Safe Companies: An Alternative Approach to Operationalizing Sustainability

The track record of the past decade shows that sustainability has had a difficult time getting traction inside corporations. In large measure, this is because it is a fuzzy and unproven concept – business executives require clarity to move forward. One way around this hurdle is by focusing on safety, which can provide an effective platform for helping companies make the transition to sustainability. In many ways, the two concepts are quite similar. Both are about increasing the prospects for human health and happiness. Yet, unlike sustainability, safety is well understood and actionable, and it is also an increasingly high priority in our post-9-11 era. A focus on safety provides senior executives a path up a Safety-Sustainability Continuum that starts with the workplace and proceeds to traditional functional business areas such as safer R&D and correspondingly products. Ultimately this leads to activities that are intended not only to reduce a company's negative “footprint” (for instance, by making products less toxic) but by expanding their positive “footprint”, (e.g. by pursuing ecosystem restoration and regeneration). Ideally, a campaign to use safety as an entry point for operationalizing sustainability will have a dual emphasis, focusing equally on the human benefits of safety and the business case for pursuing safety (and, ultimately, sustainability).     

Institutionalizing innovation: Key activities for market leadership

What distinguishes outstanding innovators from others:They understand that consistent innovation is the key to a company's competitive survival.So they are constantly looking for ways to change every aspect of their business - not just marketing - to serve customers better.To generate and sustain innovation all across the business, they consistently focus on these five keys:

• - Creating a corporate work environment that values competitive performance above everything else.

• - Structuring the organization to permit innovative ideas to rise above the demands of running the business.

• - Clearly defining a strategic direction that lets the company channel its innovative efforts in ways that will pay off in their particular marketplace.

• - Knowing where to look for good ideas and how to leverage them once they're found.

• - Going after good ideas at full speed and marshalling the resources needed to ensure lasting success.I believe the following five steps will make your company more dynamic and innovative:

• - Create a mind set that puts constant pressure on the organization to beat your specific competitors through innovation.

• - Structure your organization to promote innovation instead of thwarting it as most do.

• - Develop a realistic strategic focus to channel people's innovative efforts.

• - Know where to look for innovative edges in your particular business.

• - Throw the book at a few good ideas instead of spreading your resources around like butter on bread.Sounds simple because, of course, it is. But: it is a survival issue for most large corporations:

• - Who are being “niched to death” by smaller competitors, and

• - Outfoxed by global competitors who have taught themselves how to manage innovation more effectively.

Organizational disidentification and change-oriented citizenship behavior

This study proposes that the extent to which employees have disidentified with their organization might reduce the likelihood that they undertake change-oriented citizenship behavior, though this negative link might be buffered by employees’ access to two personal resources (self-enhancement motive and benevolence) and two contextual resources (citizenship climate and job involvement). To test these theoretical predictions, the study gathers survey data from employees in the telecommunications sector in Canada. The results show that prior organizational disidentification curtails voluntary efforts to improve current organizational practices, but this effect is weaker when employees (1) find it important to make a good impression on others, (2) are benevolent toward others, (3) perceive that their organization encourages voluntary efforts, and (4) are highly involved with their jobs. These four factors accordingly diminish the risk that the extent to which employees have cognitively separated from their employer escalates into a reluctance to add to organizational effectiveness on a voluntary basis.     

Testing Klein and Sorra’s innovation implementation model: An empirical examination

Despite a substantial volume of research activities on innovation implementation [Holahan, P.J., Aronson, Z.H., Jurkat, M.P., Schoorman, F.D., 2004. Implementing computer technology: a multiorganizational test of Klein and Sorra’s model. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management 21 (1), 31–50; Klein, K.J., Sorra, J.S., 1996. The challenge of innovation implementation. Academy of Management Review 21 (4), 1055–1080; Kwon, T.H., Zmud, R.W., 1987. Unifying the fragmented models of information systems implementation. In: Hirschheim, B.R. (Ed.), Critical Issues in Information Systems Research. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., New York, pp. 227–252], implementation outcomes continue to disappoint—particularly those related to large-scale information systems (ISs) implementation projects [Aiman-Smith, L., Green, S.G., 2002. Implementing new manufacturing technology: the related effects of technology characteristics and user learning activities. Academy of Management Journal 45 (2), 421–430; The Standish Group International Inc., 1995. Chaos (Application Project Failure and Success). Access http://www.standishgroup.com/chaos.html; Whittaker, B., 1999. What went wrong? Unsuccessful information technology projects. Information Management & Computer Security 7 (1), 23–29]. In 1996, Klein and Sorra introduced a promising model that posited key determinants of implementation effectiveness. In this paper we present new validated construct measures, and then test the Klein and Sorra model using a survey of 209 employees in seven organizations. Our results demonstrate that IS implementation effectiveness is influenced directly and indirectly by innovation-values fit, and indirectly by implementation climate.     

A Behavioral Training Program for Managers in City Government

A management training program based on Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) principles was conducted for 32 first-level and upper-level managers in city government. Managers then conducted 19 different behavior change projects with their employees. Each project is described in terms of the number of subjects, dependent and independent variables, length, research design, reliability measures, and results. The overall program was evaluated in terms of behavior change, traineelmanager satisfaction with the training, and effectiveness. Twenty-nine change ratios were calculated by comparing the intervention performance mean with the baseline mean, and in all cases, the change ratio showed that productivity improved. In fourteen case's, productivity at least doubled. The results indicate that employee performance in a governmental organization can be enhanced significantly by use of OBM principles.     

员工工作满意度调查问卷的有效性及民营企业员工工作满意度影响因素研究

本研究选取我国浙江杭州和广州深圳市各一中型民营企业员工共780人作为被试,采用自编的民营企业员工满意度调查问卷(问卷由8个分量表构成,共61个项目)探查我国民营企业员工的工作满意度情况及其影响因素.结果表明:(1)民营企业员工满意度调查问卷的信度系数r为0.9555,内容效度和结构效度的相关系数均达到了可接受水平,是一个可接受的满意度调查问卷;(2)民营企业员工满意度调查问卷的维度"培训与发展"、"高层管理"、"所在部门"和"客户服务"对员工的满意度具有较大的影响,而"直接主管"、"薪资与福利"和"工作目标与绩效"等对员工满意度几乎没有什么影响;(3)民营企业B(深圳)的员工在所有八个分量表上的工作满意度均显著地满意于民营企业A(杭州)的员工的工作满意度;(4)无论是在总体水平上还是在各个分量表上,男员工的工作满意度均显著地高于女员工的工作满意度;(5)在总体水平上,在企业服务两年以上的员工(下简称为"老员工")的工作满意度显著地高于在企业工作2年以下的员工(下简称为"新员工")的工作满意度.具体地说,老员工在"所在部门"和"高层管理"两个维度上的工作满意度显著地高于新员工,而在"工作目标与绩效"、"直接主管"、"培训与发展"、"薪资与福利"以及"客户服务"等维度上,两者没有显著的差异.     

Hospitals' newest challenge: designing in quality

The job of producing high-quality products is even more difficult for health care providers than it is for those in manufacturing, where the quality movement began. As a part of the service industry, health care providers are in the position of producing products and delivering services at the moment of sale. Our task is to improve the quality of all of these simultaneous and interrelated processes. Traditionally, health care providers have made efforts to improve their products and services without realizing the impact that could be made by also improving resources, processes, and outcomes. This article is an overview of the new direction we have been taking: Retrospective review. Critical pathways. Building quality into all areas (resources, processes, products and services, and outcomes). Focused study of outcomes). We foresee a further evolution that will lead to exciting new methods for understanding and delivering high-quality care.     

针对企业虚假广告宣传的政府监管策略研究

虚假广告是指经营者利用广告虚构事实,造成消费者对其商品或服务的误解,从而获取利益的行为。本文考虑了政府、消费者在企业广告决策中的作用,建立两阶段模型,研究了企业利润最大化目标下政府监管力度、消费者负面口碑效应、产品生产成本等因素对广告策略选择的影响。基于企业在四类广告策略（不进行虚假广告、仅前期进行虚假广告、仅后期进行虚假广告和一直进行虚假广告）中的选择,本文着重分析了政府相应的监管策略。通过详实的数值分析,探究了在不同的市场环境下的企业利润和具体的政府监管策略,最终提出对策和建议来限制企业的虚假广告宣传、提高消费者效益并净化市场环境。     

Coaching für Führungskräfte im Krankenhaus Baustein einer Strategie zum Total Quality Management

Coaching of managers in hospitals as component of a total quality management strategy The author delineates the changed conditions of hospitals at the beginning of the new millenium. In order to be up to date with the growing challenges and the need for change a Total Quality Management (TQM) is necessary. This TQM sees the satisfaction of clients and of employees as crucial for all reorganization processes. The realization in everyday hospital life requires a total personnel development concept, with special regard to the managers and their specific needs for support by supervisors resp. coaches.     

Remote control: measuring performance for value creation and governance of globally distributed knowledge work

This article examines the governance of globally distributed knowledge work. To measure performance in knowledge work, it is important to focus on what the knowledge workers do and hence view knowledge as something one does, namely the practices, instead of something one has. By following the practices of knowledge work, it was possible to evaluate the effect of measures related to organizational processes, and identify what was not well covered by the measurement tool. Strategic and long term needs such as learning and employee competence are better managed through projects. This article shows how work performance in international organizations needs two different measures: one tool for measuring short-term value creation linked to the organizational processes; and, one tool for measuring long-term value creation linked to the practices of service work made in projects. Global governance of distributed employees is therefore successfully managed through key performance measures and through understanding projects through their multiple contributions, at both an individual and an organizational level. Global long term governance needs are strategic for the entire firm. The paper rests on an in-depth empirical case study of an international professional service firm.     

提高员工工作满意度机制的系统分析:和谐管理理论的启示与价值

在企业经营管理实践中,如何提高员工的工作满意度是企业激励员工、进行有效的人力资源管理、保证企业长远发展的关键问题。针对这一问题,本文在回顾和分析现有关于工作满意度理论和实践的基础上,利用和谐管理理论提供的复杂管理问题的解决之道,即主题导向下的双规则互动耦合思路对于解决该问题的有益启示和帮助,结合某设计院提高员工工作满意度的实践,从优化完善相关制度与机制、营造能充分发挥员工能动性的工作氛围,以及围绕提高工作满意度这一主题的整合三个方面形成有机系统,从而构建了基于和谐管理理论的提高工作满意度的管理体系,为这一问题的解决提供了新的思路。     

The Social Dimensions of Business Excellence

In an era of dynamic markets, globalisation, telecommunication and volatile stock markets, the board of directors of listed companies have grown familiar with the pressure of shareholders. Nowadays CEO's discus corporate responsible behaviour and sustainability more often. They feel the pressure of external stakeholders. They are aware of the increasing vulnerability of their corporate reputation, an increasing number of financial institutions start demanding social and environmental criteria — and it is more and more difficult to attract new talented people and at the same time, keeping existing employees satisfied. These developments make companies aware of the social dimensions of their organisation, their corporate identity, their role within society and their duty towards future generations.The business environment is beginning to accept that prosperity, profitability and shareholder value alone do not represent the value of the company. The companies’ ability to grow and to improve continuously is also determined by its social competences, ethical responsibility and environmental contributions. This shift of focus leads to a reorientation of the concept of business excellence. At first, quality management focused on the quality improvement of products and services, later on the processes providing these products. Quality was renamed into business excellence when corporations oriented themselves on the quality of the organisation and the chain (or network or hub) in which it operates. With the present challenges at hand, companies are beginning to focus on the quality of society while taking care of their core businesses, an objective that transcends and includes the former quality orientations.This article first introduces the European Business Excellence Model (EFQM model), which have facilitated the transformation toward an integral management approach, including openings to corporate social responsibility (CSR). We will than elaborate on the cultural context of companies engaged in CSR and social responsible investing (SRI) activities. We will end this article with an overview of CSR activities, structured according the EFQM model.     

Sustainable Operations Management

Operations management researchers and practitioners face new challenges in integrating issues of sustainability with their traditional areas of interest. During the past 20 years, there has been growing pressure on businesses to pay more attention to the environmental and resource consequences of the products and services they offer and the processes they deploy. One symptom of this pressure is the movement towards triple bottom line reporting (3BL) concerning the relationship of profit, people, and the planet. The resulting challenges include integrating environmental, health, and safety concerns with green‐product design, lean and green operations, and closed‐loop supply chains. We review these and other “sustainability” themes covered in the first 50 issues of Production and Operations Management and conclude with some thoughts on future research challenges in sustainable operations management.     

Analysing intangible resources and managing knowledge in a supply chain context

This paper reports the initial empirical work (and related findings) which has been carried out in a UK Government funded project titled `The Development of Partnership Strategies and the Management of Knowledge which Underpins Capabilities'. The companies collaborating in the research were Cellnet plc, Flymo Ltd and four of their strategic suppliers. This paper describes the validation of a technique for analysing the role of intangible resources in the development of partnership strategies. The technique codifies the tacit knowledge which a company's managers have of their company's strengths thereby enabling this understanding to be communicated to partners and used as a basis for joint strategic development. The paper goes on to outline a technique which is currently being tested for managing the knowledge associated with inter-organisational innovation.     

Towards sustainability by aligning operational programmes and sustainable performance measures

Abstract

In the last decades, sustainable concerns have increasingly gained importance to organizational survival, and Lean/Six Sigma approaches are becoming more and more outstanding in order to improve sustainability performance. This article aims to evaluate the degree of importance of sustainable performance measures of Brazilian organizations and to propose guidelines to achieve sustainability by aligning these measures with operational improvement programmes. Multiple data collection methods were applied as theoretical literature review, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews with industry professionals and academic researchers. The findings show that it is the corporate responsibility to focus their efforts on both operational improvement programmes and sustainable initiatives in order to achieve better environmental protection, corporate reputation, quality management, cost performance and suppliers relations, as they are considered to be more important on organizational sustainability.     

Developing criteria for healthy organizational change

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify criteria for healthy change in organizations and to develop practical guidelines for intended change. We aimed to explore how change processes at the shop floor level can be better informed by consultants and labour inspectors. A total of 180 interviews were conducted with managers and employees in 90 units of public and private organizations in Norway. The interviews were analysed through four steps representing an expansion of grounded theory, and converted to qualitative analysis using QSR and N6 software. We found that organizational change processes were better managed by more attention to awareness of the local norms and diversity among employees in the perception and reactions to change efforts. An inspector or consultant should be aware of these phenomena in any change effort and tell the organization how to deal with them. The other three factors identified were early role clarification, manager availability, and using constructive conflicts to deal with change. They are all important coping mechanisms at the organizational level that will bring change processes onto a more optimal track if correctly managed. A healthy process empowers individuals instead of making them insecure and defensive in times of change. This will help them restore perceived control and promote job security, which benefits both them and the organization.     

Systems innovation manager

Each year organizations spend a significant amount of money developing new products and processes in an effort to satisfy customer demands and manufacture high-quality products efficiently. Both development processes - product and process, are complex, resource intensive and thrive on innovation. They demand a variety of skills and resources, but in particular, participation among all staff in generating ideas, managing projects and implementing change. There are currently a number of software tools and methods that facilitate change in a systems environment. These range from complex modelling tools to information management tools. The tools have been developed around paradigms, e.g. world class manufacturing, total quality management and business process reengineering. They are often complex, requiring the efforts of skilled designers and managers. Current thinking within a systems environment reflects a more participative and less specialist approach to managing innovation and change. There is a need to create compromise between detailed project engineering and good management practice. This paper introduces a new paradigm centred on good management practice, and identifies the critical issues in systems innovation and change. The paradigm is articulated through a series of change levers and a methodology that guides managers and designers. It is supported by a series of software tools that together bring innovation management to life within the industrial organization.     

Creating a sense of mission

Mission is still a relatively neglected area of management, and there is no clear agreement on what it encompasses. The Ashridge Strategic Management Centre conducted a 2-year research project designed to fill this gap. The research found that if mission is more clearly defined it can be managed better, and developed a model of mission that includes four elements--purpose, strategy, behaviour standards and values. The project identified companies where, in addition to strong links between these elements, employees also showed an emotional commitment to their company which Campbell has called a 'sense of mission'. This commitment was deepest when there was a match between the employee's values and the company's values.     

Planning for production in construction: controlling costs in major capital projects

There has been limited research that has examined how the public sector can guarantee their major capital projects are delivered within budget. A Strategic Asset Management Framework (SAMF) developed by the Western Australian State Government, was implemented that ensured their major capital projects were delivered within 5% of their budget. Interviews were conducted with stakeholders who had participated in the delivery of capital projects using the SAMF to understand how it had been used to successfully deliver projects. The interviews highlighted the importance of the SAMF in addressing optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation with the use of independent auditors. The research provides invaluable insights from practice that have been used to control and manage the capital expenditure of assets. Such knowledge is pivotal for ensuring strides are made forward to addressing the cost growth phenomenon that continues to plague major capital projects.     

Setting the tone at the top: How the interface processes of organizational climate and non-TMT Managers' leadership transmit TMT cohesion to employees

We explore whether, and how, Top Management Team (TMT) cohesion can affect the collective turnover intentions of employees, through two interrelated interface processes. Based on Social Information Processing theory, we propose that the organization's corrosive climate and non-TMT managers' transformational leadership transmit TMT cohesion-based symbolic and relational information through a moderated-mediation model. The results of our Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) analyses of a multi-source dataset of 96 organizations—including 305 TMT members and 10964 employees split across three surveys—support our hypotheses. Confirmatory Factor Analyses support our measurement model, and the testing of various alternative models indicate that our findings are robust. Overall, our theory and findings highlight a more complex interface perspective on how the TMT affects employees, as key internal stakeholders, and provides a comprehensive model for future work.