System redesign: planning in a multihospital setting

This article explores the complexities of the proposed health care reform and the methodologies by which hospitals are coping with the impending changes. The article focuses on a large multihospital system in Alabama and the reorganization in process at that facility. Centralization as a key to more efficient management, as well as the partnering with smaller hospitals, is highlighted as an approach to dealing with health care reform.     

Transforming your manufacturing organization into a learning organization.

Many experts believe the only sustainable advantage an organization will have in the future is its ability to learn faster than its competitors. This competitive advantage can be achieved by transforming the organization into a learning organization. This article describes the basic elements of a learning organization and how to transform an organization to focus on learning. The article also describes methods for evaluating the training and learning that occurs within the organization to ensure that training dollars are wisely spent. Finally, the article describes what individuals can do to focus on their own learning and personal development within an organization.     

Designing the innovating organization

The innovating organization described is one that recognizes and formalizes the roles, processes, rewards, and people practices that naturally lead to innovations. The point we have emphasized throughout this article is that the organization that purposely designs these roles and processes is more likely to generate innovations than is an organization that doesn't plan for this function. Such a purposely designed organization is needed to overcome the obstacles to innovation. Because innovation is destructive to many established groups, it will be resisted. Innovation is contrary to operations and will be ignored. These and other obstacles are more likely to be overcome if the organization is designed specifically to innovate.Managers have tried to overcome these obstacles by creating venture groups, by hiring some entrepreneurs, by creating “breakthrough funds,” or by offering special incentives. These are good policies but by themselves will not accomplish the goal. Figure 1 conveyed the message that a consistent set of policies concerning structure, process, rewards, and people are needed. The innovating organization is illustrated in Figure 7. It is the combination of idea people, reservations in which they can operate, sponsors to supervise them, funding for their ideas, and rewards for their success that increase the odds in favor of innovation. Simply implementing one or two of these practices will result in failure and will only give people the impression that such practices do not work. A consistent combination of such practices will create an innovating organization that will work.     

From chaos to control: winning the war

This article illustrates how a small manufacturing facility in the Midwest undertook the process of an MRP II implementation and ultimately gained class A status at a true make-or-break time in its history. The control that was gained throughout the entire process has helped create a winning environment and will continue to strengthen our position as we move toward world-class excellence.     

Management development as a capital investment

Systematic management development efforts represent investments that will be returned over a period of time in the form of increased productivity for the organization. This article looks at the several ways in which an organization can maximize its return on investment in human resources.     

Strategies for Improving Codes of Ethics Implementation in Construction Organizations

It is necessary to reconsider the assumptions upon which the process of implementing compliance with ethical programs rests, in both theoretical and practical terms. These assumptions should hinge on organizational enablers that allow embeddedness of codes of ethics in the web of an organization's processes. This article sets out to describe an approach that will facilitate implementation of codes of ethics in construction organizations and a comprehensive literature survey approach is adopted to achieve this. The paper equally employs the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model as a tool to stimulate ethical behavior in an organization, with the focus on the enabler criterion of the model. The authors discuss organizational enablers in relation to the implementation of ethical codes. The study demonstrates how ethics can be managed in an organization by proposing a framework to enhance codes of ethics embeddedness in the web of an organization. The paper indicates current research gaps and future opportunities for both academics and practitioners.     

突破组织发展的瓶颈——零增长组织的管理

组织进入零增长期并不意味着组织的必然衰退,但零增长的组织形态却越来越成为组织进入下一个生命周期的“瓶颈”。文章在界定零增长组织的基础上,探讨了零增长组织的发展困境及其走出困境的相关管理对策。     

Competitive location strategies for two facilities

In this paper we present the problem of locating a facility when competition from another facility is taken into consideration. Two problems are addressed here. One is the location of a new facility that will attract the most buying power from an existing facility. The other is the location of a facility that will secure the most buying power againts the best location of competing facility to be set up in the future.     

The HR ecosystem: Emerging trends and a future research agenda

Human resource leaders are experimenting with new approaches to organizing and utilizing workers that are not limited to the traditional boundaries of the firm, but rather expand to an ecosystem of work and organization. This special issue introduction article introduces a set of papers from management scholars discussing the ecosystem of work and organization and offers a roadmap for future research on HR ecosystems. An ecosystem perspective invites us to rethink our current frameworks to better link theory to practice. It also challenges us to shift our level of analysis from the organization to the ecosystem, asking: how is work organized and conducted within this complex and evolving context? These papers uncover trends related to (1) technological mediation, (2) impermanence and adaptation, and (3) shared governance. Our hope is that by framing these trends found within the research in this special issue that scholars will be provided a better road map in moving forward with their own research on the role of HR within the ecosystem of work and organization.     

Creating world-class supply chains

This article will share knowledge in two areas: The elements of world-class supply chains and the linking processes from customers' customers to suppliers' suppliers and the management approaches needed to engage the people and the organization in an effective implementation process to achieve world-class status.     

No business is an island: The network concept of business strategy

The purpose of this article is to explore the contributions that could be made to the conceptual frame of reference for business strategy management by one of the research programmes which focuses on the organization–environment interface, and to which a network approach has been applied. We start by examining some of the assumptions underlying the current “strategy management doctrine”. The network model of the organization–environment interface is then reviewed and three central issues of the strategy management doctrine are discussed from the viewpoint of the network model: (1) organizational boundaries, (2) determinants of organizational effectiveness, and (3) the process of managing business strategy.The conclusion reached is that in all three areas changes are required in the assumptions of the business strategy model. Our arguments stem from a basic proposition about the situations described by the network model: continuous interaction with other parties constituting the context with which the organization interacts endows the organization with meaning and a role. When this proposition applies, any attempt to manage the behaviour of the organization will require a shift in focus away from the way the organization allocates and structures its internal resources and towards the way it relates its own activities and resources to those of the other parties constituting its context. Such a shift in focus entails a somewhat different view of the meaning of organizational effectiveness: what does it depend on and how can it be managed?     

REVIEW ESSAY STUDIES ON TRANSITIONS: MEANINGS AND METHOD

This article analyses the link between research methodology and knowledge generation. It argues that the selection of a method of data collection and analysis determines the potential boundaries and depth of knowledge that can be generated. Choice of methodology, therefore, has major constraining or liberating potential. This is illustrated in an examination of three recent texts on transition. The first of these adopts an occupational psychology approach based on large-scale surveys. It is argued that this approach runs the risk of ignoring key existential issues. The two other texts analysed are a clinical psychology approach to the major transitions in work and power occasioned by the introduction of new information technologies, and a novel examining key transition episodes in the ‘lives’ of its main protagonists. These two texts, it is suggested, provide an extremely rich source of data and are a pleasure to read. The article ends with an argument for the redefinition of the boundaries that constitute knowledge in management and organization studies.     

Images of entrepreneurship: towards a new categorization of entrepreneurship

Based on a systematic literature review of contemporary entrepreneurship process research, the article provides a supplementary way of categorizing research on the entrepreneurial process which takes philosophy of science into account to a higher extent than done in previous categorizations. The motivation for doing so is to minimize problems of communication and comparison of concepts, results and theoretical contributions often experienced in entrepreneurship research. Applying Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) paradigmatic framework to analyse the selected literature, it is suggested that the essence of past and present entrepreneurship process theory can be captured in five images of entrepreneurship: 1) The Image of Machines; 2) The Image of Evolution; 3) The Image of Contingencies; 4) The Image of Mind; and 5) The Image of Social Becoming. The five images are considered to be concise and easily recalled tools, which will be valuable in the continuous development and organization of future ideas in entrepreneurship research.     

新技术、企业组织变革与财务管理

新技术的发展促进了经济、政治、社会等宏观领域的发展,微观企业组织也深受其影响,作为企业管理的重要组成部分的财务管理,将在新技术的潮流中发生根本性的变革。新技术虚拟化、场景化、网络化、集成化、链接化、实时化、动态化的特征,将使企业的组织结构从以实体为基础的组织形态向以信息为基础的组织形态进行转变,进而使财务管理的主体、客体、目标、体制、对象、价值创造方式和信息发生相应转变。本文深刻分析了企业组织在新技术环境下的巨大变革和财务管理的根本变化,为财务管理的重新定位提供了相应的经验和启示。     

MRP (materiel requirements planning) II implementation: a case study

Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) is a powerful and effective business planning template on which to build a continuous improvement culture. MRP II, when successfully implemented, encourages a disciplined yet nonthreatening environment centered on measurement and accountability. From the education that accompanies an MRP II implementation, the employees can better understand the vision and mission of the organization. This common goal keeps everyone's energy directed toward the same final objective. The Raymond Corporation is a major materiels handling equipment manufacturer headquartered in Greene, New York, with class "A" MRP II manufacturing facilities in Greene and Brantford, Ontario and an aftermark distribution facility in East Syracuse, New York. Prior to the implementation of MRP II in its Greene plant (from 1988 through 1990) good intentions and hard work were proving to be less than necessary to compete in the global market. Certified class "A" in February 1990. The Raymond Corporation has built a world-class organization from these foundations.     

Understanding second careers: Lessons from a study of U.S. navy admirals

We examined the career transition of senior executives from a strong bureaucratic organization into a dynamic business environment. In surveying retired, flag‐rank admirals characterized by the need to start a second career, we found significant support for a career transition model. The retired admirals in this study largely enjoyed a smooth transition into civilian careers. Their traditional career was associated primarily with external success, the contemporary protean career with internal success. The role of the organization proved instrumental for a successful transition. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

价值工程在组织改进设计中的应用

本文将价值工程这一重要的管理技术和方法引入到组织改进设计中,并系统地介绍了开展这项有理论和现实意义工程的方法与步骤,最后应用实例加以了分析说明,以期实现组织改进设计时的“降低成本、提高功能、促进创新”。     

Scheduling of re-entrant flow shops

We propose and develop a scheduling system for a very special type of flow shop. This flow shop processes a variety of jobs that are identical from a processing point of view. All jobs have the same routing over the facilities of the shop and require the same amount of processing time at each facility. Individual jobs, though, may differ since they may have different tasks performed upon them at a particular facility. Examples of such shops are flexible machining systems and integrated circuit fabrication processes. In a flexible machining system, all jobs may have the same routing over the facilities, but the actual tasks performed may differ; for instance, a drilling operation may vary in the placement or size of the holes. Similarly, for integrated circuit manufacturing, although all jobs may follow the same routing, the jobs will be differentiated at the photolithographic operations. The photolitho-graphic process establishes patterns upon the silicon wafers where the patterns differ according to the mask that is used.The flow shop that we consider has another important feature, namely the job routing is such that a job may return one or more times to any facility. We say that when a job returns to a facility it reenters the flow at that facility, and consequently we call the shop a re-entrant flow shop. In integrated circuit manufacturing, a particular integrated circuit will return several times to the photolithographic process in order to place several layers of patterns on the wafer. Similarly, in a flexible machining system, a job may have to return to a particular station several times for additional metal-cutting operations.These re-entrant flow shops are usually operated and scheduled as general job shops, ignoring the inherent structure of the shop flow. Viewing such shops as job shops means using myopic scheduling rules to sequence jobs at each facility and usually requires large queues of work-in-process inventory in order to maintain high facility utilization, but at the expense of long throughput times.In this paper we develop a cyclic scheduling method that takes advantage of the flow character of the process. The cycle period is the inverse of the desired production rate (jobs per day). The cyclic schedule is predicated upon the requirement that during each cycle the shop should perform all of the tasks required to complete a job, although possibly on different jobs. In other words, during a cycle period we require each facility to do each task assigned to it exactly once. With this requirement, a cyclic schedule is just the sequencing and timing on each facility of all of the tasks that that facility must perform during each cycle period. This cyclic schedule is to be repeated by each facility each cycle period. The determination of the best cyclic schedule is a very difficult combinatorial optimization problem that we cannot solve optimally for actual operations. Rather, we present a computerized heuristic procedure that seems very effective at producing good schedules. We have found that the throughput time of these schedules is much less than that achievable with myopic sequencing rules as used in a job shop. We are attempting to implement the scheduling system at an integrated circuit fabrication facility.     

The application of change management theory to HR portal implementation in subsidiaries of multinational corporations

HR portals are complex information technology (IT) applications that can be accessed by all employees of a given organization. By placing more applications and information online, HR portals reduce the reliance employees have on HR personnel. Given this relational change, from human to computer, the HR portal implementation process must take into account the challenges of both change management and technology acceptance. By integrating change management theories with IT user acceptance models, this article adds to HR's collective knowledge of ways to effectively implement HR portals. In addition, this article describes the cross‐national challenges that exist when a global firm attempts to implement an HR portal around the world. Thus, this article will present a model that (1) integrates change management theories and IT user acceptance models and (2) illustrates the ways in which change management plans may need to be adapted to be effective in various subsidiaries. A case study of Hewlett‐Packard's (HP's) worldwide implementation of their @HP Employee Portal in the Italian subsidiary of HP illustrates the key issues of these theories. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.