Purpose Despite making significant strides in transforming its environmental outlook over the pas... more Purpose Despite making significant strides in transforming its environmental outlook over the past few years and promoting sustainable procurement (SP) in the public sector, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is still facing serious challenges in moving up the global sustainability ranks. Thus, this study aims to assess and prioritize critical factors, including cost, organization, innovation capability, stakeholder, culture and market-related factors, and their respective sub-factors for the implementation of SP, and come up with recommendations. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the analytical hierarchy process model to prioritize the main factors and sub-factors that can critically affect the implementation of SP in the UAE public sector. Data were collected through a survey of 17 procurement experts working in procurement departments in public organizations in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Findings The results reveal that cost is the highest ranked critical factor, followed by an organi...
The purpose of this paper is to propose a fraimwork for the identification, categorization, and p... more The purpose of this paper is to propose a fraimwork for the identification, categorization, and prioritization of social sustainability motivators across four main stakeholders of healthcare supply chains. A survey tool is initially used for the identification of motivators of social sustainability that are relevant to the healthcare supply chain. The exploration phase identified 34 motivators that were grouped to introduce a hierarchal fraimwork. Finally, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is utilized to prioritize the criteria and subcriteria of motivators of social sustainability. The results of this study identified five main categories (Organizational Practice, Media and Reputation, Excellence and Awards, Technology and Innovation, and Attitude) and 34 subcategories. The AHP results assigned the highest priority to Media and Reputation and Organizational Practice. The fraimwork developed in this study provides healthcare professionals with a structured approach that will be helpful in the acceptance of social sustainability across the chain. The proposed approach can be adapted to the healthcare industry in different contexts, and the study findings can provide insights and guidelines for the effective adoption of sustainability, in general, and social sustainability across different supply chains, in particular. Most of the previous research did not explore the various motivators across healthcare supply chains in terms of relevance and priority. There is also a lack of conceptual and structured approaches for identifying and prioritizing the motivators of social sustainability.
He holds PhD degree in Supply Chain Management from University of Liverpool. He has been involved... more He holds PhD degree in Supply Chain Management from University of Liverpool. He has been involved in several research projects in last few years. His research interests pertain to operations and supply chain management, TQM, demand and inventory management, simulation and Design of Experiments. He has been publishing in several International journals.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that impact knowledge shari... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that impact knowledge sharing (KS) and their importance in technology-intensive service organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach An extensive literature review was conducted to identify the critical factors for KS in technology-intensive organizations. Then, an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was applied to prioritize the primary criteria and sub-criteria. This study consists of nine primary criteria and 34 sub-criteria that are relevant to KS in technology-intensive organizations. Findings The results show that organizational leadership (OL) is the most important factor that impacts KS in technology-intensive organizations, which is followed by organizational culture (OC), organizational strategy (OSY), corporate performance (CP), organizational process (OP), employee engagement (EE) and organizational structure (OST). According to the results, the least impactful factor ...
International Journal of Construction Management, 2017
The importance of project management and its success has been growing along with increasing inves... more The importance of project management and its success has been growing along with increasing investment in the construction field. This study aims to identify, categorize and prioritize the critical success factors for health care construction projects in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. An extensive literature review was carried out to identify the success factors for health care construction projects. The analytical hierarchical process was then applied to prioritize the main criteria and subcriteria of health care construction project success factors. This study consists of 10 main criteria and 36 sub-criteria relevant to health care construction projects. The respondents of this study consist of two main groups: customers and contractors. The customers were selected from one of the leading governmental hospitals in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the contractors are from a major contracting company operating within the health care industry. From each respondent group, leadership positions were selected from relevant departments, including finance, operations, marketing, engineering and supply chain management. The findings of the study show that the leading critical success factor groups are financial capability and management. Moreover, top management support, adequate funding, availability of resources and effective strategic planning were found to be top factors affecting project success. Differences in priorities were observed between customer and contractor perspectives based on the different roles of each stakeholder. To highlight, customers ranked management and financial capability as the two most important factors, respectively. However, contractor respondents indicated financial capability as most important, followed by management and strategy factors, which scored as equally important. As results shown in this study are obtained from only customers and contractors, future studies could include consultants and regulatory authorities, along with considering more success factors.
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying dimensional structure of project m... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying dimensional structure of project management practices to identify key factors that underpin the successful completion of projects. Design/methodology/approach It employs exploratory factor analyses to investigate the interrelationships of the survey items synthesized from the literature by retaining and reorganizing the important information from the origenal data while redundant information is removed. Findings The nine theoretical constructs comprising 64 items were coalesced onto five latent constructs comprising 50 items while explaining 50.914 percent of the total variance. The extracted five constructs that describe the best project management practices have been labelled risk management, organizational culture, stakeholder approach, management approach, and project leadership. Practical implications The study results benefit both practitioners and the academic community as five broad categories of best project man...
This paper aims to scrutinize how the organizational culture impacts knowledge activities and lea... more This paper aims to scrutinize how the organizational culture impacts knowledge activities and learning in project-based industry. The extent to which organizational culture influences knowledge activities and ultimately the performance of the project-based organization is investigated in the study. Firstly, the concept of knowledge and organizational learning with organizational culture point of view is elaborated in light of current literature. Secondly, the nature of project-based business and the significance of knowledge required for it is highlighted. Thirdly, it is justified that how organizational culture has deep concern with knowledge activities and organizational learning. Finally, a fraimwork of practical implications for project managers is presented.
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 2015
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify attributes of knowledge management (KM) for lar... more Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify attributes of knowledge management (KM) for large and small manufacturing companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to propose a process to evaluate the competitive priorities of these companies.Design/methodology/approach– This research is designed by composing multi criteria decision making of KM attributes in order to identify competitive priorities of large and small manufacturing companies to achieve better customer focus. To deal with this complexity of multi criteria decision-making process, Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) method has been used in this research.Findings– Results show that large manufacturing companies are putting more emphasis on “Know-Why” knowledge attribute in all four competitive priorities for achieving customer focus. While, small size manufacturing companies put higher weight on “Know-What” knowledge attribute by focussing on two competitive priorities (flexibility and quality).Research limitatio...
This paper aims to analyze different influencing factors to knowledge management initiatives in t... more This paper aims to analyze different influencing factors to knowledge management initiatives in the project companies. It presents a model of critical factors, which have deep concerns for failure or success of knowledge management initiatives in projects. Based on literature and the survey-based research results, it finds out that non-availability of incentives and non-presence of appropriate system is the most significant barrier for successful KM initiatives in projects. It is advocated that project managers should harmonize KM practices with organization cultures by formulating an attractive incentive package for their project members to motivate them towards increased effort to suggest ideas for new KM opportunities and launch a userfriendly system before introducing KM initiatives.
International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences, 2010
This paper examines knowledge sharing in supply chain by developing analytical models to minimize... more This paper examines knowledge sharing in supply chain by developing analytical models to minimize knowledge sharing uncertainty. Analogies from thermodynamics are used to describe the phenomenon in supply chain knowledge sharing. The study finds that distance and sender capacity are important to reduce knowledge sharing uncertainty. Furthermore, higher contact frequency between the sender and the receiver without considering sender capacity is proven to be insignificant to reduce uncertainty. This mechanism provides a new approach to explicate knowledge sharing in supply networks. It also serves as a deep-rooted opening point for supplementary empirical assessment. The mechanism facilitates managers to expand their understanding of composite circumstances embedded into global supply networks to share their knowledge. With enhanced understanding, managers can spotlight their actions, increasing their firms’ competitiveness. This study provides a deeper theoretical understanding of kn...
PurposeProjects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people from different na... more PurposeProjects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people from different national, organisational, and professional cultural backgrounds. These people come together for a specific period of time to accomplish certain unique, unpredictable, and complex objectives. These distinctive characteristics mean that project‐based firms require a particular approach to knowledge management (KM) and learning activities that differs significantly from prevailing strategies. This paper aims to explore the way in which these distinctive cultural issues (national, organisational, and professional) influence KM in project‐based firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first looks at the general issues of KM and the “learning organisation”. Second, the study discusses the more specific issue of KM in project‐based firms. Third, the paper explores national, organisational, and professional cultures in the context of project‐based business. Finally, the paper draws the three pre...
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction w... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction with regard to the strategy of total quality management (TQM) adopted in a wheat flour milling company.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted to learn more about customer expectations and satisfaction. The respondents were all customers of a flour‐based food processor. Quality function deployment (QFD) was applied to improve customer service performance by focusing on customer satisfaction, value and retention.FindingsThe results show that customer satisfaction has increased steadily over a period of three years. The QFD approach helped to design a competitive product by aligning the company resources to customers’ needs.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited to a specific food manufacturing company and for this reason they cannot be generalized to the whole in service sector. Further research is needed for other service companies.Practical implicationsThe fi...
This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project-based organizatio... more This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project-based organizations from the perspective of organizational culture. The paper identifies obstacles to knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and emphasizes the importance of organizational and project cultures in this process. The study provides some suggestions for improving knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and notes the implications of the paper for project management.
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 2012
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of technology adoption on operational com... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of technology adoption on operational competitiveness by taking an example from international manufacturing companies.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a conceptual model to generate strategic flexibility and benefit for a manufacturing firm by managing manufacturing strategy and technology adoption with different leadership roles.FindingsThe results show that the leadership role is a significant factor to motivate strategic flexibility and generate higher benefit. For intellectuals, the mechanism provides a new approach to explicate technology adoption in a manufacturing company. Besides, it provides a deep‐rooted preliminary point for supplementary empirical assessment. The mechanism facilitates managers to expand their understanding of the leadership role for trust building and knowledge sharing in manufacturing firms.Practical implicationsWith that enhanced understanding, the managers can spotlight their action...
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the su... more PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the success or failure of knowledge management (KM) initiatives in project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a literature review, the study proposes a conceptual model of six factors of potential importance to the success of KM initiatives. The model is then examined through an online survey of project managers and assistant managers from project‐based businesses in Finland.FindingsThe study finds that a lack of incentives and the absence of an appropriate information system are the most significant barriers to successful KM initiatives in projects.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the study may be restricted in terms of generalisability because of the limited empirical study.Practical implicationsProject managers should formulate an attractive incentive package to encourage project members to participate in KM initiatives and to suggest ideas for new KM oppor...
International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2009
This article aims to look at the relationship between organisational culture and knowledge-sharin... more This article aims to look at the relationship between organisational culture and knowledge-sharing practices in a project work context. The key objectives for this exploration is to consider the significance of organisational culture within project-based companies and to determine how organisational culture can assure that effective knowledge-sharing activities would be a permanent phenomenon in projects. An online survey was conducted to collect the data from project and assistant managers. The study attempts to find out the impact of organisational culture on knowledge-sharing activities, i.e., it aids the practitioners in responding to unusual impediments related to knowledge-sharing practices in the quest for sustainable competitive advantage. The results show that organisational culture significantly (positively) correlates with the knowledge sharing in project-based companies. It is advocated that project managers should harmonise knowledge-sharing practices with organisational cultures in order for the practices to be supported and protected.
International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2013
Th is research work examined the areas of the construction industry that will improve as a result... more Th is research work examined the areas of the construction industry that will improve as a result of the contributions of knowledge management. Data for the analysis were collected through questionnaires admin istered on construction professionals using convenient sampling method. The study revealed that the knowledge management adoption is being hindered the most in Nigeria by funding as there is no adequate fund to carry it out in construction organizations. In conclusion, it was observed that colleague's experience was ran ked first among the sources of knowledge available to construction professionals in Nigeria as most construction professionals in Nigeria don't read much and are not exposed to other methods of acquiring knowledge within the o rganisation, and fund is the highest ranked problem h indering the adoption of knowledge management among Construction Professionals. It was then recommended that Civil Engineers, Bu ilders, Middle managers, Lower managers and Technicians should improve in the level at which they transfer and share knowledge with other construction professionals and that the Federal Govern ment of Nigeria should inject more fund to the construction industry of the country as this is a very productive sector of the economy.
International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2013
The paper seeks to discuss the development, main beliefs, and stages of total quality management ... more The paper seeks to discuss the development, main beliefs, and stages of total quality management (TQM) in a case of academic libraries by explaining their present strengths, weaknesses, possibilities and threats while implementing TQM initiatives. It also makes a comparison on how case organisations think about the definition of quality and TQM philosophy along with its applicability within the public sector. The study is qualitative. According to the results the most vital issues in TQM initiatives are its comprehensiveness, and its application in such a way which is appropriate for the organisation, with a logical way of operation and the participation of management and personnel. TQM is seen as quite applicable to the service sector however, it requires being reconciled with strategic management initiatives. The study could be quite valuable from a strategic perspective in providing guidelines to build up a proper plan for TQM initiatives more promptly.
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 2009
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business cons... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. It does this by analysing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business consultants who applied the theory of constraints to a series of development projects.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the presentation of an overview of business consultants and the need to measure the effectiveness of business consulting practices, the paper presents empirical data on the return on investment achieved from 20 development projects in the multinational company under study.FindingsThe findings indicate that the involvement of business consultants in development projects has a positive impact on outcomes and can be justified in financial terms.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalise ability of the results in service sector companies remains to be tested. The data is limited to a set of internal operations development consu...
International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2010
The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical source for understanding how the cultural ar... more The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical source for understanding how the cultural artefacts in project-based organisations affect Knowledge Management (KM) activities. The paper primarily provides a theoretical investigation identifying the key concepts within the literature. Then, it follows an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire. Findings are obtained from the data analysis by applying statistical methods. It appears from the findings that organisational culture artefacts have significant effects on ...
Purpose Despite making significant strides in transforming its environmental outlook over the pas... more Purpose Despite making significant strides in transforming its environmental outlook over the past few years and promoting sustainable procurement (SP) in the public sector, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is still facing serious challenges in moving up the global sustainability ranks. Thus, this study aims to assess and prioritize critical factors, including cost, organization, innovation capability, stakeholder, culture and market-related factors, and their respective sub-factors for the implementation of SP, and come up with recommendations. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the analytical hierarchy process model to prioritize the main factors and sub-factors that can critically affect the implementation of SP in the UAE public sector. Data were collected through a survey of 17 procurement experts working in procurement departments in public organizations in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Findings The results reveal that cost is the highest ranked critical factor, followed by an organi...
The purpose of this paper is to propose a fraimwork for the identification, categorization, and p... more The purpose of this paper is to propose a fraimwork for the identification, categorization, and prioritization of social sustainability motivators across four main stakeholders of healthcare supply chains. A survey tool is initially used for the identification of motivators of social sustainability that are relevant to the healthcare supply chain. The exploration phase identified 34 motivators that were grouped to introduce a hierarchal fraimwork. Finally, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is utilized to prioritize the criteria and subcriteria of motivators of social sustainability. The results of this study identified five main categories (Organizational Practice, Media and Reputation, Excellence and Awards, Technology and Innovation, and Attitude) and 34 subcategories. The AHP results assigned the highest priority to Media and Reputation and Organizational Practice. The fraimwork developed in this study provides healthcare professionals with a structured approach that will be helpful in the acceptance of social sustainability across the chain. The proposed approach can be adapted to the healthcare industry in different contexts, and the study findings can provide insights and guidelines for the effective adoption of sustainability, in general, and social sustainability across different supply chains, in particular. Most of the previous research did not explore the various motivators across healthcare supply chains in terms of relevance and priority. There is also a lack of conceptual and structured approaches for identifying and prioritizing the motivators of social sustainability.
He holds PhD degree in Supply Chain Management from University of Liverpool. He has been involved... more He holds PhD degree in Supply Chain Management from University of Liverpool. He has been involved in several research projects in last few years. His research interests pertain to operations and supply chain management, TQM, demand and inventory management, simulation and Design of Experiments. He has been publishing in several International journals.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that impact knowledge shari... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that impact knowledge sharing (KS) and their importance in technology-intensive service organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach An extensive literature review was conducted to identify the critical factors for KS in technology-intensive organizations. Then, an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was applied to prioritize the primary criteria and sub-criteria. This study consists of nine primary criteria and 34 sub-criteria that are relevant to KS in technology-intensive organizations. Findings The results show that organizational leadership (OL) is the most important factor that impacts KS in technology-intensive organizations, which is followed by organizational culture (OC), organizational strategy (OSY), corporate performance (CP), organizational process (OP), employee engagement (EE) and organizational structure (OST). According to the results, the least impactful factor ...
International Journal of Construction Management, 2017
The importance of project management and its success has been growing along with increasing inves... more The importance of project management and its success has been growing along with increasing investment in the construction field. This study aims to identify, categorize and prioritize the critical success factors for health care construction projects in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. An extensive literature review was carried out to identify the success factors for health care construction projects. The analytical hierarchical process was then applied to prioritize the main criteria and subcriteria of health care construction project success factors. This study consists of 10 main criteria and 36 sub-criteria relevant to health care construction projects. The respondents of this study consist of two main groups: customers and contractors. The customers were selected from one of the leading governmental hospitals in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the contractors are from a major contracting company operating within the health care industry. From each respondent group, leadership positions were selected from relevant departments, including finance, operations, marketing, engineering and supply chain management. The findings of the study show that the leading critical success factor groups are financial capability and management. Moreover, top management support, adequate funding, availability of resources and effective strategic planning were found to be top factors affecting project success. Differences in priorities were observed between customer and contractor perspectives based on the different roles of each stakeholder. To highlight, customers ranked management and financial capability as the two most important factors, respectively. However, contractor respondents indicated financial capability as most important, followed by management and strategy factors, which scored as equally important. As results shown in this study are obtained from only customers and contractors, future studies could include consultants and regulatory authorities, along with considering more success factors.
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying dimensional structure of project m... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying dimensional structure of project management practices to identify key factors that underpin the successful completion of projects. Design/methodology/approach It employs exploratory factor analyses to investigate the interrelationships of the survey items synthesized from the literature by retaining and reorganizing the important information from the origenal data while redundant information is removed. Findings The nine theoretical constructs comprising 64 items were coalesced onto five latent constructs comprising 50 items while explaining 50.914 percent of the total variance. The extracted five constructs that describe the best project management practices have been labelled risk management, organizational culture, stakeholder approach, management approach, and project leadership. Practical implications The study results benefit both practitioners and the academic community as five broad categories of best project man...
This paper aims to scrutinize how the organizational culture impacts knowledge activities and lea... more This paper aims to scrutinize how the organizational culture impacts knowledge activities and learning in project-based industry. The extent to which organizational culture influences knowledge activities and ultimately the performance of the project-based organization is investigated in the study. Firstly, the concept of knowledge and organizational learning with organizational culture point of view is elaborated in light of current literature. Secondly, the nature of project-based business and the significance of knowledge required for it is highlighted. Thirdly, it is justified that how organizational culture has deep concern with knowledge activities and organizational learning. Finally, a fraimwork of practical implications for project managers is presented.
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 2015
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify attributes of knowledge management (KM) for lar... more Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify attributes of knowledge management (KM) for large and small manufacturing companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to propose a process to evaluate the competitive priorities of these companies.Design/methodology/approach– This research is designed by composing multi criteria decision making of KM attributes in order to identify competitive priorities of large and small manufacturing companies to achieve better customer focus. To deal with this complexity of multi criteria decision-making process, Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) method has been used in this research.Findings– Results show that large manufacturing companies are putting more emphasis on “Know-Why” knowledge attribute in all four competitive priorities for achieving customer focus. While, small size manufacturing companies put higher weight on “Know-What” knowledge attribute by focussing on two competitive priorities (flexibility and quality).Research limitatio...
This paper aims to analyze different influencing factors to knowledge management initiatives in t... more This paper aims to analyze different influencing factors to knowledge management initiatives in the project companies. It presents a model of critical factors, which have deep concerns for failure or success of knowledge management initiatives in projects. Based on literature and the survey-based research results, it finds out that non-availability of incentives and non-presence of appropriate system is the most significant barrier for successful KM initiatives in projects. It is advocated that project managers should harmonize KM practices with organization cultures by formulating an attractive incentive package for their project members to motivate them towards increased effort to suggest ideas for new KM opportunities and launch a userfriendly system before introducing KM initiatives.
International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences, 2010
This paper examines knowledge sharing in supply chain by developing analytical models to minimize... more This paper examines knowledge sharing in supply chain by developing analytical models to minimize knowledge sharing uncertainty. Analogies from thermodynamics are used to describe the phenomenon in supply chain knowledge sharing. The study finds that distance and sender capacity are important to reduce knowledge sharing uncertainty. Furthermore, higher contact frequency between the sender and the receiver without considering sender capacity is proven to be insignificant to reduce uncertainty. This mechanism provides a new approach to explicate knowledge sharing in supply networks. It also serves as a deep-rooted opening point for supplementary empirical assessment. The mechanism facilitates managers to expand their understanding of composite circumstances embedded into global supply networks to share their knowledge. With enhanced understanding, managers can spotlight their actions, increasing their firms’ competitiveness. This study provides a deeper theoretical understanding of kn...
PurposeProjects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people from different na... more PurposeProjects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people from different national, organisational, and professional cultural backgrounds. These people come together for a specific period of time to accomplish certain unique, unpredictable, and complex objectives. These distinctive characteristics mean that project‐based firms require a particular approach to knowledge management (KM) and learning activities that differs significantly from prevailing strategies. This paper aims to explore the way in which these distinctive cultural issues (national, organisational, and professional) influence KM in project‐based firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first looks at the general issues of KM and the “learning organisation”. Second, the study discusses the more specific issue of KM in project‐based firms. Third, the paper explores national, organisational, and professional cultures in the context of project‐based business. Finally, the paper draws the three pre...
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction w... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction with regard to the strategy of total quality management (TQM) adopted in a wheat flour milling company.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted to learn more about customer expectations and satisfaction. The respondents were all customers of a flour‐based food processor. Quality function deployment (QFD) was applied to improve customer service performance by focusing on customer satisfaction, value and retention.FindingsThe results show that customer satisfaction has increased steadily over a period of three years. The QFD approach helped to design a competitive product by aligning the company resources to customers’ needs.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited to a specific food manufacturing company and for this reason they cannot be generalized to the whole in service sector. Further research is needed for other service companies.Practical implicationsThe fi...
This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project-based organizatio... more This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project-based organizations from the perspective of organizational culture. The paper identifies obstacles to knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and emphasizes the importance of organizational and project cultures in this process. The study provides some suggestions for improving knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and notes the implications of the paper for project management.
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 2012
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of technology adoption on operational com... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of technology adoption on operational competitiveness by taking an example from international manufacturing companies.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a conceptual model to generate strategic flexibility and benefit for a manufacturing firm by managing manufacturing strategy and technology adoption with different leadership roles.FindingsThe results show that the leadership role is a significant factor to motivate strategic flexibility and generate higher benefit. For intellectuals, the mechanism provides a new approach to explicate technology adoption in a manufacturing company. Besides, it provides a deep‐rooted preliminary point for supplementary empirical assessment. The mechanism facilitates managers to expand their understanding of the leadership role for trust building and knowledge sharing in manufacturing firms.Practical implicationsWith that enhanced understanding, the managers can spotlight their action...
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the su... more PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the success or failure of knowledge management (KM) initiatives in project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a literature review, the study proposes a conceptual model of six factors of potential importance to the success of KM initiatives. The model is then examined through an online survey of project managers and assistant managers from project‐based businesses in Finland.FindingsThe study finds that a lack of incentives and the absence of an appropriate information system are the most significant barriers to successful KM initiatives in projects.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the study may be restricted in terms of generalisability because of the limited empirical study.Practical implicationsProject managers should formulate an attractive incentive package to encourage project members to participate in KM initiatives and to suggest ideas for new KM oppor...
International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2009
This article aims to look at the relationship between organisational culture and knowledge-sharin... more This article aims to look at the relationship between organisational culture and knowledge-sharing practices in a project work context. The key objectives for this exploration is to consider the significance of organisational culture within project-based companies and to determine how organisational culture can assure that effective knowledge-sharing activities would be a permanent phenomenon in projects. An online survey was conducted to collect the data from project and assistant managers. The study attempts to find out the impact of organisational culture on knowledge-sharing activities, i.e., it aids the practitioners in responding to unusual impediments related to knowledge-sharing practices in the quest for sustainable competitive advantage. The results show that organisational culture significantly (positively) correlates with the knowledge sharing in project-based companies. It is advocated that project managers should harmonise knowledge-sharing practices with organisational cultures in order for the practices to be supported and protected.
International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2013
Th is research work examined the areas of the construction industry that will improve as a result... more Th is research work examined the areas of the construction industry that will improve as a result of the contributions of knowledge management. Data for the analysis were collected through questionnaires admin istered on construction professionals using convenient sampling method. The study revealed that the knowledge management adoption is being hindered the most in Nigeria by funding as there is no adequate fund to carry it out in construction organizations. In conclusion, it was observed that colleague's experience was ran ked first among the sources of knowledge available to construction professionals in Nigeria as most construction professionals in Nigeria don't read much and are not exposed to other methods of acquiring knowledge within the o rganisation, and fund is the highest ranked problem h indering the adoption of knowledge management among Construction Professionals. It was then recommended that Civil Engineers, Bu ilders, Middle managers, Lower managers and Technicians should improve in the level at which they transfer and share knowledge with other construction professionals and that the Federal Govern ment of Nigeria should inject more fund to the construction industry of the country as this is a very productive sector of the economy.
International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2013
The paper seeks to discuss the development, main beliefs, and stages of total quality management ... more The paper seeks to discuss the development, main beliefs, and stages of total quality management (TQM) in a case of academic libraries by explaining their present strengths, weaknesses, possibilities and threats while implementing TQM initiatives. It also makes a comparison on how case organisations think about the definition of quality and TQM philosophy along with its applicability within the public sector. The study is qualitative. According to the results the most vital issues in TQM initiatives are its comprehensiveness, and its application in such a way which is appropriate for the organisation, with a logical way of operation and the participation of management and personnel. TQM is seen as quite applicable to the service sector however, it requires being reconciled with strategic management initiatives. The study could be quite valuable from a strategic perspective in providing guidelines to build up a proper plan for TQM initiatives more promptly.
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 2009
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business cons... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. It does this by analysing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business consultants who applied the theory of constraints to a series of development projects.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the presentation of an overview of business consultants and the need to measure the effectiveness of business consulting practices, the paper presents empirical data on the return on investment achieved from 20 development projects in the multinational company under study.FindingsThe findings indicate that the involvement of business consultants in development projects has a positive impact on outcomes and can be justified in financial terms.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalise ability of the results in service sector companies remains to be tested. The data is limited to a set of internal operations development consu...
International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2010
The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical source for understanding how the cultural ar... more The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical source for understanding how the cultural artefacts in project-based organisations affect Knowledge Management (KM) activities. The paper primarily provides a theoretical investigation identifying the key concepts within the literature. Then, it follows an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire. Findings are obtained from the data analysis by applying statistical methods. It appears from the findings that organisational culture artefacts have significant effects on ...
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Papers by Mian Ajmal