Paul McGrath

Environmental and social supply chain management sustainability practices: construct development and measurement

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and operationalise the concept of supply chain management sustainability practices. Based on a multi-stage procedure involving a literature review, expert Q-sort and pre-test process, pilot test and survey of 156 supply chain directors and managers in Ireland, we develop a multidimensional conceptualisation and measure of social and environmental supply chain management sustainability practices. The research findings show theoretically sound constructs based on four underlying sustainable supply chain management practices: monitoring, implementing systems, new product and process development and strategy redefinition. A two-factor model is then identified as the most reliable: comprising process-based and market-based practices.

Going above and beyond: How sustainability culture and entrepreneurial orientation drive social sustainability supply chain practice adoption

Purpose – This paper aims to examine what drives the adoption of different social sustainability supply chain practices. Research has shown that certain factors drive the adoption of environmental sustainability practices but few focus on social supply chain practices, delineate which practices are adopted or what drives their adoption. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examine the facilitative role of sustainability culture to explain the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices: basic practices, consisting of monitoring and management systems and advanced practices, which are new product and process development and strategic redefinition. The authors then explore the role played by a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation in shaping and reinforcing the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices. A survey of 156 supply chain managers in multiple industries in Ireland was conducted to test the relationship between the variables. Findings – The findings show that sustainab...

Knowledge management in monastic communities of the medieval Irish Celtic church

Purpose – This paper aims to use the case of early medieval Irish monasticism to highlight the implicit a historicism of the knowledge management (KM) literature and to show how such a historical study can be used to increase the level of discourse and reflection within the contested and increasingly fragmented field of KM.Design/methodology/approach – The author uses secondary source analysis from a diversity of academic fields to examine the relatively sophisticated processes through which the monks gathered, codified, created, interpreted, disseminated and used religious and secular knowledge. The author then draws out a number of insights from this literature to aid current thinking on and debates within the field of KM.Findings – The paper presents a church metaphor of KM operating at two levels. Internally the metaphor highlights the deliberate but politically contentious nature of knowledge creation, a process of developing both explicit and tacit knowledge among the monks, revolving around ideolog...

Early Medieval Irish Monastic Communities: A Premodern Model with Post-Modern Resonances

This paper is a contribution to the emerging focus on premodern concerns in organisational studies. It provides an historical account of early medieval Irish monastic communities highlighting the unusual fusion of structure, community and spirituality as a way of explaining the considerable success and longevity of this unusual organisation form. Key insights arising from this study are then applied to contemporary debates on post-modern organisational forms.

Exploring Tribunals of Inquiry as Instruments of Change: A Case Study of Bad Blood

This paper is an exploratory qualitative study of the complex organizational and inter-organizational-level change outcomes associated with the holding of two consecutive tribunals of inquiry into ...