Data and Predictive Analytics Use for Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the social process of Big Data and predictive analytics (BDPA) use for logistics and supply chain management (LSCM), focusing on interactions among technology, human behavior and organizational context that occur at the technology’s post-adoption phases in retail supply chain (RSC) organizations. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow a grounded theory approach for theory building based on interviews with senior managers of 15 organizations positioned across multiple echelons in the RSC. Findings Findings reveal how user involvement shapes BDPA to fit organizational structures and how changes made to the technology retroactively affect its design and institutional properties. Findings also reveal previously unreported aspects of BDPA use for LSCM. These include the presence of temporal and spatial discontinuities in the technology use across RSC organizations. Practical implications This study unveils that it is impossible to design a BDPA technology ready for immediate use. The emergent process framework shows that institutional and social factors require BDPA use specific to the organization, as the technology comes to reflect the properties of the organization and the wider social environment for which its designers originally intended. BDPA is, thus, not easily transferrable among collaborating RSC organizations and requires managerial attention to the institutional context within which its usage takes place. Originality/value The literature describes why organizations will use BDPA but fails to provide adequate insight into how BDPA use occurs. The authors address the “how” and bring a social perspective into a technology-centric area

Living with contradictions: the dynamics of senior managers in relation to sustainability

In this article, we investigate how senior managers located in Northern Europe in the energy and power industry coordinate their recognition of sustainability challenges with other things they say and do. Identity theory is used to examine the fine-grained work through which the managers navigate identities and potentially competing narratives. In contrast with other studies we find that pursuing cohering identities and resolving potential tensions and contradictions does not appear to matter for most of the managers. We explore the dynamics of how managers live with apparent contradictions and tensions without threat to their narrative coherence. We extend existing research into managerial identities and sustainability by: showing how managers combine different potentially contrasting identity types; identifying nine discursive processes through which the majority of managers distance and deflect sustainability issues away from themselves and their companies; and, showing the contrasting identity dynamics in the case of one manager to whom narrative coherence becomes important and prompts alternative action

Examining the issues & challenges of email & e-communications. 2nd Northumbria Witness Seminar Conference, 24-25 Oct 2007 Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne.

These proceedings capture the content of the second Witness Seminar hosted by Northumbria University’s School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences. It followed the success of the first witness seminar in terms of its format and style but differed in that it focused on one topic - managing email and other electronic communications technologies from a records perspective. As before the witnesses were invited to share their views and opinions on a specific aspect taking as their starting point a pertinent published article(s). Three seminars explored the business, people and technology perspectives of email and e-communications, asking the following questions: What are the records management implications and challenges of doing business electronically? Are people the problem and the solution? Is technology the problem or panacea? The final seminar, 'Futurewatch', focused on moving forward, exploring new ways of working, potential new technologies and what records professionals and others need to keep on their radar screens

Individual Values and SME Environmental Engagement

We study the values on which managers of small and medium-sized enterprises draw when constructing their personal and organizational-level engagement with environmental issues, particularly climate change. Values play an important mediating role in business environmental engagement but relatively little research has been conducted on individual values in smaller organizations. Using the Schwartz Value System (SVS) as a framework for a qualitative analysis, we identify four ‘ideal-types’ of SME managers and provide rich descriptions of the ways in which values shape their constructions of environmental engagement. In contrast to previous research, which is framed around a binary divide between self-enhancing and self-transcending values, our typology distinguishes between individuals drawing primarily on Power or on Achievement values, and indicates how a combination of Achievement and Benevolence values is particularly significant in shaping environmental engagement. This demonstrates the theoretical usefulness of focusing on a complete range of values. Implications for policy and practice are discussed

Being a manager in an English nursery

This article draws on interviews with 29 managers and deputy managers within 15 nurseries in the private sector in England. The author argues that, whilst there is a growing literature on management and professionalism within the Early Years (EY) sector, there is less known about the actual experiences of being a manager in this context. Many of the individuals who are promoted into a management role did not, until recently, have the training to support them. Whilst individuals are being encouraged to participate in the managerial roles now demanded by the professionalisation agenda, it could be argued that the traditional EY workforce are primarily motivated by a strong desire to work with children. Even if their own employer provides in-house management training or the opportunity to participate in national schemes such as EYPS, these young women, like many professionals becoming managers, move away from what they like doing best – working with the client/children. The research outlined in this paper explores these issues by relaying individuals’ stories of what it is like to be a manager in the EY context

Energizing middle managers' practice in organizational learning

Purpose This paper aims to consider middle managers' influence on organizational learning by exploring how they cope with demands and tensions in their role and whether their practice affects available team energy. Design/methodology/approach In total, 43 managers from three large organizations involved in major change assessed their group's energy using a tested and validated instrument, the OEQ12©. This generated six distinct categories of team energy, from highly productive to corrosive. Thirty-four of these managers, spread across the six categories, completed a Twenty Statements Test and a follow-up interview to explore their cognitive, affective and behavioural responses to coping with resource constraints and tensions in their role. Findings The research provides preliminary insights into what distinguishes a middle manager persona co-ordinating teams with highly productive energy from those managing groups with less available energy to engage with knowledge and learning. It considers why these distinctions may affect collective sensitivities in the organizational learning process. Research limitations/implications Informants were not equally distributed across the six team energy categories; therefore, some middle manager personas are more indicative than others. Practical implications This research suggests areas where middle manager development could potentially improve organizational learning. Originality/value This study offers early empirical evidence that middle managers' orientation to their role is entangled with the process of energizing their teams in organizational learning during change

Understanding the construction of marketers’ credibility by NZ senior managers: An interpretive study

Academics report that marketers are losing their influence in the boardroom due in part to serious challenges to marketing’s credibility. Although the credibility of marketing sources has received much attention since the early 1950s, research into how individuals in business organisations construct the credibility of marketers is scarce. This study, using in-depth interviews, describes how seven senior managers from different New Zealand businesses construct the credibility of marketers. For these senior managers, the credibility of marketers is grounded in their performance in delivering commercial outcomes. The findings also suggest that senior managers construct credibility in terms of a work aspect and a social aspect of a marketer’s performance, and that both these aspects have to be present if the marketer is to be considered credible. The work aspect of performance is made up of a marketer’s Pedigree, Projects, and Pervasive Influence. The Pedigree of a marketer includes their qualifications, skills and background. A degree is usually the minimum qualification required, particularly for more senior marketing roles. Skills expected from marketers include leadership, management, sales and intuition. With regard to background, the marketer needs to demonstrate they have achieved commercial outcomes in previous employment to be considered credible. Projects describes how marketers must design and implement cogent marketing plans, work effectively without supervision, achieve commercial outcomes in a clever or creative way, and provide evidence that their projects have contributed to commercial outcomes. Pervasive Influence describes how marketers influence others in the organisation toward customer-centricity. Marketers can lose credibility in the work aspect of their performance when they have no structured purpose to their marketing research, are unable to execute marketing plans or are unable to demonstrate the results of a marketing project. The social aspect of a marketer’s performance is made up of Personal Integrity and Professional Conduct. Personal Integrity describes marketers who are respected, take pride in their work, strive to improve themselves and are not precious. Professional Conduct describes a marketer who relates and collaborates competently and professionally with others, and is a team fit. Marketers lose credibility in the social aspect of their performance when they are precious, flighty, argumentative, and only out for themselves. This paper contributes a framework that describes the construction of a marketer’s credibility from a senior manager’s perspective. It also introduces a new understanding of credibility, grounded in performance terms, which is distinct from past conceptualisations of credibility found in the literature, which is based on expertise and trustworthiness. These findings demonstrate that while a marketer might be considered an expert and trustworthy, if they are not delivering commercial outcomes then they may not be considered credible, from a senior manager’s perspective

Community Health Champions in Lincolnshire Review and Scoping Exercise Report

The Lincolnshire 2012 Joint Health and Well-being Strategy identified the need to ‘develop a Community Health Champion programme for Lincolnshire building on current good practice that will enable people to volunteer to offer help and support to other members of their community in leading healthier lives’. This was intended to be one of two interlinked schemes, designed to achieve the key outcome of supporting people to lead healthier lives