Many organisations are nowadays interested to adopt lean manufacturing strategy that would enable them to compete in this competitive globalisation market. In this respect, it is necessary to assess the implementation of lean manufacturing in different organisations so that the important best practices can be identified. This paper describes the development of key areas which will be used to as...

New home buyers in United States are becoming more discriminating in their home buying decision. They are demanding quality construction at reasonable prices. The current state of construction market also gives construction buyers more ammunition to be more discriminate when they choose to purchase homes.  To be competitive and remain in business, housing contractors and developers must meet th...

Future system development and management efforts must strive to institutionalize these gains and provide ongoing, incremental improvement in these areas. With the growth of e-commerce and further socioeconomic reliance on IT, the organizations that have achieved these gains will be well positioned to outdistance those who were less aggressive. Figure 1 depicts the silver linings and competitive...

This paper reports on a qualitative study designed to uncover the practices that differentiate programs producing high rates of competitive employment from those with low rates. The study found 13 differentiating practice factors in three areas: building consumer interest in working, getting a job, and maintaining a job. The congruence between these findings and current definitions of "best pra...

Every day, hundreds of thousands of Internet domain names are abandoned by their owners and become available for re-registration. Yet, there appears to be enough residual value and demand from domain speculators to give rise to a highly competitive ecosystem of drop-catch services that race to be the first to re-register potentially desirable domain names in the very instant the old registratio...

The last decade has marked a radical change in the business of sustainability, say environmental activists and industrialists alike. On the wane are "greenwashing" campaigns in which corporations promote dubious environmental accomplishments to draw attention away from environmentally damaging practices. On the rise are corporate investments in sustainability programs, new types of environmenta...

Business colleges and schools expose students to core business principles, which yield potential employees having certain marketable skills and awareness. However, the current business environment also advocates an intensive use of information technology to enable competitive advantage, which requires a basic awareness of information security practices. This study empirically explores the aware...

We collect data on management practices for operations, targets and human resources in 2,000 hospitals in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Sweden, UK and the US. These management practices are strongly associated with better clinical outcomes, such as heart attack survival rates, and financial outcomes like profits. We show that hospitals with more clinically trained managers, tha...

Executive Overview This essay was written in response to the theme of this year’s Academy of Management meeting, “Green Management Matters.” I assert that firms should adopt “green management” practices only if such activities complement the organization’s businessand corporate-level strategies and ultimately enhance profitability or shareholder wealth. To illustrate this I outline an economic/...

Malaysian manufacturing firms are interested in New Product Development (NPD) methods, due to the fact that they are competitive tools for survival. The purpose of the present study is to investigate NPD practices in Malaysia, in particular the outsourcing of NPD and the organizing of NPD. We achieved our objectives by conducting a survey of 72 companies in the automotive, chemical, and electri...