THE MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB SATISFACTION BETWEEN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND PROJECT SUCCESS

ABSTRACT   Purpose - Human resource development (HRD) is considered one of the most important components for the success of any project. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of HRD activities (career development and team development) on project success by inquiring into job satisfaction

Impact of Lean Management Practices on Operational Performance: An Empirical Investigation from Construction Supply Chain of Pakistan

Construction sector is considered as the backbone for any country, whereas, supply chain has become an essential part of all industries. Thus, the construction supply chain emerged as a new, independent and crucial segment. During the last few decades, this industry has affected greatly in Pakistan due to unfavorable conditions like inflation, political unrest and the war against terrorism. However, various strategy and approaches are available in the literature that helps this industry to tackle the problems by creating efficiency and effectiveness. Lean management is considered a decisive element for every organization; by applying lean approaches, organizations can enhance the performance for not only the manufacturing sector but also service sectors. The aim of this study is to explore the potential benefits of lean approaches (Total Quality Management, Using 5’s Services and Quick Change Over) in the construction supply chain of Pakistan. Questionnaire has been distributed to the construction supply chain of Pakistan by systematic probability sampling. The population of this study consists of listed construction companies in the ‘Pakistan Engineering Council’. Meanwhile, after the screening, 367 responses have been considered and valid for data analysis. The Pearson correlation result indicates that there is strong correlation between Total Quality Management and Operational Performance with r = 0.801. The study performed multiple regressions analysis and found that has a positive impact on the Operational Performance, Using 5S Practices and Quick Change Over. The results revealed that all three approaches positively and significantly enhance. This study will help the organizations to better understand how construction managers can reduce their workload; make their operations more efficient and productive

The role of risks, collaboration and performance in the supply chain of manufacturing firms of Malaysia

Malaysian manufacturing is contributing around 80 percent in the exports and consider the highest sector for employability but its growth is decreasing for a few years. After plentiful literature, it has been found that various supply chain issues not only disrupt core organization but a whole network and ultimately the economy. Previous studies show that there are limited studies available for supply chain risks. Likewise, the effects of supply chain risks on supply chain performance for Malaysian manufacturers are scarce, primarily, only few studies exists that covers overall risks. Meanwhile, there are ample strategies to deal with risks but collaboration needs to verify as a mitigation approach for all kind of risks. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify the potential supply chain risks, assess their effects of performance and verify the role of supply chain collaboration as a risk mitigation approach. To cover all three aspects of supply chain (internal to organizational, external to organizational but internal to supply chain and external to supply chain), seven risk sources were identified namely supply side risks, process side risks, demand side risks, logistic side risks, collaboration side risks, financial side risks and environment side risks. To assess the effects of these risks on performance a questionnaire was developed through a systematic process. The population of this study is 2300 manufacturing organizations listed in the Federation of Manufacturing Malaysia. The questionnaires were sent to every 5th organization by systemetic sampling. So, total 480 questionnaires were sent but received 354 responses. Data was analyzed through structural equation modeling using smart PLS. The findings revealed that all types of risks have a negative impact on supply chain performance but only supply, demand, logistic and environment side risks have a significant negative impact. Although, logistic and collaboration side risks can be mitigated through supply chain collaboration but supply, finance and environment side risks can be mitigated significantly. Moreover, process and demand side risks cannot be mitigated through collaboration. The theoretical contribution is empirically verifications of the theory of swift, even flow and relational view for all kind of risks

A novel classification of supply chain risks: scale development and validation

Purpose: Supply chain has become an essential element for any organization but risks are the major obstacles in achieving the performance even it can disrupt not only the organization but a whole system. Thus, it is compulsory to manage the risks efficiently and effectively. Risk cannot be managed until properly identified, there are numerous studies on risk identification, after comprehensive literature, it has been revealed that the study that identifies overall supply chain risk is scaring. The manufacturing sector of any country is considered as the backbone of any economy, in Malaysia it is the second largest sector in economic contribution and highest in productivity level. The aim of this study is to provide a reliable tool to assess the overall supply chain risks of Malaysian manufacturing through a systematic process. Design/methodology/approach: A detail literature review has been done for categorization of overall supply chain risk sources. Then an instrument has been developed from a pool of items. The questionnaire was purified through pretesting, pilot testing (by the exploratory view) and reliability and validity tests. The data were collected by email from Federation of Malaysian Malaysia (FMM-2017) through systemic probability sampling. Total 132 final responses have been considered for exploratory factor analysis through SPSS 23. Findings: The finding of this study revealed that overall supply chain risks can be categories into seven constructs that are supply side risks, process side risks, demand side risks, logistic side risks, collaboration side risks and environment side risks and the final questionnaire is consisting of 57 items. Research limitations/implications: This study covered tier 1 members of the supply chain. Secondly, the supply chain of manufacturing organizations only has been considered. Practical implications: This study will help the managers to understand what kind of risk sources they can face and which type of risks under these risk sources they should consider while decision making. This study will update the managers about the identification of risks and their potential negative effects. Originality/value: This article will justify the need for Malaysian manufacturing by providing a validated and reliable instrument for the identification and assessment of their risks under major supply chain risk sources.Peer Reviewe

Minerals and heavy metals in raw and ultra heat treated commercial milks in Pakistan

The study was aimed at assessment of heavy metals in street vended raw and branded milk to identify possible gateways of milk toxicity. 15 samples of processed and 24 of raw milk were collected from Multan city. Atomic absorption spectrometry revealed milk offered for sale in the region to be potentially contaminated with higher levels of some most critical elements i.e. Pb (0.048 – 0.418mgL-1), Cd (0.0015 - 0.125 mgL-1), Ni (0.044 - 0.294 mgL-1), and Cu (0.0037 - 0.273 mgL-1). Exceptionally higher levels of Cd (0.102 mgL-1) were recovered in street vended raw milk as compared to processed branded milk (0.042 mgL-1). The study signified deleterious outcomes of industrial and agricultural revolution parallel to poor phyto-sanitory and sanitary measures during animal feeding and milking. The study suggest comprehensive and nationwide survey to identify the metal polluted red zones, their toxicity levels and milk intoxicating channels either from environment, animal feed or water

Bayesian Estimation for Parameters of Power Function Distribution under Various Priors

Although the idea of Bayesian inference dates back to the late 18th century, its use by statisticians has been rare until recently. But due to advancement in the simulation techniques Bayesian inference and estimation is gaining currency. This paper seeks to focus on the Bayesian estimates of the Power Function distribution using Weibull and Generalized Gamma distributions as priors for the unknown parameters. Furthermore, the statistical performance of the obtained estimators is compared with the Maximum likelihood of Power Function distribution and the Bayesian estimator of Gamma distribution as prior of the unknown parameter. The comparison has been done using Monte Carlo simulation using MSE as yardstick of the comparison. Keywords: Squared error loss function, Bayesian estimator, Prior distribution, Monte Carlo simulation

The Impacts of Operational Risks in the Supply Chain of Construction Projects in Malaysia

Construction glitches have become serious issues for Malaysian construction projects. The construction industry is one of the industries driven by supply chains and affected by interconnected risks. Any disruption happening anywhere will halt the whole project or even other projects. However, massive literature is available to deal with various kinds of risks from the supply chain (SC) of the construction industry that have never been discussed before. This is an empirical investigation and the data was collected through a questionnaire distributed to the construction industry through systemic probability sampling. Final and purified data was analyzed with Structural Equation Modelling through Smart PLS. A total of three types of risks were identified from literature namely supply side risks (SR), process side risks (PR) and demand side risks (DR). It has been found that supply side risks and demand side risks have significant negative effects on supply chain performance (SCP) while process side risks also have negative effects on supply chain performance but not significant. This study will help managers to understand how supply chain risks (SCR) affect the construction industry and what type of risks they should be more aware of. This study covers only operational side risks while future research can be on other risks. Furthermore, various approaches can be proposed for mitigation but there is also a need to verify these approaches for Malaysia

The Role of Collaboration and Integration in the Supply Chain of Construction Industry

It has found that the construction sector of Pakistan is growing fast due to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor but history shows that construction projects never achieves its targets. The literature revealed the major hurdles behind the construction is supply chain issues. Supply chain of construction is deficient due to lack of collaboration and integration. The aim of this study is the empirically verify the role of supply chain collaboration (information sharing, Joint decision making, and risk and reward sharing) and supply chain integration (supplier integration, internal integration, and customer integration) with performance. This is a quantitative study, a total of 350 questionnaires were distributed to registered construction firms with Pakistan Engineering Council and 221 were received and considered for analysis after purification, validity and reliability. Multiple-regression technique was applied through SPSS. This study has unique findings as all integration approaches have significant effects while collaboration is not working for the same industry. This proves that members of supply chain construction can get benefit from integration but they hesitate to share their risks, rewards, and planning to all stakeholders. This study will help managers in decision making. This study will also help the government of Pakistan and China in completing their construction projects in time and with the designated cost

The Impact of Supply Chain Capabilities on Logistic Efficiency for the Construction Projects

Rapid technological advancements force organizations to be more proactive and efficient it operations while previous studies revealed that most of the public sector projects go over in term of time and cost. Although extensive literature is available but only for the private sector, the investigations on the public sector are scarce. After plentiful literature, it has found that timely and sage supply chain is a major hurdle. Various strategies and approaches have been proposed to tackle the situation but after a thorough investigation, it was found that flexibility and collaboration are the topmost influencing factors in improving logistic efficiency. Thus the aim of this study is to empirically verify the positive impact of flexibility and collaboration on logistic efficiency. A questionnaire was adopted and distributed by random sampling to the strategic level of the construction projects in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. Multiple regressions were applied through SPSS. The finding of the study revealed that flexibility contributes 33%, collaboration contributes 35.5% in the logistic efficiency. It can be concluded that construction projects must be flexible and force stakeholders for collaboration. This study added in the frame of knowledge as new findings for public sector projects. This study will help the managers in completing their projects timely and accurately