Human Systems Management - Volume 22, issue 1

Authors: Georgantzas, Nicholas C. | Ritchie-Dunham, James L.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Shingo's breakthrough improves the way strategy researchers and managers talk about and design high-leverage strategies and tactics. Seeing production as a concatenated net of operations and processes not only negates the dysfunctional effects of Anthony's paradigm, but also leads to a framework for strategic management (SM) as a well-specified net of strategies and tactics that deliver direct, dynamic and structural leverage. Anchored in system dynamics, systemic leverage (SL) analysis and synthesis can help managers align multiple, system goal aiming tactics that mix pure action with communication in corporate-, business- and functional-level strategy. The insight gained from SM's net view with …SL analysis brings modern management a step closer to the tradeoffs-free synthesis to direct managerial attention to the combined effects of direct, dynamic and structural leverage in strategy making. Show more

Keywords: Competition, co-operation, leverage, operation, process, production, strategy, system dynamics, tactics

DOI: 10.3233/HSM-2003-22101

Citation: Human Systems Management, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 1-11, 2003

Authors: Busby, J.S. | Hughes, E.J.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Complex, engineered systems often require extensively planned behaviour on the part of operators and maintenance staff if such systems are to maintain their integrity. A study was undertaken to determine how the absence of planning on the part of operators imperilled such systems. The aim was to help future designers understand how, in effect, operators delegate planning to the system, and to help designers make systems robust to this delegation. An analysis was undertaken of 59 incidents in the offshore industry in an attempt to characterise both the aspect of system activity that operators failed to plan (for example its …completeness) and the general processes they were engaged in at the time (for example system start-up). All the processes that were implicated in the failures were either changes in the state of the system, such as start-up and shut-down, or operations that could not be said to take place in a steady state: there were no cases involving routine, continual activity. This suggests that designers' risk analyses should concentrate on non steady-state behaviour in systems, and that these risk analyses would benefit from some kind of characterisation of how systems are vulnerable to plan delegation. Show more

Keywords: Planning, robust design, hazardous systems, hazardous systems

DOI: 10.3233/HSM-2003-22102

Citation: Human Systems Management, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 13-22, 2003

Authors: Huang, Albert H.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Although corporate Web sites play many important roles in the modern business world, there is a surprising lack of empirical studies on their user interface. This study collected data from 50 Web sites owned by large international organizations. Analysis of the study's data: (1) provides an overview of the trends in corporate Web site design, (2) shows that many Web developers voluntarily adopt certain design conventions, and (3) indicates that most corporate Web sites do not make good use of multimedia capability. It further shows that, although some usability principles have been implemented, there is much room for improvement.

Keywords: WWW, Internet, web, usability, user interface, multimedia

DOI: 10.3233/HSM-2003-22103

Citation: Human Systems Management, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 23-36, 2003

Authors: Pook, Laszlo A. | Füstös, János | Marian, Liviu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Businesses in advanced economies are rapidly expanding into Central and Eastern Europe. First world managers working in foreign cultures are often surprised by contradictions, which do not fit the rational norms they are used to observing. This paper examines such traditional factors as age, tenure, gender, education, and position at the organization as predictors of job satisfaction in three countries, Hungary, Poland and Romania, emerging from the command economies of the communist era, the significance of employees' beliefs regarding the consequence of the quality of the work they perform on their promotions, and the role played by gender in promotions …and other rewards offered to employees. Results suggest that in the countries examined here tenure, gender and position occupied, rather than age, play significantly in predicting job satisfaction and advancement, that beliefs about the quality of one's work do not result in advancement, that managers often do not play significant roles in promoting their employees, and that job satisfaction on one factor does not necessarily imply job satisfaction on other factors. Significant gender bias was evident in some of these countries. The authors offer recommendations for managers to follow in these country cultures. Show more

Keywords: Job satisfaction, satisfaction with rewards, promotion, gender, gender bias, age, tenure, position at work, managerial assistance, quality of work, national culture, Hungary, Poland, Romania

DOI: 10.3233/HSM-2003-22104

Citation: Human Systems Management, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 37-50, 2003