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Pursuing organisational excellence as a key driver in achieving organizational learning
No full textThesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Volatility, globalisation, turbulence and constant change are some of the challenges facing
the business environment today. Companies have proposed and tested many strategies to
cope with the unpredictable world of business. In this thesis, a project by an anonymous
South African company (The Company) to respond by improving organisational excellence is
analysed and evaluated against its success in fostering organisational learning.
The Company initiated a project in which Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and Clear
Leadership Engagement were combined in search of operational excellence.
In Chapter 1, the context is set out. The research question is formulated as follows: to what
extent does organisational learning depend on organisational excellence?
Chapter 2 discusses and defines key process concepts. These are: Lean Manufacturing, Six
Sigma, Lean Six Sigma and Clear Leadership Engagement Models. The chapter also outlines
the key practices and the shortcomings of each process.
Chapter 3 discusses and defines the conceptual building blocks of the thesis. These are the
notions of organisational learning and learning organisation. Tools used to diagnose whether
an organisation is learning are introduced together with an Organisational Learning model to
be used to assess the relationship between Organisational Learning and Operational
Excellence.
Chapter 4 focuses on the project of the Company – the Operational Excellence “journey”.
How the journey was conceived, the players were involved and steps taken to drive it are
described.
In Chapter 5, the combination of Lean Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing and the engagement
models that the Company used, is assessed. The chapter attempts to unravel the reasons
behind this combination and determine how this combination worked in practice. It is through
this chapter that an attempt is made to explain the logic of this unusual combination. Other
businesses have implemented different forms of improvement in isolation, but it is rare to
find a company that combines operational improvement methodologies with an engagement
model.
In Chapter 6, all the theories and empirical evidence come together. In this chapter, the
relationship between Pursuing Operational Excellence (POE) and Organisational Learning is
tested. The author uses the seven salient characteristics of learning organisations, distilled by
the researcher, to prove the positive relationship between Organisational Learning and
Operational Excellence. Through this chapter, the researcher answers the question whether a
positive link exists between POE and Organisational Learning.
It was clear from the research that there is indeed a positive link between POE and
Organisational Learning. What the research could not determine is the degree or the rate of
learning linked to POE, or what percentage of learning the organisation achieved over a
period of time.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Volatiliteit, globalisering, turbulensie en konstante verandering is ‘n uitdaging waarmee die
sake-omgewing deesdae te doen kry. Baie strategieë is voorgestel en getoets deur
maatskappye ten einde by te bly in die onvoorspelbare sake-wêreld. In hierdie tesis word ‘n
projek wat in ‘n anonieme Suid-Afrikaanse maatskappy (The Company) uitgevoer is om op
die uitdagings te reageer, by wyse van ‘n dryf na operasionele uitnemendheid, geanaliseer en
geëvalueer aan die hand van die mate waarin sodanige aksies organisatoriese leer bevorder
het.
The Company het ‘n projek geloods waarin Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma en Clear
Leadership Engagement gekombineer is op soek na operasionele uitnemendheid.
In Hoofstuk 1 word die konteks uiteengesit en die navorsingsvraag geformuleer as die vraag
in watter mate organisatoriese leer deur operasionele uitnemendheid bepaal word.
In Hoofstuk 2 word die kern prosesbegrippe bespreek en gedefinieer. Dit is: Lean
Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma en Clear Leadership Engagement models. Die
hoofstuk gee ook ’n oorsig oor die hoofpraktyke en tekortkominge van elke model.
Hoofstuk 3 bespreek die konseptuele basis van die navorsing. Dit is die konsepte:
Organisatoriese Leer en Lerende Organisasie. Instrumente om te diagnoseer of ’n organisasie
leer, word voorgestel, asook ’n model van Organisatoriese Leer wat gebruik sal word om die
verband tussen Organisatoriese Leer en Operasionele Uitmuntendheid te bepaal.
Hoofstuk 4 fokus op die projek wat The Company onderneem het. In hierdie hoofstuk word
die “reis” na operasionele uitnemendheid beskryf; hoe dit ontstaan het, die rolspelers wat
betrokke was en die stappe wat op die reis geneem is.
In Hoofstuk 5 beoordeel die kombinasie van Lean Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing en die
engagement modelle wat deur die Company gebruik is. Die hoofstuk probeer ontrafel wat die
motivering vir hierdie kombinasie is en hoe dit in die praktyk uitgewerk het. In die hoofstuk
word gepoog om die logika van hierdie ongewone kombinasie te peil. Ander ondernemings
het verskillende vorms van verbetering in isolasie geïmplementeer, maar dit is selde dat ’n
mens ’n maatskappy vind wat operasionele verbeteringsmetodologieë kombineer met ’n
engagement model.
In Hoofstuk 6 kom al die teorieë en empiriese gegewens bymekaar. Dit is in hierdie hoofstuk
waar die verhouding tussen die nastrewing van Operasionele Uitnemendheid en
Organisatoriese Leer getoets word. Die navorser gebruik die sewe kenmerke van Lerende
Organisasies wat tevore geïdentifiseer is om ’n positiewe verband tussen Organisatoriese
Leer en Operasionele Uitnemendheid aan te toon.
Uit die navorsing was dit duidelik dat daar ’n positiewe verband is tussen die nastrewing van
Operasionele Uitnemendheid en Organisatoriese Leer. Maar, wat die navorsing nie kon
beantwoord nie, is die graad of spoed van leer wat met die nastrewing van Operasionele
Uitnemendheid verbind kan word, of watter persentasie leer die organisasie oor ’n gegewe
tydperk bereik het.Master
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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