POSITIVE EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES AS A DETERMINANT OF PROJECT SUCCESSS AND BUSINESS EXCELLENCE: THE CASE OF POLAND

Purpose: The paper reports the importance of positive employee attitudes such as work engagement and job satisfaction for project success and business excellence. It is based on two different research projects. The first one, conducted in 2007, entitled “Self-assessment in quality management systems of companies”, was concerned with the engagement of Polish enterprises in initiatives aiming at business excellence. The second study called “Project management efficiency in the enterprises operating in Poland”, completed in July 2008, dealt with the identification of project success factors. Methodology: EFQM Excellence Model indicators were used as the evaluation criteria for the first study. A structured questionnaire built upon them was distributed among the most active companies in the Polish economy. The research sample PL2007 numbered 230 companies was collected as a result of the study. The second research resulted in the sample PL2008 mostly formed on the basis of the member list of the Polish Project Management Association. In total, 70 respondents filled out the questionnaire which made it possible to identify the project success factors. Findings: The results coming from the 2007 study indicate that the key factors influencing examined firms’ performance are related to people and their satisfaction. At the same time they are the most critical factors for business excellence improvement. The results of the research project carried out in 2008 show that among a few dozen of tested factors which are conducive to successful realization of projects, the most significant ones are again those referring to people, especially to their engagement. Originality/value: The paper combines the research results generated in two different studies conducted in companies operating in Poland, the first one focused on business excellence indicators and the second one concentrated on project success factors. Presented data make it possible to indicate how strongly performance on both the operational (project) level and the strategic (business) level is influenced by employee attitudes.

DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL OF BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM FOR ORGANISATIONAL SELF-ASSESSMENT. THE CASE OF POLAND

Purpose: The paper introduces a model of business performance measurement system for organizational self-assessment. The model is made up of five elements including areas, elements, functions and processes of the BPMS as well as the introduction procedure. The paper is based on the research project conducted in 2007, entitled “Self-assessment in quality management systems of companies” which concerned the engagement of Polish enterprises in initiatives aiming at business excellence. Methodology: The detailed characteristics of the business performance measurement system were identified through the analysis of BSC and excellence model concepts as well as the BPMS definitions found in literature. Three different research methods were applied, namely, a questionnaire survey and an interview conducted among the most active companies in the Polish economy and a Delphi method. As a result 230 companies were examined and 19 experts were interviewed. Findings: The results collected with the use of the Delphi method make it possible to indicate which components of the BPMS are absolutely indispensable for the system to operate efficiently as well as to identify the procedure for introducing BPMS. Originality/value: The paper combines the data collected from two sources: the representatives of Polish companies and the experts representing academia, business, auditing and certificating companies. The authors are convinced that the model presented in the paper although developed for Polish companies can successfully serve as a reference model also for non-Polish companies. Its value results from its universality.

Towards business excellence. The case of Poland

The paper reports the advance of Polish companies in business excellence initiatives. It indicates how these activities influence their performance. EFQM Excellence Model indicators are used as the evaluation criteria for the study. The performance variable is introduced to ensure the calculation of correlations between EFQM model indicators and performance results. The data are next estimated as a structural equation model by partial least squares using SmartPLS software (Ringle, Wende, Will, 2005). That estimation is conducted on the model of the Danish Business Excellence Index methodology (Kristensen, Juhl, Eskildsen, 2001a). The correlations and estimation results are used to discuss the condition of Polish companies and to point out the efforts that should be made for further development. The presented data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire which was sent to companies in the year 2005. The examined sample consisted of 79 companies coming from different areas of Poland representing 19 sectors. It appears from the data that the efforts of Polish companies undertaken in most areas of self-assessment according to the EFQM model do provide them with economic value. Nevertheless, people, people results and customers’ results are the areas which need the improvements to be made. At the same time they can be treated as potential for future growth

Pleistocene speciation in Amazonian birds

Zoogeographical studies on distribution centers and population structure of Amazonian birds, lizards, and butterflies suggest that many subspecies and species originated from small isolated populations during several periods of ecologic-geographical separation. Repeated climatic fluctuations during the Quaternary leading to vast changes in the vegetation cover of tropical South America have been postulated by earth scientists and support the above biological interpretation. Numerous zones of secondary contact of Neotropical birds indicate the former existence of ecological barriers in Amazonia that have since disappeared. These contact zones are clustered in several well defined areas indicating that here entire faunas overlapped and partly fused, e.g. in northcentral Amazonia, in south-central Amazonia, in upper Amazonia south of the Rio Marañón, as well as in portions of the forest region west of the Andes. The ecological instability of the South American tropics during the Quaternary determined important aspects of the evolution of the Amazonian vertebrate faunas. Forests survived arid climatic periods probably in restricted areas which served as refugia for the Amazonian forest faunas. Using indirect evidence derived from inequalities of rainfall and from avian distribution patterns I reconstructed the probable geographic location of fifteen tentatively postulated forest refugia or groups of refugia in the lowlands of Middle and South America. Differentiation of isolated populations took place in these forest refugia due to varying selection pressure, chance and "plasticity" of systematic units following the model of geographic speciation. Large Amazonian rivers modified or occasionally limited the dispersal of forest birds from the forest refugia in reexpanding forests, especially in species inhabiting the dark forest interior. The range limit of several ecologically incompatible allies stabilized along broad river courses which, in these cases, constitute partial barriers to dispersal. In this way ecological competition is avoided. However, numerous component species of Amazonian superspecies are in direct contact and exclude one another geographically in uniform forests as a result of ecological competition. Nonforest faunas advanced into Amazonia during periods of forest reduction, repeatedly establishing contact between the savanna faunas north and south of the Amazonian forest during the pleistocene and post-Pleistocene. About 2400 years ago, readvancing forests led to the isolation of nonforest animal populations on savanna enclaves in the dry transverse zone of lower Amazonia. The present complexity of the Amazonian bird fauna is fairly "recent" in origin. This suggestion probably applies generally to the faunas of the Neotropical Region

Using multiple survey vendors to collect health outcomes information: How accurate are the data?

BACKGROUND: To measure and assess health outcomes and quality of life at the national level, large-scale surveys using multiple vendors to gather health information is becoming the norm. This study evaluates the ability of multiple survey vendors to gather and report data collected as part of the 1998 Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (HOS). METHOD: Four hundred randomly sampled completed mailed surveys were chosen from each of six certified vendors (N = 2397) participating in the 1998 HOS. The accuracy of the data gathered from the vendors was measured by creating a "gold standard" record for each survey and comparing it to the final record submitted by the vendor. RESULTS: Overall rates of agreement were calculated, and ranged from 97.0% to 99.8% across the vendors. CONCLUSION: Researchers may be confident that using multiple vendors to gather health outcomes information will yield accurate data

Climatic forcing of evolution in Amazonia during the Cenozoic: On the refuge theory of biotic differentiation

Climatic-vegetational fluctuations due to astronomical Milankovitch cycles caused global changes in the distribution of tropical forests and nonforest vegetation during the Cenozoic (Tertiary-Quaternary) and before. Forest and nonforest biomes on the continents changed continuously in distribution during the geological past, breaking up into isolated blocks and again expanding and coalescing under the varying dry to humid climatic conditions. However, plant and animal communities disrupted and species changed their distributions individualistically during the various climatic phases. Field data indicating vegetational changes in Amazonia exist for the Quaternary; The refuge theory postulates that extensive patches of humid rainforests persisted during dry periods of the Tertiary and Quaternary, especially near areas of surface relief in peripheral portions of Amazonia, where many extant species and subspecies of plants and animals probably originated. The humid 'refugia' may have been separated by various types of savanna and dry forests as well as other intermediate vegetation types of seasonally dry climates. The number and size of refugia during different dry periods remain unknown. Biogeographic evidence for the former existence of forest refugia include areas of endemism and sharply defined contact zones between species and subspecies of Amazonian forest birds and other animals which represent zones of conspicuous biogeographic discontinuity in a continuous forest environment. Alternative models of barrier formation in Amazonia leading to allopatric speciation include the river hypothesis, river-refuge hypothesis; canopy-density hypothesis, disturbance-vicariance hypothesis, museum hypothesis and various paleogeography hypotheses, some aspects of which may be applicable to certain periods in the evolution of the biota