Sustainable Value Proposition Design in a Product-Service System

Many companies have started to add services to their tangible products in order to defend themselves from increased competition from low-cost economies. Research regarding the transition towards product-service systems (PSS) and how the PSS providers' business models are affected exists, but there is a lack of research regarding how the suppliers to the PSS providers are affected by the transition towards PSS. Therefore, this thesis studies the situation for a supplier/partner to an OEM that has changed their business model to a PSS providing one. As the first step in a development of a new business model aims this thesis to provide guidelines for how to set up value propositions suitable for a supplier/partner in this new environment. When technologically complex products, such as aircraft engines, are provided through PSS offerings it is hard to translate customer needs into quality parameters, which makes it hard to sustain the value to customer over time. Therefore, how to keep the value offering sustainable over time is also investigated in this thesis. The aim of this study was to investigate how a sustainable value proposition can be designed for a product and technology supplier/partner to an OEM that offers PSS solutions. The research has been performed through studying relevant literature and collecting empirical data from a case company through semi-structured interviews and a workshop. The case company in this research is Volvo Aero Corporation (VAC). The empirical findings show that VAC wants to offer product-service bundled solution, which fit the whole spectra of PSS value propositions, to their partners/customers. To be able to deliver these different types of product-service bundled solutions different value propositions that suit the different kinds of PSS offerings are needed. Requirements that must be fulfilled to be able to offer and deliver the different types of value propositions exist in terms of securing sufficient information access, aligning the incentives of all actors involved and achieving an internal consensus of what is delivered

The adoption of western management methods by Chinese family and publicly listed companies in Asia.

The adoption of Western management methods and systems by companies in Asia has been hyperactive in the last 20 years, fuelled by Asia’s growth and thirst for technology, know how, methods, strategies and systems. Companies throughout Asia have spent huge amounts of resources on the adoption of Western management methods. Much of the management literature on Asian management since the 1980s has focused on the Japanese management system. However, in more recent times, an increasing number of publications have focused on overseas Chinese businesses in East and South East Asia, Korean and mainland Chinese management systems. The research question this dissertation seeks to answer is whether or not Asian companies that are family managed can successfully adopt Western management practices? The methodology used included a mixed methods approach of a case study of a publicly listed overseas corporation controlled and managed by an overseas Chinese family, a comprehensive survey questionnaire of companies in Asia seeking answers to the research question and employees’ experiences with specific management practices along with a literature review. Results indicated that the adoption of Western management methods was mixed within Family managed businesses in Asia. The adoption of Western management practices and systems was found to depend on the type of company. Publicly Listed companies were found to adopt Western management practices more than Privately Held or Family Owned enterprises, however, overall the adoption of Western management methods was limited in all three types of corporations. Western management methods were found to be at odds to the practices of the typical Chinese family business. Characteristics such as paternalism, high levels of centralized decision making, loyalty, obedience to the manager-owner and issues of trust toward outsiders may produce difficulties in advancing business interests in the future. Asian political, economic, familial, cultural and environmental conditions limit the ability of Family Owned corporations to effectively adopt Western management practices. The size and type of the family controlled company influenced the extent to which a firm can effectively adopt Western management practices. Limited knowledge of Western management methods within Family Controlled corporations places constraints on growth that will require recruitment of professionals with management experience

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

The Ultralight project: the network as an integrated and managed resource for data-intensive science

Looks at the UltraLight project which treats the network interconnecting globally distributed data sets as a dynamic, configurable, and closely monitored resource to construct a next-generation system that can meet the high-energy physics community's data-processing, distribution, access, and analysis needs

Employees’ witnessed presence in changing organisations

In recent years, governments, businesses and other organisations have increasingly been forced to attempt to survive by reorganising themselves fundamentally. Although this happens at present on a large scale, it is not unprecedented. In fact, most organisations have had to change their working practises at some time for some reason-for example, when the competition catches up or when technology threatens to make production obsolete. The usual strategy is to fire part of the staff and to redistribute tasks. This tends to put a heavy burden on staff. They have to search for other jobs or attempt re-skilling. Those remaining may face substantial changes in their relations to their managers, who will require changes... 'or else'. The study reported in the paper focuses on people's reactions to this approach. Some employees accept and leave. Others become aware of an opportunity to damage their company. Others again see a way to resist and change the way the managers behave and thereby turn around the company and maintain or increase the number of jobs. The study focuses on two questions. The first is how one should model or describe the behaviour of people in the third category, i. e. those wishing to contribute. It does not seem useful to follow one's first hunch, i. e. to search for quantifiable patterns. People's behaviour will always be contextualised as a reaction to what managers do. This suggests the use of qualitative methods. The second question is whether the concept of presence may clarify the behaviour and identify ways for employees to contribute positively to changes in their organisations. An obstacle to answering the second question is that qualitative methods focus on people's experiences in some context, and on the emergence of their behaviour, but do not necessarily lead to suggestions on how to behave with what effect. It is attempted to answer the second question and thereby the first question with the aim of identifying what people may do who are not immediately fired or made redundant when fundamental organisational changes are introduced. Data have been collected from four companies that decided to initiate such changes in 2003-2004. © 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited

How Labor-Management Partnerships Improve Patient Care, Cost Control, and Labor Relations: Case Studies of Fletcher Allen Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, and Montefiore Medical Center’s Care Management Corporation

[Excerpt] This paper explores the ways in which healthcare unions and their members are strategically engaging with management through partnership to control costs and improve the patient experience, clinical outcomes, workplace environment, and labor relations. These initiatives depend on making use of the knowledge of front-line healthcare workers, improving communication between all staff members, and increasing transparency. In turn, these initiatives can also lead to more robust and dynamic local unions. Through participating in joint work activities, many union members note feeling more respected in their workplace and more connected to their union. Unions can benefit from these activities by offering their members the ability to inform decisions about how work gets done

Proactive Weaponry Planning: A Systemic Policy Formulation Model for Law Enforcement Agencies

Proactive Weaponry Planning: A Systemic Policy Formulation Model for Law Enforcement Agencies deals with the process through which taxonomies of criteria maybe developed to designate effective weaponry to be utilized in a variety of law enforcement confrontations. The study conceptualizes current academic and technical formulation methodologies (classic and reactive weaponry planning). An alternative paradigm termed proactive weaponry planning (PWP) in which criteria definition predates weaponry analysis is then postulated. Proactive weaponry planning is a five-phase open systems perspective which initially incorporates a delineated agency role model based upon extra-agency and inter-departmental multiple access channels of communication. Weaponry criteria are seen as contingent upon confrontational needs which are in turn a factor of the derived agency role model. The initial three phases impact in a linear systemic flow upon specified weapons and their analysis. It is the initial triad within the model which forms the thrust of the analysis, for it is within this segment of the paradigm that significant and far-reaching policy decisions are formulated. Paramilitaristic uniform patrol is employed as an exemplar to illustrate the planning methodology. The treatise concludes with discussion of investigation priorities essential to precise definitions of law enforcement confrontational needs and proposes additional typologies for examination in light of the proactive methodology