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Article
Publication date: 1 August 1994

M. Barad and B. Kayis

Remarkable improvements in results achieved during the past decade bysome US manufacturing companies show the crucial role played in thesecompanies by quality teams which we can…

486

Abstract

Remarkable improvements in results achieved during the past decade by some US manufacturing companies show the crucial role played in these companies by quality teams which we can call improvement support systems (ISS). The team infrastructure is modelled here in terms of a three‐stage sequential process with simple measures to evaluate the infrastructure elements. The approach is applied to study six Australian companies on their way to becoming continuous improvement systems. The findings expose different levels and patterns of team infrastructure. The enterprises differ in the context of their training models, the extent of autonomy of the teams as well as in the scope of the employees′ participation on teams. Considers the challenge for management finding the right extent to which monitoring and control should be applied to improvement teams as well as avoiding process stagnation. Suggests that the latter can be realized by extending active participation of employees, systematic generation of new improvement topics (eventually through splitting and continuation of old ones) as well as by continuous upgrading of training. A steady output flow of successfully finished projects can be considered evidence of an active (as opposed to a stagnant) improvement system.

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Management Decision, vol. 32 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

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Article
Publication date: 8 May 2019

Stephanie Anne Shelton and Maureen A. Flint

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which transcription is creative work, the degrees to which current literature elides or explores these creative elements, and…

357

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which transcription is creative work, the degrees to which current literature elides or explores these creative elements, and the ethical implications of researchers’ standard disacknowledgement of transcription as an intra-active suturing together of verbal exchanges, personal understandings, and texts.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors’ analysis is based on a review of literature, with this paper putting specific sections of qualitative inquiry into conversation with one another, along with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and Karen Barad’s concept of spacetimemattering.

Findings

First, in a preliminary literature review of 200+ articles, the authors found that few researchers acknowledge the creative and decision-making processes that are inherent in transcription. Second, building on that finding, the authors explore the ways that others have discussed transcription as creation/creative and the ways that Barad’s concept of spacetimemattering – which directly influences our use of Shelley’s Frankenstein – has influenced qualitative inquiry.

Research limitations/implications

Transcription is pervasive in qualitative research, with some researchers finding that upwards of 60 percent of research is based on transcribed interviews. However, there is little examination of the creative processes inherent in transcription and the ethical implications of those processes. In terms of limitations, because this is a conceptual paper, it is based on a discussion of various aspects of the literature rather than specific findings demonstrating what the authors argue.

Practical implications

There is real risk in transcription being positioned as merely a task to be completed, to get to the “good stuff” of analysis and writing. Transcription carries implications bound with the responsibilities of creation and interpretation, and researchers who aim merely to achieve and work from a “verbatim” transcript skip over all of the parts that make this common process matter, both to researchers and the researched. The authors argue that qualitative researchers find before them a range of options when they begin the seemingly mundane task of transcription. The keystrokes begin the suturing process, binding together word, action and emotion in a document. Perhaps more importantly, though, the process of creating a transcription is a continuation of the range of ethical implications that research has for participants and researchers.

Social implications

The authors suggest a similar degree of responsibility for researchers who transcribe and/or work from transcriptions, though the concerns are the inverse of Frankenstein’s creature’s. Researchers are focused on the final product – the transcript itself. That document becomes the basis of analysis, of arguments, of understandings. Researchers need to be as aware of the sutures, cuts and stitches that form their transcription as they are of the final product. There are ethical implications of not exploring the degrees to which the transcripts themselves are creatures – born of decisions, of available resources, of researchers’ own assumptions and understandings.

Originality/value

While Barad’s concepts of spacetimemattering and Frankenstein have informed qualitative inquiry, there is no scholarship linking this theoretical discussion to the process of transcription, which is an important element of a substantial amount of qualitative data.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

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Article
Publication date: 6 July 2010

Shuki Dror

This paper aims to present an innovative research methodology that enables a company to realign its quality cost elements in order to improve implementation of its quality system.

1098

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present an innovative research methodology that enables a company to realign its quality cost elements in order to improve implementation of its quality system.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology combines the following methods: the house of quality costs (HOQC) method, which translates the desired improvement in failure costs (internal and external) into controllable efforts (prevention and appraisal costs) and ranks them by relative importance, the analysis of variance method, which supports selection of vital quality costs, and the enhanced control chart method, used to validate the strong causal linkages in HOQC.

Findings

Two case studies are presented to illustrate the application of the developed methodology. In the furniture firm, there are basically two vital sources of defects that could affect the overall cost of quality – raw materials and production process. In the food firm, traditional quality control is not enough to eliminate quality problems from the production processes. Hence, the hazard analysis critical control point is implemented.

Practical implications

The methodology applied in this paper proved itself capable of effectively handling realignment of quality cost elements. The methodology emphasizes adopting a systemic approach for selecting the vital controllable efforts in response to vital failure costs, as well as for detecting changes in the quality cost structure.

Originality/value

The American Society for Quality provides good coverage of quality cost types, but offers no mechanism for building and maintaining the relevance of these costs.

Details

Journal of Modelling in Management, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5664

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Book part
Publication date: 7 August 2019

Roser Pujadas and Daniel Curto-Millet

While digital platforms tend to be unproblematically presented as the infrastructure of the sharing economy – as matchmakers of supply and demand – the authors argue that…

Abstract

While digital platforms tend to be unproblematically presented as the infrastructure of the sharing economy – as matchmakers of supply and demand – the authors argue that constituting the boundaries of infrastructures is political and performative, that is, it is implicated in ontological politics, with consequences for the distribution of responsibilities (Latour, 2003; Mol, 1999, 2013; Woolgar & Lezaun, 2013). Drawing on an empirical case study of Uber, including an analysis of court cases, the authors investigate the material-discursive production of digital platforms and their participation in the reconfiguring of the world (Barad, 2007), and examine how the (in)visibility of the digital infrastructure is mobilized (Larkin, 2013) to this effect. The authors argue that the representation of Uber as a “digital platform,” as “just the technological infrastructure” connecting car drivers with clients, is a political act that attempts to redefine social responsibilities, while obscuring important dimensions of the algorithmic infrastructure that regulates this socioeconomic practice. The authors also show how some of these (in)visibilities become exposed in court, and some of the boundaries reshaped, with implications for the constitution of objects, subjects and their responsibilities. Thus, while thinking infrastructures do play a role in regulating and shaping practice through algorithms, it could be otherwise. Thinking infrastructures relationally decentre digital platforms and encourage us to study them as part of ongoing and contested entanglements in practice.

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Thinking Infrastructures
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-558-0

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Book part
Publication date: 16 September 2024

Judith von der Heyde, Florian Eßer and Sylvia Jäde

In this chapter, practice-theoretical perspectives on the production of gender and childhood are extended by the theory of new materialism. A practice-theoretical view of…

Abstract

In this chapter, practice-theoretical perspectives on the production of gender and childhood are extended by the theory of new materialism. A practice-theoretical view of masculinity(ies) radicalises the concept of doing gender and thereby makes it possible to show that gender is always co-produced as part of other complexes of praxes. Thus, the connection between masculinity(ies) and youth cultural praxes can be discussed. The chapter first elaborates theoretically the connections between masculinity and childhood research. We will explore how these theoretical and methodological thoughts might be used in empirical research on masculinity(ies) and boyhood by referring to our own study on children and young people riding stunt scooters in a medium-sized city in north-west Germany.

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Debating Childhood Masculinities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-390-9

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Article
Publication date: 2 March 2023

Cheryl Klimaszewski

Personal museums provide the conceptual catalyst for liking as a research approach and inclusivity around “idiosyncratic” knowledges within information research. An adapted…

104

Abstract

Purpose

Personal museums provide the conceptual catalyst for liking as a research approach and inclusivity around “idiosyncratic” knowledges within information research. An adapted research paper format echoes the approach of personal museums: as a commentary on the limits of institutional shaping for the field.

Design/methodology/approach

Personal museums are conceptualized as spaces of knowing in-formation, ontological openings that are literally and figuratively entered into, that make a difference to human and material ways of knowing. Karen Barad's agential realism and Sianne Ngai's vernacular aesthetic categories provide the theoretical lenses through which the researcher's 2018 visit to one personal museum is revisited.

Findings

An ethnographic account of the author's visit to the Communist Consumer Museum (CCM) in Timişoara, Romania shows how its improvisational, friendly and intimate atmosphere exposes it as a space of entanglements in a quantum sense, emphasizing the inseparability of human and material realms and how knowledges are always in-formation. Such entanglements create atmospheres generative of different ways of thinking about information and knowledge.

Originality/value

Human expressions of liking reveal material agencies as ways of knowing and information beyond the realm of human experience and meaning. A vernacular aesthetics of liking is presented as a way to resist the marginalizing tendencies of knowledges classified as unconventional, idiosyncratic or eccentric. This approach is one way of resisting the assumptions of channel thinking that often shape how information is studied.

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Article
Publication date: 1 July 2005

Angel Martínez Sánchez and Manuela Pérez Pérez

To explore the relationship between the dimensions of supply chain flexibility and firm performance in a sample of automotive suppliers.

15896

Abstract

Purpose

To explore the relationship between the dimensions of supply chain flexibility and firm performance in a sample of automotive suppliers.

Design/methodology/approach

Empirical survey of a representative sample of 126 Spanish automotive suppliers during the months of September and October 2003. Data gathered through a mail survey to purchasing managers by using a structured questionnaire. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to analyse the relationship between the different supply chain flexibility dimensions, between supply chain flexibility dimensions and firm performance dimensions, and between supply chain flexibility dimensions and environmental uncertainty dimensions. A multivariate analysis studied the determinants of supply chain flexibility.

Findings

The research has found a positive relation between a superior performance in flexibility capabilities and firm performance, although flexibility dimensions are not equally important for firm performance. On the other hand, the results show that companies enhance more the basic flexibility capabilities (at the shop floor level) than aggregate flexibility capabilities (at the customer‐supplier level). However, aggregate flexibility capabilities are more positively related to firm performance than basic flexibility capabilities. Thus, companies might miss opportunities to improve competitiveness by underestimating customer‐supplier flexibility capabilities. Finally, the results indicate that flexibility capabilities are enhanced in supply chains with higher environmental uncertainty, technological complexity, and mutual understanding, but with lower interdependence among the agents involved in the supply chain.

Research limitations/implications

There are other factors not included in the model that could impact the relationship between flexibility, supply chain characteristics and firm performance. On the other hand, the research has used cross‐sectional data, which are limited in order to explain causal relationships. Another limitation of the research is that we did not use any secondary data (like manual financial reports) to crosscheck firm performance.

Practical implications

The results of the research contribute to a better understanding of the forces and constraints that companies face with flexibility capabilities.

Originality/value

The paper analyses the relationship between supply chain flexibility dimensions and firm performance. The model provides a framework of supply chain flexibility dimensions that may be used as a test base for further research.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 25 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

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Article
Publication date: 12 August 2020

Muhammed Bolomope, Abdul-Rasheed Amidu, Olga Filippova and Deborah Levy

Decision-making behaviour of property investors has been the focus of real estate research for decades. Yet, there is no consensus on a generally accepted behavioural model that…

1015

Abstract

Purpose

Decision-making behaviour of property investors has been the focus of real estate research for decades. Yet, there is no consensus on a generally accepted behavioural model that suits all market conditions and investment peculiarities. While scholars have emphasized the significance of rational reasoning and cognitive influences on property investment decision-making preferences, gaps remain regarding the impacts of market disruptions on property investment decision-making behaviour. This paper, therefore, explores the institutional framework as a theoretical basis for understanding property investment decision-making behaviour amidst market disruptions.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reports a systematic review of pertinent theories that have explored decision-making behaviour. Commencing with an index search of high impact peer-reviewed journals, a snowball identification of relevant citations was also deployed to assemble theories from the field of psychology, sociology, economics and urban studies. Although a preliminary dataset of 82 papers with relevant decision-making theories was identified, the final dataset comprised 27 papers and 7 theories. The identified theories were reviewed accordingly.

Findings

The outcome of this study suggests that the institutional framework offers a robust approach to property investment decision-making amidst market disruptions, especially because it recognizes the dynamism in the investment environment and the roles of formal and informal rules that exist therein.

Originality/value

This study advances the current understanding of property investment decision-making behaviour by recognising the dynamism of the investment environment and how factors such as principles, laws, tradition and routines can lead to an established and legitimate standard of reasoning. By integrating both rational and cognitive attributes, the study provides a holistic perspective to property investors' decision-making behaviour in response to market disruptions.

Details

Property Management, vol. 39 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-7472

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Article
Publication date: 20 March 2007

Shuki Dror

The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for building a causality process to dynamically investigate system performance linkages, as implied by a strategic frame such…

511

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for building a causality process to dynamically investigate system performance linkages, as implied by a strategic frame such as a quality management frame or the balance scorecard frame.

Design/methodology/approach

The causality process develops aggregated process control tools in a data mining structure. The method identifies significant performance improvements by means of Cumulative Sum control charts, uses binary variables to mark them and time bounded search cycles as dictated by the causality constraints.

Findings

The methodology was implemented in a manufacturing enterprise and thus enables to better understand causality at the operational (tactical) level as well as at the strategic level.

Research limitations/implications

Additional research issues for further investigation are expressed by questions such as follows: what other data mining tools may be appropriate? How to methodically construct learning performance indicators?

Practical implications

The causality process and its assisting process control techniques are suitable to a variety of managerial situations where techniques for monitoring and testing given frames of hypothesized performance linkages are needed.

Originality/value

The methodology enables an individual organization to dynamically investigate its performance in order to improve the implementation of its strategy.

Details

Journal of Modelling in Management, vol. 2 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5664

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Article
Publication date: 1 April 1999

Chin‐Yin Huang and Shimon Y. Nof

The agility of enterprises is analyzed in this article from two perspectives: business and organizational agility, and operational and logistics agility. Because of the powerful…

1159

Abstract

The agility of enterprises is analyzed in this article from two perspectives: business and organizational agility, and operational and logistics agility. Because of the powerful support of information technologies, mainly AI and networking, companies can seek collaborators to accomplish complex customers’ requirements without investing to expand their own capacity. The emerging alliances of enterprises are virtually formed for various customers’ and markets’ needs. This concept sustains business and organizational agility. In terms of operational and logistics agility, this article suggests that the connection between the autonomy functions and agility requires further study. Our research has proposed that error detection and recovery, and conflict resolution are two significant functions of operational and logistics agility, and determine the expected benefits from the business and organizational agility. The link between a given enterprise flexibility and agility is also analyzed.

Details

International Journal of Agile Management Systems, vol. 1 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1465-4652

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