...Organization http://org.sagepub.com/ Ways of constructing research questions: gap-spotting or problematization? Jörgen Sandberg and Mats Alvesson Organization 2011 18: 23 originally published online 15 July 2010 DOI: 10.1177/1350508410372151 The online version of this article can be found at: http://org.sagepub.com/content/18/1/23 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Organization can be found at: Email Alerts: http://org.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://org.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://org.sagepub.com/content/18/1/23.refs.html >> Version of Record - Feb 11, 2011 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Jul 15, 2010 What is This? Downloaded from org.sagepub.com at Sheffield Hallam University on January 18, 2014 Article Organization 18(1) 23–44 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1350508410372151 http://org.sagepub.com Ways of constructing research questions: gap-spotting or problematization? Jörgen Sandberg Mats Alvesson UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia Department of Business Administration, University of Lund, Sweden Abstract This article examines ways of constructing research questions from existing literature, which are likely to promote the development of interesting and influential...
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...Allison's office (except for her chair) is covered - no, buried - in paper: printed-out emails, regular mail, departmental memos, receipts from the last conference she attended, a decade's worth of professional journals...well, you get the idea. The place is a monument to the paper products industry. Now, given that Allison does her clinical work in the operating room and doesn't see patients in her office, you might think that the mess is without consequence. After all, it only affects her, not the surgeons or the patients. Moreover, it only interferes with the administrative aspects of her job, not critical patient care issues. But you'd be wrong. Allison's hospital is also a teaching hospital, which means that she's expected to write grants to bring in funds for academic research and she's supposed to publish her findings. Want to guess how many A papers Allison has published in the past two years? Zero. She justifies her lack of academic productivity by explaining that her clinical responsibilities are so onerous that she has no time to find available grants and apply for them. To be fair, she does work a long day and she doesn't get as much academic time as she'd like. But when you watch her for a while, you see that's not the whole story. Paper shuffling It turns out that on days Allison works in her office, she's awfully busy. She spends time moving paper from the left side of the desk to the right side. She spends time...
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...The Big Idea: 21st-Century Talent Spotting by Claudio Fernández-Aráoz Claudio Fernández-Aráoz is a senior adviser at global executive search firm A few years ago, I was asked to help find a new CEO for a family-owned electronics retailer that wanted to professionalize its management and expand its operations. I worked closely with the outgoing chief executive and the board to pinpoint the relevant competencies for the job and then seek out and assess candidates. The man we hired had all the right credentials: He’d attended top professional schools and worked for some of the best organizations in the industry, and he was a successful country manager in one of the world’s most admired companies. Even more important, he’d scored above the target level for each of the competencies we’d identified. But none of that mattered. Despite his impressive background and great fit, he could not adjust to the massive technological, competitive, and regulatory changes occurring in the market at the time. Following three years of lackluster performance, he was asked to leave. Compare that story with one from the start of my executive search career. My task was to fill a project manager role at a small brewery owned by Quinsa, which then dominated the beer market in the southern cone of Latin America. In those days, I hadn’t yet heard the term “competency.” I was working in a new office without research support (in the pre-internet era), and Quinsa was the only serious beverage industry player...
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...GENERAL MOTORS General Motors HRM 587Analysis Paper Lois Hunter D03569279 9/22/2012 Analysis of General Motors Chief Executive Officers and the Change Leader Culture they portrayed in their at tenure in GM Corporation Case Study: General Motors Moving Forward “How Many Expert does it take to turn a company around? That is the question that the taxpayers of America are asking. General Motors was once the industry leader in America. General Motors was a fortune 500 Company for decades. They dominated the automobile industry .Stocks top out at the highest being sold at 83.00 dollars on the market. General Motors made the middle class in America. General boasted the characteristic in the corporate world as being powerful, stubborn, monolithic, and authoritarian and it main concerns was the assembly lines, called the seeds of success. General Motors was established in 1892 by an R. Olds who created the Oldsmobile his vision was to create horseless carriages. He started the automobile factory in Detroit was soon followed by others in the industry, and he and several others decided to create amalgamation of over different companies. The new automobile entities became known as General Motors. Each new partner brought in his brand as they began consolidating. Mr. Olds had a management style of controlling he knew what needed to be done and he did it. He knew when to start merger and acquiring early in the game he established General Motors. His vision and management...
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...RESEARCH PROPOSAL TITLE KCA UNIVERSITY ONLINE RECRUITMENT SYSTEM Table of Contents 1.0 Background 4 2.0 Problem Statement 8 3.0 Proposed Solution 9 4.0 Objectives 11 5.0 Literature Review 12 6.0 Methodology 15 7.0 Data Collection Methodology 16 8.0 Constraints 17 9.0 Resources Required 18 10.0 Budget 18 11.0 Project Schedule 20 12.0 Conclusion 22 References 23 Bibliography 23 Background KCA University dates back to 1989, with the establishment of the institution as Kenya College of Accountancy by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) to improve the quality of accountancy and financial management training in the country. The college was founded after a study conducted by Chart Foulks Lynch CIPFA services of the UK in 1987/88. The study revealed that the Kenyan economy required an additional four hundred qualified Accountants every year. The output of qualified accountants from the training institutions then was less than one hundred. To maintain a national outlook, the institution opened satellite colleges in Githunguri, Kericho, Eldoret and Kisumu all now under the School of Professional Programmes. Abstract The key HR aims at the KCA University are recruitment, retention and development of the very best academic staff and high quality administrative staff to support its corporate vision of being a World Class Business University of Choice and the leading University for practicing...
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...Contents INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 2 Control environment and control activities..................................................................................... 3 Framework for Strategic Human Resources Management ............................................................. 3 Regulatory and Compliance ............................................................................................................ 4 Talent Centric Strategy of Human Resource .............................................................................. 5 Retaining and Motivating Talented Staffs with Various Experiences ............................................ 6 Employee Training Strategy ........................................................................................................... 6 Management Values........................................................................................................................ 7 Cultural Balance.............................................................................................................................. 7 Managing Diversity ........................................................................................................................ 8 Environment .................................................................................................................................... 8 Organization...
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... A TERM PAPER PRESENTED FOR THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI JANUARY – APRIL 2012 Contents SUMMARY OF TERMS 3 ABSTRACT 4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 5 LITERATURE REVIEW 6 a. Introduction 6 b. The Need for an Audit 7 c. Risk of fraud 8 d. The Auditor-Investor ''Expectation Gap'' 9 e. Auditing Profession and Challenges 9 f. Public opinion 10 g. Family or Personal Relationship 10 h. Integrity 11 i. Inherent limitations of an audit. 11 j. Responsibility of Auditors to Third Parties – Case Law 12 k. International, Assurance Auditing, Standards Board (IAASB) 14 CORPORATE FRAUD CASES 16 CASE STUDY: 21 CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………………24 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………..….25 SUMMARY OF TERMS ISA: International standards of Audit KPC: Kenya Pipeline Company IAASB: International Assurance Audit Board IFAC: International Federation of Accounting USD: United States Dollar KCB: Kenya Commercial Bank BCCI: Bank of Credit International SEC: Securities and Exchange Commission ABSTRACT The way in which auditors perform their duties and the auditing profession in general raises questions and puts the auditors on the spotlight from clients who rely on their reports. Questions on whether the public trust the way auditors perform their secondary duty of detecting errors and frauds, the reliability, completeness and accuracy of their auditing reports have been raised. The research focuses on;...
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...Chapter 2: Strategy and Human Resources Planning If nothing else, my students should learn that… • It is important for HRM to align its policies and processes with the business strategy in order to provide value to the organization (external fit), and that the policies and processes are mutually reinforcing (internal fit). HR planning follows the same pattern as organizational strategic planning, and hence the two processes are complementary. • In order to evaluate the effectiveness of strategy, it is imperative to take the ‘people side’ into consideration. Sole reliance on financial documents (e.g., financial statements, cash flow statements, income statements) largely ignores investment in human capital. Learning objectives • Identify the advantages of integrating human resources planning and strategic planning. • Understand how an organization’s competitive environment influences its strategic planning. • Understand why it is important for an organization to do an internal resource analysis. • Describe the basic tools used for human resources forecasting. • Explain the linkages between competitive strategies and human resources. • Understand what is required for a firm to successfully implement a strategy. • Recognize the methods for assessing and measuring the effectiveness of a firm’s strategy. Why is this chapter important? The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the nexus of strategy and HR planning...
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...Competencies for Senior Manager Roles Pradip N Khandwalla includes research articles that focus on the analysis and resolution of managerial and academic issues based on analytical and empirical or case research RESEARCH Executive Summary KEY WORDS Senior Managers Roles Managerial Competencies India This paper identifies competencies that may aid role effectiveness at senior managerial levels. It fills a research gap: while managerial roles and competencies have been studied fairly extensively, their relationships have not been demonstrated. The performance of senior level managers — and therefore of the organization — depends upon how well they play their varied roles. In this paper, the roles of senior managers have been categorized into nine strategic, nine operations-related, and nine leadership roles. Strategic roles relate to such matters of long-term and organization-wide import as policy formulation, setting of long-term objectives, articulation of a vision of excellence for the organization, contributing to the organization’s growth and diversification, procuring of strategic resources and intelligence, etc. Operations-related roles cover implementation of policies and changes, setting short-term targets, work allocation to staff, operating a control system, crisis management, etc. Leadership roles encompass inspiring subordinates, developing effective relationships, getting cooperation, emphasizing core values and norms, mentoring, fostering teamwork...
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...Garagan BA Sociology University of the Philippines Visayas TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. QUESTIONNAIRE 3- 4 3. FIELDWORK OUTCOMES 4 Response Outcomes 4-7 4. EVALUATION 8 Experiences, impressions, and pictures of the second fieldwork 8-10 5. APPENDIX 10 Appendix A: List of Questions in Kiniray-a Version 10-11 1. Introduction According to a research conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, there are factors that change and reinforce connections between rural and urban areas. These factors include information technology, improved education, paved roads, and yearning for employment. Each year, ruralites in low- income countries such as the Philippines are going to urban places in exchange of economic security for the households that they have left in rural areas. Recent studies in Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Philippines provide insights into reasons for migration and how it plays a part in a household’s strategy to escape poverty. For our second paper in Rural Sociology, we were tasked to look for two families with unmarried children working in the city. The search for two families was not easy due to the fact that it was one of the poblacion barangays of Miag-ao which meant that they have easy access to opportunities and enterprises that are prevalent in the town. The establishment of the University of the Philippines also contribute to the employment of some residents...
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...strategic audit report Executive Summary Current situation Corporate governance External environment: Opportunities and threats Internal environment: Strengths and weaknesses Analysis of strategic factors (SFAS) Strategic alternatives and recommended strategy (TOWS) Implementation of recommended strategy Conclusions Evaluating mission statements Evaluating the Board of Directors Preparing the tables: EFAS, IFAS, SFAS, and TOWS Common-size statements Analyzing financial statements Analyzing financial ratios Writing guidelines Relaxed APA rules Useful resources Purpose of the strategic audit assignment A strategic audit is usually done to help the firm’s management decide how to proceed, or to support a potential investment or loan. The purpose of a strategic audit is essentially to answer the question, “What condition is this firm in?” Because the audit is focused toward answering this question, there must be a conclusion about what the audit shows. Therefore, while this is mostly an objective, informative report, there is a persuasive twist at the end. 1 The point of this assignment is to see how well you can research, interpret, and draw conclusions about the soundness and competitive position of a company. Opinions are not worth any more than the evidence on which they are based. However, simply locating facts is not sufficient; you also have to determine what those facts mean, and you have to report everything in a convincing manner. The strategic audit is...
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...Globalization Name: Institutional affiliations: This paper focuses on highlighting how the processes of globalization have changed the experiences of growing up and being educated in for the adolescent children aged 12 to 15 in Australia. Globalization is the process by which organizations and businesses establish international relations through the exchange of world business views and ideas, culture and products with other nations of the world. These businesses and organizations then start to operate and trade on an international scale. Globalization can be attributed to advances in the industrial sector, changes in the transportation and telecommunication systems, infrastructural changes, and the rise in the internet culture and development. The interplay of these forces in politics, religion and economies influence the economic trends of each country. Some of the social effects of globalization to the world economy include: poverty reduction due to increase in the wages and employment rate in the participative developing countries, improved healthcare provision due to the registered decline in the maternal and infant mortality rates, the provision of better educational standards, in line with the global millennium developmental goals. However globalization has also been viewed as a key in increasing the unemployment rates in the third world countries due to massive sacking of workers, high poverty rates and low income generation among the working...
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...Project Evaluation Corporate Finance 2013-2014 The 14 essays convey many interesting ideas. I am very impressed by some analysis which gives very technical and detailed description. These works have shown that you have great potential to go further, either to a comprehensive report for practical consultancy or to deepen the knowledge for academic research. However, there are some problems that I must mention for your future work. • Lack of theoretical foundations: Some reports just filled the paper with lots of facts, figures and data. The question follows is often “and so what?” The report will be more scientific based if you provide some explanations linking to the theories and interpretations we learned in the class. Present your shining points first: Many reports just give the introduction as a general description of the background of the selected companies. However, a more important part expected in these reports is your research questions and key points of analysis. If you don’t highlight the shining points from the beginning, you make your report less worthy of further reading. Coordination problem: I found some reports give strongly contradict results. I understand that you just share the task among the team members. But at least you must have something complete and logically right. Avoid using abbreviations for words that are less frequently used (eg. ADS, ROI, OTC…). If you insist to use, please write the full words for the first time you employ them. Reference of...
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...2014/15 The Strathclyde MBA 1 The University of Strathclyde's mission dates from our founder, Professor John Anderson, leaving instructions in his will for 'a place of useful learning' to be established in the city. By this he meant an institution open to everyone, regardless of gender, status or income. “ The Place of Useful Learning John Anderson 1796 ” We continue to be committed to 'useful learning' through our provision of relevant, high quality, educational opportunities, the global application of our research and our focus on knowledge exchange, all of which aim to benefit the wider economy and society. Our commitment to 'useful learning' is about: • • Offering a wide range of education opportunities in a flexible, innovative learning environment. Developing students who have the aptitudes and capacities to make significant contributions to their communities after graduation as employees, employers and citizens. Connecting research through knowledge exchange to make an impact on modern society. • 2 Contents Welcome ................................................................................................................. 5 The University of Strathclyde .................................................................................. 6 Strathclyde Business School ................................................................................... 6 About the Handbook and MyPlace .............................................................
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...Chapter 1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS Background Introduction The September 11, 2001 terrorist attack of the World Trade Center in New York City, USA directly caused the death of more than three thousand innocent civilians when two hijacked jetliners deliberately slammed against the twin towers that used to be a testament to the United States’ economic clout. On the same day, two other hijacked airliners were flown to other targets, one of which was the Pentagon, the seat of America’s military might, while the fourth aircraft crashed in a Pennsylvania field, believed to have been due to its passengers fighting back to regain control. While these incidents are certainly not the latest terrorist attacks against civil aviation, these attacks are significant in the sense that its aftermath truly changed the course of history of many nations and radically changed the lifestyles of many peoples. The earliest recorded terrorist act was on September 9, 1949, when a bomb was placed and exploded in a Quebec Airways flight in Canada. Since that first recorded aviation security breach, security experts had been trying to be one step ahead of the terror groups in hardening aircraft and airport targets against all forms of terrorist attacks. However, on July 22, 1968, three gunmen from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), hijacked a passenger airliner of the Israeli airline El Al, on a flight from Rome to Tel-Aviv, and demanded the release of their comrades-in-arms who were...
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