bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Intangible project management assets as determinants of competitive advantage
Authors: Mathur Gita , Jugdev Kam , Shing Fung Tak 
Published: June 2007

PurposeTo explore the role of intangible project management assets in achievement of competitive advantage from the project management process through it being valuable, rare, inimitable, and having organizational support.Design/methodology/approachData were collected on tangible and intangible project management process assets and competitive characteristics of the project management process using an online survey of North American Project Management Institute™ members. Three key tangible asset factors, one intangible asset factor, and three competitive characteristics were identified using exploratory factor analysis. The relationship between these project management assets and project management process characteristics are examined using multivariate analysis.FindingsIntangible project management assets are found to be a source of competitive advantage, directly and through a mediating role in the relationship between tangible project management assets and the competitive characteristics of the project management process.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the importance of developing intangible project management assets, in addition to investment in tangible project management assets, to achieve competitive advantage from the process.Research limitations/implicationsThis was an exploratory study. The authors expect to further develop the instrument, refine the model and constructs, and test it with a larger sample.Originality/valueFew papers have used the Resource Based View lens and applied it to project management. This paper contributes to the literature on the Resource Based View of the firm and to an improved understanding of project management as a source of competitive advantage.
An uncertain future
Authors: Clott Christopher 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThis is a preliminary study that explores the nature of decision making in the implementation process through an examination of environmental scanning and interpretation activities of project managers tasked with implementing offshore outsourcing activities.Design/methodology/approachThe model utilized for this study suggests that individual scanning is filtered through distinct organizational types and control that will influence implementation efforts to find solutions to major issues associated with offshore outsourcing. The methodology uses a semi‐structured detailed set of interviews to gather data.FindingsThe preliminary findings suggest that project managers entrusted with implementing complex offshoring arrangements to achieve strategic short term cost reduction goals receive relatively little scanning information from senior management to guide them, must learn by doing, and are confronted with multiple external challenges centering on culture and communication with individuals performing work offshore that they were not initially prepared for.Research limitations/implicationsSuggestions for future research include expanding the study to complete comparative interviews with senior management scanning, comparisons between industries, comparisons between client and provider organizations and comparisons between organizational countries of origin.Practical implicationsPractical implications include a more accurate definition of decision‐making and implementation of offshore outsourcing by individuals and how this impacts organizations.Originality/valueThe study fulfills a void in organizational literature by examining scanning and interpretation as performed by mid‐level managers.
A preliminary study of electronic surveys as a means to enhance management accounting research
Authors: Al‐Omiri Mohammed 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThis paper addresses the use of the electronic survey method with particular reference to management accounting research.Design/methodology/approachA total of 222 questionnaires were used, where 182 questionnaires were sent with an accompanying invitation letter to participate in a pre‐paid envelope. There were posted directly to the respondents. The remainder were administered as an email survey.FindingsThe results of the email survey have been compared with that of the traditional postal survey and the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two methods are discussed and explored. The findings show that email and Internet facilitated surveys can yield higher returns at a lower cost per returned questionnaire. Moreover, such surveys are also a relatively inexpensive and expedient means of communicating with respondents, while facilitating a convenient way of correcting misunderstandings and following up on missing data.Originality/valueDrawing on the literature, strategies such as email surveys and other Web‐based activities will enrich the data and increase response rates. The value of the paper is to draw attention to such methods, which will help overcome problem of low response rates associated with traditional postal surveys.
Controlling working time in the ward and on the line
Authors: Wise Sarah , Smith Chris , Valsecchi Raffaella , Mueller Frank , Gabe Jonathan 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to assess whether tele‐nursing in Scotland (NHS24), when compared with traditional face‐to‐face nursing, facilitates greater employee control over working time and therefore a potentially better work‐life balance.Design/methodology/approachThe article draws on evidence from two independent research projects; a survey of 64 ward nurses and midwives, which involved face‐to‐face interviews; and a field study of tele‐nursing in a large site in Scotland, using interviews and observations of 15 nurse advisors or tele‐nurses.FindingsThree elements of work organisation are central in shaping nurses' working hours and their control over the balance between their work and their home life: the management of working hours; the degree of mutual dependency of nurses within teams; and the nature of patient care.Research limitations/implicationsThe two pieces of research reported offer a strong basis for comparative study. However, the two projects were designed independently, though research questions overlapped and one researcher conducted the field work in both settings; there is an imbalance in the number of interviews conducted in each setting; and the nurse advisor interviewees are of the same clinical grade, whereas a variety of grades and clinical areas are represented among the hospital nurse interviewees.Originality/valueThis is the first study of work‐life balance amongst tele‐nurses. The research demonstrates that call centre work has rationalised, depersonalised and yet enabled more “control” by nurses over their work‐life balance, while paradoxically offering less autonomy in their task environment. In conventional work settings professional values make it difficult for nurses to disengage from the workplace.
Work‐life balance: contrasting managers and workers in an MNC
Authors: Moore Fiona 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the workers and managers of an Anglo‐German MNC, focusing on how each group attempts to maintain an acceptable work‐life balance.Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on a two‐year‐long ethnographic study, including in‐depth interviews, participant‐observation and archival research.FindingsAlthough the bulk of the company's work‐life balance initiatives focus on the managers, and the managers display greater loyalty to the company, the workers are better able to achieve work‐life balance. Neither group displays a more positive attitude to their work; however, the managers focus more on achieving status and the workers on personal satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings challenge assertions that “flexible” working practices are good for work‐life balance, that managers are better able to maintain a good work‐life balance than workers, and that the development of an appropriate work‐life balance policy assists in ensuring company loyalty and positive attitudes to work.Practical implicationsThis article suggests that flexible working may contribute to poor work‐life balance, and that success may be less an issue of developing work‐life balance policies and more of encouraging a healthy attitude towards work.Originality/valueThis article focuses on the occupationally stratified aspects of work‐life balance, comparing managers and workers within an organisation.
Practical advice for weeding in small academic libraries
Authors: Handis Michael W. 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present information on how to organize and carry out a weeding project in an academic library.Design/methodology/approachDescribes how the weeding project was organized and its various phases.FindingsArgues that weeding is appropriate in small, academic non‐research libraries and discusses a methodology for approaching it.Originality/valueProvides the academic librarian with a road map as to how to handle a weeding project.
Perceived organizational support and organizational commitment
Authors: Aubé Caroline , Rousseau Vincent , Morin Estelle M. 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThe aim of this article is to deepen the understanding of the relationships between perceived organizational support (POS) and the dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e. affective, normative and continuance commitment), and to test the moderating effect of locus of control and work autonomy.Design/methodology/approachThis study, based on a cross‐sectional research design, was conducted in an organizational setting. The sample includes 249 prison employees. The data were collected through questionnaires.FindingsThe results show that POS is positively and significantly correlated with affective and normative commitment. In addition, the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses support the moderating effect of locus of control and work autonomy with regard to the relationship between POS and affective commitment.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the importance of providing support to employees in order to foster their affective and normative commitment to the organization. Moreover, the results provide evidence in favour of managerial interventions aimed at enhancing perceived control and, consequently, minimizing the negative effects of a lack of organizational support on employees' affective commitment.Originality/valueIn addition to taking into account three dimensions of organizational commitment, this study underlines personality and job design factors that can modulate the relationship between POS and organizational commitment.
Artistry for the strategist
Authors: Austen Johnson Hilary 
Published: June 2007

Purpose
– Artistry has been suggested by many authors to be a characteristic of exemplary practitioners in any discipline; however, few have defined artistry, or described how it might be employed and developed. The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of artistry in practice and how it can be developed.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper explains the relevance of artistry to contemporary practice. The problems faced by today
'
s practitioners are often filled with features such as ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity. The paper suggests that, in the face of these features, practitioners may not be able to rely on historical solutions however powerful these may be. Artistry is explained as an alternative capability that allows practitioners to work effectively with difficult problems.

Findings
– Artistry is not an exclusive talent. Instead, it is a learned, emergent capability that allows practitioners to integrate mastery and originality as the work. This integration is made possible through the development of a sophisticated knowledge system.

Originality/value
– By revealing what artistic practice is and how it can be achieved, this paper gives practitioners a route to a creative and effective approach to practice.
The second road of thought: how design offers strategy a new toolkit
Authors: Golsby-Smith Tony 
Published: June 2007

Purpose
– Traditional approaches to strategy have failed to deliver the hoped for benefits of transformation in too many cases. They do not engage people and they do not foster inventive thinking. This paper aims to declare an exciting new alternative called “strategic conversations” based on the symbiotic disciplines of design and conversation.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper develops the new approach through the twin arms of theory and practice. The theory is that the Western world bought the wrong thinking system from Aristotle. It has become seduced by the art of analytics and consequently strategy has become an analytic art. However, Aristotle
'
s art for transformation was not analytics but rhetoric which is the ancient forebear of design. Strategy in ancient Greece was an art of rhetoric not an analytic science. The paper pursues how a strategic process built on rhetoric would work based on a major case study from the Australian Navy.

Findings
– The case study illustrates the practical success of this new approach. It is one of hundreds of such assignments that the author
'
s firm has accomplished. The success is measured against three key factors: a growth in agency or shared intent across multiple players; development of possibilities or new options for actions; and the emergence of a community of action.

Practical implications
– This approach suggests a major shift in the strategy process, and in leadership skills, towards design and conversation.

Originality/value
– The core theory underpinning the paper of the “Two roads to truth” is stunning and broadly applicable approach to thinking skills. A very small group of academics understand the significance of rhetoric, but this paper applies it much more broadly to business and organizations, in a pioneering way.
Possibility thinking: lessons from breakthrough engineering
Authors: Friedel Robert , Liedtka Jeanne 
Published: June 2007

Purpose
– The ability to see new possibilities is fundamental to creating innovative designs – but what do we know about state-of-the-art possibility thinking? The purpose of this paper is to look at this topic, which the strategy field has largely ignored in favor of analytics, by examining a selection of breakthrough engineering projects. Out of these, the paper aims to draw eight different ways of illuminating new possibilities – challenging, connecting, visualizing, collaborating, harmonizing, improvising, re-orienting, and playing – and discuss what each of these might look like if applied to business strategy.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper explores eight different engineering projects that are regarded as especially innovative. It then explores the lessons of these for business strategists.

Findings
– The paper finds that innovative business strategy development has many parallels with engineering approaches.

Practical Implications
– Some of the advice resulting from this perspective includes: take an absolute industry “truth” and turn it on its head; look outside the boundaries of your usual world; put the numbers aside and get some images down on paper; find a partner and work together; push yourself beyond the “workable” and try to get to “intriguing;” act as if necessity truly was the mother of invention; formulate a different definition of the problem; and go out and conduct some low cost experiments instead of forming a committee.

Originality/value
– The creative front-end of the process of innovation is revealed to be more than a mysterious “black box.” Instead, eight systematic ways to generate possibilities, using concrete examples from both the world of engineering and business, are described to help managers begin to see new possibilities for themselves.
Green community entrepreneurship: creative destruction in the social economy
Authors: Gliedt Travis , Parker Paul 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the process of green community entrepreneurship in the social economy by studying creative responses among environmental non‐profit organizations to an external fiscal shock.Design/methodology/approachA total of 12 managers of environmental non‐profit organizations were interviewed to identify and classify their responses to a single external fiscal shock. These organizations are connected by a social capital network, their national association, Green Communities Canada. The social economy and ecological economics literatures are reviewed to construct a definition of green community entrepreneurship. Interview respondents identified factors which facilitate this process.FindingsThe need for green community entrepreneurship was driven by two interrelated issues (a loss of external government funding, and an associated market collapse for residential energy audits), and facilitated by three main factors (external social capital network flows, internal human capital stocks, and strategic partnerships).Research limitations/implicationsFuture research should examine other social economy organizations to determine if the dynamics discovered here are unique to green community organizations delivering climate change programs or apply more generally. Policy implications include the potential for joint project creation and investment utilizing green community entrepreneurship to integrate social and ecological economy objectives.Originality/valueA new conceptual framework for green community entrepreneurship is developed.
Modelling of electrostatic accelerator tubes
Authors: Trowbridge C.W. , Hyder H.R.McK. 
Published: June 2007

PurposeTo investigate the effectiveness of a simple analytic model for the calculation of electrostatic fields and optical properties of particle beams in accelerator tubes.Design/methodology/approachThe analytic model is derived by superimposing the solution obtained from two co‐axial circular apertures. Potentials and fields derived from the model are compared to solutions based on finite element analysis together with first, third, and fifth order optical parameters and aberration. More realistic models are also compared.FindingsIt is shown that the model is capable of capturing many of the ion optical effects produced in small electrostatic accelerator tubes. Even for more realistic tube models the basic optical parameters, first and third order, are sufficiently accurate to allow a preliminary design to be achieved.Originality/valueThe work demonstrates that the first stages of the optical design of accelerator tubes can be rapidly achieved by analytic means which then provide good starting parameters for a fuller optimisation carried out by advanced numerical methods. The results also serve as a benchmark for numerical methods.
Efficient post‐processing with the integral equation method
Authors: Hafla Wolfgang , Buchau André , Rucker Wolfgang M. , Weinläder Andreas , Bardakcioglu Antoni 
Published: June 2007

PurposeTo show for magnetostatic problems, how the numerically expensive post‐processing with the integral equation method (IEM) can be accelerated with the fast multipole method (FMM) and how this approach can be used to generate post‐processing data that allow for drawing streamlines.Design/methodology/approachIn general, post‐processing with the IEM requires computation of the induced field due to solution variables, the field of permanent magnets and of free currents. For each of the three parts an approach to apply the FMM. With these approaches, large numbers of evaluation points can be used which are needed when streamlines are to be drawn. It is shown that this requires specially tailored meshes.FindingsPost‐processing time can be largely reduced by applying the FMM. Additional memory requirements are acceptable even for high numbers of evaluation points. In order to obtain streamline breaks at material discontinuities, flat volume elements can be used.Research limitations/implicationsThe presented application of the FMM is applicable only to static problems.Practical implicationsApplication of the FMM during post‐processing allows for a large number of evaluation points which are often required to visualize electromagnetic fields. This approach in combination with specially tailored meshes allows for drawing of streamlines.Originality/valueThe FMM is used not only to solve the field problem, but also for post‐processing which requires using the FMM to compute induced magnetic fields as well as the field due to permanent magnets and free currents. This leads to a speedup which allows for a large number of evaluation points which can be used, e.g. for high‐precision drawing of streamlines.
Driving a coupled field‐circuit problem
Authors: Suuriniemi Saku , Kangas Jari , Kettunen Lauri 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThe paper addresses various ways of driving a magneto‐quasi‐static coupled field‐circuit problems, starting with the underlying assumptions of this problem class. It focuses on problem consistency, supporting both conceptual understanding, and translation into software.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proceeds from a precisely defined problem class and analyze its consistency with homology theory.FindingsPrecise notion of “driving a problem,” extensive discussion of modeling assumptions and decisions, and classification and consistency analysis of various driving methods.Practical implicationsHelps modelers systematically pose consistent coupled field‐circuit problems. The computation of homology groups can be automated to help pose problems and detect consistency problems.Originality/valueStarting from the basic underlying assumptions, the paper summarizes logically the application of homology to consistency analysis. The style is tutorial for modelers, with numerous particular cases.
Operational factors affecting strategic partnering in UK social housing
Authors: Jones Keith , Kaluarachchi Yamuna 
Published: June 2007

PurposeThis paper seeks to report the findings of a research project that observed and monitored the performance of a four‐year strategic partnering agreement between a consortium of Registered Social Landlords (AMPHION) and their contracting partner as they procured approximately 800 new houses, across 33 separate development projects.Design/methodology/approachThe research project used a combination of in‐depth case studies (of individual housing projects and the relationship between the client group and their main contractor) supplemented by quantitative measures of project performance (Key Performance Indicators) and integrated workshops to study the operational factors that affected the success of the partnering initiative.FindingsThe paper concludes that failures to manage expectations within and between partners undermined confidence and trust in the partnering process.Research limitations/implicationsWhilst strategic partnering within the UK social housing sector was immature at the time of the study, the lessons learned have implications for other organisations considering strategic partnering relationships.Originality/valueEvidence is provided from a long‐term study of strategic partnering which explores the dynamic nature of strategic partnering and its impact on success. Very few studies have addressed this issue.