About “strategy” and “strategies” in supply management

This article addresses the context and content of a generic supply strategy and discusses its strategy-making process. Building mostly on fundamental strategic management theories, the authors explain the role of supply strategy in its managerial context. In so doing, some light is shed on the meaning and use of the terms “strategy” and “strategies”. Also, a practical conceptual framework for supply strategy formulation is provided. The generic checklist, built by segmenting supply management decisions, is intended to guide supply professionals in addressing strategic issues to create value to customers, avoiding confusion and optimising resource allocation.     

Repugnance for “menial jobs”

A man's sense of well-being and meaningfulness in work is not so much a matter of external circumstances—the kind of job he has—as it is of his deepdown belief that he is a worthy human being. If he lacks that, any job can seem dissatisfying and “menial.” Executives may suffer from this (or related behaviors) as much as assembly-line workers.     

Getting from “just-in-case” to “just-in-time”: Insights from a simple model

Many factory managers are hesitant about implementing a just-in-time system due to concern about the dip in productivity that occurs. Here, a simple analytic model is used to study the trade-off between disruption and learning/improvement on a production line. While simple, the model is shown to capture many of the effects of just-in-time mentioned in the literature.Using insights from the model, an attempt is made to identify those factors to which successful implementation of just-in-time is most sensitive.     

Goodness of fit tests for “Chimeric” alternatives

In this paper we discuss nonparametric goodness of fit theory for alternatives, which, in practical terms, manifest themselves not as a “smooth” and “small” deviation “everywhere”, but as still not big systematic “stains” or highly oscillating patterns as compared to the regular null hypothesis.     

Een toepassing van “importance sampling”

Summary This paper describes an experiment with “importance sampling”, to show how much reduction of the computation time and sample size can be achieved in comparison with the usual Monte Carlo method. A comparison is made between each of the three methods of “importance sampling” and the usual Monte Carlo method by the determination of the expression Of the three methods A, B and C the first one uses the shifted exponential distribution, the second one uses the gamma distribution, and the third one uses the exponential distribution with modified parameter. These three methods have all smaller variances, ranges and sample sizes than the usual Monte Carlo method. Their order of preference is A, B, C. With respect to computing time only the method A is significantly better. So only the method A is an improvement in respect of both the sample size and the computing time.     

“But we can't go back”

In 2004, a provincial cancer agency in Canada developed and implemented a provincewide Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) to enhance organizational leadership and relationships. Research using a quasi‐experimental survey design determined whether LDI implementation influenced the emotional health and leadership practices of LDI participants. An ethnographic approach (18 focus groups and 13 individual interviews) explored participants' perceptions of the LDI. This article presents qualitative findings that contribute to understanding the statistically significant findings of increasing levels of cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and burnout for most LDI participants. The LDI was regarded as a critical strategy for helping leaders grow and cope with change and help in changing organizational leadership culture to be more collaborative and inclusive. However, an organizational history of short‐lived, flavor‐of‐the‐month development initiatives and growing skepticism and disengagement by leaders represented in the themes of Catch‐22 and “there is no going back” contributes to understanding why these quantitative measures increased. Few studies have explored the hypothesis that real organizational development happens through a series of planned stages. In this study, leaders experienced escalating frustration because change was not seen to occur fast enough in “others” and reported that this was necessary before they would alter their own behavior. Leadership development programs in general need to reflect the reality that it takes considerable time, patience, and effort to effect fundamental change in leadership culture.     

Expatriate success may depend on a “learning orientation”: Considerations for selection and training

To support globalization, managers increasingly are sent to live and work in other countries. An unsuccessful expatriate assignment is costly for the organization and damaging to the individual's career, yet few companies have adequate processes for selecting and training expatriate managers. The concept of “learning orientation” is proposed as a valuable dimension for assessment and training. Employees with weaker learning orientation tend to withdraw from situations that could result in low judgment of performance; those with stronger learning orientation adapt and continue. The described approach can benefit employees and their families and can increase the organization's chance for international success. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

“Want to” Versus “Have to”: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators as Predictors of Compliance Behavior Intention

“Worthless,” “money burning,” or “black holes” is how media and professionals describe compliance practices today. Practitioners are unenthusiastic about control systems, codes of conducts, and systems for compliance management that are increasing in volume but not in effectiveness. In order to help practitioners clarify what actually makes employees comply with their compliance program, this study examines intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of 119 employees from procurement and sales. We contribute to the existing motivation literature, testing the self‐determination theory in low and high hierarchical levels. Our findings show that intrinsic motivators are more strongly and positively related to compliance intention on higher hierarchical levels than the lower ones. However, employees from higher hierarchies show overall less compliance intention than employees from lower hierarchies. © 2015 The Authors. Human Resource Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Demise of “permanent employment” in Japan

The increasing volatility of industrial business cycles is forcing Japanese companies to institute a variety of human resource management methods which are eroding the principle of permanent employment. The transition from permanent employment to more flexible employment practices reviewed here is an example of how human resources can be managed to maximize a firm's competitiveness and effectiveness.     

Spatial strategies of the “haredi” population in Jerusalem

The purpose of this article is to discuss the strategic behavior—spatial and social—of the “Haredi” (ultra-orthodox) Jewish population. This behavior is associated, in essence, with self-segregation and social isolation accompanied by spatial expansion.

This study deals with these processes in one of the largest concentrations of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community—the northern neighborhoods of Jerusalem. The Jewish ultra-orthodox community is characterized by its special interpretation of Jewish law (halacha) and by its high degree of cohesiveness. It tends to segregate itself from the Israeli population for two main motives. The positive one is the desire to create and maintain “cultural dominance” in a specific area in which the community lives and functions. This includes considerations of scale economies and concentration economies in the provision of the special goods and services which it consumes. The second motive, a negative one, is the desire to avoid some kinds of contacts and interactions with the various groups which do not observe Jewish law according to the orthodox conception. This is done in order to prevent the transfer of secular cultural values of western society into their domain.

The high communal cohesiveness, coupled with high population growth and a strong desire for self-territorial segregation, results in increased pressure on the urban residential space. The fear of social relationship—which may serve as agents for transferring social or cultural values—results in a high degree of intolerance toward the non-religious Israeli population. The contact lines between the two populations have become, therefore, confrontation areas which are characterized by territorial conflicts.

Study of the directions of the territorial expansion suggests what the spatial strategy of the ultraorthodox community is: to gain control of a whole, well-defined urban space in order to maintain cultural dominance in it, while assuring potential directions for expansion in the future. The relationships with the outside, non-religious population is built on a modus operandi principle: i.e. minimal and culturally neutral interactions.

This strategy is carried out through penetration and expansion tactics in a well-known process. These processes present important challenges for planning areas in which ultra-orthodox communities reside.     

Social Structures of Accumulation: A “Punctuated” View of Embeddedness

This article starts from the institutional/evolutionary insight that economic processes are necessarily embedded in broader sets of social institutions and that these institutions change over time. It uses a Marxian framework, the Social Structure of Accumulation school, to argue that this change is not gradual or continuous. Rather, wide‐ranging institutional transformations follow periods of capitalist crisis, setting the stage for renewed accumulation and, eventually, new crises. This leads to a punctuated pattern of successive stages of capitalism.     

The mediating role of training utility in the relationship between training needs assessment and organizational effectiveness

In a survey among respondents from 96 organizations, we found that the utility of training partially mediated the relationship between Training Needs Assessment (TNA) comprehensiveness and the effectiveness of the organization. We did not find an effect of training quantity on training utility and organization effectiveness. Both TNA comprehensiveness and training quantity were found to be unrelated to organizational size. The results support the importance of conducting TNA in practice.     

The “Big 3” Foundations and American Global Power

This article shows how the major foundations were extremely influential in America's rise to global hegemony over the past century. The leadership of these foundations was part of the eastern foreign policy establishment that initially mobilized support for a globalist, anti‐isolationist agenda and after World War II worked to construct a viable intellectual framework promoting American perspectives in world affairs. The development of foundation leadership in international relations took place in three phases with different emphases, aimed at softening the sharper edges of globalization and elite dominance to retain public legitimacy: 1) shifting American public opinion from the 1920s to the 1950s in favor of liberal internationalism and a strong national government, 2) creating an integrated global elite from the 1950s to the 1970s that could serve as conduits for American interests within the institutions of each nation, and 3) developing democratic reforms in response to neoliberalism after 1980 to gain legitimacy for the international order, in order to sustain the idea that the political and economic systems work for everyone. In this fashion, foundations were able publicly to espouse principles of self‐determination and economic development for every nation, even though their actions paved the way for the continuation of neocolonialism.