HRM and employees’ ability to master skills – a burning desire to make a difference that really makes a difference

As science and engineering projects are becoming increasingly more complex, sophisticated, comprehensive and multidisciplinary, there is a growing need for systems thinking skills to ensure successful project management. Systems thinking plays a major role in the initiation, effective management, and in facilitating inter-organizational tasks. This research assesses the capacity for engineering systems thinking and its contribution in carrying out a multidisciplinary project. The research also reviews the cognitive process through which systems thinking skill is acquired. The study focused on a group of students who have completed their senior design projects in high-tech industry, while their plans were being integrated into existing larger projects in the respective industrial sites. The systems thinking skill of the students was examined according to a questionnaire for assessing the Capacity for Engineering Systems Thinking (CEST). Statistical analysis shows significant differences in the students capacity for systems thinking at the beginning and end of the work (p<0.001). This research demonstrates that systems thinking skills can be improved through awareness and involvement in multidisciplinary projects.

The scarcity of water resources exhibited in different parts of the world and the dysfunctional consequences associated with urban water processes and services are encouraging countries to adopt transformative innovative thinking. The movement from the “visions” of urban water management to ‘actions” demands more emphasis on the development of relevant platforms and frameworks that enable effective transitions and sustainability of actions and good practices. Within the context of a changing environment, urban water management processes need to be “shifted” from the “conventional” approach to a wider context capable of addressing the growing urban water management lock-ins. Complexities in urban water management originate from the difficulty of maintaining sector-based balances (mainly supply-demand balances) governing internal functionality as well as from the intensity and uncertainty of the dynamics of both the entire water system and the wide range of change agents interacting in its external environment. Such lock-ins are affecting the capacity of urban water managers and policy makers to develop suitable strategies and implementation pathways and improve the overall resource utilization and service provision capacity and efficiency. While conventional approaches continued to be widely used to address such lock-ins, little improvement tend to be gained with regards to the dynamics of the “problem domain” and the feasibility of “solution spaces”. Over years, emphasis continued to be on advocating “nesting” urban water management processes into the context of integrated water management, but without ensuring the availability of relevant change management strategies, tools and agents. Issues relating to water governance, decentralization of water management processes and authorities, involvement of stakeholders, development and adoption of appropriate information platform, and capacity building are moving to the front line agenda of urban water managers and policy makers. In the absence of relevant tools and integrated frameworks, the capacity of conventional urban water management approaches to address such a new context remains questionable. The complexity exhibited across the entire urban water subsystem (both in scale and magnitude) calls for not only the development on new or modified “program sets” but also transformed and enriched ‘mind sets”. Such migration can be envisioned through the adoption of system thinking, innovation and strategic niche management. This will improve the capacity of the overall urban management “sub-system’ to orchestrate its functionalities with the overall water system using a holistic approach. This contribution focuses on the imperativeness of capacity building in urban water management in a changing environment and the importance of developing sustainability framework and approach in accordance with the principles of system innovation and thinking.

BackgroundHealth workers in low- and middle-income countries are increasingly demanded to collect more and more data to report them to higher levels of the health information system (HIS), in detriment of useful data for clinical and public health decision-making, potentially compromising the quality of their health care provison. In order to support health workers' decision-making, we engaged with partners in Côte d'Ivoire, Mozambique and Nigeria in a research project to conceive, design, produce, implement and test paper-based health information tools: the PHISICC tools. Our aim was to understand the use of PHISICC tools by health workers and to improve them based on their feedback.MethodsThe design Health Facility Laboratories (HF Labs) in Côte d'Ivoire and in Nigeria were set up after months of use of PHISICC tools. Activities were structured in three phases or ‘sprints' of co-creative research. We used a transdisciplinary approach, including anthropology and Human Centered Design (HCD), observations, shadowing, structured interviews and co-creation.ResultsHealth workers appreciated the standardization of the tools across different health care areas, with a common visual language that optimized use. Several design issues were raised, in terms of formats and contents. They strongly appreciated how the PHISICC registers guided their clinical decision-making and how it facilitated tallying and counting for monthly reporting. However, adherence to new procedures was not universal. The co-creation sessions resulted in modifications to the PHISICC tools of out-patient care and postnatal care.DiscussionAlthough health systems and systemic thinking allowed the teams to embrace complexity, it was the HCD approach that actually produced a shift in researchers' mind-set: from HIS as data management tools to HIS as quality of care instruments. HCD allowed navigating the complexity of health systems interventions due to its capacity to operate change: it not only allowed us to understand how the PHISICC tools were used but also how to further improve them. In the absence of (or even with) an analytical health systems framework, HCD approaches can work in real-life situations for the ideation, testing and implementation of interventions to improve health systems and health status outcomes.

Medical devices impact the daily practice of healthcare provider organisations. Elements that contribute to the quality of the healthcare treatment and how they are organised will be discussed in this chapter.Medical devices in their different declinations and definitions must be considered in respect to their overall life cycle to achieve the best results.A healthcare provided organisation is a complex system characterised by many multifaceted and non-linear connections among the different components and actors. The adoption of complex medical devices introduces additional factors that increases this complexity. System thinking and a holistic approach are required for the successful management of the activities and to ensure safety and quality of care.The case of haemodialysis treatment is taken as a paradigm for the application of a complex medical device system for the treatment of a chronic disease, analysing the impacts of the technology on the infrastructure and government of the healthcare provider.

The world of business economics (and management) traditionally has been viewed as relatively linear. In such context, competitive dynamics depends on contingency between structural factors and contextual factors, as well as characteristics of a representative company. But, the context has been changed under the impact of Industry 4.0. By synthesizing the breakthroughs from cyber and physical (and/or biological) worlds, it gave rise to an almost endless stream of combinatorial innovations. There are two major consequences of the previous transition. First, universal connectivity as the new free good enables that the world of engineering reaches the levels of complexity and dynamism typical for non-linear systems. Second, emerging amalgams of cyber and physical breakthroughs trigger in business management transformation of linear value chain into exponential value chain (or platform), actually a non-linear system. Mentioned structural changes lead to convergence of the engineering and business management in conceptual terms. In this paper we explore the ways in which Industry 4.0 can offer a powerful and consistent platform for implementation of conventional business management tools. We have been inspired by two achievements. First, to map out the impact of Industry 4.0 on double paradigm change, both in macro and micro (or business) management. Second, to explore, with key details, the impact of the paradigm change in business management on effectiveness of conventional management tools. By doing this, we wish to promote the broader and systemic thinking, synthesizing micro and macro management perspectives into a single point of view that is actually based on the reversibility principle.

Attempts to develop a conceptual model for analysing organisations as social systems from a systemic point of view. Develops aspects of a general theory for organisational innovation. Deliberates the way in which systemic thinking can be used as a means to understand, explain and predict stability and innovation in organisations regarded as social systems. Uses social autopoiesis theory expressed through an analytical model, conceptual models, and propositions.

PurposeOne of the problems we face in the transition from an industrial society to a global knowledge economy is the need for a new breed of leaders and a new understanding of leadership. Creativity in organizations is traditionally considered to be the domain of the R&D department, and design and marketing functions. The consequences of this way of thinking are that creativity, innovation and the implementation of innovation have not been a part of everyday life throughout an organization, but rather things that are the responsibility of a few people often located in departments far away from the “front line.” It is the front line that is in daily contact with users/customers, and which, in the knowledge society, will become increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how we can develop a new type of leadership in the knowledge economy. The authors suggest that the necessary conditions for this new type of leadership, which is refered to here as “innovation leadership”, are developed in a holistic model which includes the following elements: entrepreneurial action, innovative leadership, creative energy fields within the organization, high‐tech wealth creation and innovation as a business process.Design/methodology/approachThe authors' perspective here is that of a holistic integrated model where leadership and administration coordinate and balance each other, promoting creativity, innovation, productivity and change. The methodology used is conceptual research, where an analytical model is discussed.FindingsFor the established policy in enterprises and other social systems it is important to open up to fields of contagion, cutting down parts of the forest and allowing the principle of the order of succession to reign freely. In established enterprises it is important to: uncover creative energy fields; identify innovation leaders; spread contagion by cutting down areas of the forest where you want the principle of the order of succession to apply; and ensure that you have active spreaders of contagious new creative energy fields in the enterprise.Practical implicationsIf one freely interprets Hamel, then in order to promote the development of relational competence, 80 percent of the resources involved in high‐tech wealth creation should be allocated to innovation culture, and 20 percent to performance culture. Hamel says that innovation culture is constituted by “passion, creativity, initiative”. The most important aspect of innovation culture is not so much developing many new ideas and patents, but rather converting these ideas to profit for the company; the motto “from idea to invoice” springs to mind here. However, in most companies it is perhaps the performance culture rather than the innovation culture that is given priority.Social implicationsThe social implications can be stated by citing Hamel, who outlines five important lessons that need to be followed: go to the root of any problem; build what is new on new ground; commit to revolutionary goals, but reach the goals by taking small steps; evaluate continuously, but do not paralyse the system with analysis and quarterly results; and be persevering.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, few authors (if any), have related systemic thinking (cybernetics) to the new leaders we need in the global economy.

Managing financial institutions in an underdeveloped economic context has become a real challenge nowadays. In order to reach the organization’s planned goals, they have to deal with structural, behavioral and informational problems. From the systemic point of view, this situation gets even worse when the company does not present organizational boundaries and a cohesive identification for their stakeholders. Thus, European countries have some special financial lines in order to help the development of micro credit in Latin communities in an attempt to help the local economy. However, institutions like Caixa dos Andes in Peru present management problems when dealing with this complexity. Based on this, how can the systemic eye help in the diagnosis of soft problems of a Peruvian financial company? This study aims to diagnose soft problems of a Peruvian financial company based on soft variables like identity, communication and autonomy and also intends to identify possible ways to redesign its basic framework. The (VSM––Viable System Model) method from Beer (1967), applied in this diagnostic study, was used in a practical way as a management tool for organizations’ analysis and planning. By describing the VSM’s five systems, the creation of a systemic vision or a total vision is possible, showing the organization’s complexity from the inside. Some company’s soft problems like double control, inefficient use of physical and human resources, low information flows, slowness, etc. The VSM presented an organizational diagnosis indicating effective solutions that do integrate its five systems.

This article uses the case study of the Nevada Digital Newspaper Project (https://nvdnp.wordpress.com/), an extension of the National Digital Newspaper Program (https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/), to introduce proven strategies on how to successfully manage a large-scale digitization project. It provides tips on how to stay within the timeline and deliver products with outstanding quality, leveraging limited human resources, and engaging an external digitization vendor. It discusses practical project management techniques and tools, strategies for establishing collaborative vendor partnerships, and strategies for efficient communication with stakeholders.

Provides an overview of the technical articles and features presented in this minitrack.

This chapter deals with the concept of the advertising message, the stages of its preparation, how it affects consumer behavior, the subsequent stages of adopting the new consumer, and what are the models that explain this behavior. Therefore, in this chapter, we will focus on two important topics. The first is related to how advertising messages are designed to be more attractive and effective. The second topic is related to some analytical models that contribute to explaining consumer behavior. And how to determine the communication objectives included in the advertising program, including stimulating demand for the commodity, increasing its uses and uses, and increasing consumer awareness and awareness of it; Of course, this cannot be achieved unless there is successful management that works to achieve these goals.

Marine biodiversity refers to the variation of life at all levels and is much more than just a count of species. Marine biodiversity decline is occurring across the globe and is characterized not only by extinctions (sometimes local), but also by invasions and hybridizations, reductions in the abundance of some species, degradation of habitats and changes in ecosystem processes (e.g. cycling of water, nutrients and energy). The major threats and causes of marine diversity can be categorized as (i) unsustainable resource use, (ii) land-based impacts, (iii) coastal and marine pollution, (iv) introduced invasive species and (v) climate change. All these pose major risks in tropical seas where the high biodiversity in the past has allowed the tropical ecosystems to provide more services with less variability than more temperate systems. There is a strong link between better resource management and better biodiversity outcomes. With the introduction and acceptance of the concept of sustainable development, a way was opened up to ensure that human development did not impact irreversibly on the physical environment, thereby preserving biodiversity for future generation so that they could also enjoy the services that healthy ecosystems can provide. Along with the concept came a range of “approaches,” many of which developed in parallel by different sectors and disciplines. Because they were all developed to promote sustainable development there is considerable agreement on principles and management tools. This article proposes a course of action through an ecosystem approach for planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation that better integrates both ecosystem and sector management tools for more integrated management. There have been so many failures and biodiversity continues to decline. Several reasons for these failures are grouped under four pillars that are considered essential for successful resource management. These are: (i) enabling policy/legislative environment, (ii) good governance and institutions, (iii) full participation and (iv) adequate resources-people and finances to implement the management system. The use of large marine ecosystem management, exemplified by the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem Project, is put forward as an approach that can address some of the issues that jeopardize success.

Drilling and production optimization are two interconnected operations for successful well construction and reservoir management, in particular for extended reach of multilateral wells. Formation damage, especially permeability reduction induced during drilling, greatly affect well completion and future potential reserve production. Reservoir pressure depletion and the consequent increase in effective stresses around the well branches are the main reasons behind solid production or total wellbore collapse. Unfortunately, to date, analytical study for the stability of multilaterals has been very limited due to the complex geometry and stress state involved. This work entails a recently derived analytical solution to estimate the safe mudweight window for wellbore stability during drilling, as well as to predict the maximum pressure drawdown for a stable junction during production. The presented solution is capable of handling the complexity of 3D anisotropic state of stress as well as any mother and lateral size, inclination, and azimuth. The study shows that the design of multilateral junction, especially inclination and azimuth of both wellbores with respect to regional in-situ stresses play a crucial role in the multilateral junction stability and the critical pressure drawdown estimation to prevent solid production and wellbore collapse. A field case study of a multilateral well drilled in the Khuff-C formation, Ghawar field, Saudi Arabia, is analyzed herein with drilling data, core-retrieved rock properties, and pressure drawdown and production estimates. The results showed alternate optimized completions that could have been applied early in the drilling and branching of the laterals. Practical guidelines concerning branching optimization have been established for junction planning and execution. The new analytical modeling has also been calibrated with a published peer-reviewed large-scale experimental program simulating both the anisotropy of far-field stresses and complex junction geometry with exceptional qualitative and quantitative results.

Summary Drilling and production optimization are two closely related operations for successful well construction and reservoir management, in particular for multilaterals. Unfortunately, to date, analytical study for the stability of multilaterals has been very limited because of the complex geometry and stress state involved. This work entails a recently derived analytical solution to estimate the safe mudweight window for wellbore stability during drilling and to predict the maximum pressure depletion for a stable junction during production. The presented solution is capable of handling the complexity of the 3D anisotropic state of stress as well as any main-bore and lateral size, inclination, and azimuth. The study shows that the design of multilateral junctions, especially inclination and azimuth of both wellbores with respect to regional in-situ stresses, plays a crucial role in the multilateral-junction stability and the critical pressure depletion to prevent solids production and wellbore collapse. A field case study of an openhole multilateral well drilled in the Khuff-C formation, Ghawar field, Saudi Arabia, is analyzed here with drilling data, core-retrieved rock properties, and pressure-depletion and production estimates. The results showed alternative optimized completions that could have been applied early in the drilling and branching of the laterals. Practical guidelines concerning branching optimization have been established for junction planning and execution. The new analytical modeling has also been calibrated with a published peer-reviewed large-scale experimental program simulating both the anisotropy of far-field stresses and the complex junction geometry with exceptional qualitative and quantitative results.

Introducing new or modified business processes is a change task that so far has played only a minor role within the discussion of business process management. Process training – if properly designed – can contribute significantly to ensure that all parties involved can quickly and easily acquire the required process competence (knowledge, skills, will and permission). They are therefore effective tools of change management. In this paper we will draft the requirements of process training and will highlight the proposed approach using an actual case study. In addition to technical and organizational aspects we consider process competence (the “human factor”) as a third important criterion in successful Business Process Management (BPM).KeywordsProcess implementationchange managementprocess competenceprocess training