The case of flow and learning revisited

Many business schools are criticized for being ineffective in helping students learn proper management skills and knowledge. Flow theory has been cited as being helpful in many learning environments in that flow experience can enhance student learning. The authors conducted a study of 315 students in an undergraduate operations management (OM) class to assess learning outcomes and flow experience. Results show that student learning performance and flow are related. Implications and suggestions for further research are provided.     

Performance‐Based Logistics and Interfirm Team Processes: An Empirical Investigation

Practitioners are using performance‐based logistics (PBL) strategies to reduce cost and improve value in industries such as defense, transportation, manufacturing, and healthcare. PBL is part of a group of increasingly popular buyer–supplier strategies that focuses on outcomes as oppose to the delivery of products or services. A key tenet of PBL is the use of innovation to create cost avoidance that benefits buyers and suppliers. In this research, we explore the interfirm team‐level factors associated with innovation in successful PBL strategies. This research brings together business, organizational behavior, and engineering literature to study PBL team success. The study entailed interviews with 17 managers involved in large scale PBL projects. The interviews and follow‐on member checking sessions resulted in a model composed of eight emergent categories and associated propositions. Both practical and theoretical implications are provided.     

EVOLVING A THEORY OF PERFORMANCE‐BASED LOGISTICS USING INSIGHTS FROM SERVICE DOMINANT LOGIC

Performance‐based logistics (PBL) represents a strategy for sustaining complex systems following production. Despite several implementations, limited understanding exists regarding PBL and its implications. Research using grounded theory emerged a theoretical framework for PBL. Service dominant logic (SDL) is introduced as a theoretical lens for interpreting the results and understanding how trading partners achieve performance‐based outcomes.     

Teaching the Concept of Risk: Blended Learning Using a Custom-Built Prediction Market

There has been much research into the role of technology in promoting student engagement and learning activity in third-level education. This article documents an innovative application of technology in a large, undergraduate business class in risk management. The students' learning outcomes are reinforced by activity in a custom-designed prediction market. The content of lectures are closely aligned to the student objectives within the prediction market, thus allowing the application of risk management practice while building knowledge through traditional delivery methods.     

How to move away from the silos of business management education?

Business management education is criticized for being too theoretical and fractional. Despite the numerous efforts to build integrated and experiential business curricula, learning is still organized in disciplinary silos. The curriculum integration efforts are carried out in separate sections of the curriculum rather than the core. There are theoretical, holistic models, but a lack of concrete examples of holistic business curriculum implementations. The authors bring the separate sections together by developing a holistic core curriculum model with three perspectives: a structure to bring intellectual coherence, people organized in learning communities, and an enterprise resource planning–supported learning environment to bring the practical training ground. The authors present a concrete implementation in a case study with first-year undergraduate business students and present their lessons learned.     

Implementing reverse e-auctions: A learning process

Reverse e-auctions, which enable suppliers to compete on-line in real-time, are changing the way organizations select their suppliers. We explore how five large firms in different industries learned to use e-auctions, and how e-auctions were integrated into their purchasing processes. To successfully implement e-auctions, organizations should: (1) build e-auction competencies; (2) organize for knowledge management; (3) create a holistic sourcing process; (4) focus on the total cost of ownership; and (5) experiment with e-auction designs. Key observations are drawn from the case studies, and implications for supply managers are presented.     

Toward Deepening Cultural and Language Understanding: The Design and Practice of a Hybrid Business Chinese Course

This article introduces an ongoing effort to use Internet resources in an Advanced Business Chinese for Professionals (ABCP) course in order to deepen learners’ language and cultural understanding. This course blends face-to-face (F2F) classroom instruction and online communications using Brix, an online course management system developed by the University of Hawai‘i. This article starts with the rationale and necessity of a hybrid course for ABCP and presents an overview of a traditional F2F business Chinese class with its strengths and weaknesses. Following the overview, this article outlines the design of a hybrid environment for this course, detailing its structure, content, and instructional processes. Illustrations of the F2F and online alternations in classroom teaching, online tasks with instructor’s guidance and feedback, and online forum discussion for each unit are offered. Experiences gained in this process regarding instructional intervention, projected learners’ learning outcomes, and interactive peer learning through the Internet will also be shared. Reflections and suggestions on aspects that may impact the success of this approach are proposed for future improvement in an ideal hybrid business language course.     

Developing International Business Managers Through International Study Visits to China

Globalization is a key factor in the success of business organizations today, impacting many aspects of management performance. Understanding the global business environment has therefore become a key objective in the teaching of international business on Executive MBA programs. Drawing on the theory of experiential learning, this study examines the relationship between program structure and learning activities of an international study visit (ISV) to China and the learning experience for Executive MBA students. The findings indicate that learning experience may be most effective where the structure of an ISV incorporates certain activities that promote experiential and deep-level learning. Educational implications are discussed.     

E-Learning企业应用之分析与展望

在线学习(e-Learning)的企业应用在其出现的七八年间既经历过初期的繁荣,也经历了后来的萧条;既有许多成功的案例,也有许多失败的教训,许多企业仍对在线学习持观望态度。从宏观层面论述在线学习产业的历史及发展趋势,探讨全球经济状况与在线学习产业和市场的关系,再从微观层面分析在线学习的企业应用现状,并对在线学习在企业中应用的发展趋势和前景做出了展望。     

Using an integrated business experience to take the place of “introduction to management” in an integrated curriculum

Management education is an oft-criticized subject, with practitioners and scholars alike offering suggestions for improvement. A gap still exists in how management theory is introduced to students. The authors describe how their business school redesigned its undergraduate curriculum with an embodiment of three distinguishing characteristics: experiential learning, integration, and demonstration of achievement. The authors illustrate how they incorporate introduction to management theory within several courses and describe how this coursework relates back to their curriculum’s three characteristics. They conclude with a brief discussion of how their integrated curriculum allows for upper-level Bloom’s taxonomy cognitive processes, and further reinforcement and eventual mastery of management theory in third- and fourth-year courses.     

Drivers of dynamic learning and dynamic competitive capabilities in international strategic alliances

Research on dynamic competitive capabilities (DCCs) is critical for businesses to operate effectively in a rapidly changing environment. The driving forces of the dynamic learning mechanism (DLM) play a decisive role in the evolution of DCCs that the resource-based view (RBV) has failed to clearly identify. By engaging in an empirical study with a sample of 363 strategic alliances in Taiwanese companies, this paper shows that learning intent and embedded learning positively influence the drivers of DLM, such as manager integration power, external linkages, codification of experience, and ambiguity, to both strongly and positively affect DCC development in high-level management of international strategic alliances.     

Will enterprise social networking systems promote knowledge management and organizational learning? An empirical study

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, enterprise social media practitioners and researchers are keen to know how the enterprise usage of social media can be converted into the improved organizational performance. Meanwhile, organizational learning has long been considered as one of the measures of organizational performance. This article investigated the impact of enterprise social networking systems (ESNS) usage on knowledge management processes and organizational learning; in particular, we examined the mediating role of knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. Four theories from sociology and strategic management were used to build the hypotheses in the research model. An online survey was conducted to empirically test the model. Our study results showed that ESNS usage directly and indirectly influences organizational learning; and that knowledge management processes (knowledge creation and sharing) mediate the path between the two. This study contributes to the existing literature on enterprise social media for three reasons. First, it is among the first to connect the three independent concepts (social media, knowledge management, and organizational learning) and explore their relationships in one theoretical framework. Second, this work also specifically examines the influence of ESNS (Yammer in this case) on organizational processes and outcomes. Third, this is a pioneering study that employs multiple theories to address the research questions under the organizational social media context. Therefore, the research gives implications for both practitioners and scholars who are interested in understanding the effectiveness of ESNS usage in the modern organizations today.     

Market responsiveness, top management risk taking, and the role of strategic learning as determinants of market pioneering

This study investigates managerial and organizational factors associated with engaging in a market pioneering strategy. Specifically, top management risk taking and the firm-level capability of market responsiveness are hypothesized to be associated with market pioneering. Additionally, strategic learning self efficacy is hypothesized to moderate the effects of top management risk taking and market responsiveness on market pioneering. Moderated regression analysis based on data collected from 111 manufacturing firms supports the hypotheses. Top management risk taking and market responsiveness positively predict the use of a pioneering strategy. Strategic learning self efficacy makes market pioneering more palatable to risk-averse top managers who might not otherwise engage in pioneering. Finally, strategic learning self efficacy strengthens the relationship between market responsiveness and market pioneering. Implications for future theory, practice, and research are discussed.     

组织学习的跨文化效应:中国和荷兰的比较

Based on the theory of cross-cultural management and organizational learning, this paper comparatively analyzes the role of culture differences between China and the Netherlands in organizational learning processes, climate, and capabilities. Three propositions are proposed to help multinational corporations (MNCs) build learning-oriented subsidiaries in China.      

加强高校科研经费财务监管工作对策探析

高校科研经费管理是科研工作持续健康发展的重要保障,财务监管工作是科研经费管理的重要组成部分。针对高校科研经费财务监管工作中存在的薄弱环节,文章从分析高校科研经费管理和使用中存在的问题及其危害性入手,探求原因,提出加强高校科研经费财务监管工作的对策。     

Knowledge Management in Central and Eastern Europe Through Network Development and Boundary Spanners

ABSTRACT

Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have become a popular research venue due to their transitioning into market based economies. For international business scholars this represents a unique opportunity, as one of the key driving forces is the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Due to the market's great potential, many multinational enterprises are entering CEE countries and realizing that a transfer of market knowledge (i.e., customer tastes, distribution methods/channels, etc.) from the host country to the multinational, as well as from the multinational to the host country (i.e. technology, management/marketing capabilities, etc.), is essential.

The lack of host country skills have made knowledge transfer difficult. Also, the tacit nature of some of the most important knowledge embedded within the host country's organization and the multinational makes knowledge diffusion a daunting task to manage. However, successful knowledge management will assist in positive performance measures so researchers are examining knowledge management and its constructs (acquisition, transfer, conversion, and application).

Our research explores the linkage between knowledge management and performance in host country firms in a CEE country, Croatia. We also explored antecedents of successful knowledge management that of networks and human resources (boundary spanners). Finally we explored whether cultural distance moderates these relationships in the knowledge management process.     

Closing the Learning Loop: A Review of Assignments in International Business Education

The continuing rapid globalization has significantly changed the nature of business and management, leading to increased pressure from a wide range of stakeholders to globalize business schools and to internationalize business curricula. This comes with a corresponding imperative to rigorously evaluate the impact of an international business education at institutional, program, and course levels. This study focuses on the types of assignments employed and approaches to assignment design in international business courses. A total of 92 studies in the scholarly literature on international business and international management are reviewed from 1970 to 2014. The study finds significant opportunities to expand and enrich research on assignment design, so as to better equip international business educators to validly and reliably measure learning outcomes.     

Developing learning capabilities through a quality management program

This study examines the development of learning capabilities through the implementation of a quality management program in services, based on a case study of transplantation management. The findings show how the introduction of an online system, based on a quality management program, underpinned the knowledge-building capacity of the organization. The results contribute to service literature by addressing how a quality management program links to organizational learning process directly and through building-up organizational knowledge. The implementation of a quality management program allows knowledge building through identification and socialization of tacit knowledge and combination of explicit knowledge. The development of learning capabilities fostered by the introduction of this program occurs under conditions that contribute to the building-up of organizational knowledge. Organizational learning is enhanced during this implementation through an incremental process that detects errors and corrects behavior and/or alters organizations premises, standards and values. This organizational learning helps to upgrade the overall process.     

Implementing Experiential Action Learning in International Management Education: The Global Business Strategic (GLOBUSTRAT) Consulting Program

This paper discusses the theoretical foundations and implementation challenges and outcomes of a unique “hands‐on” global consulting program that is integrated into an international EMBA program for mid‐career and senior American and European managers. It details the challenges for the integration of experiential action learning, double‐loop learning, service learning, and tacit learning into global management education and discusses the value of such integration for the EMBA‐participant's learning experience. The lessons learned from the implementation of the use of integrated global consulting based on an experiential action learning model on EMBA education are discussed. The andragogical model of education used should be a useful guide for designing and implementing experiential action learning based MBA/EMBA programs.     

创建学习型团队:我国NGO人力资源管理新思路

学习型团队是学习型组织理论运用到NGO人力资源管理中的一种开拓性模式,它具有学习性、融合性和现代性三个特征。我国NGO引入学习型团队具有多方面的契合性,国外NGO实施学习型团队积累了许多优秀的做法。在我国NGO人力资源管理中创建学习型团队主要有五条基本进路:加强学习型文化建设,改善管理主体的心智模式;建立激励学习的机制,缔造组织员工的共同愿景;建立志愿活动流程,实现志愿者的系统化管理;建立团队的学习评估机制,实现员工的职业生涯规划;建立自主管理机制,加强团队人力资源开发。