Human resource management in the Indian public and private sectors:an empirical comparison

This study compares human resource management (HRM) practices in Indian public- and private-sector organizations. The investigation is based on a questionnaire survey of 137 large manufacturing firms (public sector = 81: private sector = 56). The key areas of analysis include the structure of human resource (HR) department, the role of HR function in corporate change, recruitment and selection, pay and benefits, training and development, employee relations and emphasis on key HRM strategies. Internal labour markets (ILMs) are used to make the comparative analysis. The statistical results show a number of similarities and differences in the HRM systems of Indian public-and private-sector organizations. Against the established notion, the results of this study reveal that the gap between Indian private- and public-sector HRM practices is not very significant. Moreover, in a few HR functional areas (for example, compensation and training and development), Indian private-sector firms have adopted a more rational approach than their public-sector counterparts. © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd.

Estimating additionality and leverage:between public and private sector equity finance in Ireland (2000 – 2002)

This paper aims to contribute to the debate about the role of the public sector in stimulating greater use of private sector equity for business start-up and growth in two ways. First, to examine the extent to which the provision of public sector equity finance enables individual firms to raise additional funds in the private sector market place. Second, to consider the methodological implications for an economic impact assessment of industrial policy interventions (especially those which include an equity component) at the level of the individual firm. We assess the extent to which there may be indirect positive effects (externalities) associated with public sector financial assistance to individual firms and if so how they distort standard evaluation methodologies designed to estimate the level of additionality of that support. The paper draws upon the results of a recent study of the impact of Enterprise Ireland (EI) financial assistance to indigenous Irish industry in the period 2000 to 2002. The paper demonstrates that a process of re-calibration is necessary in estimates of economic impact in order to account for these positive externalities and the result in this study was a ‘boost’ to additionality. In operational and conceptual terms, the study underlines the importance of the relationship between private and public sector sources of equity finance as an important dynamic in the attempt by industrial and regional policy to stimulate the number of firms with viable investment proposals accessing external equity finance.

Reforming public services in the UK:Bringing in the third sector

In the UK, the government continues its project to reform public services. Earlier projects have focused on the modernization of public sector organizations; in the latest round of reform, New Labour has focused on widening choice and the personalization of services. To this end, the government has been working with Third Sector (TS) organizations to expand their role in shaping, commissioning and delivering public services. The government's vision is predicated on a normative assertion, that, unlike traditional public sector organizations, TS bodies create public value by being more innovative, are inspired by altruistic aims and values, and have greater commitment to their clients. This paper reviews recent policy and questions whether the government's policy is flawed, contradictory and risks damaging the attributes of the TS admired by New Labour. © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Strategic information systems at the Colombian President's Office (1990-1992) : a managerial cybernetic approach

This research studies the issue of using strategic information technology for improving organisational effectiveness. It analyses different academic approaches explaining the nature of information systems and the need organisations feel of developing strategic information systems planning processes, to improve organisational effectiveness. It chooses Managerial Cybernetics as the theoretical foundation supporting development of a "Strategic Information Systems Planning" Framework, and uses it for supporting the analysis of a documented story about the process lived by the Colombian President's Office, in 1990-1992. It argues that by analysing the situation through this new analysis framework we may enlighten some previously unclear situations lived, and not yet properly explained through other approaches to strategic information systems planning. The documented history explains the organisational context and strategic postures of the Colombian President's Office and the Colombian Public Sector, at that time, as well as some of the strategic information systems defined and developed. In particular it analyses a system developed jointly by the President's Office and the National Planning Department, for measuring results of the main national development programmes. Then, it reviews these situations, in the light of the new framework and presents the main findings of the exercise. Finally, it analyses the whole research exercise, the perceived usefulness of the chosen frameworks and tools to enlighten the real situations analysed that were not clear enough, and some open research paths to follow for future researchers interested in the issue.

Understanding accountants' participation in accounting information systems implementation : Malaysian evidence

The study is a two-part study starting with a nationwide survey in the private sector. The hypotheses derived from the Western literature were not significantly supported when the results were analyzed. It seems that the existing literature related to the phenomenon under investigation is mainly Anglo-Saxon culture oriented which is different from the Malaysian culture where the study was conducted. However, access barriers to private sector organizations shifted the focus of the research to the second part of the study that examined the issues in detail in four public sector organizations currently implementing accounting information systems – two hospitals and two universities. In the second part of the main study, the researcher developed formal and substantive propositions from the qualitative interviews which were substantiated using a cross-case analysis; as a result, a model for accountants’ participation in AIS implementation is proposed. The research shows that the process of influencing accountants to participate in AIS implementation is more complex than the literature suggests. There were many issues that surfaced during the case studies, such as conflict and empowerment which set a foundation for further research about how participation can be secured to help make the implementation of AIS part of an organizational agenda success.

The link between job satisfaction and organizational commitment:differences between public and private sector employees

Employees in the public and private sectors experience different working conditions and employment relationships. Therefore, it can be assumed that their attitudes toward their job and organizations, and relationships between them, are different. The existing literature has identified the relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction as interesting in this context. The present field study examines the satisfaction–commitment link with respect to differences between private and public sector employees. A sample of 617 Greek employees (257 from the private sector and 360 from the public sector) completed standardized questionnaires. Results confirmed the hypothesized relationship differences: Extrinsic satisfaction and intrinsic satisfaction are more strongly related to affective commitment and normative commitment for public sector employees than for private sector ones. The results are discussed, limitations are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.

Exploring value-added applications of RFID systems in industry and service sectors

Radio-frequency identification technology (RFID) is a popular modern technology proven to deliver a range of value-added benefits to achieve system and operational efficiency, as well as cost-effectiveness. The operational characteristics of RFID outperform barcodes in many aspects. One of the main challenges for RFID adoption is proving its ability to improve competitiveness. In this paper, we examine multiple real-world examples where RFID technology has been demonstrated to provide significant benefits to industry competitiveness, and also to enhance human experience in the service sector. This paper will explore and survey existing value-added applications of RFID systems in industry and the service sector, with particular focus on applications in retail, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, leisure and the public sector. © 2012 AICIT.

Managing risk in software development projects:a case study

Purpose - The main objective of the paper is to develop a risk management framework for software development projects from developers' perspective. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses a combined qualitative and quantitative technique with the active involvement of stakeholders in order to identify, analyze and respond to risks. The entire methodology has been explained using a case study on software development project in a public sector organization in Barbados. Findings - Analytical approach to managing risk in software development ensures effective delivery of projects to clients. Research limitations/implications - The proposed risk management framework has been applied to a single case. Practical implications - Software development projects are characterized by technical complexity, market and financial uncertainties and competent manpower availability. Therefore, successful project accomplishment depends on addressing those issues throughout the project phases. Effective risk management ensures the success of projects. Originality/value - There are several studies on managing risks in software development and information technology (IT) projects. Most of the studies identify and prioritize risks through empirical research in order to suggest mitigating measures. Although they are important to clients for future projects, these studies fail to provide any framework for risk management from software developers' perspective. Although a few studies introduced framework of risk management in software development, most of them are presented from clients' perspectives and very little effort has been made to integrate this with the software development cycle. As software developers absorb considerable amount of risks, an integrated framework for managing risks in software development from developers' perspective is needed. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Editorial

This special issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society is dedicated to papers on the related subjects of knowledge management and intellectual capital. These subjects continue to generate considerable interest amongst both practitioners and academics. This issue demonstrates that operational researchers have many contributions to offer to the area, especially by bringing multi-disciplinary, integrated and holistic perspectives. The papers included are both theoretical as well as practical, and include a number of case studies showing how knowledge management has been implemented in practice that may assist other organisations in their search for a better means of managing what is now recognised as a core organisational activity. It has been accepted by a growing number of organisations that the precise handling of information and knowledge is a significant factor in facilitating their success but that there is a challenge in how to implement a strategy and processes for this handling. It is here, in the particular area of knowledge process handling that we can see the contributions of operational researchers most clearly as is illustrated in the papers included in this journal edition. The issue comprises nine papers, contributed by authors based in eight different countries on five continents. Lind and Seigerroth describe an approach that they call team-based reconstruction, intended to help articulate knowledge in a particular organisational. context. They illustrate the use of this approach with three case studies, two in manufacturing and one in public sector health care. Different ways of carrying out reconstruction are analysed, and the benefits of team-based reconstruction are established. Edwards and Kidd, and Connell, Powell and Klein both concentrate on knowledge transfer. Edwards and Kidd discuss the issues involved in transferring knowledge across frontières (borders) of various kinds, from those borders within organisations to those between countries. They present two examples, one in distribution and the other in manufacturing. They conclude that trust and culture both play an important part in facilitating such transfers, that IT should be kept in a supporting role in knowledge management projects, and that a staged approach to this IT support may be the most effective. Connell, Powell and Klein consider the oft-quoted distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge, and argue that such a distinction is sometimes unhelpful. They suggest that knowledge should rather be regarded as a holistic systemic property. The consequences of this for knowledge transfer are examined, with a particular emphasis on what this might mean for the practice of OR Their view of OR in the context of knowledge management very much echoes Lind and Seigerroth's focus on knowledge for human action. This is an interesting convergence of views given that, broadly speaking, one set of authors comes from within the OR community, and the other from outside it. Hafeez and Abdelmeguid present the nearest to a 'hard' OR contribution of the papers in this special issue. In their paper they construct and use system dynamics models to investigate alternative ways in which an organisation might close a knowledge gap or skills gap. The methods they use have the potential to be generalised to any other quantifiable aspects of intellectual capital. The contribution by Revilla, Sarkis and Modrego is also at the 'hard' end of the spectrum. They evaluate the performance of public–private research collaborations in Spain, using an approach based on data envelopment analysis. They found that larger organisations tended to perform relatively better than smaller ones, even though the approach used takes into account scale effects. Perhaps more interesting was that many factors that might have been thought relevant, such as the organisation's existing knowledge base or how widely applicable the results of the project would be, had no significant effect on the performance. It may be that how well the partnership between the collaborators works (not a factor it was possible to take into account in this study) is more important than most other factors. Mak and Ramaprasad introduce the concept of a knowledge supply network. This builds on existing ideas of supply chain management, but also integrates the design chain and the marketing chain, to address all the intellectual property connected with the network as a whole. The authors regard the knowledge supply network as the natural focus for considering knowledge management issues. They propose seven criteria for evaluating knowledge supply network architecture, and illustrate their argument with an example from the electronics industry—integrated circuit design and fabrication. In the paper by Hasan and Crawford, their interest lies in the holistic approach to knowledge management. They demonstrate their argument—that there is no simple IT solution for organisational knowledge management efforts—through two case study investigations. These case studies, in Australian universities, are investigated through cultural historical activity theory, which focuses the study on the activities that are carried out by people in support of their interpretations of their role, the opportunities available and the organisation's purpose. Human activities, it is argued, are mediated by the available tools, including IT and IS and in this particular context, KMS. It is this argument that places the available technology into the knowledge activity process and permits the future design of KMS to be improved through the lessons learnt by studying these knowledge activity systems in practice. Wijnhoven concentrates on knowledge management at the operational level of the organisation. He is concerned with studying the transformation of certain inputs to outputs—the operations function—and the consequent realisation of organisational goals via the management of these operations. He argues that the inputs and outputs of this process in the context of knowledge management are different types of knowledge and names the operation method the knowledge logistics. The method of transformation he calls learning. This theoretical paper discusses the operational management of four types of knowledge objects—explicit understanding; information; skills; and norms and values; and shows how through the proposed framework learning can transfer these objects to clients in a logistical process without a major transformation in content. Millie Kwan continues this theme with a paper about process-oriented knowledge management. In her case study she discusses an implementation of knowledge management where the knowledge is centred around an organisational process and the mission, rationale and objectives of the process define the scope of the project. In her case they are concerned with the effective use of real estate (property and buildings) within a Fortune 100 company. In order to manage the knowledge about this property and the process by which the best 'deal' for internal customers and the overall company was reached, a KMS was devised. She argues that process knowledge is a source of core competence and thus needs to be strategically managed. Finally, you may also wish to read a related paper originally submitted for this Special Issue, 'Customer knowledge management' by Garcia-Murillo and Annabi, which was published in the August 2002 issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society, 53(8), 875–884.

Differences between theoretical predictions and operational performance in a stock control application

Over the past decade, several experienced Operational Researchers have advanced the view that the theoretical aspects of model building have raced ahead of the ability of people to use them. Consequently, the impact of Operational Research on commercial organisations and the public sector is limited, and many systems fail to achieve their anticipated benefits in full. The primary objective of this study is to examine a complex interactive Stock Control system, and identify the reasons for the differences between the theoretical expectations and the operational performance. The methodology used is to hypothesise all the possible factors which could cause a divergence between theory and practice, and to evaluate numerically the effect each of these factors has on two main control indices - Service Level and Average Stock Value. Both analytical and empirical methods are used, and simulation is employed extensively. The factors are divided into two main categories for analysis - theoretical imperfections in the model, and the usage of the system by Buyers. No evidence could be found in the literature of any previous attempts to place the differences between theory and practice in a system in quantitative perspective nor, more specifically, to study the effects of Buyer/computer interaction in a Stock Control system. The study reveals that, in general, the human factors influencing performance are of a much higher order of magnitude than the theoretical factors, thus providing objective evidence to support the original premise. The most important finding is that, by judicious intervention into an automatic stock control algorithm, it is possible for Buyers to produce results which not only attain but surpass the algorithmic predictions. However, the complexity and behavioural recalcitrance of these systems are such that an innately numerate, enquiring type of Buyer needs to be inducted to realise the performance potential of the overall man/computer system.

How important is ownership in a market with a level playing field? The Indian banking sector revisited

Private ownership of firms is often argued to lead to better firm performance than public ownership. However, the theoretical literature and the empirical evidence indicate that agency problems may affect the performance of privately owned firms. At the same time, competition and hard budget constraints can induce state-owned firms to operate efficiently. In India, banking sector reforms and deregulation were initiated in 1992, encouraging entry and establishing a level playing field for all banks. Data for the financial years 1995–1996 through 2000–2001 suggest that, by 1999–2000, ownership was no longer a significant determinant of performance. Rather, competition induced public-sector banks to eliminate the performance gap that existed between them and both domestic and foreign private-sector banks.

Creating citizen-consumers::changing publics and changing public services

Book review - The article has no abstract

A contingency theory perspective on the risk management control system within Birmingham City Council

In recent years the topic of risk management has moved up the agenda of both government and industry, and private sector initiatives to improve risk and internal control systems have been mirrored by similar promptings for change in the public sector. Both regulators and practitioners now view risk management as an integral part of the process of corporate governance, and an aid to the achievement of strategic objectives. The paper uses case study material on the risk management control system at Birmingham City Council to extend existing theory by developing a contingency theory for the public sector. The case demonstrates that whilst the structure of the control system fits a generic model, the operational details indicate that controls are contingent upon three core variables—central government policies, information and communication technology and organisational size. All three contingent variables are suitable for testing the theory across the broader public sector arena.

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.

Promoting competitive markets:the role of public procurement

The study presented here examines how public procurement agencies address establishing and maintaining competitive markets; a topic still in its academic infancy. Cases are used to address impediments and improve understanding of strategic priorities in managing for competitive markets. Public policy academics have observed many competing policies in the wider public sector. Specifically, this paper identifies a need for research on supplier incentives at a market level, on the post contract management of suppliers and as an important sub-set, key supplier relationship management, along with professional development.