Engineering Asset Management Organizations Research Articles

Safety outcomes for engineering asset management organizations: Old problem with new solutions?

The issue of safety and longevity of engineering assets is of increasing importance because of their impact when disasters happen. This paper addresses a literature gap by examining the role of workplace relationships in employees' safety behaviour, and builds on the Resilience Engineering (RE) framework by examining some organisational culture factors affecting how employees behave. A Social Exchange framework is used to examine the impact of supervisor-employee relationships, employee commitment to safety practices, and the type of maintenance culture upon employees’ commitment to safety and safety outcomes. Survey data from 284 technical and engineering employees in engineering asset management organisations within Australia were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Effective employee relationships with management and a proactive maintenance culture were associated with employee commitment to safety culture and safety outcomes. The findings provide empirical support for embedding an effective organisational culture focused on a proactive maintenance approach, along with ensuring employees are committed to safety processes, to ensure safety outcomes and also asset longevity. One study contribution is that good safety outcomes do not develop in a vacuum; instead they are built on effective workplace relationships. Therefore, SET helps to explain the forming of effective safety culture.

NPM and change management in asset management organisations

Purpose – Effective engineering asset management is essential in delivering public services safely whilst avoiding breakdowns and accidents. The purpose of this paper is to ensure asset safety and sustainability, public sector firms have to adopt new processes and practices. It is the role of supervisors to implement the changes, and as part of the new public management (NPM) public sector reforms, public sector asset managers have more discretionary power to implement further changes related to increased accountability. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the impact of management practices on supervisor-employee relationships and employees’ perception of autonomy, employees’ attitudes towards change and their perceptions of organisational culture within Australian public sector engineering asset management organisations, and in the context of NPM reforms and consequent changes in supervisory discretionary power. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical framework and a self-report surv...

Importance of Workplace Relationships and Attitudes toward Organizational Change in Engineering Asset-Management Organizations

Effective asset management is an important factor that can affect public well-being by reducing accidents and break-downs in public utilities. To be effective, asset managers, engineers, and technicians must be open to the continuous change involved in adopting best practice in the industry. The paper examined the impact of workplace relationships (perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange) on attitudes toward organizational change, affective commitment, and psychological well-being for Australian asset managers, engineers, and technicians working in physical asset management. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical framework, and a self-report survey was administered to examine 255 asset managers, asset management engineers, and asset management maintenance employees. The major findings from a structural equation model indicate that perceived organizational support was positively correlated with an employee’s attitude toward organizational change, and supervisor-subordinate relationships and perceived organizational support were positively correlated with an employee’s emotional attachment to the organization. Perceived organizational support, attitude toward organizational change, and affective commitment were positively correlated with employee psychological well-being. The implication of the findings is that Australian engineering asset management employees’ well-being and attitude toward organizational change is influenced more by their relationship with the organization, compared with the relationship with their supervisor. This research provides support for management seeking to enhance employee attitudes toward organizational change and employee outcomes in physical asset management organizations.

Culture Change for Effective Engineering Asset Management Organizations

Using the competing values framework (CVF) as an organizational culture lens, this study analyses current organizational cultures and identifies strategies and actions for effective change in Austr...

Managing the Implementation of Business Intelligence Systems

The implementation of a BI system is a complex undertaking requiring considerable resources. Yet there is a limited authoritative set of CSFs for management reference. This article represents a first step of filling in the research gap. The authors utilized the Delphi method to conduct three rounds of studies with 15 BI system experts in the domain of engineering asset management organizations. The study develops a CSFs framework that consists of seven factors and associated contextual elements crucial for BI systems implementation. The CSFs are committed management support and sponsorship, business user-oriented change management, clear business vision and well-established case, business-driven methodology and project management, business-centric championship and balanced project team composition, strategic and extensible technical framework, and sustainable data quality and governance framework. This CSFs framework allows BI stakeholders to holistically understand the critical factors that influence implementation success of BI systems.