Federal quality management : strategies for involving employees : report to the Director, Office of Personnel Management /

"B-249779"--P. 1.

Audit committees in Scottish local authorities 1998-2005

During the last 15 years corporate governance has become increasingly prominent in the public sector. The Audit Commission's 1993 report on probity in local government recommended the establishment of audit committees. However, progress on this was slow, as demonstrated by a survey of Scottish local authorities by the authors in 1998. Recent major changes in government in Scotland at both a local and national level have prompted councils to improve the accountability, openness and integrity of their operations. One major aspect of this exercise was the formation of scrutiny committees to provide objective scrutiny of the process and audit committees were the most common vehicle for this. This article explores recent developments in Scottish local government and their impact on audit committees. The article also reports the results of a 2005 survey of Scottish local authorities and compares these with the 1998 survey. This indicates a significant growth in the number of audit committees in Scottish councils and although the level of their perceived effectiveness is patchy, they are a more important feature of local government than they were in 1998.

Business information systems:technology, development and management in the E-business

Information technology is at the centre of today’s business environment. The increasing importance of e-commerce and the integration of information systems in all areas of a business means it is crucial for managers to understand and implement IS (information systems). This major text, now in its second edition, provides the skills and knowledge necessary to choose the right systems, and to develop and manage them effectively. Business Information Systems: Technology, Development and Management assumes no prior knowledge of IS or IT, and emphasises the importance of IS to management decision making. It takes a 3 part structure: Part One covers hardware and software technologies; Part Two looks at information systems analysis and design; and Part Three describes the strategic management of IS. This successful format allows each section to be studied alongside individual modules, and enables students to focus clearly on specific areas and use the book for more than one course. This book is suitable for college students, undergraduate degree and postgraduate students taking courses with modules in the practical IT skills of selection, implementation, management and use of BIS. The practical sections are also of use to managers in industry involved in the development and use of IS.

Obstacles and solutions to maximising urban biodiversity throughout the lifecycles of major developments in England

Thus far, achieving net biodiversity gains through major urban developments has been neither common nor straightforward - despite the presence of incentives, regulatory contexts, and ubiquitous practical guidance tools. A diverse set of obstructions, occurring within different spatial, temporal and actor hierarchies, are experienced by practitioners and render the realisation of maximised biodiversity, a rarity. This research aims to illuminate why this is so, and what needs to be changed to rectify the situation. To determine meaningful findings and conclusions, capable of assisting applied contexts and accommodating a diverse range of influences, a ‘systems approach’ was adopted. This approach led to the use of a multi-strategy research methodology, to identify the key obstructions and solutions to protecting and enhancing biodiversity - incorporating the following methods: action research, a questionnaire to local government ecologists, interviews and personal communications with leading players, and literature reviews. Nevertheless, ‘case studies’ are the predominant research method, the focus being a ‘nested’ case study looking at strategic issues of the largest regeneration area in Europe ‘the Thames Gateway’, and the largest individual mixeduse mega-development in the UK (at the time of planning consent) ‘Eastern Quarry 2’ - set within the Gateway. A further key case study, focussing on the Central Riverside development in Sheffield, identifies the merits of competition and partnership. The nested cases, theories and findings show that the strategic scale - generally relating to governance and prioritisation - impacts heavily upon individual development sites. It also enables the identification of various processes, mechanisms and issues at play on the individual development sites, which primarily relate to project management, planning processes, skills and transdisciplinary working, innovative urban biodiversity design capabilities, incentives, organisational cultures, and socio-ecological resilience. From these findings a way forward is mapped, spanning aspects from strategic governance to detailed project management.

Competitive edge through operations management

A view has emerged within manufacturing and service organizations that the operations management function can hold the key to achieving competitive edge. This has recently been emphasized by the demands for greater variety and higher quality which must be set against a background of increasing cost of resources. As nations' trade barriers are progressively lowered and removed, so producers of goods and service products are becoming more exposed to competition that may come from virtually anywhere around the world. To simply survive in this climate many organizations have found it necessary to improve their manufacturing or service delivery systems. To become real ''winners'' some have adopted a strategic approach to operations and completely reviewed and restructured their approach to production system design and operations planning and control. The articles in this issue of the International journal of Operations & Production Management have been selected to illustrate current thinking and practice in relation to this situation. They are all based on papers presented to the Sixth International Conference of the Operations Management Association-UK which was held at Aston University in June 1991. The theme of the conference was "Achieving Competitive Edge" and authors from 15 countries around the world contributed to more than 80 presented papers. Within this special issue five topic areas are addressed with two articles relating to each. The topics are: strategic management of operations; managing change; production system design; production control; and service operations. Under strategic management of operations De Toni, Filippini and Forza propose a conceptual model which considers the performance of an operating system as a source of competitive advantage through the ''operation value chain'' of design, purchasing, production and distribution. Their model is set within the context of the tendency towards globalization. New's article is somewhat in contrast to the more fashionable literature on operations strategy. It challenges the validity of the current idea of ''world-class manufacturing'' and, instead, urges a reconsideration of the view that strategic ''trade-offs'' are necessary to achieve a competitive edge. The importance of managing change has for some time been recognized within the field of organization studies but its relevance in operations management is now being realized. Berger considers the use of "organization design", ''sociotechnical systems'' and change strategies and contrasts these with the more recent idea of the ''dialogue perspective''. A tentative model is suggested to improve the analysis of different strategies in a situation specific context. Neely and Wilson look at an essential prerequisite if change is to be effected in an efficient way, namely product goal congruence. Using a case study as its basis, their article suggests a method of measuring goal congruence as a means of identifying the extent to which key performance criteria relating to quality, time, cost and flexibility are understood within an organization. The two articles on production systems design represent important contributions to the debate on flexible production organization and autonomous group working. Rosander uses the results from cases to test the applicability of ''flow groups'' as the optimal way of organizing batch production. Schuring also examines cases to determine the reasons behind the adoption of ''autonomous work groups'' in The Netherlands and Sweden. Both these contributions help to provide a greater understanding of the production philosophies which have emerged as alternatives to more conventional systems -------for intermittent and continuous production. The production control articles are both concerned with the concepts of ''push'' and ''pull'' which are the two broad approaches to material planning and control. Hirakawa, Hoshino and Katayama have developed a hybrid model, suitable for multistage manufacturing processes, which combines the benefits of both systems. They discuss the theoretical arguments in support of the system and illustrate its performance with numerical studies. Slack and Correa's concern is with the flexibility characteristics of push and pull material planning and control systems. They use the case of two plants using the different systems to compare their performance within a number of predefined flexibility types. The two final contributions on service operations are complementary. The article by Voss really relates to manufacturing but examines the application of service industry concepts within the UK manufacturing sector. His studies in a number of companies support the idea of the ''service factory'' and offer a new perspective for manufacturing. Harvey's contribution by contrast, is concerned with the application of operations management principles in the delivery of professional services. Using the case of social-service provision in Canada, it demonstrates how concepts such as ''just-in-time'' can be used to improve service performance. The ten articles in this special issue of the journal address a wide range of issues and situations. Their common aspect is that, together, they demonstrate the extent to which competitiveness can be improved via the application of operations management concepts and techniques.

Sub-national responses to climate change in England:evidence from local area agreements

The machinery of governance to address climate change at the sub-national level in England continues to evolve. Drawing on documentary evidence and the views of civil servants and local authority officials from the English West Midlands, this article explores the process through an examination of the inclusion of climate change indicators in the recent round of Local Area Agreements (LAAs), negotiated between central government and local authorities and Local Strategic Partnerships. Considerable popularity has been accorded these indicators nationally, but there are important variations in the pattern of take up. Moreover, significant uncertainties surround the contribution of local measures to reduce CO2 emissions and the targets attached to measures to adapt to climate change are seen as undemanding. Conversely, the impending Carbon Reduction Commitment will act as a powerful incentive for public bodies to cut CO2 emissions from their estates. Although potentially contributing to greater coherence in tackling climate change, achieving collective action through LAAs will prove problematic.

Evaluating local strategic partnerships:theory and practice of change

Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are a major recent innovation in English local governance. As the 'partnership of partnerships' in a locality, the ability of the LSP to provide an arena for community leadership and joined up service delivery is vital to the Local Government Modernisation Agenda. Drawing on material from the national evaluation of LSPs, this paper assesses their progress. A theory of change (ToC) approach was adopted in the evaluation, and the paper shows how this approach was developed and utilised. The main findings from the evaluation are then presented and discussed. In conclusion, the article draws some wider conclusions both about the strengths and weaknesses of the ToC approach and about LSPs themselves.

"We don't need no education" - Or do we? Management education and alumni adoption of strategy tools

Despite concerns about the relevance of management education, there is relatively little evidence about whether graduates use the management tools and concepts they are taught. We address this gap with evidence from a survey of business school alumni adoption of tools typically taught in strategic management courses. Our findings show that four educational characteristics-level of formal education, frequency of management training, specificity of strategic management education, and time elapsed since formal education-drive adoption of strategy tools. Specifically, features such as postgraduate over undergraduate qualifications and frequent exposure to management training predispose greater user of strategy tools. However, other factors, such as time elapsed since formal education, are not as great a predictor of variation in use. We conclude with a predictive model of the relative weight and importance of educational and demographic characteristics on strategy tool adoption and discuss our findings in light of the relevance debate. © The Author(s) 2013.

Implementing a knowledge management system within an NHS hospital:a case study exploring the roll-out of an Electronic Patient Record (EPR)

This research aims to contribute to understanding the implementation of knowledge management systems (KMS) in the field of health through a case study, leading to theory building and theory extension. We use the concept of the business process approach to knowledge management as a theoretical lens to analyse and explore how a large teaching hospital developed, executed and practically implemented a KMS. A qualitative study was conducted over a 2.5 year period with data collected from semi-structured interviews with eight members of the strategic management team, 12 clinical users and 20 patients in addition to non-participant observation of meetings and documents. The theoretical propositions strategy was used as the overarching approach for data analysis. Our case study provides evidence that true patient centred approaches to supporting care delivery with a KMS benefit from process thinking at both the planning and implementation stages, and an emphasis on the knowledge demands resulting from: the activities along the care pathways; where cross-overs in care occur; and knowledge sharing for the integration of care. The findings also suggest that despite the theoretical awareness of KMS implementation methodologies, the actual execution of such systems requires practice and learning. Flexible, fluid approaches through rehearsal are important and communications strategies should focus heavily on transparency incorporating both structured and unstructured communication methods.

Selection and passage of county land preservation voter referendum: The role of government

County jurisdictions in America are increasingly exercising self-government in the provision of public community services through the context of second order federalism. In states exercising this form of contemporary governance, county governments with "reformed" policy-making structures and professional management practices, have begun to rival or surpass municipalities in the delivery of local services with regional implications such as environmental protection (Benton 2002, 2003; Marando and Reeves, 1993). ^ The voter referendum, a form of direct democracy, is an important component of county land preservation and environmental protection governmental policies. The recent growth and success of land preservation voter referendums nationwide reflects an increase in citizen participation in government and their desire to protect vacant land and its natural environment from threats of over-development, urbanization and sprawl, loss of open space and farmland, deterioration of ecosystems, and inadequate park and recreational amenities. ^ The study's design employs a sequential, mixed method. First, a quantitative approach employs the Heckman two-step model. It is fitted with variables for the non-random sample of 227 voter referendum counties and all non-voter referendum counties in the U.S. from 1988 to 2009. Second, the qualitative data collected from the in-depth investigation of three South Florida county case studies with twelve public administrator interviews is transformed for integration with the quantitative findings. The purpose of the qualitative method is to complement, explain and enrich the statistical analysis of county demographic, socio-economic, terrain, regional, governance and government, political preference, environmentalism, and referendum-specific factors. ^ The research finds that government factors are significant in terms of the success of land preservation voter referendums; more specifically, the presence of self-government authority (home rule charter), a reformed structure (county administrator/manager or elected executive), and environmental interest groups. In addition, this study concludes that successful counties are often located coastal, exhibit population and housing growth, and have older and more educated citizens who vote democratic in presidential elections. The analysis of case study documents and public administrator interviews finds that pragmatic considerations of timing, local politics and networking of regional stakeholders are also important features of success. Further research is suggested utilizing additional public participation, local government and public administration factors.^