Management Logic Research Articles

The variables of “Management By skills”: A new management logic. Application within some Tunisian companies

La gestion des ressources humaines est très importante dans le processus de l’emploi, elle est constituée d’un ensemble de variables ayant pour finalité d’aider l’entreprise, efficacement et avec pertinence, à trouver des solutions aux problèmes rencontrés. À ce niveau, la gestion des ressources humaines a connu deux concepts de gestion : la gestion des compétences et la gestion par les compétences. Cette dernière se caractérise par un climat psychologique particulièrement adapté et stimulant pour le déploiement des compétences des salariés dans le travail. Elle entraine une nouvelle logique de gestion. L'autonomie, la responsabilité, la formation, l’évaluation et le contrôle ont établi des principes et régissent la nouvelle image des employés.

Reforming resistant KIPOs to achieve justice: can the judiciary system hybridise?

PurposeKnowledge-intensive public organizations (KIPOs henceforth) rely heavily on knowledge as the primary resource to provide public services. This study deals with a specific kind of KIPO in the judiciary system: the courts. The paper aims to explore the court’s managerial and organisational change resulting from the national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) reform in response to Covid-19, focussing on how this neglected KIPO responds to change, either by showing acts of resistance or undergoing a hybridisation process.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a qualitative research design, developing an explorative case study to investigate the process of a court’s managerial and organisational change caused by NRRP reform and to shed light on how this neglected KIPO reacts to change, showing resistance acts and developing the hybridisation process. Thirty-one interviews in six months have been conducted with the three main actors in Courts: judges, clerks and trial clerks.FindingsThe paper shows that in this understudied KIPO, judges fiercely resist the managerial logic that decades of reforms have been trying to impose. The recent introduction of an office for speeding up trials (Ufficio Per il Processo (UPP)) was initially opposed. Then, the resistance strategy changed, and judges started to benefit from UPP delegating repetitive and low-value tasks while retaining their core activities. Clerks approached the reform with a more positive attitude, seeing in UPP the mechanism to bridge the distance between them and the judges.Originality/valueConsidering their relevance to society, courts must be more addressed in KIPOs' studies. This paper allows the reader to enter such KIPO and understand its peculiar features. Secondly, the article helps to understand micropractices of resistance that may hinder the effectiveness of managerial reforms.

Competing logics and institutionalization of cost calculation in pluralistic organizations. The role of affordances

PurposeFor many years, universities have been confronted with the rise of a managerial logic, in line with the new public management movement. They have been encouraged to implement new accounting tools such as cost calculations. Literature shows mixed results regarding the institutionalization of such tools, and the logic they try to support. In most studies, the agency of actors is examined to explain the institutionalization of accounting tools and only few studies consider the specific characteristics of these accounting tools to understand this process. To enrich the literature on institutionalization, this article examines how the affordances of costing tools affect the institutionalization of these tools and the institutionalization of new logics in pluralistic organizations such as universities.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected at a French university which is considered as an example of successful institutionalization of the tool and is cited as a model to follow. The data include a four-month participant observation and 18 interviews. Access to internal and external documents was also available. The analysis of the data is based on a framework proposed by Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), which draws on the concept of affordance of tools, to investigate how the possibilities and constraints of costing tools shape the selection, application and outcomes of cost calculations.FindingsThe results show that the affordances of cost calculations facilitate the institutionalization of a new logic and its coexistence with previous logics. Technical affordances are mobilized by actors aiming to bring in a new logic without directly confronting the old ones. Role affordances also play a major role in the institutionalization by facilitating the adhesion of the actors through multiple applications of the tool. Finally, value-based affordances reinforce the institutionalization of a managerial logic by emphasizing the values shared with the other logics and thus facilitating the coexistence of the three logics at stake in the university.Originality/valueThis research provides three main contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on the institutionalization of accounting tools. It shows the relevance of the concept of affordance (Leonardi and Vaast, 2017) to unpack the characteristics of accounting tools (including the constraints and the possibilities they offer) and to achieve a better understanding of the institutionalization of accounting tools. Second, this paper contributes to the literature dealing with the role of accounting tools in the institutionalization of logics. The results suggest that the institutionalization of tools and the institutionalization of logics are two different phenomena that move at different speeds. However, these phenomena interact: the institutionalization of accounting tools can facilitate the coexistence of different logics in pluralistic organizations. Third, this paper contributes to the literature on affordances. The data reveal several types of affordances for accounting tools: technical affordances that refer to the technical possibilities to shape and tweak the tool; role affordances that refer to the various roles and purposes that the tool can fulfill and value-based affordances that refer to the plasticity of the values and beliefs that the tool can convey. The study shows that each type of affordance is prevalent at a different time of the process of institutionalization and that the combination of these affordances contributes to the institutionalization of the tool and of new logics.

Strategic management: a review of scientific literature using the conceptual bibliographic method

This study aimed to review the scientific literature on strategic management published in the Google Scholar database between 2021 and 2023 and available for access. The conceptual bibliographic method was used in its four stages: 1) formulation of the problem and guiding questions, with their respective response patterns; 2) collection of data on scientific bases, with the help of the mass of data; 3) organization of data into figurative schematic format, so that the answers sought can be visible and 4) generation of answers, to communicate discoveries to scientific communities. The results showed a) seven approaches (process, art, knowledge, set, management, actions, and system), b) 45 attributes organized into seven semantic groupings (Environment, organization (social group), planning, organization, direction, implementation, and control ) and c) that the logic of strategic management is focused on knowledge of the environment (internal and external) so that the management process (planning, organization, direction, and control) can be effective. The conclusion shows that the more the organization relates to the external environment and meeting needs, the greater the probability that its goals will be achieved.

Ignoring by complying: How public officials handle hybridity to pursue the goals of new public governance

AbstractThe article draws on insights from the literature on street‐level bureaucracy to analyze how public officials experience and deal with challenges arising from hybrid governance. Empirically, we focus on managerial staff and front‐line workers employed in Danish employment service delivery organizations, respectively. We develop the term “ignoring by complying” to describe how informants pursue ideals associated with new public governance (NPG) in settings dominated by more than one governance logic. They comply with the minimum standards associated with the logics of public administration (PA) and new public management (NPM) in order to ignore such logics most of the time. The article thereby contributes to the growing bodies of literature on cross‐pressures in public bureaucracies, particularly by putting recent street‐level bureaucracy research in touch with literature on hybrid governance.

Social Science as a Project

It is increasingly common to conceive of scientific research as something that can be planned, managed, and assessed by applying modern techniques of project management. Expecting research to follow certain standardized procedures to achieve clearly defined goals has a long tradition, in particular, in the natural sciences and has arguably contributed to the acceptance of science as an authoritative force that makes tangible contributions to social progress. For the social sciences, however such a narrow understanding of scientific research causes serious problems. Social science research doesn’t always fit in the logic of project management. Moreover, attempts to adjust research practices to correspond with external, managerial experiences are far more consequential and damaging to the social sciences. This article interrogates the prospects and consequences of project thinking in the social sciences and discusses the likely epistemological consequences. To do so, it will recapitulate the historical and social developments that lead to the adoption of managerial principles in social science research and contrasts them with the philosophical principles that underpinned the scientification of thinking about the social.

Utilizing Fuzzy Logic in Precision Agriculture: Techniques for Disease Detection and Management

Utilizing Fuzzy Logic in Precision Agriculture: Techniques for Disease Detection and Management

Concept and practice of marketing glamping as an eco-friendly tourism product

The article updates the application of a marketing approach in the glamping industry to maximize the use of all the opportunities that this environmental innovation provides for solving economic and social problems. The purpose of the study is to formulate the foundations of the conceptual model of glamping marketing as a type of marketing management in the service sector, combining, on the basis of the principle of complementarity, on the one side, the realization of the needs and motives (rational, emotional, mental) of clients in active leisure and on the other side, green, cultural, economic development of territories into a single synergetic process of creating socially significant products that combine the characteristics of tradition and modernity. In their study, the authors rely on the results of an analysis of the Russian glamping market and note the increased interest of consumers in the new format of the tourism product. The glamping industry can bring quick profits, but less long-term results combined with a weak social effect. The scientific novelty of the research is as follows: based on clarifying the characteristics of marketing in the glamping industry, the term “glamping marketing” was proposed and justified, which, despite its industry nature, can become the basis for the creation of other innovative products of the green industry; the relationship between green marketing, territorial marketing and glamping marketing has been identified; the elements of the service package were adapted to the glamping industry and an algorithm for its strategic marketing management was proposed, based on the logic of strategic management and technological entrepreneurship.

Fatores de risco psicossociais relacionados ao trabalho: uma análise contemporânea

Abstract Introduction: work-related psychosocial factors have stood out in debates concerning health protection and promotion in occupational contexts. Objective: this essay demonstrates how the lack of thematic exploration regarding the antagonism and structural conflict between capital and labor, as well as its co-optation by neoliberal managerial logic, impoverishes the debate and weakens initiatives aimed at transforming the work environment. Method: a literature review was conducted using historical materialism as a theoretical framework. Results: policies, instruments, and measures formulated to protect workers’ health developed under the ideological framework of capitalist accumulation and neoliberal governmentality become understandings and interventions that, far from transforming actual work situations, mask the role played by work in occupational health. They consecrate actions focused on individuals, dampen social struggles, and increase pressure on workers. Conclusion: addressing psychosocial risks should not be limited to mitigating them; rather, it should find its purposes and foundations in a theoretical-practical horizon that unveils the need to overcome the capitalist economy itself.

Building Collaborative Capacity through formalized and Imposed Cooperation: The Implementation of Health Care Communities in Norway

Today, the nexus of ´co-ordination – co-production – co-creation´ constitutes the new political prism through which the ´wicked issues´ of the public sector is re-imagined, and by calling forth new cooperative endeavors stressing shared problem solving, the welfare state might signal a shift in mode of governance from New Public Management (NPM) to New Public Governance (NPG). In this paper we inquire into an empirical example from the Norwegian healthcare sector, namely the implementation of healthcare communities (HCCs).
 Public healthcare is an essential part of the Nordic welfare state model. Being a multi-dimensional policy field, it is notoriously characterized by both ´wicked issues´ and complexity – in terms of service provision, organizing and governing. Often patients require several healthcare services from multiple providers. In Norway, healthcare is organized in two main parts, primary (municipalities) and specialized healthcare (central government). While this division in theory should lead to a clear assignment of tasks and responsibilities, it has built-in challenges of lack of continuity of care and the risk of services being fragmented. Furthermore, the NPM-reforms during the last three decades has contributed to organizational fragmentation. Problems of service and organizational fragmentation has served as a core focal point for several health sector reforms in Norway during the last three decades. The latest reform initiative is the implementation of 19 HCCs, where hospital trusts and municipalities, through imposed and formalized cooperation structures are expected to cooperate, as well as co-plan, service provision, aiming to make better, more efficient services, and give patients a more coherent and seamless experience. 
 We are interested in why and how NPG-inspired ideas of collaboration and co-creation are translated and articulated into the specific institutional context of Norwegian healthcare, and whether the HCC reform imply an actual break with the NPM-logics – or rather represents more of a continuation adding an extra reform layer, so to speak. In this paper the following research question guides our inquiry: In which ways does the HCC reform as an expression of the New Public Government paradigm represent a break or continuation with New Public Management logics in the healthcare sector in Norway, and how are the concepts of co-design, co-creation and collaborative capacity framed and constructed as the remedy for fragmentation by the policy makers?
 
 Methodologically, this paper is based on critical discourse analysis of official documents central in the development of the reform, as well as a qualitative analysis of interviews with central and local actors, in addition to a study of relevant public governance literature.

Parenting through place-of-care disruptions: A qualitative study of parents'experiences of neonatal care.

Neonatal care is complex, involving multiple people and technologies within a community of care. When preterm babies are cared for far from homeand/or transferred between units, the whole community of care (and particularly parent participation) is disrupted. Although previous studies have captured subjective experiences of parents, there has been little research exploring the material practices undertaken by parents as a consequence of place-of-care decisions, or the social organisation of those practices. As part of a wider study exploring optimal place-of-care, semistructured interviews were conducted between July 2018 and October 2019 with 48 parents (36 families) with one or more preterm babies (born at 27-31 weeks gestation) cared for in a neonatal unit in the last 12 months. We highlight parents'labour-intensive and stressful work to: (1) parent in the neonatal care community (an oversight role that goes beyond contemporary notions of 'involvement'); (2) create continuity amid place-of-care disruptions; and (3) adapt to the managerial logics of neonatal care settings. Our analysis focuses on the work generated by managerial systems that organise place-of-care decision-making and other efficiency-focused practices. Parents are absorbed into negotiating institutional systems and diverted from routine parenting activities. Those involved in the organisation and management of neonatal care should take account of how managerial systems impact parents'workload, ability to participate in their baby's community of care and, ultimately, on the wellbeing and development of babies and their families. The OPTI-PREM study embedded parents'experiences of neonatal care into the research, through a discrete workstream that employed qualitative methodology to capture parents'experiences-as reported in this paper. The OPTI-PREM project was also supported by a Bliss volunteer parent panel, which was involved in designing and overseeing the research. Bliss 'champion[s] the right for every baby born premature or sick to receive the best care by supporting families, campaigning for change and supporting professionalsand enabling life-changing research'(https://www.bliss.org.uk/about-us/about-bliss). A representative of Bliss is a co-author of this manuscript, and a parent representative (named in the Acknowledgements) provided feedback during its preparation.

Influence of Entrepreneur’s Action Logics on His Intention to Adopt Crowdfunding: A Pecking Order Theory Perspective

Crowdfunding (CF), a new funding channel, is prompting more research on the non-financial determinants of its adoption. This paper is part of this emerging current and aims to explain using the logic of entrepreneurial action, the entrepreneur intention to adopt CF. The binomial logistic regression test on a simplified intention model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (UTAUT) reveals that the intention to adopt CF varies according to the entrepreneur’s commitment to entrepreneurial act logic and his management logic. These results reveal the validity of the pecking order theory and highlight the importance of incitation to risk-taking and entrepreneurial transparency, catalyst factors for participation in CF.

Competing institutional logics in hospital management during the COVID-19 pandemic – lessons for the future

Hospitals had to adapt quickly when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in January 2020. This article analyses the organisation of the crisis management efforts of Oslo University Hospital (OUH). The analysis is based on theories that organising is a process of sensemaking, especially in the face of unexpected events. Crises stress test organisations and can highlight important decision patterns and otherwise hidden underlying logics. Theories of emergency and crisis management distinguish between anticipation and resilience. In the analyses of the OUH case, two different emergency logics, planned and ad hoc was identified. The different logics create tension in priorities and the choice of problems and solutions during the pandemic. The analysis was based on 19 in-depth interviews that took place in three clinics at OUH between December 2020 and November 2021, as well as internal audits and documents from OUH and published works. The analysis of OUH show that the resilient, ad hoc emergency logic was mostly present in the first phase of the pandemic and allowed flexibility and fast centralised decision-making. This process-based organising is particularly suitable to tackle crises but face difficulties in normal operations. To learn from past crisis management experiences and develop robust hospitals for the future, a greater awareness of the relationship between different emergency logics and sensemaking in crises is needed.

“Extraordinary powers for extraordinary times”: A conjunctural analysis of pandemic policing, common sense, and the abolitionist horizon

In this paper, we offer a conjunctural analysis of policing and incarceration, examining their expansion in relation to structural economic conditions over the last 50 years and interrogating how the sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic enabled extraordinary growth in policing powers in the Australian jurisdictions of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (VIC). We examine how popular support for police-led responses to crisis and fines as a common-sense solution to social problems were sought during the period that the Public Health Orders were in effect in the two states. We argue that the discursive project of naturalizing the police-led response to the pandemic—via official communications from the state governments as well as media coverage of the pandemic—attempts to further entrench a vision of law and order governance in which infrastructures of discipline and punishment are necessary and inevitable. We identify this vision as a direct barrier to abolition and a significant limit on the capacity to imagine alternative frameworks for justice. We end by considering a small archive of tweets from users in NSW and VIC published on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter (now called X) in 2020–21. We argue that this archive registers the way the common-sense status of the fine as an efficient, effective, and equitable punishment gives way to punitive fantasies about police and prisons. We read this archive alongside the broad refusal to pay Covid-related fines and the ongoing legal disputes contesting the legitimacy of their issuance, concluding by proposing that the conjunctural moment of the Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to unresolved contradictions between the naturalized logic of law and order crisis management and the potential for this logic to come undone.

COMPAD: A heterogeneous cache-scratchpad CPU architecture with data layout compaction for embedded loop-dominated applications

The growing trend of pervasive computing has consolidated the everlasting need for power efficient devices. The conventional cache subsystem of general-purpose CPUs, while being able to adapt to many use cases, suffers from energy inefficiencies in some scenarios. It is well-known by now in the academic literature that the utilization of a scratchpad memory (SPM) can help reducing the overall energy consumption of embedded systems. This work proposes a hybrid cache-SPM architecture with support logic for semi-transparent data management and spatial locality improvement. Selected data are transferred and stored in the SPM in a compact form using dynamic layout transformation. As a second major contribution, we introduce a methodology to identify memory access sequences that make an inefficient use of the cache, marking them as candidates to be moved to an SPM of constrained space. The methodology does not require access to the source code of the target applications, relying on binary instrumentation and offline profiling. The resulting mapping policies have been tested on a simulated system, showing a mean memory dynamic energy reduction of 43% and a mean speed gain of 13% with a representative benchmark set.

Features of application of project-oriented management system for activation of organizational development of the enterprise

The article examines the peculiarities, bottlenecks, and means of implementing project-oriented management in modern enterprises and organizations. The theoretical foundations of the project approach to management in general and organizational development, in particular, have been summarized. The system of the project approach is structured. The essential elements of project management are described (a focus on achieving the mission and goals, the presence of a hierarchy of goals, the consistency of the task implementation process, time constraints, the availability of resources, uniqueness, and the presence of a project manager and a team), including the description of essential features of project activity in the management of the organizational development of the enterprise: the focus of personnel policy on the development of project soft and hard skills; encouragement of staff's aspirations for orientation in the information space; encouragement, creation of conditions for self-improvement and self-development; attention to the role structure of the team; obtaining the logic of project management and principles of organizational development. The author's approach to interpreting the logic of enterprise project management and organizational development is highlighted. By considering bottlenecks in the domestic practice of implementing a project-oriented approach, the directions of its development in the modern conditions of the functioning of the business environment are outlined. Attention is paid to aspects of leadership in the system of applying the project approach to management. Such a leadership style as service leadership is considered in detail. Its advantages of application in modern realities are described to ensure the effectiveness of the organizational development of enterprises and organizations. The sphere of interest of servant leaders in personnel management is highlighted. Formed indicators of servant leader behavior: removal of obstacles, "distraction shield", encouragement, and creation of opportunities for development and autonomy. Keywords: project-oriented management, project, organizational development, staff, team, leadership, leader-servant.

Fuzzy Logic in Risk Management at High-Technology Enterprises

Fuzzy Logic in Risk Management at High-Technology Enterprises

“The majority are left behind”: the promotion of bilingual education 2030 policy in Taiwan and its potential to widen horizontal inequalities

English as a medium of instruction (EMI) is commonly adopted as a strategy for higher education internationalisation. While there are numerous studies on the teaching practices of EMI programmes, the relationship between EMI and structural inequalities has been less investigated, especially in “universal” higher education systems. To address the research gap, this study investigates the EMI practices of two Taiwanese higher education institutions (HEIs) under current government initiatives. Qualitative data from policy documents and semi-structured interviews are analysed with an institutional logics approach and reflexive thematic analysis. The findings suggest that while state, managerial, and academic logics jointly shape EMI strategies in the public university case, EMI practices in the private university of technology case are predominantly driven by market and managerial logics and challenged by academic logic. Furthermore, this study reveals the structural “stuckness” encountered by the private case. In Taiwan’s hierarchical higher education system, the promotion of EMI could result in widening horizontal inequalities among HEIs. More specifically, under the EMI grading certification scheme for students and the tiered award system for HEIs, the majority may be left behind whereas the few with linguistic capital are spotlighted. Therefore, this study concludes that in light of organisational conditions, policymakers should allow greater flexibility for HEIs to develop performance indicators appropriate to their students’ needs.

From post-war reconciliation to European integration? Competing historicities of ‘exchange’ in European small-town twinning

Abstract Town twinning is often seen as a linear driving force of European integration. This article argues that town twinning’s historicity is more complex. The initial post-war period, according to today’s practitioners’ accounts, was characterized by a high degree of personal involvement which transformed into an exposure to relationship uncertainty. By way of contrast, twinning practices since the 1990s are reported as being driven by a more managerial logic. The shift from the imaginary of ‘reconciliation’ to that of ‘integration’ comes along with a change in twinning practices, the distribution of responsibilities and the share of personal involvement and exposure.

Layered Logic

Organizations instantiate multiple institutional logics, which operate in a nested fashion across levels of analysis. A demand on organizations in the Global South from aid donors is to adopt new management systems. Management systems like kaizen, a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement, have an inherent logic. Kaizen’s adoption in Ethiopia, a postsocialist state, can be rendered ceremonial if its logic is not fully instantiated along with prevailing logics within recipient organizations. Our examination of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation is an application of Besharov and Smith’s 2014 framework. We assume there is a high degree of centrality in this state-owned enterprise, because any managerial logic absorbed would have to adhere to the state logic. We conducted interviews, supplemented by archival data review, to illustrate what actors do to improve compatibility with state logic. Our findings suggest three institutional logics were instantiated, in order: the macro logic of developmental authoritarianism; micro logics of production order and social control; and the meso logic of knowledge brokerage. We propose the concept of layered logic, or ordering of institutional logics, each serving a distinct purpose yet fitted with the others.