Kevin Burgess

Supply chain management: a structured literature review and implications for future research

Purpose – The field of supply chain management (SCM) has historically been informed by knowledge from narrow functional areas. While some effort towards producing a broader organizational perspective has been made, nonetheless, SCM continues to be largely eclectic with little consensus on its conceptualization and research methodological bases. This paper seeks to clarify aspects of this emerging perspective.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 100 randomly selected refereed journal articles were systematically analyzed.Findings – A number of key findings emerged: the field is a relatively “new” one; several disciplines claim ownership of the field; consensus is lacking on the definition of the term; contextual focus is mostly on the manufacturing industry; predominantly “process” conceptual framing prevails; research methods employed are mostly analytical conceptual, empirical surveys or case studies; the positivist research paradigmatic stance is prevalent; and theories related to transaction cost e...

A proposed integrated framework for analysing supply chains

Purpose – Organisations need to have a profound level of understanding of their supply chains if they are to successfully find sources of competitive advantage within them. Current methodologies for analysing supply chains, such as the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model, are not sufficiently comprehensive, particularly when it comes to understanding the complex social and political factors that are an integral part of any supply chain. This paper aims to use a case study of a supply chain from the public utility industry sector in Australia to develop an integrated framework for analysing supply chains within a multi‐disciplinary and multi‐method research paradigm.Design/methodology/approach – The case study supply chain was mapped with the SCOR modelling tool which provided insights into the physical characteristics and value points along the supply chain.Findings – Analysis of the SCOR model map also helped identify 31 key “actors” in the chain, who were then interviewed in depth. These inte...

Asset management and governance — An analysis of fleet management process issues in an asset-intensive organization

Efficient asset management is a key performance driver for asset-intensive organizations. Achieving high utilization and return on investment on physical assets are central corporate objectives for public and private organisations alike. Current approaches on asset management include the engineering and governance perspectives. The engineering perspective on asset management concentrates on the technical and operational dimensions of asset performance, including utilization, and operation to technical specifications. However, this perspective often ignores organisational-level factors that potentially affect asset performance. By contrast, from a governance perspective, key factors influencing asset management performance include stewardship, accountability and incentive regimes. Symmetrically, the governance view often takes the operational factors for granted. In sum, both perspectives offer valuable but incomplete insights on the management of asset performance: experience demonstrates that an exclusive focus on one or the other may lead to sub-optimal asset and organizational performance. In this paper, we investigate how an integrated approach to asset management can be constructed in the context of vehicle fleets. Vehicle fleets provide a suitable context to investigate these issues as they constitute significant investments, and are observable across a range of asset-intensive industries. Beginning with an analysis of how the asset management process is operated through the asset lifecycle, we identify key engineering and organizational factors influencing asset performance. The relationships between factors are analyzed to provide an integrated fleet asset management approach.

Improving training in enterprise resource planning systems implementation through communities of practice

The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) literature suggests that effective training is one of the key reasons for success in ERP implementations. However, limited research has been conducted on what constitutes effective training in an ERP environment. A case study approach was used to explore the effectiveness of traditional training and to consider if a community based approach could enhance successful training outcomes. There were two major findings. First, the effectiveness of traditional ERP training approaches was limited due to an overreliance on simplistic transmission models and poor appreciation of the role played by organisational context. Second, Communities of Practice (CoPs) allowed ERP implementation training to be more effective through a better dissemination of the training material to the majority of staff who found formal training less effective. This was achieved through the employment of a range of spontaneous strategies including work–a–rounds to overcome perceived weaknesses in the formal information systems.

Feral Information Systems Development: Managerial Implications

Management invests in large information systems in order to improve the effectiveness of their organization. However, when these systems fail to meet the needs of organizational employees, feral information systems (FIS) are created in order to assist workers with their jobs or to avoid existing organizational information systems. Feral Information Systems Development: Managerial Implications seeks to accelerate the collective understandings and implications on the management of business organizations; with an emphasis on theoretical explanations on the development of feral information systems. This book is an essential reference work aimed at providing a more clearly defined and better informed starting point for researchers, consultants, and practitioners who are eager to advance both their practical applications and theoretical understandings of complex and challenging phenomena surrounding FISs.

Female Leadership Within the Military: The Influence of Neoliberal Institutionalism

Approximately one third of senior management positions across government departments in the UK are held by women. One exception to this pattern is the military arm of the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) where the figure drops to below two per cent. To gain greater insight into what might account for this high variation relative to other departments, an exploratory case study was conducted in the UK’s MoD. The study investigated the structural and individual impediments faced by women seeking access to the highest organisational leadership echelons. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 52 high-ranked female officers drawn from all three military services. Because changes occurring within the UK government departments are informed primarily by neoliberalism and this ideology strongly values entrepreneurship, the specific leadership lens used for analysis drew heavily on entrepreneurial theories. The findings revealed a complex, dynamic interrelationship involving context, structure, agency and networks. The recursive relationship among these four components at the level of the individual represented a rich mixture of cognitive interpretation, risk taking, opportunity recognition and the use of scarce resources. Evidence was found which demonstrated that female institutional leaders could increase their career progression chances by minimising institutional deviation, thereby allowing individuals to benefit from increased leadership legitimacy. However, the evidence also suggested that women still faced many impediments which were inhibiting their chances of reaching the very top leadership roles.