Rethinking ‘Advanced Search’: A New Approach to Complex Query Formulation

Knowledge workers such as patent agents, recruiters and media monitoring professionals undertake work tasks where search forms a core part of their duties. In these instances, the search task often involves the formulation of complex queries expressed as Boolean strings. However, creating effective Boolean queries remains an ongoing challenge, often compromised by errors and inefficiencies. In this demo paper, we present a new approach to query formulation in which concepts are expressed on a two-dimensional canvas and relationships are articulated using direct manipulation. This has the potential to eliminate many sources of error, makes the query semantics more transparent, and offers new opportunities for query refinement and optimisatio

Towards a holistic lean product development framework

Companies consider product development (PD) their competitive lever to survive in a technology-fuelled and fast-paced environment. Lean Product Development (LPD) is a promising concept currently being adopted by companies focusing on maximising customer value, shortening lead times, and reducing costs in PD. This research initially concentrates on developing a comprehensive LPD framework which subsumes existing concepts and supersedes them by including findings from the wider PD research area. The investigation then leads into understanding the highly-interwoven, yet underinvestigated, character of LPD to pave the way for its implementation into the complex knowledge-based PD environment. The deduced systematic implementation plan, which both provides an appropriate level of detail and accounts for the inherent complexities of LPD, supports companies in their struggle to embrace Lean practices in PD. The LPD framework is developed by employing a content analysis of existing concepts and integrating insights from the wider PD environment. The relationships between the framework’s elements are investigated using the results of a self-administered questionnaire embedded in a cross-sectional research design and complemented by the fruitful discussions found in literature. The insights into the inner workings of the framework are subsequently appropriated to formulate general recommendations and an effective implementation plan

Working Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings are often perceived as something to be avoided yet delineate an integrative part of everyday work. This book addresses the role that misunderstandings play in collaborative work and, above all, their effects on the organisational result. As exemplified by project collaboration across three offices of a multinational corporation in India, Frauke Mörike explores how misunderstandings shape the organisational system and why they prove not only necessary but even productive for organisational functioning. In doing so, she offers new ways to think about collaboration and establishes `misunderstanding' as a key factor of insight for the field of organisational research

A transformational organisational framework for improving Iraqi quasi-governmental construction companies’ performance

Rising globalisation, the liberalisation of international trade and rapid technological development over the last two decades have subjected the business environment to rapid, dynamic change. In the face of such change, seminal researchers and business leaders have reached a conclusion that Business Process (BP) is the core of an organisation. Thus, in order to survive, grow, and stay ahead of the competition in today’s turbulent environment, organisations need to mainly focus on improving their business processes. Similarly, the Iraqi business environment, after the 2003 conflict, have been subject to profound change influenced by the radical changes to Iraq’s political and economic systems. These changes have directly impacted on Iraqi Quasi-Governmental Construction Companies (IQGCCs) where, after decades of domination over most publicly funded construction contracts, these companies face now fierce competition from in excess of 3,500 local and international private firms. As a result, IQGCCs have subsequently struggled to both win contracts and generate profit and the majority have incurred substantial financial losses, becoming unsustainable burdens on the national budget. Although the Iraqi government has attempted to reform the performance of these companies, most of these efforts have ended in their recapitalisation, rather than the identification and resolution of their problems. Accordingly, through employing Business Process Management (BPM) as a comprehensive and widely used approach to increase BP’s principles in an organisation, this research aims to synthesise a transformational organisational framework to address the challenges emanating from current practice within IQGCCs with the view to determining a step change improvement that could ultimately enhance their bottom line performances. To achieve this aim, an exploratory study, which comprised three companies selected from IQGCCs as case studies, was conducted with the aim of mapping and examining the current operational processes employed by these companies and pinpointing the main challenges existing in these processes. Thereafter, a series of semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten experts selected from various management levels of three IQGCCs in order to test the applicability of the theoretical framework developed from the literature to address the challenges inherent in the IQGCCs’ processes. Based on the experts’ responses, the theoretical framework was refined and then further validated through four more semi-structured interviews to produce the final recommended transformational organisational framework for IQGCCs. The study empirically uncovered a number of challenges and impediments inherent in the IQGCCs’ current practices that need to be overcome if their performances are to be enhanced. Many reasons were also identified and grouped together as underpinning causes of the current challenges and barriers to efficiency. The study also showed that the IQGCCs could solve most of the identified challenges through shifting their focus from a traditional functional orientation to a business process orientation. To facilitate this, the study produced a transformational organisational framework that acts as a roadmap to streamline and continuously improve Iraqi QGCCs’ core business processes and, ultimately, institute the business process’ principles within these companies

Queensland University of Technology: Handbook 2012

The Queensland University of Technology handbook gives an outline of the faculties and subject offerings available that were offered by QUT

Queensland University of Technology: Handbook 2013

The Queensland University of Technology handbook gives an outline of the faculties and subject offerings available that were offered by QUT

Queensland University of Technology: Handbook 2014

The Queensland University of Technology handbook gives an outline of the faculties and subject offerings available that were offered by QUT