Abstract - This study investigates the Business Process Management (BPM) maturity and process performance of the Dutch Department of Defence (DDoD). Like any other organisation, defence departments use BPM to manage their daily business processes. Despite using BPM, the organisation has never undertaken the initiative to analyse its BPM Maturity level and process performance. This paper presents the first results of such a study and compares this to similar military organisations, non-profit organisations and other organisations in the private sector. The DDoD BPM Maturity index score of 2.66 is similar to that of peer organisations. The study provides some suggestions for research and practical implications for organisation.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the fragmented literature on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), leader–member exchange (LMX), learning, innovative work behavior (IWB) and employee performance across different countries, disciplines and organizations, thereby broadening the literature breath and making gap identification comprehensive. Second, it provides information on how much studies have been concentrated on Africa with the goal of provoking scholarly work in a unique cultural setting on the interrelatedness of these concepts. Design/methodology/approach Relevant literature search was undertaken using key search terms, “employee performance,” “OCB,” “LMX,” “IWB,” “individual learning” and “team learning.” Findings The findings show positive relationships between the behaviors and employee performance. They also reveal an interesting diversity in the study across multidisciplinary fields holding both cultural and contextual significance for academia and practitioners. Research limitations/implications – The limitation of literature to peer-reviewed journals from the authors’ university library might have missed important information not in this domain. Further studies must make use of additional search terms and engines excluded from this study to provide a more comprehensive analysis. Practical implications The paper has important managerial implications for practitioners. The analysis can support the understanding of employee performance from a broader and more diverse view points; and help in providing insight into real-life opportunities, constraints and solutions in enhancing performance management. Originality/value – This systematic literature review highlights important knowledge gaps which need to be explored especially in the African and Ghanaian contexts.
Although multi-disciplinary cooperation between professionals is a prerequisite to provideintegrated care in the community, this seems hard to realise in practice. Yet, little is knownabout the experiences of professionals who implement it nor about the organisational fea-tures professionals identify as empowering during this cooperation process. Therefore,a case study of a multi-disciplinary geriatric team was performed. The data-collectionincluded observations of meetings, in-depth interviews and focus groups with professionals(N = 12). Data were analysed inductively and related to the three organisational levels withinthe model of organisational empowerment of Peterson and Zimmerman. Signs of empow-ering organisational features on the intraorganisational level were mutual trust and clearworking routines. On the interorganisational level important features included improvedlinkages between participating organisations and increased insight into each other’s tasks.Tensions occurred relating to the inter- and the extraorganisational level. Professionals feltthat the commitment of the management of involved organisations should be improvedjust as the capacity of the team to influence (local) policy. It is recommended that poli-cymakers should not determine the nature of professional cooperation in advance, but toleave that to the local context as well as to the judgement of involved professionals.
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Within the framework of resource efficiency it is important to recycle and reusematerials, replace fossil fuel based products with bio-based alternatives and avoidthe use of toxic substances. New applications are being sought for locally grownbiomass. In the area of Groningen buildings need reinforcement to guarantee safetyfor its users, due to man-induced earthquakes. Plans are to combine the workneeded for reinforcement with the improvement of energy performance of thesebuildings. The idea is to use bio-based building materials, preferably grown andprocessed in the region.In this study it is investigated whether it is feasible to use Typha (a swap plant) as abasis for a bio-based insulation product. In order to start the activities necessary tofurther develop this idea into a commercial product and start a dedicated company,a number of important questions have to be answered in terms of feasibility. Thisstudy therefore aims at mapping economic, organisational and technical issues andassociated risks and possibilities. On the basis of these results a developmenttrajectory can be started to set up a dedicated supply chain with the appropriatepartners, research projects can be designed to develop the missing knowledge andthe required funding can be acquired.
