Monty L. Lynn, Richard S. Lytle and Samo Bobek
Firms with a strong service orientation – that is, those whose organizational policies, practices, and procedures support service excellence – often have a competitive edge in…
Abstract
Firms with a strong service orientation – that is, those whose organizational policies, practices, and procedures support service excellence – often have a competitive edge in mature Western markets. In transitional economies, however – such as within the newly opened markets of Central and Eastern Europe – the impact of service orientation on current and future firm performance is largely unknown. Particularly, in areas where service quality has lagged, enhancing service orientation might catapult a firm’s competitive standing ahead of the pack. On the other hand, boosting service orientation in markets where demand continues to outpace supply may add unnecessary cost, and little visible short‐term gain. In this study, the SERV*OR scale, a measure of organizational service orientation, was administered to 105 employees from two Slovenian banks – a newly established private bank and a large, older, state‐supported bank. The private bank outperformed the state bank in service orientation and in financial performance, lending support to the idea that service orientation may enhance rather than detract from firm performance in transitional markets.
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Monty L. Lynn, Matjaz Mulej and Karin Jurse
Under Josip Tito’s leadership, Yugoslavia broke away from Stalinistic central planning in 1948 and developed an economy‐wide system of worker self‐management. Its ideological…
Abstract
Under Josip Tito’s leadership, Yugoslavia broke away from Stalinistic central planning in 1948 and developed an economy‐wide system of worker self‐management. Its ideological focus was on leadership development and continuous learning among all employees, replacing owners and state bureaucracy with empowered workers at the helm of Yugoslav firms. Over time, the world’s largest experiment in empowerment went awry, however. A state‐supported neo‐Taylorism with a “thinking tank” and a separate “working tank,” evolved which represented little real empowerment. By the 1980s, self‐management had become an impotent bureaucratic formality behind a democratic facade. The dynamics within the rise and fall of Yugoslav self‐management provide lessons for understanding and managing empowerment efforts today.
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Beverley Lloyd-Walker, Lynn Crawford and Erica French
Current literature acknowledges the growth of careers in project management. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the characteristics of those who…
Abstract
Purpose
Current literature acknowledges the growth of careers in project management. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the characteristics of those who choose and continue in project-based careers.
Design/methodology/approach
Using social cognitive career theory as the lens to explore project management career journeys, 74 project practitioners were interviewed from across three broad industry sectors. A qualitative research approach was utilized and Atlas.ti was used to analyze and categorize the interview data collected.
Findings
Those who choose to continue in project-based roles demonstrate high levels of self-efficacy and coping efficacy and see uncertainty as opportunity. They value challenge, flexibility and variety and take responsibility for their own career progression. Desire for employment security may vary according to personal circumstance. These findings are of value to employers in guiding selection and retention of people for project roles.
Research limitations/implications
This is a qualitative and exploratory study covering only three industry sectors and results are not generalizable. SCCT was found useful as a lens for understanding the nature of project-based careers.
Practical implications
Findings of this research provide valuable guidance for employers and HR practitioners in project-based organizations. For practitioners the study provides a useful framework for reflecting upon their own careers in projects.
Social implications
The nature of careers is changing. Project-based careers are indicative of this change. This study therefore provides insight into an evolving phenomenon.
Originality/value
This study expands our understanding of careers in projects, going beyond technical skill development to gain a deeper understanding of personal attributes that contribute to selection into and retention in project-based careers.
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OF old the public library was wont to take its reputation from the character of the newsroom. That room, as everyone knows, attracts every element in the community and it may be…
Abstract
OF old the public library was wont to take its reputation from the character of the newsroom. That room, as everyone knows, attracts every element in the community and it may be it attracts especially the poorer elements;—even at times undesirable ones. These people in some towns, but perhaps not so often now‐a‐days, have been unwashen and often not very attractive in appearance. It was natural, things being as they are, that the room should give a certain tone to the institution, and indeed on occasion cause it to be avoided by those who thought themselves to be superior. The whole level of living has altered, and we think has been raised, since the War. There is poverty and depression in parts of the country, it is true; but there are relief measures now which did not exist before the War. Only those who remember the grinding poverty of the unemployed in the days, especially the winter days, before the War can realise what poverty really means at its worst. This democratic levelling up applies, of course, to the public library as much as to any institution. At present it may be said that the part of the library which is most apparent to the public and by which it is usually judged, is the lending or home‐reading department. It therefore needs no apology if from time to time we give special attention to this department. Even in the great cities, which have always concentrated their chief attention upon their reference library, to‐day there is an attempt to supply a lending library service of adequate character. We recall, for example, that the Leeds Public Library of old was first and foremost a reference library, with a lending library attached; to‐day the lending library is one of the busiest in the kingdom. A similar judgment can be passed upon Sheffield, where quite deliberately the city librarian would restrict the reference library to works that are of real reference character, and would develop more fully the lending library. In Manchester, too, the new “Reference Library”—properly the new Central Library—has a lending library which issues about 1,500 volumes daily. There must be all over the country many libraries issuing up to a thousand volumes each a day from their central lending departments. This being the case the department comes in for very careful scrutiny.
Beverley Lloyd-Walker, Erica French and Lynn Crawford
The purpose of this paper is to identify issues in the long-term development of project workers, their career paths, their contribution to organizational success and their need…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify issues in the long-term development of project workers, their career paths, their contribution to organizational success and their need for equity of opportunity. The long-term development of project workers, their career paths and their contribution to organizational success is explored.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews was employed to gain an understanding of social and human issues related to careers in project management (PM). By researching the lived experiences and feelings of those pursuing a career in PM the aim was to gain insight into the career journeys and experiences of practicing project managers.
Findings
Those who choose to pursue a career in PM have the personal characteristics and sufficiently high levels of self-efficacy to deal effectively with the uncertainty inherent in the nature of projects and of project-based employment.
Research limitations/implications
Participants were drawn from current project practitioners. As a result, the views of those who have worked on projects and chosen not to continue their career in the area have not been gathered.
Practical implications
Predictions are that there will be a continuing demand for project managers with the capabilities required to deliver successful projects. The challenge for organizations is to create an environment that will encourage greater numbers of people to embrace the uncertainty of project. The findings reported provide insight into how organizations might attract, develop and retain the project expertise they require for success.
Originality/value
This research provides further understanding into the lived experience of project managers, with a focus on those who have unexpectedly found themselves pursuing a career in PM.
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Matjaz Mulej, Vojko Potocan, Zdenka Zenko, Stefan Kajzer, Dusko Ursic, Jozica Knez‐Riedl, Monty Lynn and Jozef Ovsenik
Ludwig von Bertalanffy created general systems theory in an effort to counter the oversight and endangerment of humankind by disciplinary specialization. Bertalanffy desired for a…
Abstract
Ludwig von Bertalanffy created general systems theory in an effort to counter the oversight and endangerment of humankind by disciplinary specialization. Bertalanffy desired for a holistic worldview and openness to replace overspecialization. Although widely cited and regarded, his concept prevailed only at a fictitious level, mostly as a tool inside specialization, which many scholars are neither able to overcome nor complement with interdisciplinary, creative co‐operation. Similarities (isomorphisms) are not enough. Here, a system of seven groups of systems thinking principles, which serve as a framework for restoring Bertalanffian systems thinking without his exaggerations is presented.
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Roberto Biloslavo and Monty Lynn
The paper sets out to observe the absorption of strategic management practice in a leading Central and East European (CEE) economy, and to provide insight into institutional…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper sets out to observe the absorption of strategic management practice in a leading Central and East European (CEE) economy, and to provide insight into institutional differences influencing the content of mission statements.
Design/methodology/approach
The content of mission statements from large Slovene enterprises is compared with research on US mission statements.
Findings
Mission statements in Slovene firms tend to emphasize customers, shareholders, and strategic suppliers significantly less often than do US firms. Corporate reputation, customer‐market scope and quality are also mentioned significantly less often in Slovene statements. Although some gaps between the theoretical ideal and corporate practice may exist in both settings, many differences may be explained by macroeconomic volatility, industry structure, and institutional environments.
Research limitations/implications
Although the Slovene sample size is smaller than comparable US studies, it is an equivalent sample of the two nations' largest firms. The time difference between the Slovene and US samples is not a critical issue in this study since it mimics the time delay between the behaviour of the US firms and the subsequent behaviour of Slovene firms in writing mission statements.
Practical implications
The conclusions can help managers in US multinational firms to better understand some implicit differences in understanding organisations and their relationships with the business and social environment when they do business with firms from CEE.
Originality/value
The paper presents what are differences between Slovene and American companies regarding mission statements content and stakeholders involved and it gives some possible explanations for them based on cultural and historical differences.
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The purpose of this paper is to report on an analysis of court judgments on sexual harassment over the last ten years.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on an analysis of court judgments on sexual harassment over the last ten years.
Design/methodology/approach
This research has anaylsed a sample of 399 sexual harassment cases.
Findings
The analysis provides information on factors that influence the courts’ decision‐making process.
Research limitations/implications
Further investigation could be made by interviewing witnesses, claimants, respondents and tribunal members.
Practical implications
The article provides pertinent learning outcomes for claimants and employers.
Originality/value
The analysis allows us to develop a profile of successful SH claims over the period studied.
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AFTER the trenchant paper by Mr. A. O. Jennings, read at the Brighton meeting of the Library Association, and the very embarrassing resolution which was carried as a result, one…
Abstract
AFTER the trenchant paper by Mr. A. O. Jennings, read at the Brighton meeting of the Library Association, and the very embarrassing resolution which was carried as a result, one can only approach the subject of the commonplace in fiction with fear and diffidence. It is generally considered a bold and dangerous thing to fly in the face of corporate opinion as expressed in solemn public resolutions, and when the weighty minds of librarianship have declared that novels must only be chosen on account of their literary, educational or moral qualities, one is almost reduced to a state of mental imbecility in trying to fathom the meaning and limits of such an astounding injunction. To begin with, every novel or tale, even if but a shilling Sunday‐school story of the Candle lighted by the Lord type is educational, inasmuch as something, however little, may be learnt from it. If, therefore, the word “educational” is taken to mean teaching, it will be found impossible to exclude any kind of fiction, because even the meanest novel can teach readers something they never knew before. The novels of Emma Jane Worboise and Mrs. Henry Wood would no doubt be banned as unliterary and uneducational by those apostles of the higher culture who would fain compel the British washerwoman to read Meredith instead of Rosa Carey, but to thousands of readers such books are both informing and recreative. A Scots or Irish reader unacquainted with life in English cathedral cities and the general religious life of England would find a mine of suggestive information in the novels of Worboise, Wood, Oliphant and many others. In similar fashion the stories of Annie Swan, the Findlaters, Miss Keddie, Miss Heddle, etc., are educational in every sense for the information they convey to English or American readers about Scots country, college, church and humble life. Yet these useful tales, because lacking in the elusive and mysterious quality of being highly “literary,” would not be allowed in a Public Library managed by a committee which had adopted the Brighton resolution, and felt able to “smell out” a high‐class literary, educational and moral novel on the spot. The “moral” novel is difficult to define, but one may assume it will be one which ends with a marriage or a death rather than with a birth ! There have been so many obstetrical novels published recently, in which doubtful parentage plays a chief part, that sexual morality has come to be recognized as the only kind of “moral” factor to be regarded by the modern fiction censor. Objection does not seem to be directed against novels which describe, and indirectly teach, financial immorality, or which libel public institutions—like municipal libraries, for example. There is nothing immoral, apparently, about spreading untruths about religious organizations or political and social ideals, but a novel which in any way suggests the employment of a midwife before certain ceremonial formalities have been executed at once becomes immoral in the eyes of every self‐elected censor. And it is extraordinary how opinion differs in regard to what constitutes an immoral or improper novel. From my own experience I quote two examples. One reader objected to Morrison's Tales of Mean Streets on the ground that the frequent use of the word “bloody” made it immoral and unfit for circulation. Another reader, of somewhat narrow views, who had not read a great deal, was absolutely horrified that such a painfully indecent book as Adam Bede should be provided out of the public rates for the destruction of the morals of youths and maidens!
Mary Isabelle Young, Lucy Joe, Jennifer Lamoureux, Laura Marshall, Sister Dorothy Moore, Jerri-Lynn Orr, Brenda Mary Parisian, Khea Paul, Florence Paynter and Janice Huber
In a paper shared at the 2004 Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE), Marie Battiste urged Canadian academics and policy makers to become part of a transformative…
Abstract
In a paper shared at the 2004 Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE), Marie Battiste urged Canadian academics and policy makers to become part of a transformative process of reconstructing Canada's colonial education system which she describes as shaping “Indigenous peoples’ trauma and disconnection with many aspects of education and themselves” (p. 2). Battiste calls for the repositioning of Indigenous knowledges in post-secondary institutions, a process through which institutional structures and practices, curriculum foundations, and traditions are substantially changed and, in particular, that these are changed in ways that value and engage the capacities of Aboriginal students. Battiste's argument is significant for both Aboriginal post-secondary students and for their communities.