Human Systems Management

In this article we assume that the entrepreneurial capability of SME owner-managers is reflected in the choices they make to coordinate their action in terms of human resource management (HRM), research and development (R&D), and advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT). However, to what extent do managerial choices made in these areas affect the performance of SMEs? And to what extent do the interactions of HRM capabilities with R&D and AMT capabilities also affect the performance of these enterprises? In order to answer these questions, an empirical study was conducted among 182 Canadian SMEs. Emanating from a perspective based on human systems and contingency theory, the results of this study indicate that the development of HRM capabilities allow SMEs not only to improve their productivity but also to significantly amplify the effect of R&D and AMT capabilities on this same productivity.

Supply chain management (SCM) has recently attracted significant attention from industry and academia. Unfortunately, strategic supply chain management (SSCM) and its general framework have seldom been addressed. SSCM refers to a situation in which its members always realize the whole direction and strategy when a supply chain carries out various functional activities to achieve a competitive advantage and long-term profit-making position among supply chains in the same industry. This study discusses how to develop not only a supply chain’s overall competitive strategic direction, but also the objective of the entire supply chain with those objectives of its members, thus optimizing the performance of the supply chain. Moreover, this study presents a general SSCM framework including three stages, namely strategy formulation, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation. Also discussed herein are the limitations of this study that could be addressed in future.

Although Information Systems Outsourcing has experienced a dramatic growth in recent years, there is a lack of success in many of these contracts, which makes it necessary to study the factors determining that success. The present paper proposes a set of key factors to achieve IS outsourcing success. It also establishes a number of measures meant to assess the degree of success reached by firms at outsourcing. We have validated both things (the proposed success factors and the factors to measure success) through a survey carried out among the Information Systems managers of the largest Spanish firms. The perceived benefits of outsourcing can be reduced to three types: technological, strategic and economic. Strategic motivations stand out as the most important ones in this study. This paper not only identifies the most important outsourcing success factors, from the client’s point of view, but also studies the evolution of these success factors during the last few years in the Spanish context, and offers a number of measures to assess the degree of success obtained by firms with IS outsourcing. So the model could be useful both for teaching and for the industry practice.

This research attempts to assist a very large retailer in the midwest of the United States in understanding its consumers’ buying patterns and behaviors by employing a multi-technique data mining approach. Three data mining techniques, including cluster analysis, predictive (neural networks) modeling, and market basket analysis methods, are reviewed for the purpose of comparing the prevalence of their use and effects. This applied multi-technique approach provides a comparative analysis between sales of infant items at the baby centers and non-baby centers, helps understand the buying patterns at these centers, and analyzes items that were most frequently purchased together by consumers. This paper concludes with the research results and recommendations as well as directions for future research.

Organizations need a capacity to adapt new ideas and therefore require the means to visualize them. Idea adaptation is understood to be a social interaction process. This idea of adaption capacity might therefore be understood and managed by visualizing it using small world theory. This paper will explain how and why small world visualization can be used to represent idea adaption capability. The small world structure is preferred because it represents loose coupling and distinguishes the need for both discipline-specific knowledge (strong ties) and interaction with alternative ideas (structural holes, weak ties). Furthermore, it appears to be the evolved preferred natural networking structure for idea sharing. An illustration of how the small world structure might be visualized is provided by mapping the idea adapting networks of two loosely coupled organizations.

This paper describes and examines how Singapore attempts to implement ICT in education through its three Masterplans for ICT in Education since 1997. It analyses the management approach during the implementation of Masterplans One and Two and highlights the inadequacies of a linear Newtonian model of ICT implementation for Masterplan Three. This paper posits that for Singapore to venture into an uncharted era of educational ICT innovation, the new educational ICT management paradigm should be based on complexity rather than a linear Newtonian model. In particular, it should be one that promotes the recognition of the education system as a complex adaptive system; promotes loose coupling between headquarters and schools, and among schools; promotes organisation around intelligences rather than fixed structures; and promotes integration through purpose rather than policy. The case study of Singapore contains lessons for other countries implementing national level initiatives for ICT in education.