Search results

Internet based information and communication technology provides the opportunity for small firms to improve their competitiveness. This paper presents a methodology that responds to the needs of small firms whilst overcoming the constraints to their use of these technologies. Key features of this methodology are: provision of a turnkey package of hardware, software, installation and training for Internet connection and operation; identification of opportunities for integrating Internet ICT into business processes that will deliver performance improvement; ongoing IT and business support for a year. The effectiveness of this methodology was examined during its application in 21 SME automotive component suppliers in the West Midlands region of England. This exercise found that 90 per cent of firms continued to use their Internet based ICT capability after a year.

Management buyout (MBO) is a specialized form of acquisition with different motives. Sometimes, there are initiatives taken by the senior management to bailout the firm from sickness. The predominant agency theory focuses only on the governance issues in the MBO firms and this theory can be applied to understand how managerial discretion can play vital roles in mitigating value destruction in the post-MBO firm. A CEO-led MBO is presumed to be greed-driven (Bebchuk, L., Cremers, M., & Peyer, U. (2011). The CEO pay slice. Journal of Financial Economics, 102, 199–221.). But a senior management team-led MBO is said to be a socialistic move. By default, MBOs are debt-driven, unless the buying management team is financially affluent, which may be rare, considering the price for the buyout. Private equity (PE) players play a dominant role in providing and or arranging funds in the form of equity and or debt. There is a notion that the PE investors help promote entrepreneurial and modern management practices. The MBO target firm has to ensure returning the entire money back to the sponsors within the shortest possible time out of the operational cash flow. Therefore, various issues like identifying a target firm, sourcing mix of finance, MBO price determination, value creation and value delivery to all stakeholders are all important for understanding the subject. This chapter attempts to construct a robust model for structuring MBO to ensure value fairness to all parties involved in the transaction.

The main body of literature that has developed about educator stress indicates ours is a profession marked by high levels of distressful encounters and that educators are not faring well in this environment. The authors believe this case is over‐stated and that education, as a field, is not nearly so marked by the littered casualties of distress that the literature would have us believe exist. This conclusion is founded on both a small literature base which holds a contrary point of view, and on three studies of administrators and teachers which consistently indicate educators are much more adaptable and consequently, less stressed, than we have been led to believe. The purpose of the first study was to identify the levels of stress school principals experience on the job and to investigate the impact of perceived locus of control and powerlessness on their stress levels. The second study examined the extent to which school principals' perceived level of stress is related to their role relationship with groups internal and external to the school organization. The goals of the third study were to establish the levels of teachers' perceived stress, the organizationally‐based factors that are most stress‐inducing, and the predominant ways in which teachers manifest stress. The results of these studies, with great consistency, indicate low educator stress. These findings have important implications for the development of new approaches to stress research and for policy decisions concerning allocation of organizational resources to stress management design and staff development.

The purpose of this paper is to inform readers who are interested in textbooks, sports and sports economics, but especially professors who teach sports economics, about the coverage of sports in principles of economics textbooks.

The data in the paper consist of the 130 sections on sports from twenty-one principles of economics textbooks. The paper illuminates the sections using numerous quotations and in-text references. The paper details the number of sections devoted to each sport, economic concepts they illuminate and how the text covers topics such as league rules, broadcast revenues and women in sports.

The paper finds that the 21 textbook authors devote an average of 934 words in an average of 6.2 sections of text to 11 sports. Sections of text vary from one sentence to lengthy discussions of topics such as increased salaries due to technological advances in broadcasting, antitrust cases, the gender pay gap and bargaining between leagues and players' unions. The authors refer to five published research papers on sports economics, two quantitative books, two quantitative articles in the popular press and one nonquantitative nonfiction book.

This paper provides data to researchers who study sports regarding topics that students are being taught in economics texts. It is a potential tool for connecting their areas of research to the university experience.

Sports economics professors, and other professors, may enhance student interest by a choice of text for their principles classes.

Sports coverage in principles texts illuminates topics such as the effect of technology on income distribution, the morality of paying college athletes, the interaction of the legal system and markets and the gender gap.

No other publicly referenced paper details the use of sports in principles textbooks.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the leadership behaviors of managers of virtual teams (VTs), particularly in the areas of trust building and conflict management. This study aims to expand the research of VT performance by offering first-person accounts from VT leaders on the strategies implemented to drive VT performance.

This study used a grounded theory approach to examine the leadership behaviors through in-depth interviews with eight field managers of VTs employed by different technology companies. Interview questions focused on trust-building and conflict management techniques. This structured qualitative study incorporates elements of narrative inquiry interwoven in the findings.

Building a high-trust environment was found to be critical to VT performance. VT managers indicated that effective conflict resolution skills were also important.

Although the sample size is within the suggested range for a valid phenomenological study, the results may lack generalizability. Participants were limited to the technology industry; leaders of high-performing VTs in other industries could offer differing results.

This study’s contribution is the exploration and identification of innovative techniques that VT managers implemented to build trust and resolve conflict. A lack of holistic training programs for the VT leader is also considered along with suggestions for future research and implications for the VT managers.

This study’s contribution is the exploration and identification of innovative techniques that VT managers implemented that drive VT performance, particularly related to building high levels of trust and managing conflict effectively. Practices are suggested whereby both the VT leader and the organization take an active role in ensuring that the VT has the opportunity to perform optimally.

Discusses the keys to successful total quality management and how total quality management is accomplished. Explains the results of Kepner‐Tregoe′s research into the conditions for successful quality improvement. Describes the total quality management process at the Baxter Healthcare plant in Mississippi, USA. Asserts that the quality leadership process at the plant exemplifies total quality management. Contends that quality problem solving plays a key role in TQM. Concludes that the organization needs a commitment to quality, problem solving skills to achieve it, and the opportunity to use them.

The Engineering Industry Training Board has just completed a two‐year study on employee relations training for managers. The six‐man project team which undertook the study was composed of industrial relations and personnel specialists and trainers. The team carried out investigations in over three hundred companies, a number of special studies and a survey of the current provision of employee relations training. Their final Report, which contains recommendations on the analysis of employee relations, the development of training materials and the training of trainers, has been accepted as a basis for action by the EITB. This is the first in a series of articles, setting out the findings, conclusions and some of the ideas for new initiatives in this area.

The previous two articles identified some of the critical factors behind employee relations problems and described a new approach developed by the EITB to increase managers' awareness of these factors. However, there are those who regard any ‘packaged’ approach as superficial and who would maintain that the only valid approach is through conducting their own analysis of their employee relations and developing entirely home‐grown remedies. This article, therefore, brings together some of the lessons learnt about the analysis of employee relations and the identification of managers' ER training needs during the two‐year study.

The most common approach to the identification of training needs and the preparation of training programmes and material is through a process of individual job analysis. Individual job analysis has been used successfully for a wide range of occupations including managers, supervisors and shop floor employees, and whilst it has also been used for clerical occupations, it has in practice, presented difficulties. These difficulties arise because clerical jobs, whilst being numerous, are less homogeneous than those of production workers. There is also normally a greater degree of job flexibility. To overcome these difficulties two broad approaches have been used: • identification of common basic skills • analysis of systems. It is with the developments which have flowed from the analysis of systems that this article is concerned. These developments have led us to three broad conclusions: • the need for systems training extends beyond what are normally regarded as administrative and clerical jobs • the training needs identified as a result of analysing systems differ from those identified when the approach is through individual job analysis • using the systems approach training material is quicker to produce, more flexible and probably reduces training times.

The first article described how the EITB employee relations training for managers project was undertaken and some of the conclusions which were reached. One of the key conclusions was that more emphasis should be given to in‐company training. This second article describes material which is being specifically designed to provide a framework for such training — EMPLOYEE RELATIONS LEARNING RESOURCE MATERIAL (ERLRM). This is illustrated by reference to the ERLRM module entitled ‘Discipline at Work’.