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M.L. Emiliani and P.J. Seymour
The purpose of this paper is to introduce management historians to the long‐forgotten work of Frank George Woollard (1883‐1957), who in the mid‐1920s established flow production…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce management historians to the long‐forgotten work of Frank George Woollard (1883‐1957), who in the mid‐1920s established flow production in the British motor industry, and its remarkable similarity to current‐day production principles and practices used by Toyota Motor Corporation, also known as lean production.
Design/methodology/approach
Overview of Frank Woollard's life and work obtained from newly discovered journal papers, his 1954 book, Principles of Mass and Flow Production, newly discovered archives, and new first‐hand testimony from a close friend and from a long‐time family friend.
Findings
Frank Woollard was a pioneer in the establishment of flow production in the British motor industry in the mid‐1920s and the principal developer of automatic transfer machinery. His accomplishments are comparable to Taiichi Ohno, regarded as the architect of Toyota's production system.
Research limitations/implications
Woollard's accomplishments in flow production are a fruitful area for future research given the speed and completeness with which flow production was established at Morris Motors Ltd, Engines Branch. Newly discovered papers describing his flow production system have yet to be studied in detail by academics.
Practical implications
Woollard's application of flow production beginning in 1923 means that timelines for discoveries and attributions of key accomplishments in lean management must be reexamined and revised.
Originality/value
Woollard's work fills important gaps in the literature on the history of flow production generally and in the British motor industry in particular. His work constitutes an early application of current‐day lean principles and practices, and is therefore noteworthy and relevant to management historians and the operations and production management community. It is hoped that this paper will inspire management historians to study Woollard's work and place him in the context of other early twentieth‐century pioneers in industrial management and flow production.
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Deborah Shepherd and Christine Woods
Interest in academic entrepreneurship is gaining attention as pressure on academic institutions to be more entrepreneurial increases. To date, emphasis has been on the transfer…
Abstract
Interest in academic entrepreneurship is gaining attention as pressure on academic institutions to be more entrepreneurial increases. To date, emphasis has been on the transfer and commercialisation of research with little discussion focused on the entrepreneurial potential of university teaching. Drawing on Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship, in particular the combining and recombining of resources and the concept of resistance, we provide an illustrative case study of one entrepreneurial academic venture that emerged from the teaching activities of a university. We examine how this venture, the ICEHOUSE, has evolved and been sustained despite pressure from competing logics from its partnering institutions. We argue that multiple and competing logics by various stakeholder groups led to ‘resistive tension’ which has supported the growth of the organisation.
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Daniel Fuller and David Pickernell
The purpose of this paper is to identify whether the entrepreneurial activities of universities in the UK can be statistically grouped together.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify whether the entrepreneurial activities of universities in the UK can be statistically grouped together.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is performing a principal component analysis (PCA) of the 2009/2010 UK Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCIS) data for the third stream activities of universities in the UK.
Findings
The PCA of the 144 included institutions identified four groups of entrepreneurial activities being engaged in by universities in the UK. Three of the four groups were related to spin-offs, labelled as “Staff Spin-off Activity”, “Non-HEI Owned Spin-Off Activity” and “Graduate Start-up Activity”. The remaining factor has been named “University Knowledge Exploitation Activity (UKEA)” and encompasses a wide range of university knowledge creation, exchange and exploitation activities.
Research limitations/implications
The research indicates, through a ranking system for each university for the various groups of entrepreneurial activities, that universities are often entrepreneurial in just one or two of the groups of entrepreneurial activities identified by the PCA. Identifying what is causing those differences is required to further understand why we see this variation across the HE sector.
Originality/value
The use of a PCA to identify groups of entrepreneurial activities is a novel approach. Typically studies use a select few indicators, such as spin-offs or patents to analyse the entrepreneurial activities of universities. This study uses PCA to group together statistically related activities which can then be used to identify what is driving these groups of activities in future studies.
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Teamwork has become increasingly prevalent both in undertaking research projects and in preparing papers for publication. While there are some reflections on the process of…
Abstract
Teamwork has become increasingly prevalent both in undertaking research projects and in preparing papers for publication. While there are some reflections on the process of teamworking in the organisational studies literature, there is little published work in the area of entrepreneurship. Most existing studies distinguish between problems associated with task-based conflict and relationship-based conflict. In this chapter, the author provides an ethnographic account of a team involved with preparing a proposal and, subsequently, undertaking a small firm research project. The Evolution of Business Knowledge (EBK) was a major Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) initiative which funded 13 distinct projects. During the nine-month period of preparing and refining the research proposal, the team worked together extremely effectively. There were periods of intense knowledge sharing, which enabled the team to develop an impressive and successful bid to study the ‘EBK in 90 small firms’. A major dispute between team members, during the early stages of the fieldwork, led to a period of both task-based and relationship-based conflicts, which threatened to undermine the project. As a result of my first-hand experiences with the EBK project, the author suggests that accounts such as this will help those who find themselves operating in dysfunctional teams make sense of the underlying tensions associated with ‘academic knowledge creation’.
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David Dunne, Amanda Geppert and Carol Ann Courneya
Physicians' uniquely privileged social status gives them influence to help prevent conflict in addition to treating its victims. Yet the peacebuilding role of physicians has…
Abstract
Purpose
Physicians' uniquely privileged social status gives them influence to help prevent conflict in addition to treating its victims. Yet the peacebuilding role of physicians has received little attention in medical education. In this paper, the authors tackle both and provide some concrete guidance to medical schools interested in taking it on.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Qualitative Description, a review of literature and expert interviews in violence prevention, peacebuilding, medicine and medical education, three statements are posited: improved healthcare may enhance the prospects for peace; there are mechanisms by which healthcare may potentially enhance peacebuilding; and medical education can be designed to support these mechanisms. A “peace audit” is developed against which to evaluate the efforts of medical schools towards peacebuilding. This audit is used to assess a medical school in Nepal that is invested in peacebuilding.
Findings
Medicine has a role, both in resolving conflict, and in preventing its occurrence. The experts believe that physicians have a responsibility to go further than treating the wounded and address the root cause of conflict: the structural violence of poverty and economic disparity.
Originality/value
This paper considers the mechanisms by which medicine supports peacebuilding, and the consequences of this for medical education. The literature to date has not dealt with this issue.
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Carol‐Ann Courneya and David Dunne
The purpose of this paper is to describe the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS), an initiative for rural medical education in Nepal, and show its implications for rural…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS), an initiative for rural medical education in Nepal, and show its implications for rural medical education in other contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a methodology from the field of design to identify solution requirements based on an understanding of the operational context and evaluates how the initiative meets these requirements.
Findings
The PAHS model meets the extremely challenging requirements of the Nepali context for rural medical education by providing a model of education that is closely integrated with rural communities and working to develop leaders in community health. It faces important future challenges in obtaining sustainable funding and implementation of tele‐health.
Practical implications
On several levels, the project offers potential lessons for similar initiatives in North America: community health leadership; early and sustained community engagement; a pre‐medical course to bring students to a common standard; and role modeling by faculty. The approach will be of interest to those responsible for rural medical education in the developed and developing worlds.
Originality/value
The paper shows how the local context in rural medical education can be understood by evaluating desirability for users, viability and feasibility.
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The purpose of this paper is to review the debates and evidence about employee engagement to assess its prospects of becoming a mainstream part of management activity in the long…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the debates and evidence about employee engagement to assess its prospects of becoming a mainstream part of management activity in the long term. It sets out an agenda for policy and practice designed to increase its chances of sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a review of the research and analytic literature. It outlines the origins, reasons for growth of popularity, main forms and evidence about the antecedents and impact of employee engagement. It draws a distinction between work engagement and organizational engagement. For the former it outlines a research agenda; for the latter, it presents an extensive critique and an agenda to address the issues raised.
Findings
A distinction is highlighted between work engagement with its concern to improve employee well-being and organizational engagement with its focus on organizational performance. It is shown that these two approaches operate in “different worlds” and that this reflects a neglect of an evidence-based approach to management of employees since work engagement has much the stronger evidence base.
Research limitations/implications
As a review and analysis, the paper is inevitably selective and limited by space restrictions. However, it argues that while work engagement is now well-established among the academic community as a valid and useful construct, the same cannot be said for organizational engagement which lacks clear definition, measurement, high-quality evidence and clear policy implications. The paper therefore sets out a policy agenda and outlines how some of the shortcomings might be addressed.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the need for a viable and integrated “engagement strategy” if organizational engagement is to thrive in the future and sets out the core elements of such an approach.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the distinction between the two separate “engagement worlds” of work and organizational engagement and also highlights their different core aims. The problems with organizational engagement are analysed and a new agenda to improve its prospects of impact is outlined.
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The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to reflect on both the technological and the humanities aspects of working in the digital humanities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to reflect on both the technological and the humanities aspects of working in the digital humanities.
Design/methodology/approach
The author completed her academic career as Professor of Digital Humanities (DH) at the University of Brighton, UK. In terms of approach, she looks back over 25 years of working in this domain, which she entered as a scientist in contrast to most of the other academics at that time who came from the humanities. She delineates her academic journey that passed through various disciplines/fields.
Findings
The author reflects upon her entire career, starting with decisions made at school, to see how they have affected her contribution to DH. She concludes that a deep understanding of technological issues is fundamental to making sense of such complex fields as Big Data and its effect on humanities research in particular and society in general. She also draws attention to the loss of several highly technical, specialised and practical DH teams, which were replaced with ones whose focus is on DH discourse.
Originality/value
The author is writing as one of the very few scientists who belonged to the new area of history and computing in the mid-1990s.