Educating collaborative planners: strengthening evidence for the learning potential of multi-stakeholder regional learning environments

Abstract

Planning education needs effective learning environments that support students’ boundary crossing competence development. The multi-stakeholder regional learning environment (RLE) is, by its typical design, hypothesized to foster boundary crossing. This quasi-experimental mixed method pre- and post-test study affirms the effectiveness of the RLE for stimulating competence development, and specifically shows the added value of three typical ‘boundary crossing’ RLE design characteristics, i.e. working in multidisciplinary student groups, working intensively with multiple stakeholders, and a high coaching intensity. Results strengthen previous findings, and contribute to the debate in planning education on an evidence-based pedagogical fundament for commonly used authentic learning environments.     

Implementation of manufacturing strategy: A select study of Indian process companies

This paper presents findings of an extensive survey of Indian process companies. Based on the survey, three companies have been selected for detailed case studies. Their experiences in the manufacturing strategy process are analysed. Although the companies represented diversity in terms of product type, sales volume, longevity and geographic location, they shared several commonalities including use of advanced manufacturing technologies. The process of strategy formulation varied among the companies in terms of participants, complexity and degree of formalization. Competitive priorities, order winners and critical success factors are identified for these companies. Based on strategic manufacturing issues, manufacturing competence index for the companies has been worked out.     

The mediating role of frustration of psychological needs in the relationship between job insecurity and work-related well-being

Abstract

This study aims to test a new process underlying the negative relationship between job insecurity and work-related well-being. Specifically, based on Self-Determination Theory, frustration of the psychological needs for autonomy, belongingness and competence was expected to explain the associations between job insecurity and emotional exhaustion and vigour (i.e. the core energy-related components of burnout and work engagement, respectively). Structural equation modelling using data from a heterogeneous sample of 3185 Flemish employees confirmed that frustration of the three needs mediated the association between job insecurity and both outcomes. These results suggest that job insecurity is related to impaired work-related well-being, because it frustrates employees’ psychological needs. This study contributes to a rather small, but growing body of research on the theoretical explanations of the negative consequences of job insecurity for employees’ work-related well-being.     

The impact of learning opportunities and decision authority on occupational health

In an investigation of 418 employees in the Norwegian Postal Service, employees with high learning opportunities and high decision authority were found to be better off on psychological functioning, health and organizational outcome variables than employees with low scores on these variables. Decision authority and learning opportunities had specific and independent impact on subjective health, psychological functioning, coping style and organizational outcome variables. There were, however, also interaction effects between demands, learning opportunities, and decision authority on subjective health. Learning opportunities and decision authority were operationalized with a questionnaire, supplemented with questions on the opportunities to learn skills beyond the present job situation. It is suggested that this is a particularly important dimension for coping with the present day rapid changes in working life, where the objective for many workers will be to broaden their repertoire and competence to increase their flexibility in the labour market.     

Does It Pay to Be Moral? How Indicators of Morality and Competence Enhance Organizational and Work Team Attractiveness

Based on a social identity analysis, the authors argue that people are attracted to teams and organizations with positive features. Such features can refer to the competence and achievements of the organization, or to its moral values and ethical conduct. However, in work contexts, ethics and achievements do not necessarily go together. The paper reports three studies that examine the relative and combined impact of perceived competence vs morality of a team or organization on its attractiveness to individuals. Study 1 (n = 44) reveals that students prefer to seek employment in a moral rather than a competent organization, when forced to choose between these organizational features on a bipolar scale. Study 2 (n = 100) replicates these findings in a design where the competence and morality of a fictitious organization were manipulated orthogonally. Study 3 (n = 89) examines responses to experimental task teams that systematically differed from each other in their competence and morality. Results of all three studies converge to demonstrate that the perceived morality of the team or organization has a greater impact on its attractiveness to individuals than its perceived competence. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Quality management and performance: a comparison between the UK and Turkey

Purpose: The aim of this article is to detail the correlation between quality management, specifically its tools and critical success factors, and performance in terms of primary operational and secondary organisational performances.

Design/methodology/approach: Survey data from the UK and Turkey were analysed using exploratory factor analyses, structural equation modelling and regression analysis.

Findings: The results show that quality management has a significant and positive impact on both primary and secondary performances; that Turkish and UK attitudes to quality management are similar; and that quality management is widely practised in manufacturing and service industries but has more statistical emphasis in the manufacturing sector. The main challenge for making quality management practice more effective lies in an appropriate balanced use of the different sorts of the tools and critical success factors.

Originality/value: This study takes a novel approach by: (i) exploring the relationship between primary operational and secondary organisational performances, (ii) using service and manufacturing data and (iii) making a cross-country comparison between the UK (a developed economy) and Turkey (a developing economy).

Limitations: Detailed contrast provided between only two countries.     

Coaching‐Kompetenzen: Behauptungen und Kritik

The term “competence” is widely used, but hardly ever defined. The author combines the four levels of evaluation sensu Kirkpatrick, Evaluation of training, Training and Development Handbook (1976) with the three dimensions of quality management to review continuous assumptions of competence in the light of a theoretical model. He concludes that competence remains to be seen as performance by improvement in practice.     

STRATEGIC PRODUCTION COMPETENCE: CONVERGENT,DISCRIMINANT, AND PREDICTIVE VALIDITY

A resource-based construct of manufacturing competence, termed strategic production competence, is examined with respect to its convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. The construct evaluates manufacturing performance across a comprehensive domain of competitive priorities relative to item importance and performance. Data from an earlier study of furniture firms (n = 65) are used for statistical testing. The results establish the convergent and discriminant validity of strategic production competence and show that it is positively related to business performance.     

Production Competence and Business Strategy: Do They Affect Business Performance?

The purpose of this article is threefold. First, a comprehensive measure of production competence that assesses the level of support that manufacturing provides for the strategic objectives of a firm is developed. Second, hypotheses relating production competence to several financial measures of business performance are tested using data from a large sample of firms (n=65) in the furniture industry. Third, the impact of business strategy both directly on performance and as a moderating variable in relation to production competence is analyzed. The results of the study suggest that production competence may have more of an effect on business performance for certain strategies than for others.     

Language Barriers

Different people use language in different ways. We capture this by making language competence—the set of messages an agent can use and understand—private information. Our primary focus is on common‐interest games. Communication generally remains possible; it may be severely impaired even with common knowledge that language competence is adequate; and, indeterminacy of meaning, the confounding of payoff‐relevant information with information about language competence, is optimal.     

Antecedents and performance outcomes of global competence: An empirical investigation

We examine the role of commitment to supply chain management (CSCM) and information technology (IT) in the achievement of global competence (GC). Through an empirical examination of 667 manufacturing business units in the U.S., we confirm the importance of global competence using two objective measures of firm performance. We investigate the direct effects of CSCM and experience with IT on performance, in addition to their indirect effects through global competence. We show global competence to be linked directly to objective measures of sales, and indirectly to return on assets (ROA). Despite manufacturers’ hefty investments in IT, we find that experience with IT does not drive ROA directly, but only indirectly through global competence and sales.     

After-effects of working at visual display units

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to examine the acute and chronic after-effects of working with VDUs on subsequent subjective mood and performance efficiency. Both showed that working at a VDU has a negative after-effect on the user's subjective well-being but only if that person has a high level of cognitive failure. There was no evidence of any such effect on measures of performance efficiency.     

On the Necessity of Structure in an Arbitrary World

Abstract

The term response generalization has been poorly defined and has, over many years, been a source of controversy for applied researchers who must grapple with results that show changes in behaviors outside of the response class targeted by their intervention. The present discussion seeks to differentiate response generalization from such terms as response covariation and induction. Instead, response generalization is redefined in the context of response classes and concurrent schedules of reinforcement.     

Probabilistic graph-coloring in bipartite and split graphs

We revisit in this paper the stochastic model for minimum graph-coloring introduced in (Murat and Paschos in Discrete Appl. Math. 154:564–586, 2006), and study the underlying combinatorial optimization problem (called probabilistic coloring) in bipartite and split graphs. We show that the obvious 2-coloring of any connected bipartite graph achieves standard-approximation ratio 2, that when vertex-probabilities are constant probabilistic coloring is polynomial and, finally, we propose a polynomial algorithm achieving standard-approximation ratio 8/7. We also handle the case of split graphs. We show that probabilistic coloring is NP-hard, even under identical vertex-probabilities, that it is approximable by a polynomial time standard-approximation schema but existence of a fully a polynomial time standard-approximation schema is impossible, even for identical vertex-probabilities, unless P=NP. We finally study differential-approximation of probabilistic coloring in both bipartite and split graphs. Part of this research has been performed while the second author was with the LAMSADE on a research position funded by the CNRS.     

Integration of CAD/CAM and production control in sheet metal manufacturing — an application area of operations research

Abstract

This paper describes a process planning system for sheet metal parts. This system has capabilities to deliver process planning data just in time. The change of tools, processes and even machines for manufacturing of the parts is possible at the shop door after design has been finished.

The sequence of the production planning steps carried out can be changed. In this way the system can be adapted to the requirements of different sheet metal manufacturing companies.

More detailed information is given about the methods used for nesting of the workpieces on the sheets to be produced.     

Resource smoothing: A cost minimization approach

From the available literature, there seems to be no defined approach to resource smoothing exercise except those attempted by Weist (1967, Management Science, 13, B359-B377) and Burgess and Killebrew (1962, Journal of Industrial Engineering, 13, 76-83). The aim of the smoothing exercise is to achieve optimal resource usage by avoiding high peaks and deep valleys in the project resource profile. The general approach has always been to move some activities with floats in the high peak regions to be started at a later date, and as this is done, the valleys will be filled to smooth the resource profile subject of course to time constraint. If this approach is followed as it is, it would be difficult to determine optimality especially when many resources are involved. A cost minimization approach is envisaged in the present study with no limitation on the number of resource inputs. In a situation where the resources are assumed to have the same value, the cost assigned to each of them should be similar. The method follows the general concept but with a difference; cost of the activity in question is considered. The exercise is continued until all the floats are exhausted. The optimum result would then be the one with the minimum cost profile. From examples used for the evaluation, the results obtained are comparable to those of the above two researchers, and some with better results in the majority of cases.     

Europeanization and Changing Planning in East-Central Europe: An Easterner's View

Abstract

The way that European integration influences planning has become a frequent issue for discussion in planning over recent years. Also, the changes in the European Union (EU) resulting from its recent enlargement attract attention from scholars, including planners, mostly from the countries of the ‘old’ EU 15.This contribution tries to join the two topics from the viewpoint of an easterner who has immediate experience of past as well as present issues of planning in East-Central Europe. It deals with specific readings of common European planning challenges and attempts to analyse the European impact on domestic planning in these countries.     

The recruitment and selection of hospital medical consultants

Abstract

The literature on selection has been dominated in recent decades by the ‘prediction’ paradigm. Such an approach requires a substantial number of positions to be filled in order to compute validity coefficients. There are other approaches, using a different paradigm, when concentrated on adjusting the organization and the employee. Here careful analysis of job demands is essential. This article describes such an analysis, taking the medical consultant as an example. The method can be used in an iterative way. It is useful when one has to work with small numbers of positions.     

Tardiness heuristic for scheduling Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

This paper evaluates the tardiness performance of a sampling-based adaptive heuristic in a dynamic manufacturing environment. A test bed, following a real world manufacturing system, has been developed. The proposed algorithm has been implemented in this simulated environment. After fine tuning the algorithm, it has been tested in various shop conditions. The results of these simulation studies are summarized.     

Analytical hierarchy process for justification of total productive maintenance

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) has attracted the attention of industries all over the world. The perceptible impact of TPM lies in attaining the far-reaching productivity and quality standards. Attempts have been made to examine TPM for the feasibility in Indian industries. The present work describes a multiattribute decision model using analytical hierarchy process for the justification of TPM for Indian industries.