Oliver William Jones, Jeff Gold and David Devins
The purpose of this paper is to explore who small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner–managers consider as key stakeholders for their business for helping increase…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore who small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner–managers consider as key stakeholders for their business for helping increase productivity and the nature of the stakeholders' impact.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the Lego Serious Play methodology and narrative analysis in a focus group setting.
Findings
The analysis revealed a narrow depth of field of productivity stakeholders and identified critical narratives, involving close stakeholders which could constrain productivity. Lack of information on current and/or future productivity states, and a social brake due to the potential impact on employees are two at the forefront of owner–manager perspectives. The study also identified the importance of internal and external champions to improve productivity and re-enforced the significance of skills gaps, the role of Further Education providers and other infrastructure assets.
Research limitations/implications
The purposiveness sample of the single focus group setting results in a lack of generalizability, but provides potential for replication and transposability based on the generic type of stakeholders discussed. The work highlights the potential to further enhance the constituent attributes of stakeholder salience.
Practical implications
There is a potential for different network agents to increase their collaboration to create a more coherent narrative for individual productivity investment opportunities and for policy makers to consider how to leverage this.
Social implications
The findings suggest that the implications of deskilling and job loss are major factors to be considered in the policy discourse. SMEs are less likely to pursue productivity improvements in a low growth setting because of their local social implications.
Originality/value
The study is innovative in using Lego to elucidate narratives in relation to both stakeholder identification and their contributions to productivity improvement impact in a UK SME context. The study introduces an innovative stakeholder orbital map and further develops the stakeholder salience concept; both useful for the future conceptual and empirical work.
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Oliver William Jones, David Devins and Greg Barnes
The paper is a proof of concept (PoC) intervention study aimed for developing performance management (PM) practices in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper is a proof of concept (PoC) intervention study aimed for developing performance management (PM) practices in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the longer-term aim enabling the SMEs to improve their productivity. The intervention was designed and deployed by a collaborative quartet of academics, management consultants, accountancy firm and a commercial bank manager.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper firstly musters a set of initialising PM practices aligned to productivity improvement. These are utilised to design a knowledge transfer intervention for deployment with a set of manufacturing SMEs incorporating some associated productivity tools. The evaluation of the intervention utilised a case study approach founded on a logic model of the intervention to assess the development of the PM practices.
Findings
The intervention contributed to a partial development of the mustered practices and the productivity diagnostic based on the multi-factor productivity (MFP) abstraction and a data extraction protocol had the strongest impact. The study revealed the importance of the three interlaced factors: Depth of engagement, feedback opportunities and the intervention gradient (the increase of independent action from the participating SME's and the diminishment of the external intervention effort).
Research limitations/implications
The case study is based on a limited number of individual SME's, and within just the manufacturing sector.
Practical implications
SME businesses will require a more sustained programme of interventions than this pilot to develop PM capability, and depth of engagement within the SME is critical. Professional stakeholders can be utilised in recruitment of firms for intervention programmes. Business can start developing PM capability prior to PMS implementation using the tools from this programme.
Originality/value
The productivity diagnostic tool, based on a synthesis of MFP and the performance pyramid, an array of potential initialising practices for PM capability and discovery of potential mechanisms for PM practice development.
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Firoozeh Pourjavaheri, Farzad Mohades, Oliver Jones, Frank Sherkat, Ing Kong, Arun Gupta and Robert A. Shanks
This paper aims to use the solvent–casting–evaporation method to prepare new bio-composites with thermoplastic poly(ether urethane) (TPU-polyether) as the polymer matrix and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to use the solvent–casting–evaporation method to prepare new bio-composites with thermoplastic poly(ether urethane) (TPU-polyether) as the polymer matrix and reinforced with natural chicken feather fibre (CFF).
Design/methodology/approach
To produce the bio-composites, 0 to 60 per cent·w/w of fibres in steps of 30 per cent·w/w were added to the polymer matrix. The uniformity of distribution of the keratin fibres in the polymer matrix was investigated via scanning electron microscopy, and the results suggested compatibility of the TPU-polyether matrix with the CFFs, thereby implying effective fibre–polymer interactions.
Findings
Addition of natural fibres to the polymer was found to decrease the mass loss of the composites at higher temperatures and decrease the glass transition temperature, as well as the storage and loss modulus, at lower temperatures, while increasing the remaining char ratio, storage modulus and loss modulus at higher temperatures.
Originality/value
The investigation confirmed that waste keratin CFF can improve the thermo-mechanical properties of composites, simply and cheaply, with potentially large environmental and economic benefits.
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Oliver Jones, Jeff Gold and Julia Claxton
The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project, using intervention research (IR), which aims to identify how a higher education institution could develop process…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project, using intervention research (IR), which aims to identify how a higher education institution could develop process improvement (PI) capability.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a practice perspectives of routines, and classifies and catalogues the potential routines that could form PI capability. The development of these routines are investigated using the constructive research approach, a form of IR), in the action research mode. Within this approach, the methodology of mediated discourse analysis was employed to trace the empirical trajectory of the routine development, in a student management office within the context of an improvement project by the institutions PI unit.
Findings
Of relative significance is the implication that there is a small group of initialising PI practices which are accessible to practitioners, in contrast to a large set of critical success factors. Second, these PI practices transcend particular methodologies, meaning their development can be incorporated into customised, contextualised methodologies, by individual organisations.
Practical implications
The set of PI practices identified are able to be enacted by practitioners and are not dependent on macro-management factors. Second they are relatively simple to understand and are not associated with any particular improvement fad or fashion.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the appreciation of PI in higher education as a capability, and outlines the potential array of routines that could constitute that capability. It provides a theoretical view on how key PI routines are developed in an organisational field, and a more nuanced and richer view of “process mapping” and its effect on other PI practices.
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UK’s PFI (Private Finance Initiative) in the public sector has introduced radical innovations in the ways that new facilities and ongoing support services are financed…
Abstract
UK’s PFI (Private Finance Initiative) in the public sector has introduced radical innovations in the ways that new facilities and ongoing support services are financed. Fundamental changes in the concepts of business accommodation and service delivery are also under way, in which property is coming to be viewed as a business service rather than as a financial asset, helping to free core business capital while reducing the costs and increasing the quality of support service delivery. The diversification of the rules governing the property market, coupled with an increasingly sophisticated range of outsourcing arrangements, promises to provide a much greater variety and more flexible set of business support environments for the future.
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Jaiprakash Bhamu and Kuldip Singh Sangwan
The advent of recession at the beginning of twenty-first century forced many organizations worldwide to reduce cost and to be more responsive to customer demands. Lean…
Abstract
Purpose
The advent of recession at the beginning of twenty-first century forced many organizations worldwide to reduce cost and to be more responsive to customer demands. Lean Manufacturing (LM) has been widely perceived by industry as an answer to these requirements because LM reduces waste without additional requirements of resources. This led to a spurt in LM research across the globe mostly through empirical and exploratory studies which resulted in a plethora of LM definitions with divergent scopes, objectives, performance indicators, tools/techniques/methodologies, and concepts/elements. The purpose of this paper is to review LM literature and report these divergent definitions, scopes, objectives, and tools/techniques/methodologies.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper highlights various definitions by various researchers and practitioners. A total of 209 research papers have been reviewed for the research contribution, research methodology adopted, tools/techniques/methodologies used, type of industry, author profile, country of research, and year of publication.
Findings
There are plethora of LM definitions with divergent objectives and scope. Theory verification through empirical and exploratory studies has been the focus of research in LM. Automotive industry has been the focus of LM research but LM has also been adopted by other types of industries also. One of the critical implementation factors of LM is simultaneous adoption of leanness in supply chain. LM has become an integrated system composed of highly integrated elements and a wide variety of management practices. There is lack of standard LM implementation process/framework.
Originality/value
The paper reviews 209 research papers for their research contribution, research methodology, author profile, type of industry, and tools/techniques/methodology used. Various characteristics of LM definitions are also reviewed.
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Mamoun N. Akroush and Bushra K. Mahadin
The purpose of this paper is to examine a multidimensional model of customer perceived value (CPV), customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty from internet subscribers’ perspectives.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine a multidimensional model of customer perceived value (CPV), customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty from internet subscribers’ perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 1,297 out of 2,000 online surveys were valid for the analysis. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess the research constructs’ unidimensionality, validity and composite reliability. Structural path analysis was used to test the hypothesized relationships of the research model.
Findings
CPV positively affects functional and technical satisfaction as well as cognitive loyalty. Functional satisfaction positively affects technical satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. Attitudinal loyalty positively affects cognitive and behavioral loyalty, and the latter positively affects cognitive loyalty. In total, 53 percent of variation in cognitive loyalty was caused by behavioral, attitudinal loyalty and perceived value path.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could investigate other outcomes of CS dimensions, such as customer lifetime value, customer retention, profitability, return on investment and market share, and their effects on customer loyalty (CL). Future research can also examine the effect of other dimensions of perceived customer value on CS and loyalty dimensions simultaneously. Other future research areas are also outlined.
Practical implications
CPV acts as a cornerstone to developing a successful multidimensional program of CL through functional and technical satisfactions. Marketing directors need to focus on building CL schemes and strategies that should take into consideration the long-term and short-term loyalty.
Originality/value
Theoretically, using an intervariable perspective, this paper has responded to important calls for conducting research on the chain of perceived value, CS and loyalty chain. Practically, this paper is the first empirical research devoted to developing an intervariable approach to the chain of perceived value, CS and loyalty in the internet service market.
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Supply chain management has been defined as ‘the concept of strategically co‐ordinating supply chains made up of businesses owned and run by different people, each with his or her…
Abstract
Supply chain management has been defined as ‘the concept of strategically co‐ordinating supply chains made up of businesses owned and run by different people, each with his or her own business objectives’ (Slack, Chambers, Harland, Harrison and Johnston, 1995, p.532) or ‘close, shared destiny relations with suppliers’ (Oliver, Delbridge, Jones, Lowe, 1995, p.54). These and other definitions stress the role of supply chain management as managing value across organisational boundaries, and this mandates new forms of (and new ways of managing) inter firm relationships.
Ko de Ruyter and Josée Bloemer
In research on customer loyalty in services, satisfaction has often been mentioned as an important determinant. However, empirical evidence concerning the relationship between…
Abstract
In research on customer loyalty in services, satisfaction has often been mentioned as an important determinant. However, empirical evidence concerning the relationship between loyalty and satisfaction has remained equivocal. This may be even more so for services that are delivered over an extended period of time in which consumers actively take part. We propose that for the extended service experience consumers are motivated by the realisation of values and that attainment of these values affects patronage decisions. Moreover, as the service delivery process is extensive we argue that consumer mood during the service delivery is another important factor that may have an impact on loyalty deliberations. Therefore, in this paper we examine the simultaneous effect of satisfaction, value attainment and positive mood in an extended service setting. The results reveal that the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty with respect to extended services is moderated by value attainment and positive mood. More specifically, the satisfaction‐loyalty association is strongest when consumers perceive that the service does not help them in the attainment of instrumental values and when low positive moods are experienced. In contrast, the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty is weakest when the service helps consumers in attaining their values and when they experience a positive mood. This signifies that value attainment and positive mood do indeed play an additional role in explaining customer loyalty. An important implication is that value attainment and positive mood may function as a buffer for diminishing loyalty as a result of lower levels of service satisfaction.
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Curtis A. Knapp and Jennifer Oliver
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the merits of occupancy planning as a means for improving strategic decisions regarding real estate portfolios and strengthening…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the merits of occupancy planning as a means for improving strategic decisions regarding real estate portfolios and strengthening the credibility of corporate real estate (CRE) professionals.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors' extensive experience is combined with survey results and case examples of how two global companies are benefiting from occupancy planning.
Findings
Occupancy planning programs lead to better data and forecasting, which in turn create a more accurate portfolio‐wide view and improved space utilization.
Originality/value
This article demonstrates the link between effective occupancy planning and sound CRE decisions.