Purchasing: a necessary partnership

According to a recent survey published in Hospital Purchasing News, a Mcknight Medical Communications publication, the average hospital in the United States spent $16.7 million, not including equipment purchases, in 1994. This represents an increase of 41.6 percent over the amount spent in 1990, $11.8 million. The hospital's objective of having year-end revenues exceed expenses largely depends on the ability to purchase materiel at the best price, not necessarily the lowest cost. This goal can be achieved by partnering with suppliers and customers (hospital administrative and surgical staff, as well as patients) through open communication and trust. Reducing costs by a percent on the dollar could return $167,000 to the average hospital. Partnering can assist in achieving these savings!     

Making a win-win partnership

With increased global competition, it has become necessary for customers and suppliers to partner for common benefits. Xerox and Avery Dennison have developed new concepts to effectively deliver products to the end customer, taking the cost out of the entire supply chain. The mutual benefits of this partnership are shorter lead times, lower overall inventory, and increased profitability. In order to attain these benefits, certain business paradigms had to be changed, that is, walls had to be broken down. This article gives a hands-on explanation of how to establish a working partnership between two companies.     

Reorganizing a partnership efficiently

Review of Economic Design - We modify the partnership dissolution model pioneered by Cramton et al. (Econometrica 55:615–632, 1987) to consider the possibility that each partner has an...     

Advanced supplier partnership practices: a case study

This article describes how a supplier partnership was set up to avoid the typical purchasing relationship--price being inversely proportional to quantity and having the purchaser take all the risk of product obsolescence. The case study also describes how rate-based replenishment replaced time-based delivery, and how all these advantages were achieved at reduced administrative costs.     

An exploratory review of global leadership: The example of French and British leadership styles

The emerging global leader must demonstrate specific competencies to succeed in the international marketplace. International leaders must be able to create strategic partnerships with individuals from different cultures. In this article, the author, after reviewing state of the art research in the field, describes the difficulties involved in leading multicultural teams in Franco–British collaborative ventures. Corporate human resource managers at British Petroleum and Vivendi Corporation in the United Kingdom and Eurotunnel Corporation in France revealed that cultural differences impact international leadership styles.     

The formation of teams: a British and German comparison

The aim of this paper is to examine the introduction of teamwork in a British and in a German car plant owned by the same American corporation. It contributes to the current discussions about teamwork (Kochan et al., 1997; Delbridge and Lowe, 1996). Using the German concept of a 'constitutional factory' vs 'adversarial' framework, a cross-country comparison is made. The research includes interviews and surveys. Conclusions have been drawn on the actual Gestalt (form, shape) of teamwork with special attention given to the relationship between team members and team leaders. Teams in a more 'adversarial management appoints team leaders' model seem to see team leaders as a new form of supervison and split team members and team leaders into 'us and them'.     

The removal of workplace partnership in the UK Civil Service: a trade union perspective

Despite extensive research on the impact of social partnership in the workplace, limited investigation has been undertaken around its removal. This article examines, from a trade union perspective, the removal of the partnership agreement by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Public and Commercial Services Union.     

The receiving simplification partnership: a win-win approach to better service and higher profitability.

To achieve competitive advantage, customers and suppliers are increasingly forming logistics partnerships to improve supply chain performance and reduce costs. The partnerships are typically motivated by the need to solve a particular problem, but with attention and open communication, new program ideas can develop, sometimes even breakthrough concepts. During the course of their partnership, Avery Dennison and United Stationers created a program that dramatically simplifies and speeds receiving and put-away of shipments with the aim of reducing workloads, improving service, and increasing profitability. The program involves optimizing order quantity increments to full-pallet, layer, and case volumes based on demand and warehouse configurations. Within six weeks, the results included a 50 percent reduction in shipment line items and 92 percent fewer put-away pieces, despite unchanged inventory levels.     

Extending the focus of management review quarterly: one year later

Management Review Quarterly -     

The workplace as a community: the case of British hotels

In this article the author describes workplace communities in British hotels and discusses the relationships between the workplace community and employees' subculture, family life and leisure patterns. He also discusses the role of the workplace community as an alternative to bureaucratic organisation and the consequences for people of working in a leisure context.     

The first-line supervisor in the British coal industry: a preliminary enquiry

In this article the authors report the results of small group discussions with some 415 first-line supervisors in the mining industry. The results are compared with those from a number of earlier studies of mining. Changes which have affected the supervisory position are described, and the role of behavioural research in industry is discussed in relation to both organizational analysis and to training.     

The EU and the Caspian Sea region: An energy partnership?

This paper explores the scope to foster European Union (EU) energy security through stable long-run economic relations with the Caspian Sea region. It is part of a longer-run research programme focusing on the following issues: what are the determinants of the EU long-term energy interests in the Caspian Sea region, and how far does genuine security depend not only on diversifying energy sources geographically but also on stable political and economic structures in the energy-exporting states? An important motivation of this paper is to identify factors relevant to internal and external stability in the Caspian region to assess the impact of current policies and to elucidate policy options that can help increase EU energy security.     

The British economy: the way forward

The present government's commitment to economic stability and its depoliticisation of monetary policy are welcome. But saving has been penalised, the flexibility of the labour market has been reduced and so far there has only been tinkering with welfare provision. The government seems intent on joining the single currency but the arguments in favour are weak.     

Democratizing innovation: The evolving phenomenon of user innovation

Almost 30 years ago, researchers began a systematic study of innovation by end users and user firms. At that time, the phenomenon was generally regarded as a minor oddity. Today, it is clear that user-centered innovation is a very powerful and general phenomenon. It is rapidly growing due to continuing advances in computing and communication technologies. It is becoming both an important rival to and an important feedstock for manufacturer-centered innovation in many fields. In this article, I provide an overview of what the international research community now understands about user-centered innovation. JEL classifications O32, O33     

Permanent and transitory wages of British men, 1975–2001: year,age and cohort effects

We examine the mean and variance–covariance structure of log-wages over calendar time and the life cycle of British men, hereby controlling for birth cohort effects. We attribute the strong increase in mean log-wage during the 1980s and 1990s to a rise in mean log-wage with the year of birth. This rise is diminishing with the year of birth, which implies lower wage inequality between cohorts with the year of birth. Wage inequality has increased during the 1980s and early 1990s and remained fairly stable in the second half of the 1990s. The year effects, however, show increasing wage inequality up to 2001, mainly due to a strong rise in transitory wage inequality. Transitory wages are strongly correlated over time and an increase in transitory wage inequality therefore has highly persistent inequality consequences. The stable wage inequality in the second half of the 1990s is attributed to lower within-cohort wage inequality for the younger cohorts. The age effects show that permanent wage inequality increases with age, in particular up to age 30 and over age 50. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The local organisation of a national dispute: the British 1979 engineering strike

The national engineering strike of 1979 was by far the largest strike in Britain in recent years. Here the authors examine a crucial aspect of the strike which has been given little systematic attention, that is in the way it was organised at local level and mobilised mass support.     

The British defence industry in the 1990s: a labour market perspective

A survey of engineers and scientists in the defence industry reveals company responses to the changing arms market. The defence industry is attempting to restructure employment patterns in order to maintain its ability to recruit and retain high level manpower.     

Union partnership as a facilitator to HRM: improving implementation through oppositional engagement

Abstract

This paper provides a nuanced insight into the workplace level interactions between a union and HRM systems within a union-management partnership arrangement. Soft outcomes of HRM systems typically suffer from compromised implementation by managers struggling to balance competing operational priorities, but we show how a union limits this poor implementation. Qualitative and documentary data were retrieved from a major UK retailer and a trade union to examine how union activity interacts with HRM delivery. Firstly, union communication systems enhanced or replaced company systems of employee voice. Secondly, union activity policed management implementation of HRM practices to limit their subjugation to short-term productivity increases, improving outcomes for employees and the HRM system for the company. These outcomes were achieved through oppositional engagement within the context of partnership, which points towards a persisting and productive pluralism within the cooperative rhetoric.