This article describes a strategic Learning & Development (L&D) initiative that has begun in the UK giving the “story so far” on how the approach has been radically altered…
Abstract
Purpose
This article describes a strategic Learning & Development (L&D) initiative that has begun in the UK giving the “story so far” on how the approach has been radically altered.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper details the setting up of the AXA Academy. This model was driven by one of our strategic objectives to enable us to be an employer of choice and develop our staff to a more consistent standard.
Findings
Lessons learned so far include: team members need to be available, for approximately two or three days a month to ensure that the project gets speedily off the ground; and the members of the project teams need to be fully motivated and self starters.
Originality/value
In the financial protection and wealth management industry, there is a real need for consistency in approach and outcomes and the Academy will deliver this.
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M. Alshawi and I. Faraj
There have been major efforts to develop the technology for integrated construction environments and the mechanisms needed to improve the collaboration between construction…
Abstract
There have been major efforts to develop the technology for integrated construction environments and the mechanisms needed to improve the collaboration between construction professionals. Evidently, the development and usage of such an environment is a complicated task. The two issues that can be among the main contributors to this are: the development of the technology and its effective implementation. These two issues are addressed separately in this paper. The paper first explains the approaches of sharing project information, followed by a review of a recent project in this area, the result of which is a distributed integrated construction environment based on the industry foundation class (IFC), capable of supporting a number of construction applications. This environment is capable of supporting a construction team to work collaboratively over the internet. It then discusses the difficulties facing the successful implementation of such environments in construction organisations. This is addressed within the context of two management models for effective implementation of IT: the resource‐based model and the Nolan model.
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The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is epitomized by a wide range of project business lines, different project scopes, unique client requirements, and a…
Abstract
The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is epitomized by a wide range of project business lines, different project scopes, unique client requirements, and a rapidly changing automation technology. This current scenario requires a constant transfer of project data among the various professionals representing different specializations, project phases and interests. The implementation of improved computer techniques such as object‐oriented programming and CAD reduces fragmentation and enhances the efficiency of integrating project data through all stages of generation, sharing, maintaining, and updating. This reduced fragmentation will assist in bridging the gaps between and within the project phases, thereby increasing the competitiveness of the AEC industry. This paper presents different issues related to the existing fragmentation in the AEC industry and the challenges and approaches to achieve a meaningful and smooth integration. The paper describes the development of ODCSI—an object‐oriented design/construction system for integrating CAD and construction software applications. The system architecture captures design data in an object‐oriented project model and acts as an intelligent CAD interface. In the hierarchy of object‐oriented classes and subclasses, the design data are inherited; hence all functional, geometrical, structural, construction management, and construction engineering functions are shared across class boundaries. These design data are used as the input to various computer‐based construction software applications, hence providing seamless project integration.
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Ryan Raffaelli and Mary Ann Glynn
Leaders are important social actors in organizations, centrally involved in establishing and maintaining institutional values, a view that was articulated by Philip Selznick…
Abstract
Leaders are important social actors in organizations, centrally involved in establishing and maintaining institutional values, a view that was articulated by Philip Selznick (1957) nearly a half-century ago, but often overlooked in institutionalists’ accounts. Our objective is to build on Selznick’s seminal work to investigate the value proposition of leadership consistent with institutional theory. We examine public interview transcripts from 52 senior executives and discover that leaders’ conceptualizations of their entities align with the archetypes of organization (i.e., economic, hierarchical, and power oriented) and institution (i.e., ideological, creative and collectivist) and cohere around a set of relevant values. Extrapolating from this, we advance a theoretical framework of the process whereby leaders’ claims function as transformational mechanisms of value infusion in the institutionalization of organizations.
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Poonam Oberoi and Fatiha Naoui-Outini
This study aims to investigate purchasing manager’s core competencies during supplier collaboration and explain the mechanism through which these competencies can affect…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate purchasing manager’s core competencies during supplier collaboration and explain the mechanism through which these competencies can affect purchasing firm’s innovative performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted 22 semidirective interviews with managers in diverse functions such as purchasing, supply-chain management and product development across industries and across nations (mostly India and France), which allow to formulate the propositions.
Findings
Through open coding, the authors identify three path-dependent, causally ambiguous and socially complex core competencies of purchasing managers: relational and emotional, communicational and creative and cognitive competencies; and through axial coding, the authors explain how these intangible core competencies support implementation of market orientation. To provide supporting arguments for the propositions, the authors use the resource-based view of the firm and dynamic capability theory.
Research limitations/implications
The first theoretical contribution of this study is focusing on the impact of competency–capability dyad in terms of performance. The second theoretical contribution of this study is to identify market orientation as a flexible and dynamic managerial capability.
Practical implications
The first managerial contribution is that the authors have identified and described three sets of a purchasing manager’s core competencies during supplier collaboration that affect the firm’s performance: relational and emotional, communicational and creative and cognitive competencies. The second managerial contribution relates to the mechanism through which purchasing managers’ core competencies during supplier collaboration affect firms’ outcomes.
Originality/value
The value of the results is in the explanation of the mechanism, i.e. market orientation dynamic capability, through which the competencies of purchasing managers can affect purchasing firm’s innovative performance.
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Peter Gilbert and Theodore Stickley
This article aims to focus on the role of lived‐experience in mental health education and practice as perceived by undergraduate students.
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to focus on the role of lived‐experience in mental health education and practice as perceived by undergraduate students.
Design/methodology/approach
A small qualitative survey was conducted among Social Work and Mental Health Nursing students who were asked about their own experiences of mental ill health and its possible impact on their practice.
Findings
The article is contextualised in the concept of “Wounded Healers” as a number of students had previously (and were currently) experiencing mental distress.
Originality/value
There is a strong sense that students believe that their personal experiences inform their practice, and that this may assist them in empathising constructively with service users, within the boundaries of a professional relationship.
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Nadeesha Abeysekara, Haijun Wang and Duminda Kuruppuarachchi
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which firms in the Sri Lankan apparel industry practice supply-chain-resilience (SCRes) capabilities and examine whether…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which firms in the Sri Lankan apparel industry practice supply-chain-resilience (SCRes) capabilities and examine whether SCRes practices affect the performance and competitive advantage of those firms.
Design/methodology/approach
Uses a conceptual framework to assess SCRes capabilities and to investigate their impact on firm performance and competitive advantage. Uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to quantitatively analyze questionnaire data collected from 89 Sri Lankan apparel manufacturers.
Findings
In the presence of SCRes capabilities in the apparel industry, this study finds that supply-chain risk-management culture positively affects SCRes capabilities, namely re-engineering, agility and collaboration. Agility shows the greatest influence on firm performance and competitive advantage.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to the apparel industry sector (a manufacturing sector) in Sri Lanka to maintain the uniformity of the research constructs.
Practical implications
Results imply that management should pay more attention to enhancing SCRMC and prioritizing their SCRes capabilities.
Originality/value
This study is the first to assess SCRes capabilities in the apparel-manufacturing sector and examine the impact of SCRes capabilities on firm performance and competitive advantage.
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Jeroen Bemelmans, Hans Voordijk, Bart Vos and Geert Dewulf
The purpose of this paper is to explore both the antecedents and the impact of a buying company having preferred customer status. Specific attention is paid to an, until now…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore both the antecedents and the impact of a buying company having preferred customer status. Specific attention is paid to an, until now, unexplored antecedent: the buyer’s maturity as perceived by the supplier. In terms of impact, the focus is on the link between obtaining preferred customer status from a specific supplier and the buyer’s satisfaction with its collaboration with that supplier.
Design/methodology/approach
Two case studies in the Dutch construction industry were conducted and, in each case, representatives of three companies were interviewed: one supplier plus two of its customers, one of them having a preferred status. As such, a total of four dyadic matched-pair inter-organizational relationships have been investigated.
Findings
First, it is beneficial for buying companies to obtain preferred customer status at their suppliers, since this will have a positive impact on the buying company’s satisfaction with the collaboration. Second, if buying companies aim to obtain preferred customer status at their suppliers it is important that they are perceived as mature in managing supplier relationships.
Practical implications
Although buying companies and suppliers often both want to increase their mutual business, there can be many factors that impede this. The framework presented in this research can help companies overcoming these impediments.
Originality/value
This is the first study exploring the impact of being a preferred customer on the buyer-supplier relationship in the construction industry.
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Yuan-Chieh Chang, Wen-Hong Chiu, Jian-Hang Wang and Min-Jun Teng
The paper proposes customer involvement can be considered an organization-level construct of knowledge creation in the new process development. Specifically, the paper evaluates…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper proposes customer involvement can be considered an organization-level construct of knowledge creation in the new process development. Specifically, the paper evaluates three distinct organizational practices as knowledge antecedents – competitor orientation, social network and internal coordination – that can facilitate the adoption of customer involvement in the process innovation development.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper empirically tests this theory for 2,000 firms that are stratification sampled from a population of 33,844 Taiwanese firms, and a data set of 170 valid questionnaires is collected. The questionnaire was mainly modified from a Kim and Kim (2010) measure which was designed based on the 3rd edition of the Oslo Manual OECD/Eurostat 2005. The concept of customer involvement in new service development proposed by Alam (2002) was also applied to the questionnaire.
Findings
(1) The antecedents of customer involvement, which include competitor orientation, external social networks and internal coordination, function as a determinant to nourish customer involvement. (2) Customer involvement significantly positively mediates the relationship between knowledge antecedents and new process performance. (3) Customer involvement is a crucial knowledge creation for improving the new process innovation performance in manufacturing firms.
Originality/value
Two basic tenets of theory building serve as the foundation of the model in this paper. First, research on customer involvement is augmented by showing that customer involvement can emerge as a shared perception among organizational members that is distinct from individual-level involvement. Moreover, customer involvement in process innovation can help firms manage their knowledge and further enhance firm performance. Second, the knowledge management model provides a key lens through which researchers can take a process-oriented view that focuses on customer involvement as a unique capability that firms can develop in process innovation.