Recipes for Success: Youth Council Guide to Creating a Youth Development System Under WIA

As we enter the new millennium, several trends exist that are radically changing the way our nation's young people will participate in the workforce. New technologies have opened up new industries and revolutionized our notion of the workplace. A booming economy has contributed to remarkably low unemployment rates. Today's young people can look forward to unprecedented opportunities, but only if they are prepared. Young people with little sense of direction, who do not obtain the knowledge and skills necessary to enter an increasingly complex workplace, will be left behind. The disparity between skilled and unskilled workers will become particularly dramatic in the next decade, when shifting demographics will increase/intensify competition for jobs.Those of us charged with helping young people reach their full potential must re-examine the way in which we prepare them for tomorrow's workplace. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 provides an excellent opportunity to do just that. WIA authorizes over one billion dollars per year to help low income youth acquire the education, skill, work experience and support they will need to make the transition to productive adulthood.In creating the Youth Councils -- a mandated component of the Workforce Investment Boards -- WIA provides local communities with the framework for developing comprehensive and effective strategies that ensure such successful transitions. The partnerships represented on the Youth Council bring together a diverse set of stakeholders and resources, partners who can address the needs of young people more effectively that any one partner can do alone. Because the leadership provided bythe local Youth Councils will be pivotal in making this initiative work, it is essential that communities compose these Councils with great care.This guide is designed to provide practical information for community leaders, local Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs), Youth Councils, staff and others that are committed to effective youth and workforce development. It contains four sections and several appended exercises.Chapter 1: "Planning the Menu" defines youth development, outlines the basic concepts of making connections for young people (system-building), describes how WIA can make a difference and starts a work plan for Youth Councils.Chapter 2: "Youth Councils: Essential Ingredients" addresses the wide range of Youth Council responsibilities, from organization and staffing to strategic planning and accountability.Chapter 3: "Transition to WIA: From Soup To Nuts" addresses resource allocation decision making, follow-up services, the performance system, selecting service providers and other important administrative decisions.Chapter 4: "Coming Together At the Table" depicts the path ways to comprehensive service delivery based on proven princi ples and practices. The building blocks that are available as the platform for developing a system for young people are described.Youth Councils offer a leadership opportunity for local communities to bring about change in youth activities and outcomes. If communities take advantage of this opportunity, Youth Councils will be in a strong position to stimulate broad-based change, reward innovation, and improve performance in youth development and youth organizations. Communities will need assistance building effective Youth Councils. This guide will provide communities with the help they need to transform the potential of Youth Councils into measurable results, results that will make a profound difference in the lives of our nation's youth

Intelligent student engagement management : applying business intelligence in higher education

Advances in emerging ICT have enabled organisations to develop innovative ways to intelligently collect data that may not be possible before. However, this leads to the explosion of data and unprecedented challenges in making strategic and effective use of available data. This research-in-progress paper presents an action research focusing on applying business intelligence (BI) in a UK higher education institution that has developed a student engagement tracking system (SES) for student engagement management. The current system serves merely as a data collection and processing system, which needs significant enhancement for better decision support. This action research aims to enhance the current SETS with BI solutions and explore its strategic use. The research attempts to follow socio-technical approach in its effort to make the BI application a success. Progress and experience so far has revealed interesting findings on advancing our understanding and research in organisation-wide BI for better decision-making

Big data in higher education: an action research on managing student engagement with business intelligence

This research aims to explore the value of Big Data in student engagement management. It presents an action research on applying BI in a UK higher education institution that has developed and implemented a student engagement tracking system (SES) for better student engagement management. The SES collects data from various sources, including RFID tracking devices across many locations in the campus and student online activities. This public funded research project has enhanced the current SES with BI solutions and raised awareness on the value of the Big Data in improving student experience. The action research concerns with the organizational wide development and deployment of Intelligent Student Engagement System involving a diverse range of stakeholders. The activities undertaken to date have revealed interesting findings and implications for advancing our understanding and research in leveraging the benefit of the Big Data in Higher Education from a socio-technical perspective

Operations research and computers

operational research

LOGISTICAL STRATEGIES AND RISKS IN CANADIAN GRAIN MARKETING

Supply chain management in grain marketing has become very important with the maturity of the industry. This is particularly important in the Canadian grain marketing system which has experienced disruptions for various reasons over many years. These problems have been the topic of numerous industry evaluations, have resulted in a complaint about service obligations and recently have been addressed by the Estey Commission. A detailed model of the supply chain in the Canadian grain logistics system was developed in this paper to evaluate factors that cause disruptions, as well as the effect of several important logistics and marketing strategies on system performance. The results indicated that in a normal year there is sufficient randomness throughout the various elements of the system that it is expected that demurrage at the West Coast would be a major cost. However, the amount of service disruptions and demurrage are affected by several important factors including the distribution of tough and damp grains, mis-graded grain, and the level of exportable supplies. There are several important strategic variables that have important effects on system performance. These include the aggressiveness in selling relative to capacity, and the level of beginning port stocks.Grain Marketing, Transportation, Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Marketing,

When decision support systems fail: insights for strategic information systems from Formula

Decision support systems (DSS) are sophisticated tools that increasingly take advantage of big data and are used to design and implement individual - and organization - level strategic decisions . Yet, when organizations excessively rely on their potential the outcome may be decision - making failure, particularly when such tools are applied under high pressure and turbulent conditions. Partial understanding and unidimensional interpretation can prevent learning from failure. Building on a practice perspective, we study an iconic case of strategic failure in Formula 1 racing. Our approach, which integrates the decision maker as well as the organizational and material context , identifies three interrelated sources of strategic failure that are worth investigation for decision - makers using DSS and big data: (1) t he situated nature and affordances of decision - making ; (2) t he distributed nature of cognition in decision - making; and (3) the performativity of the DSS. We outline specific research questions and their implications for firm performance and competitive advantage. Finally, we advance an agenda that can help close timely gaps in strategic IS research

Implementation and unification of the ERP system in a global company as a strategic decision for sustainable entrepreneurship

This article considered factors connected with the implementation and unification of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, and their influence on the sustainable development of global companies. It showed a cognitive model on such impact and gave an example in the form of a case study of a global company listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. The basic strategic objectives of each organization include long-term growth and sustainability. In a growing competitive environment, it is essential to manage the company effectively. This can be achieved provided that the company's organizational structure and operations are properly set from the point of view of the ERP system. The research results were aimed at creating the generalized process of the ERP system's gradual implementation, to make the development of an organization progressive. The paper was focused on describing the implementation and unification of the Enterprise Resource Planning System, in a global company listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. The aim of the paper was to monitor and evaluate, the links between Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management. This process is time consuming and costly. To achieve the aim, the case study was carried out in the form of an expert survey aimed at assessing the impact of the unification and implementation of the ERP system in a global company. The study included methods of systemic analysis, methods of sociological expert survey, a method of qualitative peer review, and a method for a cognitive model. It leads not only to effective management of global companies but enables the monitoring and comparison of Key Performance Indicators and the Net Promoter Score in each country, using the same parameters. The implementation of a unified Enterprise Resource Planning system leads to a significant cost reduction and has a positive impact on the financial indicators reported on the stock exchange. This study highlighted the importance of the implementation of an effective ERP system, to make the development of organizations sustainable.Web of Science108art. no. 291