Reconsidering the decision-making approach to management

There appears to be an increasing number of popular articles assailing the quantitative leanings of younger managers, and thus indirectly, our ‘decision-making’ approach to management education. This paper investigates these charges and reexamines some of the conceptual foundations, as well as popular attitudes, of management science. An actual managerial situation, considered to be typical, is used as a vehicle to explore these foundations and attitudes and some possible redirections of the field are then suggested.     

Cybernetics and the management science process

This paper addresses methodological issues currently confronting the management science community. The urgency of these issues is evidenced by [1] the growing debate over the implementability of MS/OR (Management Science/Operational Research) models, [2] the absence of professional agreement on a ‘generalized’ theory of organizational structure and control and [3] the dearth of substantive contributions in the area of ‘policy’ analysis and modeling. It is argued that any resolution of these issues must address the management science process and that developments in cybernetics provide an integrating framework for this purpose. Aspects of this framework are presented by pointing out distinctions between the more traditional MS/OR approaches and the proposed cybernetic approach. Some of the concepts involved are not always associated with cybernetics, but the implications for the practice of management science are significant.     

DESIGN OF AN M.B.A. SEMINAR ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH/MANAGEMENT SCIENCE *

This paper reports on an innovative seminar in which implementation of operations research and management science was the primary theme. Traditional educational strategies have sought to improve OR/MS acceptance by further exposing managers and management scientists to OR/MS techniques and management problems respectively. The present approach assumes that an understanding of the barriers to successful implementation and a knowledge of possible strategies for overcoming them are potentially more productive than the study of more OR/MS techniques. The seminar was designed to combine straightforward reading and discussion with empirical research on actual implementation situations. It is suggested that educators consider the value of this type of educational exercise in OR/MS curricula and M.B.A. programs.     

A supportive application of management science to marketing strategy formulation

Traditional applications of management science aiming at solving specific decision-making problems are claimed to be often of an aggressive nature. They represent an intrusion into the life space of the managers who are supposed to use them and in many cases are consequently rejected. In the light of the evolution of marketing and corporate modelling over the last twenty years, the authors propose a new supportive approach for management science applications which is user-oriented rather than task-oriented. The characteristics of the aggressive and supportive approaches are contrasted, and an example of a supportive management science application for marketing strategy formulation is described.     

The impact of organisational politics and trust in the top management team on strategic decision implementation success: A middle-manager's perspective

The implementation of strategic decisions is a complex and demanding process that requires an open and lateral communication of free-flowing information to make sense of and champion a firm's intended changes. For the process to be effective, middle managers need to operate within an environment that nurtures a pro-social mindset and helps to cope with stressors caused by the possibility of harm done by the intended changes to their vested interests. Drawing from the job demands-resources model, we argue that organisational politics represent an organisational demand, which may hinder the implementation of strategic decisions. To cope with this demand, implementers recruit organisational resources (i.e. trust in the top management team) that may moderate the negative effects of dysfunctional politics. To test our hypotheses, we drew on a sample of 228 middle managers from 114 private Greek firms with more than 100 employees across various industries. We found that when organisational politics were high during the implementation process, implementation success diminished. However, their negative impact was reduced when trust in the top management team was high. Conversely, when organisational politics were low, middle managers reported a higher implementation success regardless of how highly the top management team was trusted. Our study is the first to test the influence of organisational politics on the success of the implementation process from a middle manager's perspective. In addition, we show that implementation success can be viewed through a demands-resources lens, which provides a meaningful contribution to research on strategy implementation.     

An application of catastrophe theory to management science process

Practicing management scientists often complain of the alleged irrational behavior on the part of the managers they are trying to serve, particularly when a manager suddenly and unexpectedly shifts behavior from one of support to one of resistance. The authors feel such behavior is only believed to be irrational because the management scientist is using the wrong mental model when projecting past behavioral patterns into the future. This paper attempts to solve this problem by using the newly developed catastrophe theory to develop a different model where sudden shifts in behavior are considered perfectly rational and explainable. The basic implication that is drawn from this new model is that successful implementation of management science depends on a sequence of interactions with the ultimate model user and that care in the structuring of these interactions can greatly enhance the probability of eventual user acceptance.     

The new management team

There is no better place to instill the necessary sense of cooperation and collaboration than the top. If top management, both physician and nonphysician, can establish a suitable working relationship, and communicate both the necessity for and success of the relationship throughout the organization, breakdowns in cooperation and collaboration are far less likely to occur. Shared responsibility and decision-making at the upper levels can be a laboratory for their use in other organizational locations. The partnership between clinical and administrative leadership is more important now than ever before. Medical group practices are an ideal setting for testing a new form of shared management that will help to rid organizations of the confrontational and adversarial attitudes that have too long characterized relationships among managers and clinicians in our health care organizations and institutions.     

A view of MBO in today's management environment

The evolution of management practice would appear to have been conditioned by the successive embraces of a whole range of management movements—starting with the scientific management movement of F W Taylor through to the social science movement which is prominent today. In the 1960's the one that caught the imagination of many managers was the management by objectives movement. A characteristic of all of these movements is that they rarely seem able to sustain the promise of their initial impact because they are essentially bosses' movements rather than popular movements. The ideology of MBO does however come close to that of a genuine social movement if only it is interpreted and applied correctly. The convergence of MBO and the Organisation Development movement gives promise that together they will be seen as an acceptable response to the changing expectations and values of the participants in today's large and complex businesses.     

A theoretical model of training and its transference: the pivotal role of top management team composition and characteristics

Training is considered an important tool for organizations as they attempt to gain competitive advantages. However, transferring and maintaining the acquired skills and knowledge to the workforce remain problematic. Managerial support is a factor influencing training and its transference. However, the role of top management teams (TMTs) in this process has largely been ignored. This paper posits that the degree to which an organization invests in training initiatives, as well as the percentage of training transference and maintenance, is a function of TMT composition, TMT characteristics, and the degree to which the TMT holds subordinate managers accountable. A model and propositions are advanced in this study.     

2011年我国管理科学青年学者取得的巨大成就

根据管理科学与工程学科(管理科学部一处)2010年的《年度进展报告》中获资助者所提交的材料,总结了生产运作管理领域、服务运作管理领域、金融工程领域和技术管理领域等4个领域中我国学者以第1作者或通讯作者在学界公认的管理科学顶级期刊上发表的论文.这是我国管理科学与工程学科学者和国家自然科学基金委管理科学一处对十一五的阶段性总结,是个良好的开端.通过国家自然科学基金和国内学者共同的不懈努力,可望我国管理科学与工程领域的研究和实践会在十二五期间迈上新台阶.     

Role of technology in strategic management

The accelerating pace of technological change has made technology a major strategic factor for many organizations. Some firms respond defensively, seeing technology as a problem, while others through strategic use of technology gain permanent advantage.The engineering function typically contains the bulk of the firm's technological expertise, yet engineers and engineering managers are seldom directly involved in strategic analysis. Strategy typically trickles down to engineering in the form of technological problems demanding solutions. This weak linkage between engineering activities and strategic thinking is far from optimal, and in the current turbulent technological environment it can even endanger the firm's survival.The linkage can be strengthened, but it requires behavioral and managerial changes at the top of the firm and at the engineering level. First, both levels must understand the concepts of strategic management and commit to implementing them. Then the strategic nature of technology must be understood, including the limitations and potential traps of technology-based strategies. Finally, creative opportunities for considering technology strategically must be made available at the engineering level, and both design engineers and engineering managers must be rewarded for their strategic contributions.     

The meaning of bad news management for managers: an explorative research through metaphors

It is a known reality that managers often encounter bad news, and this study explores the question “What is the perspective of managers on bad news management?” in the context of a developing country with rapidly changing conditions. To answer this question, in-depth interviews were conducted with 32 top and middle managers. The results reveal two root metaphors about bad news management in managers’ minds. Managers focus on the past with the “lesson” metaphor and focus on the future with the “opportunity” metaphor. While managing bad news, they draw meaningful inferences from prior experiences and thus become careful and ready. After managing bad news, they have new opportunities to make their organization more mature, developed, and recovered.     

Executive Information Systems: Recent Developments and Research Imperatives

SUMMARY The reluctance of top managers to use computers themselves has become almost legendary, although there are good reasons for their apparent preference for traditional information sources and access routes. Isolated cases have shown how computer-based executive support systems can be used by top managers when great care is taken by the system developers over data presentation and the user interface. Now, the advent of high quality commercial software means that Executive Information Systems (EIS) may become far more widespread. This paper describes the principal features of the new EIS from the executive users' point of view and indicates those characteristics which appear to be most conducive to success. Research directions which will identify the extent and impact of EIS software on top management are identified.     

Constructing Interlocking Rationales in Top‐driven Strategic Renewal

Under top‐driven change, active involvement of middle managers in strategy‐making requires top and middle to find common ground. The paper offers inductive theoretical development of top managers’ role as enablers for the strategic contribution of the middle levels. Central to this role is the symbolic reorganization where the middle managers’ position is set. Next, middle managers’ operational efficiency allows their performance to be shown and increases their reputation. In consequence, the middle level can actively shape the role suggested by top management, which increases their power base. Finally, when these previous interactions escalate into a two‐way process where the middle and top management contribute to each other's efforts, interlocking rationales are achieved.     

Why are manufacturing SMEs cancelling their ISO 9001 certification? Research from Italy

We investigated why Italian manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) cancelled ISO 9001 certification from the Italian database and the problems and difficulties that led to this. Eight such problems derived from a literature review and interviews with a Delphi panel of 20 experts were tested through an online questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed by 167 managers from Italian SMEs that have cancelled their ISO 9001 certification. Costs related to consultancy and certification body are no longer a difficulty for maintaining ISO 9001 and neither are misinterpretations with the external auditors or paperwork. Internal audits are considered a problem when they are not managed with the aim of measuring performances. Staff can represent a cost when just dedicated to administrative and bureaucratic activities. The more relevant difficulties were top management commitment, measurability of performances and customers’ current lack of interest in ISO 9001. Respondents’ comments also provided interesting suggestions for practitioners such as quality managers and quality consultants to avoid mistakes while maintaining ISO 9001 certification.     

The General Manager's Perspective On How Factionalism Can Impact the Behaviors and Effectiveness of Top Managers Inside A Shared Management Joint Venture

This research is focused on joint ventures that are operated with a shared management governance structure. It is argued that the effectiveness of top management inside such a joint venture will be significantly determined by the nature of relations between the managers transferred from the different parent firms. Within that context, emphasis is placed on relational factors that can have an important bearing on the quality of decision making inside the joint venture. Data is collected from top executives at seventy-five shared management joint ventures and the results suggest several significant linkages. First, a growing sense of ``us' versus ``them' factionalism between managers from different parent companies is associated with a heightened propensity for the use of power in an impersonal and manipulative way. Second, those attitudes and behaviors undermine the openness of communications and information exchanges between the managers. Third, as those attitudes and behaviors intensify they have increasingly dysfunctional consequences for the development and execution of high quality decisions, and management effectiveness deteriorates. Moreover, interdependence between the managers aggravates this phenomenon because it strengthens the link between negative attitudes and dysfunctional behavior. The implications for joint venture performance are evident.     

Doing something about the weather

Recent developments in weather forecasting have created the potential for the operations research and management science (OR/MS) community to have a tremendous impact in distilling weather information into valuable decision tools. Weather-sensitive applications include transport, electric utilities, agriculture, and public emergency management. This article surveys existing research and practice using OR/MS tools to integrate weather forecasts in decision-making. Because the conditions that created the potential for OR/MS contributions—in particular an explosion in the amount of relevant forecast data—are quite recent, the amount of existing OR/MS work is modest. This article also describes promising but unexplored research opportunities for the OR/MS community.     

Strategic management in a firm of consulting engineers

This article describes the introduction of strategic management in a large and diversified company of consulting engineers in Brazil. This was done by a massive strategic planning effort in which the 60 top people of the company actively participated. This approach was chosen to produce both a comprehensive corporate strategy and strategic management capability throughout the company. The project therefore gave as much attention to training and guidance as to planning itself. Psychological, organizational and ‘political’ factors were taken seriously into account. Project management was a good joint-venture between some top people inside and some external consultants, strongly interacting with each other. The project resulted not only in plans, but also in decisions, including tidying-up the divisional structure of the firm. The article evaluates the project to determine success factors in such undertakings. It is interesting for managers to appreciate the factors involved in efforts to produce plans, develop managers and reorient a company at the same time. It is also interesting because it shows a fruitful, although demanding role for management consultants in strategic reorientations: more committed, more ‘on-line’ than experts submitting recommendations; less amorphous and more performance-oriented than organizational development gurus.     

Mapping the changes in management science: A review of ‘soft’ OR/MS articles published in Omega (1973–2008)

The paper proposes a framework to map the development of management science (MS) and uses it to survey the MS literature published in Omega, the International Journal of Management Science. The management science discourse over the last 35 years is mapped in four paradigms: (1) optimisation/normative; (2) interpretative/learning; (3) critical; and (4) a post-modern management science approach. Using a set of keywords and authors’ names associated with the main features of each MS discourse, articles published between 1973 and 2008 are grouped. Results seem to suggest that Omega, a US-based journal, has been mainly developing publications under the optimisation paradigm; only very few papers adhering to the interpretative/learning and critical paradigms have been given space in Omega. The handful of papers from the interpretative paradigm are seen as attempts of UK-based academics to open some space for ‘soft’ operational research (OR) or ‘problem structuring methods’ in a positivistic outlook that seems to pervade US management science practice. Results of the survey and features of MS literature published in Omega are discussed. The paper aims to raise awareness amongst management scientist, systems and operational researchers of the differences between the MS/OR practice in both countries.     

Human resource management in the just-in-time environment

Successful just-in-time (JIT) implementation requires a multiskilled group-oriented and self-disciplined workforce with good quantitative skills. Little discussion exists in the JIT literature concerning the development of such a workforce. The human resource management (HRM) literature deals with employee issues but does not identify strategies for achieving a JIT workforce. In order to identify appropriate HRM strategies for a JIT environment, a comprehensive model is presented to show the critical linkage between JIT and HRM. Interactions between legal issues, management and union, and human input are examined. The impact of US labour laws on HRM practices is discussed and contrasted with Japanese practices. The literature review of HRM-related JIT articles suggests that HRM practices in the areas of staffing, training and development, compensation, and employee retention can be used to develop an effective JIT workforce. The article will help production managers to understand the impact of specific HRM strategies that are appropriate for developing a JIT workforce.