Total quality management in English language teaching:a case study in Turkish higher education

The need to improve the management of language learning organizations in the light of the trend toward mass higher education and of the use of English as a world language was the starting point of this thesis. The thesis aims to assess the relevance, adequacy and the relative success of Total Quality Management (TQM) as a management philosophy. Taking this empirical evidence a TQM-oriented management project in a Turkish Higher Education context, the thesis observes the consequences of a change of organizational culture, with specific reference to teachers' attitudes towards management. Both qualitative and quantitative devices are employed to plot change and the value of these devices for identifying such is considered. The main focus of the thesis is the Soft S's (Shared Values, Style, Staff and Skills) of an organization rather than the Hard S's (System, Structure, Strategy). The thesis is not concerned with the teaching and learning processes, though the PDCA cycle (the Action Research Cycle) did play a part in the project for both teachers and the researcher involved in this study of organizational development. Both before the management project was launched, and at the end of the research period, the external measurement devices (Harrison's Culture Specification Device and Hofstede's VSM) were used to describe the culture of the Centre. During the management project, internal measurement devices were used to record the change including middle-management style change (the researcher in this case). The time period chosen for this study was between September 1991 and June 1994. During this period, each device was administered twice within a specific time period, ranging from a year to 32 months.

The control of technological change in the motor industry:a case study

This thesis is based upon a case study of the introduction of automated production technologies at the Longbridge plant of British Leyland in the period 1978 to 1980.The investment in automation was part of an overall programme of modernization to manufacture the new 'Mini Metro' model. In the first Section of the thesis, the different theoretical perspectives on technological change are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed upon the social role of management as the primary controllers of technological change. Their actions are seen to be oriented towards the overall strategy of the firm, integrating the firm's competitive strategy with production methods and techniques.This analysis is grounded in an examination of British Leyland's strategies during the 1970s.. The greater part of the thesis deals with the efforts made by management to secure their strategic objectives in the process of technological change against the conflicting claims of their work-force. Examination of these efforts is linked to the development of industrial relations conflict at Longbridge and in British Leyland as a whole.Emphasis is placed upon the struggle between management in pursuit of their version of efficiency and the trade unions in defence of job controls and demarcations. The thesis concludes that the process of technological change in the motor industry is controlled by social forces,with the introduction of new technologies being closely intertwined with management!s political relations with the trade unions.

Strategic development of transport systems: a study of the physical constraints on planning processes

Investment in transport infrastructure can be highly sensitive to uncertainty. The scale and lead time of strategic transport programmes are such that they require continuing policy support and accurate forecasting. Delay, cost escalation and abandonment of projects often result if these conditions are not present. In Part One the physical characteristics of infrastructure are identified as a major constraint on planning processes. The extent to which strategies and techniques acknowledge these constraints is examined. A simple simulation model is developed to evaluate the effects on system development of variations in the scale and lead time of investments. In Part Two, two case studies of strategic infrastructure investment are analysed. The absence of a policy consensus for airport location was an important factor in the delayed resolution of the Third London Airport issue. In London itself, the traffic and environmental effects of major highway investment ultimately resulted in the abandonment of plans to construct urban motorways. In both cases, the infrastructure implications of alternative strategies are reviewed with reference to the problems of uncertainty. In conclusion, the scale of infrastructure investment is considered the most important of the constraints on the processes of transport planning. Adequate appraisal of such constraints may best be achieved by evaluation more closely aligned to policy objectives.

Organizational change and development:a case study in the Indian electricity market

Five principles for accommodating cultural nuances

An aspect-oriented and model-driven approach for managing dynamic variability

Constructing and executing distributed systems that can adapt to their operating context in order to sustain provided services and the service qualities are complex tasks. Managing adaptation of multiple, interacting services is particularly difficult since these services tend to be distributed across the system, interdependent and sometimes tangled with other services. Furthermore, the exponential growth of the number of potential system configurations derived from the variabilities of each service need to be handled. Current practices of writing low-level reconfiguration scripts as part of the system code to handle run time adaptation are both error prone and time consuming and make adaptive systems difficult to validate and evolve. In this paper, we propose to combine model driven and aspect oriented techniques to better cope with the complexities of adaptive systems construction and execution, and to handle the problem of exponential growth of the number of possible configurations. Combining these techniques allows us to use high level domain abstractions, simplify the representation of variants and limit the problem pertaining to the combinatorial explosion of possible configurations. In our approach we also use models at runtime to generate the adaptation logic by comparing the current configuration of the system to a composed model representing the configuration we want to reach. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Dynamic decision networks for decision-making in self-adaptive systems:a case study

Bayesian decision theory is increasingly applied to support decision-making processes under environmental variability and uncertainty. Researchers from application areas like psychology and biomedicine have applied these techniques successfully. However, in the area of software engineering and speci?cally in the area of self-adaptive systems (SASs), little progress has been made in the application of Bayesian decision theory. We believe that techniques based on Bayesian Networks (BNs) are useful for systems that dynamically adapt themselves at runtime to a changing environment, which is usually uncertain. In this paper, we discuss the case for the use of BNs, speci?cally Dynamic Decision Networks (DDNs), to support the decision-making of self-adaptive systems. We present how such a probabilistic model can be used to support the decision making in SASs and justify its applicability. We have applied our DDN-based approach to the case of an adaptive remote data mirroring system. We discuss results, implications and potential bene?ts of the DDN to enhance the development and operation of self-adaptive systems, by providing mechanisms to cope with uncertainty and automatically make the best decision.

Project risk management using multiple criteria decision-making technique and decision tree analysis:a case study of Indian oil refinery

This study proposes an integrated analytical framework for effective management of project risks using combined multiple criteria decision-making technique and decision tree analysis. First, a conceptual risk management model was developed through thorough literature review. The model was then applied through action research on a petroleum oil refinery construction project in the Central part of India in order to demonstrate its effectiveness. Oil refinery construction projects are risky because of technical complexity, resource unavailability, involvement of many stakeholders and strict environmental requirements. Although project risk management has been researched extensively, practical and easily adoptable framework is missing. In the proposed framework, risks are identified using cause and effect diagram, analysed using the analytic hierarchy process and responses are developed using the risk map. Additionally, decision tree analysis allows modelling various options for risk response development and optimises selection of risk mitigating strategy. The proposed risk management framework could be easily adopted and applied in any project and integrated with other project management knowledge areas.

Form follows function:model-driven engineering for clinical trials

We argue that, for certain constrained domains, elaborate model transformation technologies-implemented from scratch in general-purpose programming languages-are unnecessary for model-driven engineering; instead, lightweight configuration of commercial off-the-shelf productivity tools suffices. In particular, in the CancerGrid project, we have been developing model-driven techniques for the generation of software tools to support clinical trials. A domain metamodel captures the community's best practice in trial design. A scientist authors a trial protocol, modelling their trial by instantiating the metamodel; customized software artifacts to support trial execution are generated automatically from the scientist's model. The metamodel is expressed as an XML Schema, in such a way that it can be instantiated by completing a form to generate a conformant XML document. The same process works at a second level for trial execution: among the artifacts generated from the protocol are models of the data to be collected, and the clinician conducting the trial instantiates such models in reporting observations-again by completing a form to create a conformant XML document, representing the data gathered during that observation. Simple standard form management tools are all that is needed. Our approach is applicable to a wide variety of information-modelling domains: not just clinical trials, but also electronic public sector computing, customer relationship management, document workflow, and so on. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.

English in a global voluntary work context:a case study of spoken interaction and its implications for language pedagogy

This study analyses a sample of spoken interaction between a Japanese volunteer working for JICA (Japan International Co-operation Agency) and one of her co-workers in Jamaica. Details of the research context are provided, followed by a theoretical grounding of the project, which relates to publications in English as a Lingua Franca and related fields. In terms of methodology and epistemology, the research aligns with discourse analysis, specifically linguistic ethnography and interactional sociolinguistics. After presenting an an analysis of the spoken interaction based on these approaches, the resulting implications for language pedagogy are considered. This includes recommendations for specific aspects of language teaching and testing practice based on the research findings, which could be incorporated into a needs-driven localized pedagogy for future Japanese volunteers. These findings also carry significant implications for other contexts of language education, not only in terms of specific pedagogical practices but also regarding broader conceptions of language and communication.

Majestic Gamification:a case study in the adoption of a service innovation

Purpose: A case study is presented concerning a gamified awards system designed to encourage software users to explore a suite of tools, and to share their expertise level in profile pages. Majestic is a high-tech business based in the West Midlands (UK) w hich offers a Link Intelligence database using a Software as a Service (SaaS) business model. Customers leverage the database for tasks including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) by using a suite of web-based tools. Getting to know all the tools and how they can be deployed to good effect represents a considerable learning challenge, and Majestic were aware that. Design/methodology/approach: We present the development of Majestic Awards as a case study highlighting the most important design decisions. Then we reflect on the development process as an example of innovation adoption, thereby identifying resources and cu ltura l factors which were critical in ensuring the success of the project. Findings: The gamified awards system makes learning the tools an enjoyable, explorative experience. Success factors included identifying a clear business goal, the process/ project f it, senior management buy in, and identifying the knowledge and resources to resolve t echnical issues. Originality/value: Prior to gamification of the system, only the most expert users regu larly utilized all the tools. The user base is now more knowl edgable about the system and some users choose to use the system to publicize their expertise.

Practice based learning approaches in collaborative design and engineering education:a case study investigation into the benefits of a crossdisciplinary practice based learning strategy

This study explores the ongoing pedagogical development of a number of undergraduate design and engineering programmes in the United Kingdom. Observations and data have been collected over several cohorts to bring a valuable perspective to the approaches piloted across two similar university departments while trialling a number of innovative learning strategies. In addition to the concurrent institutional studies the work explores curriculum design that applies the principles of Co-Design, multidisciplinary and trans disciplinary learning, with both engineering and product design students working alongside each other through a practical problem solving learning approach known as the CDIO learning initiative (Conceive, Design Implement and Operate) [1]. The study builds on previous work presented at the 2010 EPDE conference: The Effect of Personality on the Design Team: Lessons from Industry for Design Education [2]. The subsequent work presented in this paper applies the findings to mixed design and engineering team based learning, building on the insight gained through a number of industrial process case studies carried out in current design practice. Developments in delivery also aligning the CDIO principles of learning through doing into a practice based, collaborative learning experience and include elements of the TRIZ creative problem solving technique [3]. The paper will outline case studies involving a number of mixed engineering and design student projects that highlight the CDIO principles, combined with an external industrial design brief. It will compare and contrast the learning experience with that of a KTP derived student project, to examine an industry based model for student projects. In addition key areas of best practice will be presented, and student work from each mode will be discussed at the conference.

CloudMPL:a domain specific language for describing management policies for an autonomic cloud infrastructure

To benefit from the advantages that Cloud Computing brings to the IT industry, management policies must be implemented as a part of the operation of the Cloud. Among others, for example, the specification of policies can be used for the management of energy to reduce the cost of running the IT system or also for security policies while handling privacy issues of users. As cloud platforms are large, manual enforcement of policies is not scalable. Hence, autonomic approaches for management policies have recently received a considerable attention. These approaches allow specification of rules that are executed via rule-engines. The process of rules creation starts by the interpretation of the policies drafted by high-rank managers. Then, technical IT staff translate such policies to operational activities to implement them. Such process can start from a textual declarative description and after numerous steps terminates in a set of rules to be executed on a rule engine. To simplify the steps and to bridge the considerable gap between the declarative policies and executable rules, we propose a domain-specific language called CloudMPL. We also design a method of automated transformation of the rules captured in CloudMPL to the popular rule-engine Drools. As the policies are changed over time, code generation will reduce the time required for the implementation of the policies. In addition, using a declarative language for writing the specifications is expected to make the authoring of rules easier. We demonstrate the use of the CloudMPL language into a running example extracted from a management energy consumption case study.

Enterprise management and ERP development:case study of Zoomlion using dynamic enterprise reference grid

The enterprise management approach provides a holistic view of organizations and their related information systems. In order to cope with the globalization, virtualization, and volatile competitive environment, traditional firms are seeking to reconstruct their organizational structures and establish new IS architectures to transform from single autonomous entities into more open enterprises supported by new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. This paper reports on ERP engage-abilities within three different enterprise management patterns based on the theoretical foundations of the "Dynamic Enterprise Reference Grid". An exploratory inductive study in Zoomlion using the narrative research approach has been conducted. Also, this research delivers a conceptual framework to demonstrate the adoption of ERP in the three enterprise management structures and points to a new architectural type (ERPIII) for operating in the virtual enterprise paradigm. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.