A report on Arts Administration internship with Christmas in October New Orleans, Louisiana, Fall 1994

During September through December 1994 I completed an internship with Christmas in October, an organization that uses volunteers and donated cash and supplies to paint and repair the homes of low-income elderly and/or handicapped homeowners in New Orleans. CIO is a program of the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, a historic preservation organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the architecture and neighborhoods of New Orleans. I performed a variety of jobs for Christmas in October including assisting with the daily operation of the office and warehouse, working on promotion and public relations, shooting photographs, and writing a plan for CIO\u27s 1995 promotional campaign. This report discusses my experiences while I worked with the CIO staff and volunteers, discusses some managerial problems that I encountered and makes recommendations for their improvement. I also discuss my short and long-term contributions to the organization

CIO's Beware: Very Large Scale Systems Projects

Very-Large Scale Systems (VLSS) play a powerful role in shaping what an organization does and can do in a practical sense. VLSS are deeply embedded in an organization's procedures, business plans, and strategies. These systems evolve over long periods of time, often not according to some rational plan, and for a limited time they provide a significant competitive advantage over other firms. In the long run, however, VLSS become strategic liabilities and must be rebuilt. Many organizations experience great difficulty rebuilding VLSS. Indeed, most organizations attempt to avoid rebuilding VLSS until the last possible moment. Often, the organization is in a state of crisis, a strategic transition. Because of the complexity and size of VLSS, existing methodologies often are not helpful. To make matters worse, the typical management incentive structure discourages rebuilding VLSS. In a typical VLSS effort, participants soon discover that they must rebuild the organization in order to take full advantage of new technologies. A major organizational engineering effort is often required. Senior management as well as systems management routinely underestimate the complexity of the task before them. Consequently, large errors are made in estimating costs and time. Drawing on research in both the private and public sector, this paper examines why VLSS fail, why are VLSS so difficult to rebuild, what are the strategy options, and how can senior management guide the rebuilding process.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Debate: The Case Against Worker Ownership

[Excerpt] Let\u27s not underestimate the problem we face. American employers may not have a solution to the long-term crisis of the world economy, but they have developed a coherent strategy to weaken the labor movement. Through a combination of concessions bargaining, plant shutdowns, capital mobility, and probusiness government policies, they have succeeded in intimidating unions and dividing workers. As a result, the labor movement grows weaker, and workers lose what little protection they now have for their standard of living and basic rights. Unions will become a marginal force in society unless the labor movement develops a viable strategy for responding to these employer attacks. The current program and policies of most sections of the trade union leadership are clearly inadequate. The labor movement urgently needs a new strategy

CIO's Beware: Very Large Scale Systems Projects

Very Large Scale Systems (VLSS) play a powerful role in shaping what an organization does and can do in a practical sense. VLSS are deeply embedded in the organizational procedures, business plans, and strategies. These systems evolve over long periods of time, often not according to some rational plan, and for a limited time they provide a significant competitive advantage over other firms. In the long run, however, VLSS become strategic liabilities and must be rebuilt. Many organizations experience great difficulty rebuilding VLSS . Indeed, most organizations attempt to avoid rebuilding VLSS until the last possible moment. Often, the organization is in a state of crisis, a strategic transition. Because of the complexity and size of VLSS, existing methodologies often are not helpful. To make matters worse, the typical management incentive structure discourages rebuilding VLSS. In a typical VLSS effort, participants soon discover that they must rebuild the organization in order to take full advantage of new technologies. A major organizational engineering effort is often required. Senior management as well as systems management routinely underestimate the complexity of the task before them. Consequently, large errors are made in estimating costs and time. Drawing on research in both the private and public sector, this paper examines why VLSS fail, why are VLSS so difficult to rebuild, what are the strategy options, and how can senior management guide the rebuilding process.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT: ESSAYS EXAMINING TYPES OF ALIGNMENT AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH FIRM PERFORMANCE

While Information-Technology (IT)-Business Strategic Alignment (hereafter referred to as alignment) continues to be a topic of great concern to both researchers and practitioners alike, it is often misunderstood and, as such, many organizations find alignment difficult to achieve. In particular, alignment is often defined in many different ways, its operational measures are used inconsistently, and it is unclear how it can be attained. In this dissertation, we assert that researchers should include explicit references to the type of alignment under study, that adequate and consistent operational measures of each alignment type are necessary, and that we need a better understanding of the CIO attributes that may facilitate alignment. Each of these points is addressed in three separate essays, as discussed in the following paragraphs. In our first essay, we conducted a review and meta-analysis of the alignment literature to gain a better understanding of the types of alignment that have been examined. In particular, we probed the inter-relationships between alignment, the context, and firm performance. We found distinct relationships between three types of alignment and three measures of firm performance. We also found social alignment is a precursor to alignment within firms. Furthermore, a moderator analysis suggested sampling and measurement are an additional source of conflicting findings in the alignment literature. Through this essay, we contribute to the literature by developing clear definitions of alignment\u27s dimensions, clarifying the relationship between alignment and types of performance outcomes, and offering insight into sources of inconsistencies in alignment research. We believe this first essay offers a basis for more consistent treatment of alignment concepts in future IT research. In our second essay, we report on the development of operational measures designed to capture six different types of alignment. These instruments are intended to be a tool for studying the alignment between IT and business strategies (i.e. intellectual alignment), between IT and business infrastructures and processes (i.e. operational alignment), and across these two domains such that strategies are linked with infrastructures and processes (i.e. 4 types of cross-domain alignment). As such, this essay proposes definitions for each type of alignment and develops operational measures for each construct, each possessing desirable psychometric properties. Finally, we apply the Power-Dependence and Political Perspectives in our third essay to explain the relationship between power, political skill, and the CIO\u27s influence over the executive team\u27s commitment to strategic and technical IT initiatives. Our results suggest structural power (i.e. the CIO\u27s formal position in the firm), expert power (i.e. the CIO\u27s business and technical knowledge), and prestige power (i.e. the important connections the CIO has established) relate to the CIO\u27s influence over the executive team\u27s commitment to IT initiatives. We also found political skill positively moderates the relationship between the CIO\u27s power and influence over the executive team\u27s commitment to IT initiatives. Taken together, our literature review provides conceptual clarity about the nature of alignment. In our construct development essay, we gained operational clarity such that researchers can study the different types of alignment and their relationships with other constructs like performance. Finally, our CIO study improves our understanding of the manifestation of alignment through CIO influence on major IT-business initiatives

From Transformation to Revitalization: A New Research Agenda for a Contested Global Economy

[Excerpt] The revitalization perspective is hardly new. With deep roots in both labor movement history and industrial relations research, such work was marginalized for much of the postwar period both in union strategy and in the field of industrial relations. What is new is the rather sudden arrival of revitalization research in the mainstream of industrial relations along with a broader literature on contentious politics in a global economy (e.g., Klein, 2002; Delia Porta & Tarrow, 2004). This introductory article offers an overview of the revitalization perspective, deepened in relevance by contemporary struggles for democratic representation in the modern workplace and beyond

Spartan Daily, March 2, 1948

Volume 36, Issue 95https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/11055/thumbnail.jp

Beneath consensus : business, labor, and the post-war order.

In 1945, the business community worried about its ability to shape the post-war political and economic reconstruction. Industrialists had lost enormous prestige in the depression, and during the New Deal faced sharp challenges from liberalism and organized labor. World War II provided business leaders with an opportunity to restore their reputation if not their dominance, but in the post-war decade there were a number of major national issues still open to debate. American society had yet to reach a consensus on the relationship of government to the economy, on the proper size of the welfare state, and on the scope of union power in the factory. The business community began mobilizing to regain the political and economic initiative in this debate. This study explores the business community\u27s ideological attack against its primary opponent, organized labor, and against tile liberal, New Deal philosophy unions represented. It also examines the ways workers and their unions both resisted and reshaped employer actions. In the years after World War II, the business leaders engaged in an attempt to restructure the ideas and images that constituted America\u27s political culture. They conducted a widespread and intensive campaign to sell Americans on the virtues of individualism as opposed to collectivism or unions, freedom as opposed to state control and centrality of the free enterprise system to the American way of life. The most obvious efforts to shape ideology and to create the more conservative, consensual political climate that historians associate with the fifties took place at the national level. National business organizations like the Advertising Council orchestrated massive public relations campaigns that relied on the mass media to sell business and capitalism. Employers also recognized the need for more direct connection with the public. Sensing that organized labor challenged their ability to shape worker attitudes and provide political leadership, moderate as well as conservative employers sought to undermine union power through a program that drew upon human relations and welfarism in order to build worker allegiance to the firm. Fearing for lost authority beyond their factory gates, employers also instituted sophisticated community relations programs promoting the free enterprise system