Search results

To maximize the potential for the change to produce positive results, business leaders must appreciate the transformational stages, key interdependencies and interrelationships, and the impact they could have independently or in combination on eventual outcomes. This requires a thorough understanding of all of the factors – human, technological, process, and organizational – that are involved in the change cycle. The author describes a series of maturity models that provide some logic and a framework to support this complex task of continuous adaptation. The models were based on the premise that a true partnership between IT and non‐IT executives is fundamental to success in the twenty‐first century organization. They recognize that information technology and business objectives are interdependent, and therefore, separation of “best‐known practice” into IT and non‐IT categories would generally be counterproductive.

Addresses the changes to organizations and to work life resulting from technology‐ enabled changes in the global economy. Postulates that collaboration, as distinct from co‐operation, and collaborative computing are undervalued and underutilized at present. Recommends an approach to incorporating collaboration, collaborative computing and groupware technology into work in order to maximize organizational knowledge and performance.

Measuring customer capital – customers’ contribution to current and future revenues – is fundamental to assessing how successful an organization is in turning customer relationships into sustainable competitive advantage. The new business environment requires that companies shift from being product‐centric to being customer‐centric. This shift affects every business process. This article describes the factors that must be considered in assessing customer capital and outlines the steps for introducing such an initiative into the company.

Next time you receive a birthday‐card that really catches your eye, it might have been thought up by the Hallmark Idea Exchange. This is not a team made up of the best and brightest card designers at Hallmark Cards Inc., but instead comprises about 200 volunteer consumers.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

The purpose of this paper is to identify best practices of employee onboarding, the process by which a new employee is introduced to an organization and its vision, mission, and values.

Researchers requested that members of the Personnel Administrators and Staff Development Officers Discussion Group of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) share documents related to employee onboarding and three researchers independently reviewed the documents. The collected documents were compared to the socialization model proposed by Raymond Noe, including the detailed aspects of the organizational phase and the key components identified in the best practices literature.

In total, 17 institutions submitted documentation for review. All institutions discussed at least one or more of the key areas identified in the socialization process. Every institution in the study included a discussion of job expectations and evaluation criteria (100 percent); ten (59 percent) discuss mission, vision, and values; however, topics such as culture (five or 29 percent) and politics (one or 6 percent) were infrequently covered. Onboarding programs varied in length (one week to more than six months). Check lists were the most common tool used to manage the onboarding process. Other notable topics covered include dealing with change, understanding the team‐based environment, diversity, library awards and library fundraising.

Because of the limited number of documents examined in this study, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

Moving from a traditional new employee orientation model to a best‐practices onboarding model will require HR professionals to conduct an internal assessment of the current program.

Due to the high cost associated with recruiting new employees, the need for new employees to be fully functional and engaged as soon as possible, and the need to communicate performance indicators, the need to share best practices is important.

COMPUTER INTERFACES AND THE ISSUE OF CONNECTIVITY. Of near mythic proportions, the interaction of humans with computers has always been treated with awe, mystery, and confusion, even in these days of desktop access to Crays. People process information quite differently from machines and the differences are both startling and complementary. Computers make up for the obvious human weaknesses of retaining, storing, and recalling large quantities of information accurately. Humans on the other hand process massive amounts of diverse data rapidly, thanks to a variety of sensitive input devices that have not found their counterparts on a computer. The interface between computers and humans, for decades, has favored machine processing with commands encoded in abbreviated scripts and abrupt codes. Only recently has there been a move to use more humane means of access to automation with the introduction of symbols in the form of icons and objects displayed on a conventional CRT. How has this change in machine interfacing affected the overall implementation of computer technology? Where is this iconographic explosion leading end users?