Search results

Companies often fail to take effective action even when they know what to do. Surprisingly, recent research shows that this situation is common. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to ask the question “How can we improve the track record of companies in achieving the outcomes targeted by manufacturing strategy?”

The paper draws on case study examples of successful change implementations from the Manufacturing Roundtable which identified implementation as a critical area of research concern.

The paper identifies eight principles of implementation success and summarises how organisations which successfully implement change comply with these principles.

Strategy execution is becoming much more of a concern than formulation. These examples from manufacturing provide guidance for improving implementation of performance improvements across organisational operations.

The paper provides a scorecard against which to assess your own implementation processes and summarises the practices of more successful implementers.

Embedded in built environment discourse, this chapter examines the traditional knowledge and resilience of the Ngadjuri Nation Peoples through an Elder’s narrative of reconciliation as well as resistance in their subsisting colonial settlement. Removed from ‘Country’ in the 1840s, Ngadjuri Aboriginal community endured colonial industries of open-cut copper mining and large-scale pastoralism as irreparable destruction to their cultural landscapes. European processes in the resources sectors reshaped natural topographies, deconstructing Ngadjuri Songlines and Ancestral Dreaming stories. Burra’s colonial stone buildings of settlement, painstakingly cut and composed from materials of the surrounding ecological terrain, prompted new narratives from Ngadjuri as a way of alleviating scars. Broadly speaking, this chapter aims to show how cultural heritage of two communities is provocatively and conceptually unpacked through the vernacular buildings’ cross-cultural foundations. That is, an under-reported narrative was unwittingly bestowed on the colonial-built forms with hidden meanings that deserve further investigation. This chapter offers a counternarrative to colonial histories revealing Ngadjuri’s methods for reconnecting to Country and culture after generations of disempowerment. It explores how within the materiality of colonial structures, the Ngadjuri entwined their remediated storylines – revealing a data curation that had avoided popular discourse in the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] sector representation. This example implies there are bodies of knowledge in built cultural heritage hidden elsewhere on our Aboriginal Nations and the challenges it presents GLAM in their Indigenisation processes.

Country and cultural heritage are inextricably linked for First Nations peoples. This chapter explores those relationships in the context of repatriating cultural heritage materials back to Country and conceptualising a place for its ‘awakening’ for the Ngadjuri community of Mid-North South Australia. These materials in the context of this book ‘interpreted’ as a form of data curation, requiring potentially unique information systems designs to achieve accessibility, recoverability, and durability in remote communities with limited internet and mobile phone coverage. On the other hand, it is critically important to note, that the processes, challenges and repatriation of culturally sensitive materials and remains, are dependant here on the limitations of language. The reference to the notion of ‘data’ as a descriptor, and an inadequate term on some level, does not, and is not intended to, diminish any of their cultural significance and gravity. These are challenges that are worth the intellectual and technological investment to realise a return to Country for generationally displaced peoples and their cultural property that also needs to make it home.

The increased use of, and reliance upon, technology and digitalisation, especially in the galleries, libraries, archives and museums [GLAM] sector, has motivated innovative approaches to the curation of cultural material. These changes are especially evident when collaborating with Indigenous partners. Indigenous Data Governance [IDG] and Indigenous Data Sovereignty [IDS], with an emphasis on self-determination of Indigenous peoples, have called for an emerging focus on ethical and culturally sensitive approaches to data collection and management across a range of disciplines and sectors.

This chapter reports on broader discussions, specifically with mid-North South Australia, Indigenous community members around the appropriate and ethical collection, representation and curation of cultural material on Country applying digital formats. It investigates ways to create a ‘future identity’ through built form as well as providing a ‘safe’ place for preservation of their oral histories.

It highlights the many questions raised around the ethically and culturally sensitive aspects of the collection, curation and archiving of Indigenous cultural material. It documents the preliminary outcomes of these conversations in the context of current research on IDS best practices in the field. The non-Aboriginal authors acknowledge our supporting position in the realisation of effective IDS and self-determination of our Aboriginal partners.

Two key developments exert an important influence on the nature of human resource management (HRM) in South Africa (SA). The first is two seemingly conflicting imperatives, sometimes and arguably wrongly juxtaposed: that of developing a high-growth, globally competitive economy with fuller employment and the sociopolitical imperative of redressing past structural inequalities of access to skilled, professional, and managerial positions, as well as ownership opportunities. The first development is the related influences of globalization and multinational corporations (MNCs), information technology, and increased competition, which have become very prominent in postapartheid SA. South Africa has a dual labor market, with a well-developed formal sector employing some 8.5 million workers in standard or typical work and a growing informal labor market. In the case of the formal, knowledge-based economy, the World Wide Web, and increasing communication that the Internet has made possible, has influenced changes at the organizational level. A second development is that these changes and changing patterns of employment are having a dramatic impact on HR policies within organizations. In a knowledge-based economy, organizations rely on knowledge that is embedded deeply in the individual and in the collective subconscious. It is the property of an individual and cannot be taken away from that person (Harrison & Kessels, 2004). He or she would agree to put it in the service of the collective whole, which is known as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). In technology-driven advanced firms in SA, there are several themes among the various models of citizenship behavior: helping behavior, sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, initiative, civic virtue, and self-development (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000). Many of these themes overlap with the common competencies demanded by advanced MNCs. Thus OCBs rest upon a recognition of mutuality of interest and of responsibility between the organization and the individuals. Increasing globalization and worldwide competition and the knowledge-based economy have their greatest impact on business strategies, process, and practice involving, among others, management of human resources. In this chapter we examine factors influencing the management of human resources in SA and their impact on human resource practices in organizations.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the nature of the facilitators of continuous improvement (CI), proposing a classification of them and identifying the different profiles of companies based on them.

To achieve this objective, first, a literature review was done in order to identify the main facilitators; second, some of them were included in a survey based on experts' opinions; third, a survey was conducted amongst people responsible for implementing CI; and finally factorial and cluster analysis were applied.

Based on the results, three main factors were identified: “cultural facilitators”, “tactical facilitators” and “human resources involvement facilitators”. Additionally, five clusters were defined.

As many companies still struggle when implementing CI, the results of this study can help all them to focus on the most important aspects in order to guarantee the sustainability of the CI system.

From a theoretical point of view, this work contributes to the CI field by analysing the nature of the main facilitators companies can find when implementing these initiatives. Thus, not only does this study provide a hierarchy of the most important facilitators, but also classifies them. As far as authors are concerned, this is the first attempt to categorise CI facilitators.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation activities involved in certifying a quality management system to the ISO 9000 quality management system standard. This includes developing the best business performance measures that will serve as indicators of an effective quality management system. This paper aims to establish a relationship between implementation activities involved in the quality system and specific business performance measures that can be used to assess the system's effectiveness.

Data were collected using an online survey combined with publicly available financial reporting information. Regression and other statistical techniques along with text clustering and association of the survey comments were used to analyze the data.

Emphasis on implementing a documentation system were found to be linked to business performance as measured by the return on assets financial measure.

Future research should explore various documentation system aspects such as knowledge management and information sharing in greater detail. A larger sample focused on a specific industry might provide useful information for industry appropriate performance indicators.

The practical implications of this research focus on the design and implementation of an organization's quality management system in areas that will provide the most benefit to organizations seeking ISO 9000 certification. A baseline measurement can be used prior to implementing the system to strategically manage the implementation process. By understanding how best to implement the quality management system, fewer resources are wasted on ineffective quality management system certification projects and some of the skepticism around the implemention of an ISO 9000 certified quality management system is eliminated.

Few quality system researchers target the implementation process for analysis. Combining survey data and publicly held financial represents is a new method for studying ISO 9000 implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse long‐term trends in the development of Africa's economic infrastructure.

The importance of infrastructure was examined in social and economic processes, followed by an exploration of the changing nature of infrastructure and its implications for delivery. The paper looked at the development of infrastructure in Africa by focusing on what was inherited at independence versus what had been achieved there since and why this was the case.

The development challenges are immense because delivery of infrastructure requires much more than financial resources – it requires the capacity to deliver massive, complex projects in an efficient manner. It is clear that African states do not possess this level of capacity but this can still be delivered through innovative public‐private partnerships, global cooperation, and the support of international institutions.

Improving Africa's infrastructure is a necessary but not sufficient condition to promote economic development and attract investment back to the continent.

The author assesses what needs to be done to ensure the massive infrastructure delivery required for the continent, which is estimated at 6 percent of output, and the innovation required for such a programme.

This scoping review article examined research on information behavior in communities over the past two decades (2000–2023). The review aims to uncover the characteristics and types of communities studied, the featured information behaviors, and the research methods employed.

The PRISMA-ScR guidelines were followed to conduct this review. Five databases were selected to search for relevant empirical research. A total of 57 studies met the inclusion criteria for review. Thematic synthesis was used to analyze the multidimensional findings of included studies.

A steady increase in the number of articles is evident in the past two decades. The review suggests that information behavior in community studies involved collaboration from other disciplines, such as public health and business management. More than half of the communities studied are virtual communities (56.1%), followed by communities of identity, professional communities and support communities, communities of interest, geographic communities, and academic communities. There are overlaps among these categories. Information sharing (63.2%) and information seeking (57.9%) were the most studied behavior of communities, followed by information use, information needs, and information judgment. Questionnaires (38.6%) and interviews (35.1%) were the most commonly used data collection techniques in studying information behavior in communities. It is noteworthy that eleven (19.3%) mentioned utilizing community-engaged approaches.

This is the first scoping review to explore the intersecting constructs of community research and information behavior studies. We call for further research to understand the contextual factors that shape the community’s information environments and to increase awareness of the partnership between communities and researchers.