Examines the motivation for achievement as a psychological factor that shapes economic development. Refuting arguments based on race, climate, or population growth, the book instead argues for cultural customs and motivations - especially the motivation for achievement - as the major catalysts of economic growth. Considering the Protestant Reformation, the rise of capitalism, parents' influences on sons, and folklore and children's stories as shaping cultural motivations for achievement, the book hypothesizes that a high level of achievement motivation precedes economic growth. This is supported through qualitative analysis of the achievement motive, as well as of other psychological factors - including entrepreneurial behavior and characteristics, and available sources of achievement in past and present highly achieving societies. It is the achievement motive - and not merely the profit motive or the desire for material gain - that has advanced societies economically. Consequently, individuals are not merely products of their environment, as many social scientists have asserted, but also creators of the environment, as they manipulate it in various ways in the search for achievement. Finally, a plan is hypothesized to accelerate economic growth in developing countries, by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries. The conclusion is not just that motivations shape economic progress, but that current influences on future people's motivations and values will determine economic growth in the long run. Thus, it is most beneficial for a society to concentrate its resources on creating an environment conducive to entrepreneurship and a strong ideological base for achievement. (CJC)

The Achieving Society

What is the true source of a firm's long-term competitive advantage in manufacturing? Through original field studies, historical research, and statistical analyses, this book shows how Toyota Motor Corporation, one of the world's largest automobile companies, built distinctive capabilities in production, product development, and supplier management. Fujimoto asserts that it is Toyota's evolutionary learning capability that gives the company its advantage and demonstrates how this learning is put to use in daily work.

The evolution of a manufacturing system at Toyota

The impact of project management (PM) and benefits management (BM) practices on project success: Towards developing a project benefits governance framework

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured overview of so‐called business process improvement (BPI) approaches and their contribution to the actual act of improving. Even though a lot is said about BPI, there is still a lack of supporting the act of improving the process. Most approaches concentrate on what needs to be done before and after the improvement act, but the act of improving itself still seems to be a black box.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is mainly based on a review of literature that deals with the term “Business Process Improvement”. The analysis of the literature is supported by qualitative content analysis. The structure of the evaluation follows the mandatory elements of a method (MEM).Findings – A lot of literature and consulting approaches deal with the restructuring and improvement of business processes. The author finds that even so‐called BPI approaches do not describe the act of improvement itself. And if they do, they lack a methodological structure ...

A structured evaluation of business process improvement approaches

The use of subprocesses in large process models is an important step in modeling practice to handle complexity. While there are several advantages attributed to such a modular design, including ease of reuse, scalability, and enhanced understanding, the lack of precise guidelines turns out to be a major impediment for applying modularity in a systematic way. In this paper we approach this area of research from a critical perspective. Our first contribution is a review of existing approaches to process model modularity. This review shows that aside from some limited insights, a systematic and grounded approach to finding the optimal modularization of a process model is missing. Therefore, we turned to modular process models from practice to study their merits. In particular, we set up an experiment involving professional process modelers and tested the effect of modularization on understanding. Our second contribution, stemming from this experiment, is that modularity appears to pay off. We discuss some of the limitations of our research and implications for future design-oriented approaches.

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Modularity in Process Models: Review and Effects

Purpose – The paper discusses the problem of business process modelling, various techniques which are used to carry out business process modelling and aims to analyse the use of different techniques to find a better solution.Design/methodology/approach – Business process modelling techniques could be divided into two groups, the diagrammatic and tabular techniques. As a representative of diagrammatic techniques, a flowchart is chosen and discussed in detail. A process model could also be developed using the activity table as a representative of tabular techniques. A comparative analysis of the two techniques is consequently carried out. The pros and cons of both techniques were analysed on the two case‐studies – the problems of Sales_Claim and Credit_Card are used as examples to test both techniques.Findings – Based on the comparative analysis, several useful remarks are given as a result of this work. First, both techniques are simple and useful for business processes modelling. Drawing a flowchart is ea...

Business process modelling using diagrammatic and tabular techniques

This paper aims at discussing business process modelling and improvement as an essential work to create a successful and competitive enterprise. To achieve this goal, we use a methodology called TAD, which consists of six phases. The first three deal with business process identification, modelling and improvement. The methodology presents a new unique way for business process identification, modelling, and improvement. The last three phases continue with the implementation of the improved business process(es) by developing its information system. The business process ''Surgery'' is used as an example to show the implementation of the methodology.

A methodology for business process improvement and IS development

Efficiency at doing a certain task, at the workplace or otherwise, is strongly influenced by how motivated individuals are. Exploring new ways to motivate employees is often at the top of a company’s agenda. Traditionally identified motivators in Western economies primarily include salary and prestige, often complemented by meaning, creation, challenge, ownership, identity, etc. We report the results of a survey conducted in Slovenia, involving an ensemble of highly educated employees from various public and private organizations. Employing new methodologies such as network analysis, we find that Slovenians are stimulated by an intricate web of interdependent factors, largely in contrast to the traditional understanding that mainly emphasizes money and prestige. In fact, these key motivators only weakly correlate with the demographic parameters. Unexpectedly, we found the evidence of a general optimism in Slovenian professional life - a tendency of the employees to look at the “bright side of things”, thus seeing more clearly the benefits of having something than the drawbacks of not having it. We attribute these particularities to Slovenian recent history, which revolves around gradually embracing the Western (economic) values.

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What Motivates Us for Work? Intricate Web of Factors beyond Money and Prestige.

Project planning practices based on enterprise resource planning systems in small and medium enterprises — A case study from the Republic of Macedonia

The evolution of organizational processes and performance over the past decade has been largely enabled by cutting-edge technologies such as data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and business intelligence applications. The increasing use of cutting-edge technologies has boosted effectiveness, efficiency and productivity, as existing and new knowledge within an organization continues to improve AI abilities. Consequently, AI can identify redundancies within business processes and offer optimal resource utilization for improved performance. However, the lack of integration of existing and new knowledge makes it problematic to ascertain the required nature of knowledge needed for AI’s ability to optimally improve organizational performance. Hence, organizations continue to face reoccurring challenges in their business processes, competition, technological advancement and finding new solutions in a fast-changing society. To address this knowledge gap, this study applies a fuzzy set-theoretic approach underpinned by the conceptualization of AI, knowledge sharing (KS) and organizational performance (OP). Our result suggests that the implementation of AI technologies alone is not sufficient in improving organizational performance. Rather, a complementary system that combines AI and KS provides a more sustainable organizational performance strategy for business operations in a constantly changing digitized society. 

Nadja Damij

Papers

Business process modelling using diagrammatic and tabular techniques

A methodology for business process improvement and IS development

What Motivates Us for Work? Intricate Web of Factors beyond Money and Prestige.

Project planning practices based on enterprise resource planning systems in small and medium enterprises — A case study from the Republic of Macedonia

Artificial intelligence and knowledge sharing: Contributing factors to organizational performance