Search results

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb001065. When citing the article, please cite: G.R. Bayat, D.A. Longbottom, (1975), “An Approach to Decision Making in Situations with Conflicting Objectives”, Management Decision, Vol. 13 Iss 1 pp. 60 - 69.

Introduction The purpose of social services can be defined as the provision of support services, to individuals who are unable to lead a “normal” existence within the community at large. Irrespective of the emphasis placed on different aspects of its purpose, in practice, the agencies that are charged with this duty must take three steps. Initially the client's needs must be identified, in some cases this being no easy task as the perceived and actual client needs are not identical. Secondly, the strategy for aiding the client must be defined and the resource requirements specified. Finally, the effectiveness of the chosen strategy in meeting the client need must be determined such that if unsatisfactory, some corrective alternative solutions can be devised within the resource constraints that are prevalent.

This article describes an approach which is designed to assist management in making decisions in situations where there are a number of conflicting objectives. The approach incorporates an optimisation model which is used to explore the costs and benefits of setting target levels for operational criteria, as well as to present the “best” solution to a problem. A case study is described which illustrates an actual application of the approach relating to the selection of a portfolio of capital investment projects for a company.

Decision analysis, an approach developed to lend support in applying the concepts of decision theory, is particularly relevant for structuring and analysing complex decisions in which uncertainty plays a major part.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

This is the fourth comprehensive register of current research in marketing to appear in this Journal. It is hoped that it will prove useful as a source of information to all those with interests in the subject. The projects listed do not include research work undertaken by commercial organisations or studies conducted in educational institutions where the results are not intended to be generally available. Otherwise, every effort has been made to obtain basic information from research workers willing to discuss their efforts with other interested individuals.

To analyse the implicit relationships among enabler agents of the European excellence model to serve as a framework for the management and improvement of the quality in higher education institutions.

The hypotheses set out are based on the structure and meaning of the EFQM model and a review of the TQM literature. The empirical study was developed in 111 Spanish public university centres, and used the partial least squares (PLS) technique to test these hypotheses.

The results achieved support the relationships hypothesized and indicate the role of enabler agents as a basis for establishing a management model that leads universities towards excellence.

The main limitation is related to the notion of causality. Our study has considered a soft modelling approach directed more towards prediction than causality.

The role of senior management stands out among the key activities. The top management leads the excellence development of key processes in the university through appropriate leadership, strategy formulation, establishment of partnerships, resource allocation, and human resources management.

The current work is one of the first studies dealing with the testing of implicit relationships set out by the EFQM model among enablers. The comprehension of these relationships provides a guide to implement, develop, assess and improve higher education institutions.

This conspectus attempts to achieve three objectives:

The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of the critical role of “managerial leadership” in total quality management (TQM) implementation in UK higher education institutions (HEIs), and to encourage further research on how to sustain management and leadership best practices for total quality improvement in higher education.

A critical review of the literature on managerial leadership provides the theoretical scope which led to the setting of research objectives. The objectives were achieved through a survey of academics and non‐academics responsible for teaching and research quality improvement in a sample of 42 UK HEIs between the period 2000 and 2005. A mix of questionnaires, interviews, inductive analysis and hypothesis testing, was used to explore, describe and to explain the nature of the relationship between the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness of quality management practices in the participating UK HEIs.

The analysis of the survey results revealed “weak” associations between the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness in the quality management practices adopted by participating UK HEIs. It provides examples of weak quality management practices as empirical evidence of “weak” association between “management efficiency” and “leadership effectiveness” in UK HEIs.

International generalization of findings requires the sample size to be increased to include more HEIs from the UK and other countries with similar educational systems. Further quantitative research is needed to provide in depth explanation of the nature of the functional relationship between the degrees of effectiveness and efficiency of quality management practices in higher educational settings.

Understanding the nature of the association between the degrees of effectiveness and efficiency of quality management practices would provide a conceptual framework which would enable academics and practitioners to reflect critically on the “efficiency” and “effectiveness” of teaching and research quality improvement decisions and actions to ensure successful implementation of TQM best practices.

Uses the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness as criteria for evaluating managerial leadership in UK higher education, and recommends strengthening of the association between the criteria through continuous improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching and research quality improvement practices.

The rapid growth in the British public sector since the turn of the century, and particularly since the end of the last war, has been most noticeably experienced in the social services. By 1974, expenditure on the health, welfare, education, housing, and income maintenance services accounted for almost half of total expenditure, having grown at an average rate of exactly ten per cent per annum since 1951. Unfortunately, this growth has not been accompanied by an increased awareness of the need for socio‐economic monitoring and analysis of service provision. Only since the oil crisis of 1973, as cutback has followed cutback, and as central and local government administrators have been faced with the problem of increasing, or at least maintaining, output levels whilst input supplies have steadily fallen, has attention been focused upon efficiency and effectiveness.