrete emotions in cross-culture knowledge transfer. It shows that emotion is a crucial link to explain why some managers perceive cultural friction as stressful, other frame it as an opportunity to learn. And a cultural pre-disposition towards certain emotional experiences is also revealed This study is the first empirical investigation on discrete emotions in knowledge transfer within MNC. It provides a unique but complementary approach to understand culture friction and cross-cultural behavior

APPLICATION OUTSOURCING IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY – ITO MODEL

Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) in terms of the replacement of the in-house production of IT activities by the use of third party suppliers had already started in the 1960s and has increased considerably. For 2013, the Gartner Group expected that the global ITO market would reach a volume of 288 bn US dollars. Until 2017, the market should grow on average about 5.4% yearly. Despite the rich set of experiences companies have already had with ITO, the chances of success are seen as at best 50:50. Currently, the dramatic growth of ITO is accompanied by backsourcing of formerly outsourced IT functions or reports about dissatisfaction and problems with ITO. Scientists put ITO failures or problems down to a lack of modelling of all the possible factors affecting ITO success and demand a specific ITO theory as a basis for better explaining and predicting successes and failures in an IT sourcing context. This thesis takes up this research gap. The aim of this thesis is to develop a novel ITO Model which aids organisations in planning and implementing ITO solutions by guiding them through the ITO process steps of preparation, selection, contract, transition, execution, and post-deal comprising a comprehensive picture of the weighted aspects relevant to ITO success and their interdependencies. In order to achieve this aim, the following objectives were established for this thesis: raising the topical level of scientific knowledge of the last decades about successinfluencing factors in the ITO field based on an extensive literature survey of 48 scientific articles deriving ITO success factors from empirical research work; structuring of this success factor knowledge by the development of two ITO taxonomies (taxonomy of success factors and taxonomy of success factor interdependencies); testing its practical applicability on the basis of 8 real long-running application outsourcing cases in the banking industry; further development of the success factor knowledge by identification of weightings and the temporal relevance of relevant success factors / success factor interdependencies within the ITO process. Design of the novel ITO Model based on the empirical knowledge gained by development of rules for relevant success factors and success factor interdependencies, by arrangement of these rules in temporal order within the ITO process and by assignment of these rules to four levels of environment