Shifts In Management Practices Research Articles

Historical ecological monitoring and appraisal for extractive uses and other values in Malaysia unveils consequences of regime shifts in 120 years of mangrove management

Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve (MMFR) in Peninsular Malaysia, with its ‘management plans’ traced back to 1904, is the longest-managed mangrove forest for timber (pole/charcoal) production through intermediate thinning and final felling (or clear-felling) operations. For 115 years, the mangroves in the productive zones have been harvested under a 30-year rotation cycle. The 10-year management plans released by the Forestry Department have been supporting silvicultural management. Despite the long management history, the mangrove biomass and quality were found to have decreased in recent years. Therefore, we analyzed all the available management plans between 1904 and 2019 to summarize both qualitative and quantitative data (i.e., silviculture policy/practice and trading) in search of the shifts in management practices. A comparison with relevant literature on the MMFR was also made to evaluate the potential issues of scientific concern in the ongoing management. We found that the higher yield (per ha) of charcoal and poles in the past 20 years resulted from exploiting the restrictive productive zones (=forest that is environmentally sensitive and marginally productive). With a policy inclined greatly toward the financial outcomes of timber-based products, the current silviculture practice may turn out to be unsustainable if any impacts like extreme weather, tree dieoff, sea-level rise, etc., affect mangroves in the future. We discuss the dilemma between greenwood harvesting and the protection of a diverse range of ecosystem service. This study sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of historic and current mangrove timber harvesting regimes in MMFR and can contribute to supporting future sustainable mangrove management in Matang, and other forest formation.

Psychological contract breach during the pandemic: How an abrupt transition to a work from home schedule impacted the employment relationship

Organizations shifted employees to a work from home schedule as a protective health measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper depicts the path through which the abrupt workplace disruptions can trigger employees’ perceptions of felt mistrust, intensify work to life conflict, and cause a psychological contract breach. In study 1, we conducted an experiment with 133 college students and found that switching to a work from home schedule with enhanced supervisor control increased the psychological contract breach through felt mistrust. In Study 2, we surveyed 239 adults who worked from home during the pandemic. Results underline the role of work to life conflict as a mediator through which disruptions and felt mistrust influenced the breach of psychological contract. Further, coping strategies were found to mitigate this detrimental effect. Overall, our findings suggest that sudden shifts in management practices can challenge workplace relationships during environmental shocks.

Indigenous Uses of Photographic Digital Heritage in Postcolonizing Australia

The process of “postcolonizing” continues in the former settler colony of Australia, entailing intense struggles over national identity and culture. Digital heritage plays a key role in these conflicts, in the form of historical and newer archives that have become increasingly important within Indigenous advocacy for recognition. Constructed from more traditional museum, library and private collections, these have become digital assets that now circulate in radically different ways—for example, as proof of identities, and links to Country. Since the late 1990s, as a result of postcolonizing advocacy by Indigenous people and cultural institutions in alliance with rapidly developing digital technologies, a profound shift in management practices has facilitated the assertion of control by First Nations people. These are exemplified by the Aṟa Irititja project, and its replicants, such as the Storylines project at the State Library of Western Australia. Digital heritage and digitized historical photographs in particular are now considered to be key resources for building Aboriginal history and identity, challenging oppressive state narratives and strengthening communities. Despite concerns regarding loss of culture caused by globalization and continuing inequalities, Aboriginal interests have drawn upon this expanded photographic digital heritage resource, to advance their rights through new temporal practices of production, circulation, and consumption.

Determining Optimal Skillsets for Business Managers Based on Local and Global Job Markets: A Text Analytics Approach

ABSTRACTWe are experiencing a significant shift in management practices—moving from intuition, experience, and gut‐feeling driven decision‐making to one that is driven by data, evidence, and computational sciences. This shift, which is often called the analytics revolution, is not only changing the business landscape from a practical perspective but also redefining the white‐collar job market. The goal of this study is to employ a data‐ and analytics‐driven approach to analyze a large and feature‐rich dataset (which is composed of the recent job postings and the extant published literature) to characterize the state of the current business job market, especially to magnify the analytics related features and expectations including the geographic (i.e., local vs. global) differentiators. Using several graphical and tabular representations, in this paper we report on our thought‐provoking findings that collectively illustrate the changing face of knowledge, skills, and abilities required by the current local and global business job markets.

A comparison of the US National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) with recorded fire occurrence and final fire size

Most previous research has assessed the ability of the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) to portray fire activity at either single sites or on small spatial scales, despite it being a nation-wide system. This study seeks to examine the relationships between a set of NFDRS fire danger indices (Fire Danger Ratings, Staffing Level and the Ignition Component) and measures of fire activity (fire occurrence and final fire size) across the entire conterminous US over an 8-year period. We reveal that different regions of the US display different levels of correspondence between each of the fire danger indices and recorded fire activity. Areas in the Southern and Eastern Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACCs) exhibit weaker correlations than those in the Northwest, Northern Rockies, Great Basin and Northern California GACCs. Peaks in fire occurrence are shown to occur at mid–low values of fire danger whereas final fire sizes increase monotonically with each fire danger index. Our findings appear to align with perceived shifts in management practices currently employed across the US and indicate that the ability of the NFDRS to apportion the resources required to combat large fires is in general well developed.

The Privatization of the Nyungwe National Park Buffer Zone and Implications for Adjacent Communities

We present a case study on the privatization of the Nyungwe National Park's buffer zone in which we critically examine the potential implications of a shift in management practice for local people. We present empirical data describing household collection of natural resources from the park, buffer zone, purchased from local markets, and private lands from areas adjacent to the park and buffer. Results show heavy reliance on wood from the buffer zone, with a larger proportion of relatively poorer households' income being derived from wood. Furthermore, semistructured interviews used to depict local perceptions of access to the buffer zone preceding the New Forest Company (a United Kingdom-based timber company) operations describe increasing difficulty in accessing resources due to greater enforcement. We conclude that the change in management poses substantial loss for local communities, in particular for the poorest households, in terms of resources from and access to the buffer.

Communication Management in Electronic Banking. Better Communication for Better Relationship

In order to understand customers’ characteristics, banking management should create a good relationship with them. This article is focused on the relationship between communication management in banking system and the customer satisfaction and loyalty/retention. We consider Electronic Communication (e-Communication) is a crucial variable on customer satisfaction. Thus online channels for communication are the discussion topic of our paper: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social network sites, virtual game world, web-sites and electronic mails. We also consider Social Media an important communication channel with existing clients and prospective clients. The conclusion is that banks need to make the paradigm shift in management practices by continuous innovation in the service of customers.

Implementing the Landfill Directive in Greece: problems, perspectives and lessons to be learned

Due to the increasing pressure from the European Union, in the last decade the waste management landscape in Greece has been going through drastic changes, especially regarding policies and legislation. Shifts in management practices, however, have been considerably slower. A major component of this shift is the requirement by the Landfill Directive (LD) to divert increasing quantities of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) from landfilling. Making use of the four‐year extension allowed to countries heavily reliant on landfills, Greece will have to achieve the LD diversion targets in the period 2010–2020. In this paper the main aspects of the LD are outlined and critically placed in the context of the EU waste policy and the priorities of the new Waste Directive. The current state of waste management in Greece is presented with the main planning for new BMW treatment infrastructure. The complex and multifaceted barriers to successful implementation of waste policies in Greece are discussed using the case study of the LD, in an effort to draw lessons for the New Member States.

Effects of genetically modified, herbicide‐tolerant crops and their management on soil food web properties and crop litter decomposition

1 Genetically modified (GM), herbicide-tolerant crops have been adopted extensively worldwide, resulting in increased homogenization of agricultural practices. However, several countries still view GM crops with trepidation, citing potential risks to human health and the environment. We currently know little about how non-target biota responds to cultivation of GM crops under field conditions. 2 This study describes a series of microcosm and field experiments in Ontario, Canada, that estimated the effects of transgenic, glyphosate-tolerant (GT) crops and their management on the abundances of detritivorous soil biota and crop litter decomposition. 3 Absolute abundance of few of the measured biotic groups were affected by either the herbicide or variety treatments and, where significant effects were observed, the responses were not consistent across all years or for all sample dates within a year. More frequently, but not consistently, the GT herbicide system was associated with increased fungal : bacterial biomass ratios, suggesting a state of reduced enrichment. 4 Although the conventional and GT varieties studied differed in composition, we observed few effects of the modification for glyphosate-tolerance on maize Zea mays and soybean Glycine max litter decomposition. Overall, the herbicide system associated with GT crops reduced soybean- and corn-litter decomposition, but responses were inconsistent across Ontario, with many trials demonstrating no effect. Effects were probably underrepresented in this study as average daily precipitation was positively correlated with the magnitude of this system effect and many sites received well-below average levels of precipitation. 5 Synthesis and applications. Most concerns regarding the potential impacts of GM crops on non-target biota have targeted traits associated with the biotechnology itself. However, shifts in management practices associated with biotechnology are also widespread and have the same, if not greater, potential to alter the structure and functioning of agroecosystem biodiversity. The lack of observed permanent negative effects on soil biota in this study is heartening; however, more research is required to determine the functional consequences of observed transient effects and effects on other biota, as well as how altered crop litter decomposition affects agroecosystem nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration.

The Effects of Spatial Legacies following Shifting Management Practices and Fire on Boreal Forest Age Structure

Forest age structure and its spatial arrangement are important elements of sustainable forestry because of their effects on biodiversity and timber availability. Forest management objectives that include specific forest age structure may not be easily attained due to constraints imposed by the legacies of historical management and natural disturbance. We used a spatially explicit stochastic model to explore the synergetic effects of forest management and fire on boreal forest age structure. Specifically, we examined (1) the duration of spatial legacies of different management practices in the boreal forest, (2) how multiple shifts in management practices affect legacy duration and the spatial trajectories of forest age structure, and (3) how fire influences legacy duration and pattern development in combination with harvesting. Results based on 30 replicates of 500 years for each scenario indicate that (1) spatial legacies persist over 200 years and the rate at which legacies are overcome depends on whether new management targets are in synchrony with existing spatial pattern; (2) age specific goals were met faster after multiple management shifts due to the similar spatial scale of the preceding management types; (3) because large fires can erase the spatial pattern created by smaller disturbances, scenarios with fire had shorter lags than scenarios without fire. These results suggest that forest management goals can be accelerated by applying management at a similar spatial scale as existing spatial patterns. Also, management planning should include careful consideration of historical management as well as current and likely future disturbances.

A New Way of Looking at Old Things

According to Susan Pearce, the museum as a social construct, a purveyor of ideologically charged notions of knowledge and historical truth, must evolve into a ‘reflexive, exploratory’ cultural space where ‘existing collections speak in new voices’. And to her this implies a major shift in management practices and attitudes. After working on the curatorial staff in the Antiquities Department at National Museums on Merseyside and Exeter City Museum, she joined the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester in 1984, becoming Professor of Museum Studies in 1990 and Dean of Arts in 1996. She served as President of the Museums Association 1992–94, and has written and edited numerous books including Museums, Objects and Collections (1992), On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (1995) and Collecting in Contemporary Practice (1998).

Reengineering Effectiveness and the Redesign of Organizational Control: A Case Study of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore

:While much publicity and hype surrounds business process reengineering, little attention has been paid to consequential management issues such as compression of responsibilities and the reduction of checks and controls. Redesigned processes require a corresponding alignment in organizational control to sustain reengineering effectiveness. Inadequate attention to these issues can expose reengineered systems to excessive risks or produce reengineering attempts that are prematurely self-defeating as they contradict the underlying control philosophy. This paper addresses the question of whether traditional management controls have been eliminated, compromised, or rendered irrelevant amid such dynamic organizational changes, and, if so, how the management control function in a reengineered organization evolves.This question was explored through an intensive case study of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. The analysis suggests a restructuring of control dependency through automation and cooperation with external agencies, a shift in management practices toward more refined segmentation of control practices and greater leverage on back-end control, and increased reliance on outcome control. The challenge of ensuring proper implementation of such controls, given the deep-rooted traditional control culture, is not trivial. Implications and suggestions for assessing the risks and benefits of organizational control are discussed.

Trends and issues in land and water resources management: Setting the agenda for change

The classical model of a paradigm shift is used to explore changes that are occurring in public lands and water resources management. Recent policy developments suggest that the traditional paradigm, which is characterized by sustained yield, is in the process of being invalidated. While no new paradigm has been fully accepted, the emerging paradigm does appear to be based on two principles: ecosystem management and collaborative decision making. Implementation of these two principles is likely to require extensive revision of traditional management practices and institutions. Failure to address these issues could result in adoption of the rhetoric of change without any lasting shift in management practices or professional attitudes.

High Performance Work Design: The Digital Experience

This paper argues that tne boundaries of what management once considered acceptable work redesign have been expanded by new environmental pressures. Approaches now being developed give employees considerably more discretion and enhance opportunities for personal skills development and improved organizational performance. The motives behind this shift in management practice are quite different from those which sustained the quality of working life movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and are influenced in part by the development of increasingly sophisticated computer based manufacturing technologies.This argument is illustrated by the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), in computer manufacturing plants in America and Scotland, with applications of "high performance work systems". Complementary evidence that this represents a wider shift in management practice, not confined to one country, company or sector, is drawn from published accounts of similar developments in other countries.