Managing Up in Down Times

Examines issues confronting foundation senior management during both up and down economic cycles. Focuses on the concepts of resource stewardship, change management, and achieving successful results

Best Practice In Company Standardisation

Though the majority of standards are company standards, scientificstandardisation literature pays hardly any attention to them. In thispaper we describe results from a research project on companystandardisation (Oly & Slob, 1999). The researchers investigated sixchemical and petrochemical industries in the Netherlands: Akzo Nobel,Dow Chemical, DSM, Gasunie, NAM and Shell. These companies havenumerous standards for their installations. Best practice fordeveloping such standards was developed by examining the companies andusing insights from relevant literature. This paper describes thescientific approach used and some of the best practice results.benchmarking;standard;standardization;company standardization;process industry

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

Stakeholders' Impact on Turnaround Performance: The Case of German Savings Banks

This study explores how savings banks as powerful stakeholders of SMEs in Germany assess turn-around performance. It tests the impact of the support provided by German savings banks and distressed SMEs’ actions with survey data from corporate advisors. The results show that structural and continuing support foster turnaround performance. This support is conducive in the initial stage of turnaround but negligible in the recovery stage. Contributing to stakeholder theory and turnaround management, the findings shed light on the factors that motivate a selected stakeholder’s involvement and SMEs’ ability to engage in actions fostering this stakeholder’s support for a turnaround

Beyond the Grant: How the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Went Beyond Grantmaking to Contribute to a Major Early Childhood Initiative

· The seven-year SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) initiative, created by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), aimed at systemically linking the pre-K and kindergarten worlds as a way to position vulnerable children for greater success in the early grades. · At the foundation, the initiative served as a departure point for WKKF to move from its traditional grantmaking role to a changemaker role. · To create change, a foundation must articulate – and commit to – a point of view about how change can occur. A theory of change can be a powerful tool to guide ongoing planning and action. · A foundation that intends to create change must be prepared to take responsibility for results and create the internal structures that promote accountability and collaboration. The nature of the SPARK effort called for abandoning the silos of portfolio management and developing a new collaborative approach. · Foundations must be prepared to advocate for change, and bring their visibility, credibility, knowledge, and convening power to it

Thinking about growth : a cognitive mapping approach to understanding small business development

School of Managemen

Improvement of Clarity as a supporting service for strategy implementation : A client study

The aim of this study is to give Aamu Partners improvement areas and ideas for the development of Clarity service from the aspect of a strategy implementation supporting service. Clarity is a consulting service for Finnish small and medium sized companies supporting with strategy, strategy implementation, communication and financial understanding for its clients. This study will assess Clarity service from the perspective of strategy implementation and focus on how well Clarity service is performing as a supporting service for strategy implementation and how it is supporting Finnish SME’s tackle the main objectives of strategy implementation. This study will also assess how systemized the support that Clarity is providing is between its clients. The literature review will focus on previous studies and theories on strategy implementation including the main obstacles for strategy implementation that have been found in previous studies and this will support the selection of the interview questions for Finnish SME’s that are using the Clarity service. Five clients using the Clarity service were interviewed during this study and qualitative as well as quantitative data was gathered. The qualitative data was analyzed by using an inductive thematic analysis to find the main themes for success and possible development areas. The quantitative data was analyzed by calculating the standard deviations and coefficient of variance for the interview results to find how systematic the support has been between different clients. The results were that Clarity service gives its clients support on multiple areas regarding strategy implementation but there are clear differences between clients in the areas and some sort of systematization is recommended for the further development of the Clarity service