Business education in operations management

This paper examines trends in the practice of Operations Management and in teaching the field in major Business Schools. Operations Management has been defined as the design and management of transformation processes that create value for society. The operations function is the one function directly involved in that transformation, and hence is directly responsible for the activities that justify the existence of the firm, both economically and as a value-creating organization in society. The top rated schools in Operations Management are the top-rated research-intensive Business Schools in the world. Operations Management is an area that has been undergoing rapid change in response to changes in business practices worldwide. It is at the heart of changes of which the AACSB report Management Education at Risk, August 2002 (p 20), comments of Business Schools in general: ‘With regard to global relevance (of Business Schools), the complex opportunities and challenges that emanate from the world scope of operations, outsourcing, supply chains, partnerships, and financial and consumer markets – all linked in real time through the Internet – are not reflected adequately in curricula and learning approaches.’ Products, and even services, depend increasingly on advanced technology. This is true globally and especially so for countries in South East and East Asia, from which Australian Universities draw a significant number of students. Services operations management has become much more important, while there are both educational and industrial needs in management science or operations research.

GESTÃO DO CONHECIMENTO: UM ESTUDO SOBRE A RELAÇÃO ENTRE A LIDERANÇA TRANSFORMACIONAL, A CONVERSÃO DO CONHECIMENTO E A EFICÁCIA ORGANIZACIONAL

Este estudo teve como objetivo principal analisar a relação entre a Liderança Transformacional, a Conversão do Conhecimento e a Eficácia Organizacional. Foram considerados como pressupostos teóricos conceitos consolidados sobre os temas desta relação, além de recentes pesquisas já realizadas em outros países e contextos organizacionais. Com base nisto identificou-se potencial estudo de um modelo que relacionasse estes três conceitos. Para tal considera-se que as organizações que buscam atingir Vantagem Competitiva e incorporam a Knowledge-Based View possam conquistar diferenciação frente a seus concorrentes. Nesse contexto o conhecimento ganha maior destaque e papel protagonista nestas organizações. Dessa forma criar conhecimento através de seus colaboradores, passa a ser um dos desafios dessas organizações ao passo que sugere melhoria de seus indicadores Econômicos, Sociais, Sistêmicos e Políticos, o que se define por Eficácia Organizacional. Portanto os modos de conversão do conhecimento nas organizações, demonstram relevância, uma vez que se cria e se converte conhecimentos através da interação entre o conhecimento existente de seus colaboradores. Essa conversão do conhecimento ou modelo SECI possui quatro modos que são a Socialização, Externalização, Combinação e Internalização. Nessa perspectiva a liderança nas organizações apresenta-se como um elemento capaz de influenciar seus colaboradores, propiciando maior dinâmica ao modelo SECI de conversão do conhecimento. Se identifica então na liderança do tipo Transformacional, características que possam influenciar colaboradores e entende-se que esta relação entre a Liderança Transformacional e a Conversão do Conhecimento possa ter influência positiva nos indicadores da Eficácia Organizacional. Dessa forma esta pesquisa buscou analisar um modelo que explorasse essa relação entre a liderança do tipo Transformacional, a Conversão do Conhecimento (SECI) e a Eficácia Organizacional. Esta pesquisa teve o caráter quantitativo com coleta de dados através do método survey, obtendo um total de 230 respondentes válidos de diferentes organizações. O instrumento de coleta de dados foi composto por afirmativas relativas ao modelo de relação pesquisado com um total de 44 itens. O perfil de respondentes concentrou-se entre 30 e 39 anos de idade, com a predominância de organizações privadas e de departamentos de TI/Telecom, Docência e Recursos Humanos respectivamente. O tratamento dos dados foi através da Análise Fatorial Exploratória e Modelagem de Equações Estruturais via Partial Least Square Path Modeling (PLS-PM). Como resultado da análise desta pesquisa, as hipóteses puderam ser confirmadas, concluindo que a Liderança Transformacional apresenta influência positiva nos modos de Conversão do Conhecimento e que; a Conversão do Conhecimento influencia positivamente na Eficácia Organizacional. Ainda, concluiu-se que a percepção entre os respondentes não apresenta resultado diferente sobre o modelo desta pesquisa entre quem possui ou não função de liderança.

The growing importance of inter-company collaboration

Guest editorial: This special issue has been drawn from papers that were published as part of the Second European Conference on Management of Technology (EuroMOT) which was held at Aston Business School (Birmingham, UK) 10-12 September 2006. This was the official European conference for the International Association for Management of Technology (IAMOT); the overall theme of the conference was “Technology and global integration.” There were many high-calibre papers submitted to the conference and published in the associated proceedings (Bennett et al., 2006). The streams of interest that emerged from these submissions were the importance of: technology strategy, innovation, process technologies, managing change, national policies and systems, research and development, supply chain technology, service and operational technology, education and training, small company incubation, technology transfer, virtual operations, technology in developing countries, partnership and alliance, and financing and investment. This special issue focuses upon the streams of interest that accentuate the importance of collaboration between different organisations. Such organisations vary greatly in character; for instance, they may be large or small, publicly or privately owned, and operate in manufacturing or service sectors. Despite these varying characteristics they all have something in common; they all stress the importance of inter-organisational collaboration as a critical success factor for their organisation. In today's global economy it is essential that organisations decide what their core competencies are what those of complementing organisations are. Core competences should be developed to become a bases of differentiation, leverage and competitive advantage, whilst those that are less mature should be outsourced to other organisations that can claim to have had more recognition and success in that particular core competence (Porter, 2001). This strategic trend can be observed throughout advanced economies and is growing strongly. If a posteriori reasoning is applied here it follows that organisations could continue to become more specialised in fewer areas whilst simultaneously becoming more dependent upon other organisations for critical parts of their operations. Such actions seem to fly in the face of rational business strategy and so the question must be asked: why are organisations developing this way? The answer could lie in the recent changes in endogenous and exogenous factors of the organisation; the former emphasising resource-based issues in the short-term, and strategic positioning in the long-term whilst the later emphasises transaction costs in the short-term and acquisition of new skills and knowledge in the long-term. For a harmonious balance of these forces to prevail requires organisations to firstly declare a shared meta-strategy, then to put some cross-organisational processes into place which have their routine operations automated as far as possible. A rolling business plan would review, assess and reposition each organisation within this meta-strategy according to how well they have contributed (Binder and Clegg, 2006). The important common issue here is that an increasing number of businesses today are gaining direct benefit from increasing their levels of inter-organisational collaboration. Such collaboration has largely been possible due to recent technological advances which can make organisational structures more agile (e.g. the extended or the virtual enterprise), organisational infra-structure more connected, and the sharing of real-time information an operational reality. This special issue consists of research papers that have explored the above phenomenon in some way. For instance, the role of government intervention, the use of internet-based technologies, the role of research and development organisations, the changing relationships between start-ups and established firms, the importance of cross-company communities of practice, the practice of networking, the front-loading of large-scale projects, innovation and the probabilistic uncertainties that organisations experience are explored in these papers. The cases cited in these papers are limited as they have a Eurocentric focus. However, it is hoped that readers of this special issue will gain a valuable insight into the increasing importance of collaborative practices via these studies.

Examining a key aspect of agency-to-business relationships:the effects of regulatory control on the satisfaction of regulated firms

This paper studies an overlooked, but highly important relationship, the relationship that exists between regulatory agencies (e.g., the EPA, OSHA, and the FDA) and the for-profit businesses they attempt to govern. Drawing on business-to-business control and satisfaction research, a framework is developed to understand how regulatory control influences the satisfaction levels of customer firms. Regulatory control is disaggregated into four distinct facets: the controlling agency, the rules and regulations of control, the processes used by the agency to apply the regulations, and sanctions. Each facet is hypothesized to have an effect on satisfaction. A regulator's administration of state food safety regulations provides the empirical context for testing the hypotheses. Results from a survey of 173 restaurants provide empirical support for the conceptual model. Most importantly, the study finds that the informal control process increases customer satisfaction, while the formal control process decreases customer satisfaction. We discuss how these and other findings may contribute to more effective agency-to-business relationships and ongoing research.

Using business process simulation within a business process reengineering approach

This paper presents a case study of the use of business-process simulation within the context of a business-process-reengineering approach to change. The process-based change methodology provides context to the simulation technique in that it connects the aims of a business-process simulation (BPS) study to the strategic aims of the organisation and incorporates a consideration of human factors in order to achieve successful implementation of redesigned processes. Conversely, the ability of BPS to incorporate system variability, scenario analysis and a visual display to communicate process performance makes it a useful technique to provide a realistic assessment of the need for, and results of, change.

Supply chain performance measurement framework:case studies on the Thai manufacturers

One of the most significant paradigm shifts of modern business management is that individual businesses no longer compete as solely autonomous entities, but rather as supply chains. Firms worldwide have embraced the concept of supply chain management as important and sometimes critical to their business. The idea of a collaborative supply chain is to gain a competitive advantage by improving overall performance through measuring a holistic perspective of the supply chain. However, contemporary performance measurement theory is somewhat fragmented and fails to support this idea. Therefore, this research develops and applies an integrated supply chain performance measurement framework that provides a more holistic approach to the study of supply chain performance measurement by combining both supply chain macro processes and decision making levels. Therefore, the proposed framework can provide a balanced horizontal (cross-process) and vertical (hierarchical decision) view and measure the performance of the entire supply chain system. Firstly, literature on performance measurement frameworks and performance measurement factors of supply chain management will help to develop a conceptual framework. Next the proposed framework will be presented. The framework will be validated through in-depth interviews with three Thai manufacturing companies. The fieldwork combined varied sources in order to understand the views of manufacturers on supply chain performance in the three case study companies. The collected data were analyzed, interpreted, and reported using thematic analysis and analysis hierarchy process (AHP), which was influenced by the study’s conceptual framework. This research contributes a new theory of supply chain performance measurement and knowledge on supply chain characteristics of a developing country, Thailand. The research also affects organisations by preparing decision makers to make strategic, tactical and operational level decisions with respect to supply chain macro processes. The results from the case studies also indicate the similarities and differences in their supply chain performance. Furthermore, the implications of the study are offered for both academic and practical use.

An architecture for a collaborative authoring system

Collaborative working with the aid of computers is increasing rapidly due to the widespread use of computer networks, geographic mobility of people, and small powerful personal computers. For the past ten years research has been conducted into this use of computing technology from a wide variety of perspectives and for a wide range of uses. This thesis adds to that previous work by examining the area of collaborative writing amongst groups of people. The research brings together a number of disciplines, namely sociology for examining group dynamics, psychology for understanding individual writing and learning processes, and computer science for database, networking, and programming theory. The project initially looks at groups and how they form, communicate, and work together, progressing on to look at writing and the cognitive processes it entails for both composition and retrieval. The thesis then details a set of issues which need to be addressed in a collaborative writing system. These issues are then followed by developing a model for collaborative writing, detailing an iterative process of co-ordination, writing and annotation, consolidation, and negotiation, based on a structured but extensible document model. Implementation issues for a collaborative application are then described, along with various methods of overcoming them. Finally the design and implementation of a collaborative writing system, named Collaborwriter, is described in detail, which concludes with some preliminary results from initial user trials and testing.

A co-ordinated business object approach for supporting tactical level management decisions

The proliferation of data throughout the strategic, tactical and operational areas within many organisations, has provided a need for the decision maker to be presented with structured information that is appropriate for achieving allocated tasks. However, despite this abundance of data, managers at all levels in the organisation commonly encounter a condition of ‘information overload’, that results in a paucity of the correct information. Specifically, this thesis will focus upon the tactical domain within the organisation and the information needs of management who reside at this level. In doing so, it will argue that the link between decision making at the tactical level in the organisation, and low-level transaction processing data, should be through a common object model that used a framework based upon knowledge leveraged from co-ordination theory. In order to achieve this, the Co-ordinated Business Object Model (CBOM) was created. Detailing a two-tier framework, the first tier models data based upon four interactive object models, namely, processes, activities, resources and actors. The second tier analyses the data captured by the four object models, and returns information that can be used to support tactical decision making. In addition, the Co-ordinated Business Object Support System (CBOSS), is a prototype tool that has been developed in order to both support the CBOM implementation, and to also demonstrate the functionality of the CBOM as a modelling approach for supporting tactical management decision making. Containing a graphical user interface, the system’s functionality allows the user to create and explore alternative implementations of an identified tactical level process. In order to validate the CBOM, three verification tests have been completed. The results provide evidence that the CBOM framework helps bridge the gap between low level transaction data, and the information that is used to support tactical level decision making.

Business implications of manufacturing innovation : the experience of increasing automation in smaller to medium sized companies.

Despite the considerable potential of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) for improving the economic performance of many firms, a growing body of literature highlights many instances where realising this potential has proven to be a more difficult task than initially envisaged. Focussing upon the implementation of new manufacturing technologies in several smaller to medium sized enterprises (SME), the research examines the proposition that many of these problems can be attributed in part to inadequate consideration of the integrated nature of such technologies, where the effects of their implementation are not localised, but are felt throughout a business. The criteria for the economic evaluation of such technologies are seen as needing to reflect this, and the research develops an innovative methodology employing micro-computer based spreadsheets, to demonstrate how a series of financial models can be used to quantify the effects of new investments upon overall company performance. Case studies include: the development of a prototype machine based absorption costing system to assist in the evaluation of CNC machine tool purchases in a press making company; the economics and strategy of introducing a flexible manufacturing system for the production of ballscrews; and analysing the progressive introduction of computer based printing presses in a packaging and general print company. Complementary insights are also provided from discussion with the management of several other companies which have experienced technological change. The research was conducted as a collaborative CASE project in the Interdisciplinary Higher Degrees Scheme and was jointly funded by the SERC and Gaydon Technology Limited and later assisted by PE-Inbucon. The findings of the research shows that the introduction of new manufacturing technologies usually requires a fundamental rethink of the existing practices of a business. In particular, its implementation is seen as ideally needing to take place as part of a longer term business and manufacturing strategy, but that short term commercial pressures and limited resources often mean that firms experience difficulty in realising this. The use of a spreadsheet based methodology is shown to be of considerable assistance in evaluating new investments, and is seen as being the limit of sophistication that a smaller business is willing to employ. Several points for effective modelling practice are also given, together with an outline of the context in which a modelling approach is most applicable.

Human resource management, employee attitudes and business performance in Post Office Ltd

Whilst a consistent link between the adoption of human resource management (HRM) practices by organisations and their performance has been confirmed by numerous studies, there is a need for greater understanding of why such effects occur. Recently, the attention of researchers has shifted towards understanding the so-called ‘black box’ linking HRM and business performance. This study focuses on this area of research by testing processes through which HRM may affect performance, in particular the process of HR implementation, mediation mechanisms, and fit with internal and external boundary conditions. This research was based on a sample of 136 Post Office branches in the UK and investigated the role of HR implementation, employee attitudes and competitive environment. The study revealed that HR implementation, a climate for service, job satisfaction and effective organisational commitment predicted independent measures of economic and service performance in branches. Employee attitudes moderated the relationship between implemented HRM and service performance, and both job satisfaction and commitment were found to mediate relationships between a climate for service and service performance. Finally, relative levels of competition faced by branches moderated the relationship between employee attitudes and sales. The findings demonstrate how the process of HR implementation, interactions with employee attitudes and moderation by external competition all influence the impact of HR systems on service and economic performance outcomes. These results illustrate the need for greater attention to processes of internal and external fit within HRM research in order to develop theory relating to why HR systems affect performance.

Investigative framework for research into the design of manufacturing processes

This paper is based a major research project run by a team from the Innovation, Design and Operations Management Research Unit at the Aston Business School under SERC funding. International Computers Limited (!CL), the UK's largest indigenous manufacturer of mainframe computer products, was the main industrial collaborator in the research. During the period 1985-89 an integrated production system termed the "Modular Assembly Cascade'' was introduced to the Company's mainframe assembly plant at Ashton-under-Lyne near Manchester. Using a methodology primarily based upon 'participative observation', the researchers developed a model for analysing this manufacturing system design called "DRAMA". Following a critique of the existing literature on Manufacturing Strategy, this paper will describe the basic DRAMA model and its development from an industry specific design methodology to DRAMA II, a generic model for studying organizational decision processes in the design and implementation of production systems. From this, the potential contribution of the DRAMA model to the existing knowledge on the process of manufacturing system design will be apparent.