Human Resource Information Systems for Competitive Advantage: Interviews with Ten Leaders

[Excerpt] Increasingly, today\u27s organizations use computer technology to manage human resources (HR). Surveys confirm this trend (Richards-Carpenter, 1989; Grossman and Magnus, 1988; Human Resource Systems Professionals 1988; KPMGPeat Marwick, 1988). HR professionals and managers routinely have Personnel Computers (PCs) or computer terminals on their desks or in their departments. HR computer applications, once confined to payroll and benefit domains, now encompass incentive compensation, staffing, succession planning, and training. Five years ago, we had but a handful of PC-based software applications for HR management. Today, we find a burgeoning market of products spanning a broad spectrum of price, sophistication, and quality (Personnel Journal, 1990). Top universities now consider computer literacy a basic requirement for students of HR, and many consulting firms and universities offer classes designed to help seasoned HR professionals use computers in their work (Boudreau, 1990). Changes in computer technology offer expanding potential for HR management (Business Week, 1990; Laudon and Laudon, 1988)

Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook

The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff in addressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations. The Sourcebook aims to deliver practical advice, guidelines, principles, and descriptions and illustrations of approaches that have worked so far to achieve the goal of effective gender mainstreaming in the agricultural operations of development agencies. It captures and expands the main messages of the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development and is considered an important tool to facilitate the operationalization and implementation of the report's key principles on gender equality and women's empowerment

The Factory of the Future

A brief history of aircraft production techniques is given. A flexible machining cell is then described. It is a computer controlled system capable of performing 4-axis machining part cleaning, dimensional inspection and materials handling functions in an unmanned environment. The cell was designed to: allow processing of similar and dissimilar parts in random order without disrupting production; allow serial (one-shipset-at-a-time) manufacturing; reduce work-in-process inventory; maximize machine utilization through remote set-up; maximize throughput and minimize labor

Gender and Development: An Evaluation of World Bank Support, 2002-08

This evaluation reviews the World Bank's progress in gender integration from 2002 through 2008. Implementation of a 2001 gender strategy was initially strong, with integration into relevant projects peaking at 64% in 2003; but it declined between 2006 and 2008, due in part to the failure to implement an effective monitoring and evaluation system as outlined in the 2001 strategy

Market-based Approaches to Environmental Management: A Review of Lessons from Payment for Environmental Services in Asia

Market-based approaches to environmental management, such as payment for environmental services (PES), have attracted unprecedented attention during the past decade. PES policies, in particular, have emerged to realign private and social benefits such as internalizing ecological externalities and diversifying sources of conservation funding as well as making conservation an attractive land-use paradigm. In this paper, we review several case studies from Asia on payment for environmental services to understand how landowners decide to participate in PES schemes. The analysis demonstrates the significance of four major elements facilitating the adoption and implementation of PES schemes: property rights and tenure security, transaction costs, household and community characteristics, communications, and the availability of PES-related information. PES schemes should target win-win options through intervention in these areas, aimed at maintaining the provision of ecological services and improving the conditions for local inhabitants

The fragility of functional work systems in steel

The I/N case offers insight into the interrelationship between work systems, living standards and performance. It demonstrates that a high road approach and functional work systems positively impact stakeholders’ lives, improve production efficiency and benefit the local and macro-level economies and societies in which they are embedded. It also shows that such work systems can be implemented in contexts with a history of adversarial labor-management relations. However, broader external forces can conspire to make it very difficult for firms to sustain functional work systems despite initial successes in specific contexts. Financial markets in particular make long term commitment to stakeholder groups other than shareholders (i.e. employees, suppliers and communities) conditional on profit maximization and share price appreciation. Yet the logic of profit maximization for the benefit of shareholders leads to short termist decisions that undermine the very commitments that were so necessary for creating a new work system: security is threatened, training is put on the back burner; trust is irreparably undermined. Indeed, because of the inherent contradiction between strategic approaches to maximizing stock market and long term product market success, these high road systems are fragile in national frameworks that subject them to low road pressures without a forum for resolving the difficulties that arise from opposing market pressures and responses

The Constrained Left and its Adverse Impact on Losers of Globalization. IHS Political Science Series No. 120, May 2010

This paper examines the political mechanisms of welfare state policymaking in two countries with differing levels of institutional and political constraints, Germany and Ireland. The study analyzes the joint impact of political constraints and varying party governments on different dimensions of labor market policymaking. It comes to the conclusion that left-wing governments must cut spending more to accommodate the conservative opposition and gain its support when political and institutional constraints are high. To simultaneously ensure the support from pivotal extra-parliamentary actors, namely labor unions that are closely linked to the governing party, the left has to further compensate the unions' prime constituency, which is the well-integrated core workforce. The privileged treatment of labor market 'insiders' by left-wing governments in countries with high political constraints comes at the expenses of labor market 'outsiders'. Left-wing party governments in countries where political constraints are low are better able to address the needs of broader segments of society

Meter Scoping Study

This report presents a summary of metering technology and cost information from past studies in an attempt to identify key barriers to more widespread implementation