The role of high-performance people management practices in Industry 4.0: The case of medium-sized Spanish firms

Purpose: This paper wants to build the case for the key role of high-performance people management practices in the development of I4.0 in SMEs. The research upon which this paper is based wants to prove that the consolidation of those practices should be a priority for any company willing to embark in this journey. The paper deals specifically with medium-sized Spanish firms which, on top, are already having significant issues with digitization. Design/methodology: The paper starts by digging into the literature to see how past technologies have impacted productivity, followed by a review of the material available on digitization and Industry 4.0. It moves on to explore the relationship between people management practices, productivity and innovation. Finally, the focus is placed on Spanish medium-sized companies, understanding their current levels of consolidation of high-performance people management practices as well as digitization. With all this information, several propositions are posited for validation using the Delphi methodology. Findings: I4.0 is, at its core, about productivity improvements through business process and business model innovation. People management practices are found to be strongly correlated with both productivity and innovation. It has also been found that Spanish medium-sized firms already have a significant initial gap compared to those of other OECD countries not only in productivity, but also people management practices and digitization. The experts seem to agree on the key role of people management practices and that they should be a high priority for any firm seriously thinking about industry 4.0. This is not to say that strategy or leadership will not play a paramount role in any digital transformation, but to emphasize the fact that the normally-forgotten people management practices will be important enablers in this process. Originality/value: It is believed that this is a topic that has been mostly neglected in the I4.0 literature. In that sense, the findings of this paper could be relevant for small and medium-sized businesses embarking on the industry 4.0 journey. This will entail a significant investment of time and money and, if the key role of people management practices is not on the radar screen, it may have significant implications for the success of those ventures.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Spectacular narratives: Twister, independence day, and frontier mythology

Big-screen spectacle has become increasingly important to Hollywood in recent decades. It formed a central part of a post-war strategy aimed at tempting lost audiences back to the cinema in the face of demographic changes and the development of television and other domestic leisure activities. More recently, in an age in which the big Hollywood studios have become parts of giant conglomerates, the prevalence of spectacle and special effects has been boosted by a demand to engineer products that can be further exploited in multimedia forms such as computer games and theme-park rides, secondary outlets that can sometimes generate more profits than the films on which they are based. These and other developments have led some commentators to announce, or predict, the imminent demise of narrative as a central component of Hollywood cinema. But the case has been considerably overstated. Narrative is far from being eclipsed, even in the most spectacular and effects-oriented of today’s blockbuster attractions. These films still tend to tell reasonably coherent stories, even if they may sometimes be looser and less well integrated than classical models. More important for my argument, contemporary spectaculars also continue to manifest the kinds of underlying thematic oppositions and reconciliations associated with a broadly ‘structuralist’ analysis of narrative. This very important dimension of narrative has been largely ignored by those who identify, celebrate or more often bemoan a weakening of plot or character development in many spectacular features

Inventing the Future: Barlow and Beyond

Syfte: Syftet med studien var att kartlägga preventiva omvårdnadsåtgärder för att förhindra ventilator-associerad pneumoni på en thoraxintensivvårdsavdelning. Bakgrund: De vanligaste vårdrelaterade infektionerna på intensivvårdsavdelningar är pneumonier och bland dessa är 80 % ventilatorassocierade. Vårdrelaterade infektioner innebär stora kostnader för samhället och ökat vårdlidande för den drabbade patienten. För att förhindra uppkomsten av ventilator-associerad pneumoni (VAP) finns ett antal omvårdnadsåtgärder som har visat sig vara effektiva vad gäller att motverka VAP. Design: Studien är en journalgranskning med retrospektiv deskriptiv design. Metod: Ett klusterurval gjordes där patienter som vårdats minst två påbörjade dygn i respirator valdes ut. Totalt togs 126 journaler fram varav 17 journaler exkluderades och slutligen ingick totalt 109 journaler i studien. Journalerna granskades med hjälp av ett protokoll där följande omvårdnadsåtgärder kontrollerades: tandborstning, munvård med klorhexidinlösning, antal utförda kufftrycksmätningar, registrerat kufftryck, höjd huvudända, subglottisaspiration, sederingsgrad enligt Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale (RASS) samt gurgling med klorhexidinlösning. Datan analyserades i statistikprogrammet SPSS. Resultat: Deltagarna delades in i två grupper utifrån ålder (grupp 1 ≤ 69 år, grupp 2 ≥ 70 år). Munvård med klorhexidin var den åtgärd som utfördes flest gånger per dygn med medianvärde fyra i båda åldersgrupperna. Därefter följde kufftrycksmätning med en median på två kontroller per dygn. Medianvärdet för höjd huvudända var ett i båda grupperna. Tandborstning var den åtgärd som utfördes minst antal gånger. Det var inga signifikanta skillnader mellan de olika åldersgrupperna vad gäller utförda omvårdnadsåtgärder. Konklusion och kliniska implikationer: En rimlig bedömning är att kontinuerlig uppdatering beträffande den senaste forskningen hos vårdpersonal samt revidering av PM kommer att ge bättre vårdresultat, kortare vårdtider, mindre kostnader för samhället och mindre vårdlidande. Resultatet pekar på behov av antingen bättre följsamhet till befintliga rekommendationer, eller noggrannare och tydligare dokumentation av utförda åtgärder

Computer Mediated Communication and the Connection between Virtual Utopias and Actual Realities

People have generally been very ambivalent about the potential future roles of new technologies (and the internet specifically) and their possible effects on human society. Indeed, there has been a tendency for polarization between attitudes or perceptions of naive enthusiasm and cynical resistance towards the use of computers and computer networks, and for such related concepts as ‘the information superhighway’ and ‘cyberspace’. The projection of such ambivalent perceptions into naively utopian (or even ironically dystopian) images and narratives might be seen as the latest and uniquely global permutation of a basic function of human culture - that is, to imagine ‘a better future’ or represent ‘an ideal past’. This paper will consider the extent to which the kinds of virtual utopias made possible by computer-mediated communications are\ud ‘connected’ to the actual individual and social realities of human participants. In other words, how important might it be to recognise a distinction between the use of virtual utopias (and utopian representations in any culture) as merely escapist, self-indulgent fantasy on one hand, and\ud as a useful, transformative media for reinventing the human condition on the other? Whether we live in a Panoptic or democratic Net ten years from now depends, in no small measure, on what you and I know and do now. Howard Rheingold, Afterword to The Virtual Community (1994, p. 310

Nonparametric approach to evaluation of economic and social development in the EU28 member states by DEA efficiency

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology is used in this study for a comparison of the dynamic efficiency of European countries over the last decade. Moreover, efficiency analysis is used to determine where resources are distributed efficiently and/or were used efficiently/inefficiently under factors of competitiveness extracted from factor analysis. DEA measures numerical grades of the efficiency of economic processes within evaluated countries and, therefore, it becomes a suitable tool for setting an efficient/inefficient position of each country. Most importantly, the DEA technique is applied to all (28) European Union (EU) countries to evaluate their technical and technological efficiency within the selected factors of competitiveness based on country competitiveness index in the 2000-2017 reference period. The main aim of the paper is to measure efficiency changes over the reference period and to analyze the level of productivity in individual countries based on the Malmquist productivity index (MPI). Empirical results confirm significant disparities among European countries and selected periods 2000-2007, 2008-2011, and 2012-2017. Finally, the study offers a comprehensive comparison and discussion of results obtained by MPI that indicate the EU countries in which policy-making authorities should aim to stimulate national development and provide more quality of life to the EU citizens.Web of Science122art. no. 7

Internationalisation strategies of African MNEs: a case analysis of Angolan and Mozambican enterprises

This study investigates the internationalisation strategies of Lusophone Africa multinational enterprises (LAMNEs) from Angola and Mozambique. While previous scholarship examining the investment decisions and actual investment commitments found that MNEs make choices to internationalise incrementally to reduce uncertainty, this research expands this body of scholarship by identifying Angolan and Mozambican MNEs that were born global or created to become international new ventures (INVs). Key implications of this study suggests that despite several disadvantages faced by entrepreneurs in frontier economies, particularly in Angola and Mozambique LAMNEs relied on external resources to launch themselves into international markets, utilising web-enabled digital and virtual resources, such as the Internet, social media and online professional communities of practice. In addition, most did not enter foreign markets alone and chose to rely on modes of entry that included joint ventures and partnerships, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), e-commerce, and e-business.https://doi.org/10.1504/IJEXPORTM.2019.101809Accepted manuscriptPublished versio