Strategic Staff Research Articles

Evaluating the impact of strategic personnel policies using a MILP model: The public university case

Purpose: The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate the impact of diverse personnel policies around personnel promotion in the design of the strategic staff plan for a public university. The strategic staff planning consists in the determination of the size and composition of the workforce for an organization.Design/methodology/approach: The staff planning is solved using a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model. The MILP model represents the organizational structure of the university, the personnel categories and capacity decisions, the demand requirements, the required service level and budget restrictions. All these aspects are translated into a set of data, as well as the parameters and constraints building up the mathematical model for optimization. The required data for the model is adopted from a Spanish public university.Findings: The development of appropriate policies for personnel promotion can effectively reduce the number of dismissals while proposing a transition towards different preferable workforce structures in the university.Research limitations/implications: The long term staff plan for the university is solved by the MILP model considering a time horizon of 8 years. For this time horizon, the required input data is derived from current data of the university. Different scenarios are proposed considering different temporal trends for input data, such as in demand and admissible promotional ratios for workers.Originality/value: The literature review reports a lack of formalized procedures for staff planning in universities taking into account, at the same time, the regulations on hiring, dismissals, promotions and the workforce heterogeneity, all considered to optimize workforce size and composition addressing not only an economic criteria, but also the required workforce expertise and the quality in the service offered. This paper adopts a formalized procedure developed by the authors in previous works, and exploits it to assess the impact of various personnel policies in the staff planning for a particular university case, and this is the principal contribution of the paper.

An application of a Chartered Institute of Management Accounting strategy on stock control: a case of the South African municipality

The aim of the study is to demonstrate how best a municipal stock control can be applied in conformity with strategic requirements of the Chartered Institute of Management Accounting (CIMA). A quantitative research method was applied. The questionnaire was formulated based on information obtained from the literature, and was distributed to only one KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) local government department. The sample consisted of 82 respondents, selected using a census sampling method. The results indicate that the stores department lack CIMA stock control strategies, leading to poor stock control policy formulation and application. Staff experience and the effect of municipal stock control policy have shown a positive and significant relationship at .000* level. Proper documentation of strategic stock control and staff experience has also shown a positive significant relationship at .004* level. Moreover, the municipal strategic stock control framework has been proposed at the end of this paper and is subject to further experiments by the scholars. Keywords: stock control, stock control policy, stock control strategies. JEL Classification: H54, M40

Pupils in the clouds: Implementation of Google Apps for Education

The study focuses on the implications of affordances identified in Google Apps for Education (GAFE), by strategic staff within a Swedish school organisation, with responsibility for schools in around 30 municipalities. A complex picture emerged, where GAFE was perceived both as a neutral, well-functioning tool and as a means of educating in partly new ways. Furthermore, the study shows that GAFE, despite its characteristic of being a non-generative appliance, still can be used in creative ways. The implementation of cloud technology, such as GAFE, endorses a tunnel-vision affordance that downgrades more nuanced perceptions of the different technological, economical, and ethical aspects of the technology. Studying GAFE, different tensions of power emerge: Google vs. the school, IT professionals vs. teachers, management vs. teachers, teachers vs. pupils, Google vs. pupils.

The Impact of Information Systems Investment on Bank Performance in Ghana

The advancement of technology is a necessity of the current era. Businesses need to adopt and embrace new technologies to provide excellent business operations and services to their customers. This study looks at the impact of information systems investment on bank performance in Ghana. The major objectives are; (1) to determine the types of technology that the banks invest in (2) to find out the level of IS investment in the banks and (3) to determine the relationship between IS investments and bank’s performance. The following hypothesis was proposed and tested statistically “Information systems investment has a positive relationship with bank performance”. This study adopted the survey methodology. Taking into account the purpose of the study and the research hypothesis, this study is comfortably placed within a scientific epistemology of logical positivism. The cases investigated were local banks and foreign banks. The six banks used were named Bank A, Bank B, Bank C, Bank D, Bank E and Bank F respectively for the sake of anonymity. The population for the study was the strategic staff from the six banks all selected at their Head Offices in Greater Accra Region. The findings revealed that, there has been a high rate of investment in the past three years made by the various banks. The findings also revealed that both the foreign banks and the local banks asserted to the fact that, market share, profitability and ROA increases as IS investments are employed in the industry. Subjecting the hypothesis to statistical test also showed that, information systems investment has a positive relationship with bank performance. This study would help bank managers to recognize the importance of information systems investment and its use to gain competitive advantage and increase profit margins.

Lessons Learned

This case describes a strategic planning process initiated by the division of student affairs at a small, private college. It presents several issues related to institutional identity, strategic planning initiative development, faculty and staff buy-in and stay-in, and the changing landscape of higher education. The case is designed for usage in educational leadership programs and is particularly pertinent to provoke discussions regarding leading from the middle, leadership for institutional change, and moral and ethical leadership. Students in educational leadership enrolled in student affairs leadership and administration courses, budgeting or strategic planning, or organizational theory courses can engage in discussion using multiple aspects of the case.

Towards Coalition in a Multi-Agent Based Simulation for The Bomber Problem

The Bomber Problem BP can be considered as a discrete time model in which a bomber must survive for t epochs before reaching the target where it will drop its bombs. The Bomber problem is unsolved despite his appearance date since the 1960s. It is classified in the heading of research problems unsolved by Richard Weber. In fact, it can be classified as an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. Multi-agent simulation is for a long time privileged for modeling and experimentation of complex systems. This term includes concepts as diverse as strategic decision support or staff training. In this paper, we explore the challenge of simulating a system as complex as the Bomber problem with a MAS approach. Particularly, we demonstrate that Coalition forming in a MAS, models and simulates the collective resolution of the Bomber Problem within a dynamic agent organization in an efficient way. We illustrate our discussion with developed simulation results. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ij-ai.v2i4.2434

The strategic role of electronic marketing in the Australian museum sector

Issues such as whether museum websites are used for marketing purposes, and what role they play in a museum's broader marketing strategy, have relevance for theory and practice. Yet, little is written on museums and other cultural institutions within the electronic marketing literature. This paper explores the strategic role of electronic marketing in the Australian museum sector, taking a qualitative approach and using in-depth interviews with strategic and operational level staff from all the Australian state museums as a data source. Findings indicate that Australian state museums increasingly use their websites to communicate with their audiences in a marketing sense, with an emphasis, however, on a tactical rather than a strategic use. The success of an electronic marketing strategy appears to rest with the support and acceptance the technology has within the museum.

An ageing workforce and strategic human resource management: Staffing challenges for social security administrations

AbstractPublic‐service employment grew rapidly through the 1970s and early 1980s in the high‐income countries. During this period, the social protection sector was one of the areas that grew most extensively. Many of the public‐service employees hired during these years have retired or are soon to do so. As a consequence, social security administrations across the OECD area are set to lose significant proportions of their current staff across all grades over a relatively short time‐period. Despite calls for a greater use of strategic staff planning and a growing awareness of the challenges presented by an ageing public‐service workforce, public‐service organizations, including social security administrations, have been slow to react. This article addresses the human resource management challenges for social security administrations posed by an ageing public‐sector workforce, outlines proposed policy responses and assesses the difficulties of successfully implementing these in a systematic manner.

Staff Planning at the National Library of the Netherlands

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek in the Netherlands has developed a Strategic Staff Planning Programme to deal with the challenges of an ageing workforce, succession issues for management and specialised positions, and short-term budget cuts in combination with expected long-term staff shortages. This article describes the reasons for the Programme, steps taken to develop it, and preliminary results. The programme includes a Trainee Programme, a Management Trainee Programme, Individual Career Counselling and a Career Service Centre.

Experiences of Ecology: (Dis)ordering Nature as a Visitor Attraction

By taking the strategic development of a nature visitor centre in southern Sweden as a case study, this article examines practices of nature construction and how these practices are enacted and performed at various sites connected to the centre. The analytical focus is boundary work, i.e. how boundaries separating nature/culture, rural/urban, local/global, history/present/future, humans/non-humans and indoor/outdoor are (dis)ordered to form a visitor attraction. Boundary work is examined in five instances of nature construction: interviews with strategic and operative staff connected to the nature centre, an application for state funding of the centre, the ceremonial opening of the centre, market communication material and the centre's permanent exhibition. The analysis shows how the nature centre manifests a nature cosmology upheld by alternate purifying and hybridizing practices, where the result is a visitor attraction offering ecology as experience.

Unified Assessment: Policy, Implementation and Practice

The introduction of single and unified assessment processes across England and Wales heralds opportunities to develop more consistent approaches to the assessment and management of care that are underpinned by an agreed evidence base and inform the development of person-centred, outcome-focused support. This paper presents key findings from a qualitative study that considers the implementation and effects of unified assessment on direct practice in general and care management in particular. Drawing on interview and focus group data that reflect the experiences of strategic and operational staff, this paper describes key challenges to the development and implementation of unified assessment procedures, highlights the ways in which unified assessment has facilitated positive changes to practice and explores aspects of unified assessment where translation into practice has proved difficult. It suggests that unified assessment promotes the more consistent application of eligibility criteria and encourages more creative approaches to both care and service delivery planning. However, considerable variability in the nature and volume of information collected by practitioners, who expressed reservations about the domain approach to assessment, is noted and problems relating to the sharing and management of information are highlighted. Recommendations to inform assessment practice across the UK are presented and areas for staff training are identified.

SU-GG-T-384: Overcoming Challenges in the Implementation of Oncology Information System

Purpose: Full implementation of electronic oncologyinformation system (OIS) requires strategic planning and complete staff participation. The major hurdles are the reluctance of staff to make the change, their fear of losing information, increased workload due to data entry, and perceived loss of control. At our institution, we undertook familiarity‐based strategy to overcome these challenges in the implementation of OIS to streamline the practice and eliminate paper work. Method and Materials: Prior to full implementation of the OIS, a steering committee consisting of information technology personal, medical physicist,radiationoncologist, and administrator was formed to assess the adequacy of our present system utilization. Next, the group engaged the vendor to learn about the clinical processes of radiotherapy and the functionality of the software. The functionality was mapped into the clinical processes and divided into tasks separating them in accordance to the disciplines. The steering committee was then expanded to include nurse, therapist, and office staff. A timeline was established with milestones towards completing the implementation. The strategy of implementation was initiated with tasks in the discipline our staff was most familiar with in the OIS rather than the logistics of the clinical processes. Training was then provided to educate the new functionality. In order to showcase the benefits of a more robust implementation, communication tasks such as scheduling, resources handling were implemented. As the staff began to see the results, resistance to the new implementation decreased. The implementation was then expanded beyond the familiar base and monitored weekly by the steering committee. Results: Familiarity‐based strategy in implementing the OIS is successful. Personnel were interested in learning and teaching newly acquired tools and functionality. Conclusion: Familiarity‐based implementation of an OIS is a superior strategy compared to clinical processes‐based implementation.

Quality Culture in Government: The Pursuit of a Quality Management Model

The City of Winnipeg Property Assessment Department (WPAD) developed and implemented the Pursuit of Excellence Quality Management System (PEQMS) based on ISO 9001:2000 quality management principles and the client-centered approach to achieving quality principles developed by the Treasury Board of Canada for government services. The quality management system was developed with understanding of the strategic direction provided in the department's vision, mission and values as the foundation for quality management. In other words, the fulfillment of the requirements of the assessment department's quality management system means the achievement of strategic business goals and staff and customer needs. This paper outlines the steps that were taken to design the quality management system, including development of the quality policy, quality objectives, standards and performance targets, measurement tools and necessary documentation, and quality management reporting. Special emphasis is placed on using business process mapping and assigning quality attributes to processes and communicating these quality attributes in form of standards. Clarity is provided on how the quality management system developed complies with requirements for ISO 9001 and how the WPAD has the option of registering with the international standard.

Information Systems Strategies: Prospective Demand and Supply

E-Business and Internet have enforced organizations to implement new business models and use them in a variety of ways. This enforcement drove organizations to revise their strategies and goals to meet market rules of demand and supply and create solutions to stay competitive. Information systems is offering opportunity to reorganize every aspect of business model and business processes. Business firms are seeking these opportunities to improve their efficiencies and effectiveness to achieve their desired goals and objectives. This will require organizations to redesign work and business process rather than automate existing ones. The redesign or reengineering is making IS departments in organizations to observe their role and structure changes because of advances in technology, rather than by deliberating strategic choices. These changes will affect the optimal strategic approaches, management responsibilities, underpinning architectures, empowerment culture, customers, staff and services of the whole organization. The imposition of this change will apply new techniques and applications, and systems to be reinvented.

The strategic corporate intelligence and transformational marketing model

Reference to the strategic marketing and corporate intelligence interface is made explicit in this paper, and various contributions to the field of competitive intelligence are highlighted. A conceptual model, known as the strategic corporate intelligence and transformational marketing (SATELLITE) model is outlined, and can be used by corporate intelligence staff to provide better marketing intelligence. The SATELLITE model provides a framework within which strategic marketing staff and corporate intelligence staff can develop intelligence and security related strategies that can counter the moves of competitors and unwelcome protagonists. The model can also be used to identify areas of organizational weakness and can assist senior managers in identifying future areas of market opportunity.

Trends in organisations and selection: an introduction

This article introduces the special issue “Beyond psychometrics: assessment for the new millennium” and further speculates on how a number of organisational trends may influence selection practice in the future. These trends include the continuing emphasis on delayering, of selecting “core” strategic staff, of organisational fit, the impact of technology, the devolution and outsourcing of selection, the rise of teleworking, the questioning of Western assumptions alongside globalisation, and diversity. Developments in selection responses to these factors are identified, such as the popularity of assessment centres, psychometric tests, personality instruments and genetic testing. Some suggestions are made for possible future developments including whole team (or board) selection, the greater use of depth interviews, clinical tests of neurological functioning, and of virtual simulations, and the notion of the possession by individuals of a portable and verifiable assessment portfolio.

Rethinking staff development in Kenya: agenda for the twenty‐first century

The Kenyan Government, being concerned about the quality of school education, is attempting to increase teacher effectiveness and student learning. To achieve these goals, current in‐service programs need to be improved for all head teachers and teachers. Also, the role of the head teacher in promoting relevant teacher development requires greater recognition and administrative training. Organizations such as the Kenya Education Staff Institute need to be more involved in providing up‐to‐date staff development for all educational administrators and other educators. More attention also must be paid to effective induction, internships, strategic staff placements, financing, collaboration among provider organizations, and opinions of teachers concerning in‐service needs. Head teachers can do much to improve teaching and learning by using professional formative evaluation of their teachers.

Barriers to the efficient and effective use of information technology

Examines the efficiency and effectiveness of a prescriptive systems development methodology in practice. The UK Government’s mandatory structured systems analysis and design method (SSADM) was examined to determine its value to software projects. The evidence was collected from interviews with 17 project managers, discussions with participants on three large SSADM projects and from observing 90 end users in training. The conclusions are that prescriptive information systems methodologies are unlikely to cope well with strategic uncertainty, user communication or staff development. The recommendations are to focus more on soft organisational issues and to use approaches tailored to each project.

Management of software engineering

This paper examines the efficiency and effectiveness of a prescriptive systems development methodology in practice. The UK Government's mandatory Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) was examined to determine its value to software projects. The evidence was collected from interviews with 17 project managers, discussions with participants on 3 large SSADM projects and from observing 90 end users in training. The conclusions are that prescriptive information systems methodologies are unlikely to cope well with strategic uncertainty, user communication or staff development. The recommendations are to focus more on soft organisational issues and to use approaches tailored to each project.

Software quality by administration

This paper examines the efficiency and effectiveness of a prescriptive systems development methodology in practice. The UK Government's mandatory Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) was examined to determine its value to software projects. The evidence was collected from interviews with 17 project managers, discussions with participants on 3 large SSADM projects and from observing 90 end users in training. The conclusions are that prescriptive information systems methodologies are unlikely to cope well with strategic uncertainty, user communication or staff development. The recommendations are to focus more on soft organizational issues and to use approaches tailored to each project.