Trends and challenges of developing human capital in India

With the population touching 1.2 billion, half of which is around 25 years of age, India is set to be among one of the top countries for human capital in the next two decades. While the country has been making rapid progress economically, human capital additions may remain marginal and may not keep up with the pace of economic growth unless accompanied by planned development of manpower. The Indian corporate sector was the first to start a dedicated HR function 30 years ago and the nation was the first to have a Ministry of HRD 20 years ago. Despite the early start, the last two to three decades have provided a mixed bag of experiences and expectations. Conservative HRD policies have not helped India's skill base to develop at the same rate as economic progress. An inadequate research base and the low quality of people entering the HR profession have prevented corporate HRD from becoming more productive than it is now. A lot of attention is directed towards recruitment, retention and compensation strategies rather than to talent multiplication. At the same time, innovative leaders and chief executive officers (CEOs) who have taken up the mantle of HR have made a mark. The future of human capital formation will be bright at the national level if the government makes more intense efforts to build human capital and becomes more innovative and expansive. At the corporate level, the credibility of HR is still suspect as it has not been able to match its steps with those of India's more innovative leaders. Preparation of a new breed of HR professionals combined with education of CEOs in what good HR can do may go a long way in helping Indian HR develop a strong footing.     

Human resource development in Pakistan: evolution,trends and challenges

Human resource development (HRD) is an ever-changing field. The concepts and the underlying principles of HRD may be similar throughout the globe, but its practice differs due to contextual factors such as culture, technology, resources and national policies. This article describes the development, current status and future trends of HRD in Pakistan. After analysing HRD in corporate, non-profit, education and community development settings, this article outlines the important role of HRD for the social and economic development of Pakistan.     

Darwinism,organizational evolution and survival: key challenges for future research

How do social organizations evolve? How do they adapt to environmental pressures? What resources and capabilities determine their survival within dynamic competition? Charles Darwin’s seminal work The Origin of Species (1859) has provided a significant impact on the development of the management and organization theory literatures on organizational evolution. This article introduces the JMG Special Issue focused on Darwinism, organizational evolution and survival. We discuss key themes in the organizational evolution research that have emerged in recent years. These include the increasing adoption of the co-evolutionary approach, with a particular focus on the definition of appropriate units of analysis, such as routines, and related challenges associated with exploring the relationship between co-evolution, re-use of knowledge, adaptation, and exaptation processes. We then introduce the three articles that we have finally accepted in this Special Issue after an extensive, multi-round, triple blind-review process. We briefly outline how each of these articles contributes to understanding among scholars, practitioners and policy makers of the continuous evolutionary processes within and among social organizations and systems.     

Global innovation performance: Strategic challenges for multinational corporations

In the emerging knowledge economy many companies are forced to access globally dispersed technological and market knowledge to maintain their competitive advantage. A conceptual model is presented to analyze the relationship between the globalization of the innovation function and firm performance. Longitudinal data from 10 multinational companies are used to support the proposed model. The analysis concludes that the relationship between global innovation reach and firm performance is concave and time lagged. The results suggest the strategic importance of globalization decisions. The managerial implications are structured in five distinctive strategic challenges to successfully manage global innovation.     

The impact of environmental characteristics on TQM principles and organizational performance

One recurrent theme within the literature on total quality management (TQM) is the study of its effect on organizational performance. Nonetheless, most research has focused on analyzing the relationships between the implementation of different elements and several types of performance. This paper incorporates the effect of organizational environment as a variable for explaining the impact of TQM on business results. The model is tested using structural equations, employing a survey of quality managers in 273 Spanish firms. The causal analysis results show that dynamism, munificence and complexity influence the degree of implementation of the main TQM principles. The most relevant effects emerge as a result of the environmental dynamism, and the least effects are due to munificence. Similarly, the dimensions of TQM have an impact on different types of performance. The model can be used by organizations to assess their level of TQM success depending on specific environmental characteristics.     

战略柔性与竞争绩效:环境动荡性的调节效应

作为一种特殊的竞争能力,战略柔性日益成为驱动企业竞争绩效的战略要素,因而备受 关注. 通过对前人研究成果进行回顾和总结,重点探讨战略柔性与核心能力、企业竞争绩效之 间的关系以及环境动荡性所扮演的特殊中介角色,并运用来自中国企业的调研数据,利用基于 偏最小二乘法(partial least square) 的结构方程模型(SEM) 验证了不同类型的环境动荡性在战略 柔性与企业竞争绩效之间的关系中的调节效应.     

产业创新网络动态演进机制模拟与实例分析

产业创新网络是由产业内以创新为目的、相互独立又相互关联的企业以及企业间关系耦合而成的网络.产业创新网络的演进机制是其研究的关键内容,但这一领域的研究成果、特别是定量研究成果较少.文章基于社会网络理论,将产业创新网络描述为企业间以创新为目的的关系网络;企业节点及其相互关系构成产业创新网络结构,知识资本和社会资本是产业网络创新的基础,企业的进入与退出机制以及企业的行为决策影响产业创新网络的演进过程,基于此构建基于多智能体的仿真模型来分析产业创新网络的演进机制;中国基于TD-SCDMA标准的3G产业网络演进过程实例表明,该仿真模型能够有效反映产业创新网络演进的特点,仿真模拟是分析产业创新网络演进机制的有效方法.     

Trends and challenges of developing human capital in Singapore: an analysis of current practices and future potentials

As one of the most vibrant nations of Asia, Singapore is well known for its dynamic and innovative human capital development initiatives. These are driven mainly by the government policies, with inputs from public sector organizations and large local companies. Human resource development (HRD) related legislations, financial incentives, infra-structural support and deployment of management and info-communication technologies (ICT) help to sustain the national HRD initiatives. This paper presents an analysis of the current practices and future trends and challenges faced by organizations in Singapore. Some of these challenges are: ageing workforce, talent retention and development, rapid technological changes and cross-cultural skills development for working in the emerging markets. Eight trends and challenges identified here are expected to significantly impact the HRD profession in future. Implications of the trends and challenges are also discussed for future research and professional practice.     

Quality and environmental management practices: their linkages with safety performance

There is a widespread acknowledgement that quality and environmental practices are effective means for improving the business performance of firms. However, empirical evidence regarding the relationship between quality and environmental practices and employee safety performance is relatively scarce. In order to fill this gap, we investigate the relationship between quality and environmental practices and safety performance measured by employee accidents at work. Employing a multivariate probit model, we show that the adoption of quality management practices is associated with an increased chance that an employee encounters workplace accidents, whilst environmental practices are associated with a reduction in workplace accidents. However, when distinguishing between workplace accidents that do and do not lead to sick leave, our results reveal that the utilisation of quality practices is not associated to employees’ probability of encountering accidents that lead to sick leave. This suggests that quality practices are only related to benign accidents. Moreover, examining the interrelationships among quality practices, safety performance and quality-related contextual factors, our findings indicate that the implementation of quality practices by the firm that considers quality as very important for its strategy and provides employee’s quality-related training is not associated with safety performance. Therefore, the results suggest that the way a firm implements and uses quality practices is essential for their effect on safety performance.     

Exploring challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues in hybrids

Journal of Management and Governance - Literature on performance management in hybrid organisations remains lacking, even though they increasingly are providing public services. This study created...     

A methodology for industrial studies of productivity performance

This article describes a methodology for measuring productivity and competitiveness in industry. The methodology is developed mainly for the mechanical industry (including shipyards, offshore and electromechanical companies). Two different approaches are described—one is based on a self-audit using a questionnaire answered by the industry itself, the second, using a more complete audit, is based on expert teams analysing the company. The productivity is described by indicators given points on a scale from 1 to 7 (1—far behind international competitors, 7—(best practice’).     

European industrial districts: Influence of geographic concentration on performance of the firm

This paper reviews ideas and insights from recent firm strategy literature. We argue that these perspectives can be usefully extended to explain the competitive advantage of the industrial district. Most of the empirical studies seeking evidence of the competitive advantage of the industrial district consisted of case studies. This paper attempts to offer a measurement of the performance of industrial district firms on a comparative basis by using the case of the Spanish ceramic tile industry.     

Resilience metrics in the assessment of complex supply-chains performance operating under demand uncertainty

The design and planning of resilient supply chains is a major challenge due to the increasing complexity of these systems that operate in a global market and therefore are more exposed to disruptions. In the present work a design and planning model that integrates demand uncertainty is applied to five supply chain structures that are submitted to different types of disruptions. Disruptions are modelled in a probabilistic manner, resulting in the incorporation of two sources of uncertainty. Eleven indicators are considered to assess the supply chains’ resilience, which comprise network design, centralization and operational indicators. The goal is to provide managers what are expected operational impacts (measured by the operational indicators) by assessing the behavior of network and centralization indicators and their known resilience behaviors from the literature. A case study of a European supply chain is used to illustrate the methodology and a discussion on the results obtained is presented in order to conclude which main characteristics a manager should consider when designing and planning resilient supply chains.     

The evolution of employee engagement: Towards a social and contextual construct for balancing individual performance and wellbeing dynamically

Research demonstrates that high Employee Engagement (EE) sustains job satisfaction and performance among staff. This literature review analyses the evolution of EE, highlighting the theoretical frameworks used to explain the concept, the measurement scales adopted by researchers and the principal antecedents and outcomes relating to EE that have been progressively considered along the way. Three main findings emerge from the analysis. First, we highlight the social and relational nature of EE, providing a more sociological interpretation of this phenomenon. Second, we underscore the fact that EE is dynamic, and when combined with modern digital technologies, it can be studied through innovative approaches. Third, we discuss how EE could be a fundamental ingredient in shifting towards a human centred approach through which balancing individuals’ wellbeing and performance. We discuss the implications of these findings, highlighting the necessity to rethink EE in relation to the new normal ushered in by Covid-19, and the increasing role of hybrid working.     

Identification and selection of environmental performance indicators: Application of the balanced scorecard approach

The popular “balanced scorecard” system can be applied in the selection and development of environmental performance indicators. As presented, the balanced scorecard integrates environmental performance within the context of corporate strategic objectives. The basic premise of the balanced scorecard is that the ultimate corporate objectives commonly targeted by senior management such as economic value-added, net income, return, on equity, and return on assets are of little use in day-to-day dicision-making or in the motivation of employeesRather than look ahead, these measures reflect the past and, therefore, are not closely linked with the immediate actions which might be expected to be associated with future performance improvements. To create incentives for future improvement in these long-term measures, we must develop “leading” measures, which can be easily monitored in the short term. Such an approach lends itself to the selection of environmental performance indicators which are most clearly associated with the firm's strategic goals.     

Valuing corporate environmental performance: Innovest's evaluation of the electric utilities industry

Investment analysts are often skeptical of any link between a company's environmental performance and business performance. However, a study of twenty-six electric utilities by Innovest shows a striking difference in share value between the best and worst environmental performers. Deregulations of the U.S. electric power industry has little noticed implications for environmental performance and risk. Add to that increasing regulatory pressure and public awareness, and environmental strategy emerges as a pivotal factor underlying success—or failure—in the industry. In the article, the authors show how forward-thinking companies are turning environmental threats into business opportunities, with shareholders pocketing the returns.     

The adoption of multiple certification standards: perceived performance implications of quality,environmental and health & safety certifications

This study assesses the combined impact of multiple certifications (i.e. ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001) on perceived performance dimensions related to quality, environmental and occupational health and safety. Using survey data collected from 59 Irish manufacturing plants in 2014, we employed MANCOVA and regression analysis to test our proposed hypothesis. The results suggest that companies that are simultaneously ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified are significantly better performers with regard to environmental and occupational health and safety compared to companies without multiple certifications. However, from a perceived quality performance perspective, having these multiple certifications doesn’t seem to be an effective performance improvement tool.     

Workplace autonomy and industrial democracy: The equity solution

The time has come to begin thinking about a conceptual shift in management thought. Once again, turbulence is developing in the environment and a new framework is developing to manage people. This framework calls for new forms of partnership between workers and management, including an expansion of employee rights, autonomous workgroups, and employee ownership. This article proposes that a new definition of corporate citizenship is needed.     

Advertising: Trends and prospects

The advertising industry in the U.K. has for many years been regarded as a dynamic and growing industry. This paper examines the proposition and details the historical growth of the advertising industry during post war years and outlines structure through which that growth occurred. Furthermore, the author examines the structure of advertising expenditure both in terms of supply (that is the types of media utilized) and the demand (that is the types of commercial or industrial activity).

The author details surprising facts about the level of business at which the advertising industry is currently operating and examines the causes for the trends he discerns. As the Managing Director of an advertising agency formed in 1974 the author is both a qualified and deeply concerned writer.