Tom McGovern, Adrian Small and Christian Hicks
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the European Regions for Innovative Productivity project that established Innovative Productivity Centres (IPCs) to assist SMEs in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the European Regions for Innovative Productivity project that established Innovative Productivity Centres (IPCs) to assist SMEs in the North Sea Region of Europe to develop a process improvement capability. A conceptual framework explains how a process improvement methodology developed for large firms was adapted and shaped to meet the needs of SMEs.
Design/methodology/approach
A comparative case study of 23 SMEs within six European countries. A protocol was developed to collect financial and operational data. This was supplemented by observations, secondary data and field notes. An established research model was used to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the process improvement interventions.
Findings
The intervention context and structure of the IPCs varied by country which shaped process improvement interventions at two levels: the country and the firm. During diffusion three process improvement variants emerged that were tailored to fit the local context. Developing a process improvement capability depended upon the availability of company resources, establishing KPIs and change agent support.
Originality/value
The research contributes to knowledge and theory on diffusion and institutionalization by examining how SMEs responded to institutional pressures by implementing process improvement practices in different ways. Heterogeneity of both the IPCs and the external change agents were the drivers in shaping the improvement practices.
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Ran Bhamra, Adrian Small, Christian Hicks and Olimpia Pilch
This pathway paper highlights how geopolitics, risk and ethics affect critical minerals (CMs) supply chains (SCs). It identifies pathways to enable operations and SC management…
Abstract
Purpose
This pathway paper highlights how geopolitics, risk and ethics affect critical minerals (CMs) supply chains (SCs). It identifies pathways to enable operations and SC management scholars to support this under-researched industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research was undertaken in partnership with the Critical Minerals International Alliance (CMIA). Interviews were conducted with senior industry leaders from across CMs supply networks.
Findings
The CMs industry is distinctly different from conventional SCs and would greatly benefit from the development and application of operations and SC management theories.
Research limitations/implications
The four pathways that require scholars’ attention comprise risk and resilience, SC opacity, supply constraints and ethics.
Practical implications
CM s are essential for products such as smart phones and the technologies required for decarbonisation and achieving net zero. The pathways address multifaceted challenges of benefit to industry stakeholders.
Social implications
Improving the understanding of CMs SCs will support the decarbonisation agenda. Reducing the opacity within SCs would help address governance issues and curb unethical behaviours.
Originality/value
This paper draws on the expertise and insights gained from industry leaders. It establishes pathways and proposes theories and research questions for addressing the impact of geopolitics on CM operations and SCs.
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David J. Hunter, Jonathan Erskine, Adrian Small, Tom McGovern, Chris Hicks, Paula Whitty and Edward Lugsden
The purpose of this paper is to examine a bold and ambitious scheme known as the North East transformation system (NETS). The principal aim of the NETS is the achievement of a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine a bold and ambitious scheme known as the North East transformation system (NETS). The principal aim of the NETS is the achievement of a step-change in the quality of health services delivered to people living in the North East region of England. The paper charts the origins of the NETS and its early journey before describing what happened to it when the UK coalition government published its proposals for unexpected major structural change in the NHS. This had a profound impact on the leadership and direction of the NETS and resulted in it taking a different direction from that intended.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design took the form of a mixed methods, longitudinal 3.5-year study aimed at exploring transformational change in terms of content, context, process and outcomes. The sample of study sites comprised 14 NHS trusts in the North East region chosen to provide geographical coverage of the area and to reflect the scale, scope and variety of the bodies that formed part of the NETS programme. The qualitative component of the research, which the paper draws upon, included 68 semi-structured interviews, observational studies and focus groups. Data analysis made use of both deductive and inductive frameworks. The deductive framework adopted was Pettigrew et al.’s “receptive contexts for change” and four of the eight factors stood out as especially important and form the basis of the paper.
Findings
The fate of the NETS was shaped and influenced by the eight factors comprising the Pettigrew et al. receptive contexts for change framework but four factors in particular stood out as being especially significant: environmental pressure, quality and coherence of policy, key people leading change, supportive organisational culture. Perhaps the most significant lesson from the NETS is that achieving whole systems change is particularly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of politics especially where that system, like the UK NHS, is itself subject to those very same pressures. Yet, despite having an enormous influence on health policy, the political context is frequently avoided in research or not regarded as instrumental in determining the outcomes in respect of transformational change.
Research limitations/implications
The chief limitation is the credibility and authenticity of the interviews captured at particular points in time. These formed the datebase for subsequent analysis. The authors sought to guard against possible bias by supplementing interviews with observational studies and focus groups as well as running two dissemination events at which emerging findings from the study were subjected to independent external scrutiny and comment. These events provided a form of validation for the key study findings.
Practical implications
The research findings demonstrate the importance of context for the likely outcome and success of complex transformational change initiatives. These require time to become embedded and demonstrate results especially when focused on changing culture and behaviour. But, in practice, allowing sufficient time during which the organisation may remain sufficiently stable to allow the change intervention to run its course and become embedded and sustainable is highly problematic. The consequence is that bold and ambitious efforts like the NETS are not given the space and stability to prove themselves. Too often, politics and external environmental pressures intrude in ways that may prove dysfunctional and negative.
Social implications
Unless a different approach to transformational change and its leadership and management is adopted, then changing the NHS to enable it to appear more responsive to changing health care needs and expectations will remain a cause for concern. Ultimately the public will be the losers if the NHS remains insensitive to changing needs and expectations. The patient experience was at the centre of the NETS programme.
Originality/value
The study is original insofar as no other has sought to evaluate the NETS independently and over a reasonable time period. The research design, based on a mixed-methods approach, is unusual in evaluations of this nature. The study’s conclusions are not so original but their value lies in largely confirming and reinforcing the findings from other studies. It perhaps goes further in stressing the impact of politics on health policy and the negative consequences of constant organisational change on attempts to achieve deep change in the way the NHS is organised and led.
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The purpose of the paper is to review UK government policy on public libraries since 2003, and to examine its relationship to other forms of demand for public libraries
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to review UK government policy on public libraries since 2003, and to examine its relationship to other forms of demand for public libraries
Design/methodology/approach
The published literature from government and professional bodies is reviewed, alongside published statistics on library use.
Findings
Since 2003 public libraries have been the subject of sustained interest from UK government, in the form of a range of policy initiatives and incorporation in the Best Value and more recent Common Area Assessment monitoring frameworks. Alongside this, professional bodies and other commentators have put forward views on the role of libraries, but even taken together it is not clear that these represent the needs or aspirations of library service users.
Originality/value
This paper provides an overview of the demand for UK public libraries, and its synthesis will be of value to librarians, government departments and professionals in this and related fields.
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Jie Ma, Feng Jiao, Chi Keung Lau and Zhibin Lin
The purpose of this paper is to develop and redefine the “classic” roles of shop floor management and quality control circles (QCCs) in Kaizen. In specific, it aims to examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and redefine the “classic” roles of shop floor management and quality control circles (QCCs) in Kaizen. In specific, it aims to examine the linkage between shop floor management and QCCs, and test the relationships among shop floor management, QCCs and long-term Kaizen improvement outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs qualitative method by using a questionnaire to obtain data from 371 respondents in nine Sino-Japanese automotive joint-ventures. The data are analysed with the method of canonical correlation approach.
Findings
The study identifies important factors to assist the adoption of shop floor management and QCCs for Kaizen. The analysis on the survey indicates that not all the shop floor management tools could help to identify improvement opportunities. QCCs are effective in addressing large problems and challenging current policies in companies, however, they have low impacts on individual learning.
Research limitations/implications
The data of this study come from nine Sino-Japanese automotive joint ventures. Therefore, the sample selection is limited to these companies. The findings are able to be applied for improving the similar problems which were identified in this study.
Practical implications
The study has the following practical implications, first is small shop floor problems can be identified and solved rapidly and continuously at source by shop floor management. The second one is QCCs, or other similar group-based improvement approaches take long to be fully addressed and implemented. Third, practical solutions can be achieved from small and gradual changes, and they can prevent the results backsliding to the pre-improvement stage. Finally, QCCs are hardly to achieve a better improvement alone. It requires other Kaizen approaches to support.
Originality/value
This study is probably the first to explore and investigate the implementation of the four building block tools of shop floor management in real business practise, and more specific the first to discuss the relationship among shop floor management, QCCs and long-term improvement outcomes based on empirical data from Sino-Japanese automotive joint-ventures.
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Shelina Visram, Sarah Smith, Natalie Connor, Graeme Greig and Chris Scorer
The purpose of this paper is to employ innovative methods to examine the associations between personal wellbeing, self-rated health and various aspects of social capital within a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to employ innovative methods to examine the associations between personal wellbeing, self-rated health and various aspects of social capital within a socio-economically disadvantaged town in northern England.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was developed and administered with input from local stakeholders (including residents), using a participatory action research (PAR) approach. In total, 11 lay interviewers were trained to pilot and deliver the final survey, which was completed either in person or online. In total, 233 valid surveys were returned.
Findings
Respondents were aged between 17 and 87 years (mean 47.3, SD 17.4), 65.7 per cent were female and 46.2 per cent identified themselves as having a longstanding illness, disability or infirmity. Overall, respondents reported lower levels of personal wellbeing and social capital in comparison with UK averages, although free-text responses highlighted a strong sense of community spirit and pride in the town. Low wellbeing was strongly associated with poor health, social isolation and neighbourhood factors such as perceived lack of community safety and trust.
Research limitations/implications
PAR appears to be an acceptable approach in generating estimates of population characteristics associated with personal wellbeing.
Practical implications
The findings of this study may be used by policymakers to design services and interventions to better meet the needs of communities characterised by indicators of poor health and wellbeing.
Originality/value
This work constitutes part of a global trend to measure personal and societal wellbeing. A novel methodology has been used to examine the factors that influence wellbeing at a neighbourhood level.
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Emir Malikov, Shunan Zhao and Jingfang Zhang
There is growing empirical evidence that firm heterogeneity is technologically non-neutral. This chapter extends the Gandhi, Navarro, and Rivers (2020) proxy variable framework…
Abstract
There is growing empirical evidence that firm heterogeneity is technologically non-neutral. This chapter extends the Gandhi, Navarro, and Rivers (2020) proxy variable framework for structurally identifying production functions to a more general case when latent firm productivity is multi-dimensional, with both factor-neutral and (biased) factor-augmenting components. Unlike alternative methodologies, the proposed model can be identified under weaker data requirements, notably, without relying on the typically unavailable cross-sectional variation in input prices for instrumentation. When markets are perfectly competitive, point identification is achieved by leveraging the information contained in static optimality conditions, effectively adopting a system-of-equations approach. It is also shown how one can partially identify the non-neutral production technology in the traditional proxy variable framework when firms have market power.
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Meghan McGlinn Manfra and John K. Lee
In this qualitative case study we explored the experiences of low- achieving students responding to an educational blog. Our intention was to leverage the unique affordances of…
Abstract
In this qualitative case study we explored the experiences of low- achieving students responding to an educational blog. Our intention was to leverage the unique affordances of blogs to teach United States history concepts primarily by providing access to digital primary sources and facilitating on-line participation. Overall, our findings point to the positive potential of blogs to enhance instruction with low-achieving students. We found the integration of the educational blog provided an effective instructional format to differentiate content instruction and deliver “equity pedagogy.” In this study student participation increased, students engaged in historical work (although tentative), and the resources activated their prior knowledge. Rather than withholding Web 2.0 technologies from low-achieving students we encourage teachers to use them to meet the unique learning needs of all of their students. With thoughtful scaffolding, it appears teachers might be able to leverage the unique features of blog-based activities to improve student experiences.
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Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the…
Abstract
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.