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The purpose of this paper is to examine the large negative impact command and control thinking has had on the Alberta provincial healthcare system. The assumptions of this thinking and devastating consequences for health services delivery in Alberta and across Canada, are contrasted with Deming's system thinking.

The author has been following and writing about the use of the command and control management model in Alberta healthcare for 20 years, treating its expanding use in the system as an experiment in the effectiveness of this model in improving system performance.

The assumptions of command and control thinking combined with a limited enumerative, as opposed to analytic understanding of the system, has largely manufactured the present crisis. Equally important, systemic issues continue to worsen the system until the command and control model will get replaced.

There is a comparison of two distinct models of management, management style, and the linking of Deming's enumerative and analytic studies to these models. An analysis of healthcare system evolution over two decades is detailed on how the command and control model of professional management has failed and why.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the application and usefulness of quality function deployment (QFD) in large‐scale system redesign, such as the system of social services serving a large urban municipality. Over the past ten years, the author has experimented in applying QFD to the problem of large‐scale social system redesign. With each application, lessons have been learned that have increased the usefulness of the technique. The paper concludes with a case study detailing the most recent application of QFD in the redesign of services to the deaf and hard of hearing to highlight the how the technique is currently being applied. Traditional tools and approaches used to support large‐scale system redesign, such as program evaluation, become stretched beyond their capacity when applied to complex systems. QFD has proved itself capable of handling this complexity, effectively supporting the redesign of these complex systems. It has further demonstrated its usefulness as a framework within which traditional tools may regain their relevance. Governments, social agencies, not for profit agencies, like other organizations, are all seeking to do more with less. Recently, these efforts have emphasized taking a systemic approach – moving away from the evaluation of a single agency or program to evaluating how the combination of agencies and programs (the system) work together to achieve social outcomes. The ability of QFD to handle the complexity of such a task makes it the ideal approach to addressing these types of problems. The application of QFD to the redesign of complex social systems indicates it may prove equally useful to applications in related fields including organizational design and community planning.

The purpose of this paper is to present a capability maturity model (CMM) developed to implement continuous improvement in small and medium scale construction companies (SMSCC) in Nigeria.

A multi-strategy approach involving qualitative studies of SMSCC in Nigeria was conducted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively selected construction experts in Nigeria to identify variables essential for continuous improvement in SMSCC. Data collected were thematically analysed using NVIVO. Subsequently, a system thinking approach is employed to design and develop the CMM for implementing continuous improvement SMSCC, by exploring possible relationships between the variables established.

CMM provided a five-level approach for the inclusion of investigated variables such as team performance; culture; structure; post-project reviews, financial risk management, waste management policy and cost control. These variables are factors leading to continuous improvement in SMSCC, implementable within a six to seven and a half years’ timeline.

The system thinking model revealed cogent archetypes in the form of reinforcing loops that can be applied in developing the performance of SMSCC. Continuous improvement is feasible. However, it takes time to implement. Further longitudinal studies on the cost of implementing continuous improvement through CMM a knowledge transfer project can be initiated.

A methodical strategy for enhancing the effectiveness and operations of SMSCC in developing countries can be extracted from the causal loop diagram and the CMM.

Circular economy (CE) has gained the attention of the business community with the promise of several trillions of dollars to be gained from finding productive uses for waste materials, and developing new business models focused on extending and reimagining the useful life of products. Industrial symbiosis (IS) involves the shared management of resources among multiple firms, most often within some geographic proximity. IS is particularly focused on the reuse of secondary materials, such as industrial by-products, for which conventional recycling does not exist. IS and CE represent a radical reconceptualization of business models from individual to collective competitive advantage with private and public benefits. IS has been recognized as a novel strategy for businesses and regions interested in implementing the CE. In this chapter, we explore the conditions and circumstances in which IS could play a pivotal role in increasing circularity and sustainability in diverse supply networks.

With much of corporate America still taking the staff‐reduction route to boosting profitability, the issue of executive pay has become a focus in the news. So has the issue of managing major downsizing efforts. Facts and figures on IBM and AT&T for 1996 tell an interesting story.

This paper aims to address the question whether or not quality‐driven organisations have, in practice, tended to adjust their performance appraisal systems to integrate total quality management (TQM) requirements.

To do so, the findings of an initial literature survey suggested the combined use of quantitative and qualitative methods for empirical research. The quantitative element consists of a postal questionnaire survey of 64 UK‐based, quality‐driven organisations on the topic of performance appraisal in the context of TQM. Key informants from ten of these organisations were subsequently interviewed in order to gather detailed information on the reasons behind their initial responses.

The results indicated that only a minority of the respondents were satisfied with their TQM programmes. But this comparative lack of success did not lead them to eliminate performance appraisal altogether, as advocated by Deming and others because of the role of systems‐level causes of performance variation.

One important question concerns the notion (expounded in much of the quality literature) that a vast proportion of the variance in individual performance is caused by systems‐level features. There is, however, little hard evidence for this view.

By acquiring the relevant knowledge and understanding of contextually‐appropriate performance appraisal and management, practitioners would be able to translate and mediate TQM requirements into performance appraisal criteria to maintain the integrity of organisational change initiatives aimed at long‐term business excellence.

The research provides a starting‐point for both TQM scholars and managers, and it can serve as a road‐map and a challenge to quality‐driven organisations.

The recession the US economy entered in December of 2007 is considered to be the most severe downturn the country has experienced since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate reached as high as 10.1% in October 2009 – the highest we have seen since the 1982 recession. In this chapter, we examine the severity of this recession compared to those in the past by examining worker flows into and out of unemployment taking into account changes in the demographic structure of the population. We identify the most vulnerable groups of this recession by dissagregating the workforce by age, gender, and race. We find that adjusting for the aging of the US labor force increases the severity of this recession. Our results indicate that the increase in the unemployment rate is driven to a larger extent by the lack of hiring (low outflows), but flows into unemployment are still important for understanding unemployment rate dynamics (they are not as acyclical as some literature suggests) and differences in unemployment rates across demographic groups. We find that this is indeed a “mancession,” as men face higher job separation probabilities, lower job finding probabilities, and, as a result, higher unemployment rates than women. Lastly, there is some evidence that blacks suffered more than whites (again, this difference is particularly pronounced for men).

The purpose of this paper is to apply experimentalist framework to understand self-optimizing efforts within German manufacturing multinationals. Benefits and characteristic obstacles to diffusion are discussed. Mechanisms for combatting obstacles are outlined.

Qualitative case studies, interview-based research, processual and reflexive action theory are applied to the governance of manufacturing-based multinational enterprises.

Uncertainty is an ineradicable element in multinational companies (MNC) FDI operations. Self-optimizing systems, many with an experimentalist character, are a pervasive form of response to this uncertainty. Obstacles to the diffusion and effective operation of self-optimization are chronic and, indeed, endogenously generated. But as a result, so are superordinate efforts to undercut the continuous emergence of obstacles. MNC development is, thus, characterized by continuous self-recomposition.

Implication is that managers and management theorists should focus as much on the management of dynamic process and learning that results in the recomposition of institutional rules as they do on the constraining and enabling effects of those rules.

Superordinate mechanisms for the disruption of incipient insulation and exclusion are crucial for the implementation of successful experimentalist (learning) systems.

Transparency, stakeholder involvement in MNC governance processes has positive implications for learning, innovation and competitiveness.

This paper presents the application of experimentalist learning theory to MNC global governance.

This month's Stack is comprised of two books on complexity theory, two on IBM's Lou Gerstner, and an odd man out on straight strategy.