Ergonomics Contributions to Company Strategies

Managers usually associate ergonomics with occupational health and safety and related legislation, not with business performance. In many companies, these decision makers seem not to be positively motivated to apply ergonomics for reasons of improving health and safety. In order to strengthen the position of ergonomics and ergonomists in the business and management world, we discuss company strategies and business goals to which ergonomics could contribute. Conceptual models are presented and examples are given to illustrate: 1) the present situation in which ergonomics is not part of regular planning and control cycles in organizations to ensure business performance, and 2) the desired situation in which ergonomics is an integrated part of strategy formulation and implementation. In order to realize the desired situation, considerable changes must take place within the ergonomics research, education and practice community by moving from a health ergonomics paradigm to a business ergonomics paradigm, without losing the health and safety goals.corporate strategy;paradigm shift;system performance

UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING USER RESISTANCE TO IS IMPLEMENTATION IN A LEAN CONTEXT

One of the key success factors for the implementation of „Lean‟ concepts is the successful introduction of Information Systems (IS). However, a number of negative outcomes resulting from the implementation of Lean (and its corresponding IS) can lead to strong user resistance to Lean implementation. Using a case study approach supported by interviews with different user groups, this study investigates typical types of user resistance together with strategies for overcoming these resistances. Drawing from prior research on IS and Lean resistance the preliminary findings suggest that Lean IS implementation is not very different from other IS implementations, confirming prior research in this area. However, it also contributes new findings. First, the results showed that information transparency may play an important role in two ways, both as a trigger for user resistance and as a strategy to overcome user resistance. It therefore balances negative and positive effects of user resistance. Second, we found that the order of implementation may have a more significant impact on implementation success than suggested in prior literature

The HRM Cockpit: an instrument for developing and evaluating sustainable HRM in an organization

These days, a new approach is emerging in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM). Where strategic HRM has been the main approach for the last decades, nowadays more and more scholars are connecting sustainability to HRM (Ehnert, 2009, 2014, Kramar, 2014). There are many different conceptualizations for sustainable HRM, but most scholars agree on defining it as an extension of strategic HRM (Ehnert, 2009; Kramar, 2014). Thereby they agree that sustainable HRM has a broader focus on the organization’s performances than only accounting for the financial success of the organization. In fact sustainable HRM incorporates the triple bottom line, namely people, planet and profit (Elkington, 1997) and tries to balance these three different aspects. Even though literature (Ehnert, 2009, De Prins et al., 2014) provides different models about sustainable HRM, we face a lack of practical tools to explore and exploit sustainable HRM in an organization. To develop a practical tool for monitoring sustainable HRM in an organization, an extended literature review was conducted, complemented with qualitative data (i.e. explorative interviews with practitioners, trade unions and a test panel) to define the field of sustainable HRM. The development of the tool started with a literature review in several different domains such as strategic HRM, sustainable HRM, HR scorecards and strategy mapping. The tool is based upon the idea of scorecards and measuring progress in realizing an HRM strategy. Deriving from the literature review, two concepts were used as basic principles during the development of the tool. First, the idea of the HR value chain where an input, throughput and output model is presented as a strategic approach to sustainable HRM (den Hartog, Boselie & Paauwe 2004; Vanderstraeten, 2014). Secondly, to increase the applicability of the model, strategic mapping, starting with Kaplan & Norton (2004) and further developed in the field of HRM by Becker (2001) and Huselid (2005), is used as a guideline for implementing sustainable HRM. After the literature review, a first draft of the tool was developed. We used the Delphi methodology to gain consensus among practitioners about the components and definitions that were used in the first draft of the tool (Linstone & Turoff, 1975). HR managers of twelve organizations participated in this part of the development. This resulted in a tool with 12 different components. The resulting tool can be used to guide social profit and public organizations in the development of a sustainable HRM or to support the evaluation of their current sustainable HRM. For each of the different components (12) in the tool, validated questionnaires and measures are available so that organizations can collect data and measure their progress towards a sustainable HRM. Six experts in HRM were consulted to allocate the measures to the components. To further test the practical usefulness and correctness of the tool seven organizations were willing to test it more in detail and even started implementing it. Because of the importance of sustainability in organizations and the support that a sustainable HRM can provide in transitioning towards such an organization it is important to encourage more organizations towards sustainable HR. The developed tool provides organizations can guide them towards sustainable HRM. In addition more organizations can make the shift towards a sustainable organization based on a scientifically validated and evidence based HRM practice. Future research should reexamine the implementations that were made, their effectiveness and extend the implementation of the tool to different organizations

Climate Change and Ethics of Geoengineering -- Implications Of Climate Emergency Ethics

Global climate change and intentional climate modification, i.e. geoengineering include various ethical problems which are entangled as a complex ensemble of questions regarding the future of the biosphere. The possibilities of catastrophic effects of climate change which are also called “climate emergency” have led to the emergence of the idea of modifying the atmospheric conditions in the form of geoengineering. The novel issue of weather ethics is a subdivision of climate ethics, and it is interested in ethical and political questions surrounding weather and climate control and modification in a restricted spatio-temporal scale. The objective of geoengineering is to counterbalance the adverse effects of climate change and its diverse corollaries in various ways on a large scale. The claim of this dissertation is that there are ethical justifications to claim that currently large-scale interventions to the climate system are ethically questionable. The justification to pursue geoengineering on the basis of considering its pros and cons, is inadequate. Moral judgement can still be elaborated in cases where decisions have to be made urgently and the selection of desirable choices is severely limited. The changes needed to avoid severe negative impacts of climate change requires commitment to mitigation as well as social changes because technical solutions cannot address the issue of climate change altogether. The quantitative emphasis of consumerism should shift to qualitative focus on the aspiration for simplicity in order to a move towards the objective of the continuation of the existence of humankind and a flourishing, vital biosphere.Globaali ilmastonmuutos ja ilmastonmuokkaus sisältävät useita eettisiä ongelmia, jotka kietoutuvat monimutkaiseksi kysymysten sarjaksi koskien koko biosfäärin tulevaisuutta. Ilmastonmuutoksen aiheuttamia mahdollisia katastrofaalisia seurauksia kutsutaan myös ilmastohätätilaksi. Ajatus ilmastonmuokkauksesta on syntynyt tämän mahdollisen hätätilan myötävaikutuksesta. Soveltavan etiikan uusi alue, sääetiikka, on ilmastoetiikan osa-alue, joka on kiinnostunut ajallisesti ja paikallisesti rajatuista sään- ja ilmastonmuokkaukseen liittyvistä eettisistä ja poliittisista kysymyksistä. Ilmastonmuokkauksen tavoitteena on tasapainottaa eri tavoin suuressa mittakaavassa ilmastonmuutoksen haitallisia vaikutuksia. Tämän väitöskirjan keskeisin väite on, että on olemassa eettisiä perusteita, joiden mukaan tällä hetkellä laajamittaisesti toteutettu tai suunniteltu ilmastojärjestelmän muokkaaminen on eettisesti kyseenalaista. Ilmastonmuokkauksen oikeutusta ei voida puolustaa vain arvioimalla sen hyötyjä ja haittoja. Sellaisissakin tilanteissa, joissa moraalinen päätöksenteko on tehtävä välittömästi ja toivottujen valintojen valikoima on äärimmäisen rajallinen, on kuitenkin mahdollista tehdä päteviä moraalipäätelmiä. Ilmastonmuutoksen haitallisten vaikutusten välttämiseen tarvittavat muutokset edellyttävät kuitenkin sitoutumista kasvihuonekaasujen hillinnän lisäksi myös sosiaalisiin muutoksiin, sillä pelkät tekniset ratkaisut eivät pysty käsittelemään ilmastonmuutoksen haasteita. Kulutusmyönteisyyden ja -keskeisyyden sijaan tulisi tavoitella laadullisesti arvokkaampia asioita, kuten esimerkiksi pyrkimystä yksinkertaisempaan elämäntapaan. Tämän pyrkimyksen tavoitteena on ihmiskunnan olemassaolon jatkuminen, mikä sisältyy elinvoimaisen ja kukoistavan biosfäärin elämään.Siirretty Doriast

Haute couture or pret-a-porter: Creating and diffusing management practices through the popular press

Management fads are increasingly a hot topic within Organization Theory. Recent articles have described the production process of fads, the role of «ideological» waves in explaining their emergence, and the development of management rhetoric supporting the fads. Despite this growing interest, management fads are seen as an outcome of the actions of Universities, business schools, and consulting firms in producing formal management knowledge; the role of the popular press, meanwhile, remains largely unexplored. Our paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the role of the popular press in producing and legitimating management fads. We argue that the popular press is a primary factor in diffusing and legitimating management fads. The popular press also represents a new laboratory for the construction of management practices. Being deeply rooted in the social context, magazines and newspapers link management practices with social acceptance, coupling management and society at large. We use both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to analyze the data. The data set consists of a collection of articles on Human Resource Management published during the last decade in leading newspapers and magazines in Italy. We suggest that the dynamics of the diffusion and popularization of management practices in Italy over the last decade represents a fair example of the processes that have taken place throughout the Western world.popular press; diffusing management practices;

A critical rationalist approach to organizational learning: testing the theories held by managers

The common wisdom is that Popper's critical rationalism, a method aimed at knowledge validation through falsification of theories, is inadequate for managers in organizations. This study falsifies this argument in three phases: first, it specifies the obstructers that prevent the method from being employed; second, the critical rationalist method is adapted for strategic management purposes; last, the method and the hypotheses are tested via action research. Conclusions are that once the obstructers are omitted the method is applicable and effective

The reception pattern of the balanced scorecard: accounting for interpretative viability

‘The role of fads and fashions in shaping management accounting practices in contemporary organizations requires further inquiry’ (Malmi, T. (1999). Activity based costing diffusion across organizations: an exploratory empirical analysis of Finnish firms. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 24, 669). Against the background of the evolving management fashion literature we discuss the ‘reception pattern’ of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in the Netherlands. To get insight into the organizational changes induced by and associated with the BSC-discourse, we systematically discovered how the concept, since its launch by Kaplan & Norton (1992), has grown into an umbrella that encompasses a variety of interpretations and uses. The paper offers a framework to show how BSC-discourse and its actual use have developed in interrelated yet loosely coupled ways.

Ergonomics Contributions to Company Strategies

Managers usually associate ergonomics with occupational health and safety and related legislation, not with business performance. In many companies, these decision makers seem not to be positively motivated to apply ergonomics for reasons of improving health and safety. In order to strengthen the position of ergonomics and ergonomists in the business and management world, we discuss company strategies and business goals to which ergonomics could contribute. Conceptual models are presented and examples are given to illustrate: 1) the present situation in which ergonomics is not part of regular planning and control cycles in organizations to ensure business performance, and 2) the desired situation in which ergonomics is an integrated part of strategy formulation and implementation. In order to realize the desired situation, considerable changes must take place within the ergonomics research, education and practice community by moving from a health ergonomics paradigm to a business ergonomics paradigm, without losing the health and safety goals