Vol. 3(2) February 2010
Gender-Related Issues in Public Administration: Mayoral Advisors for Equal Chances
Farkas Ferenc and Mager Orna
The equality of chances is a topic which is underlying an extended research now-a-days
and there are a lot of unanswered questions in this field. This concerns problems
both of local and trans-regional importance, problems which can be viewed both at
national and international level. Therefore, after reviewing literature on women’s
chances to participate in the activities of business and other organizations, the
paper supports theory through an empirical research which was conducted about the
policy of advancing women and integrating them in the power structure and in decision-making
in public administration. Research was done in Israel and examined the application
of the Local Authorities Law on the Appointment of Mayoral Advisors on the status
of Women. The focus is on an examination of the operation and activities of the
advisors as agents of change. The results of the research can have implications
for other countries dealing with different aspects of gender equality problems.
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General Accountability Standards for Hungarian Civil Society Organizations:
Towards Organizational Effectiveness
Molnár Mónika
This paper investigates nonprofit accountability as a major driving force for changing
management practices in nonprofit governance worldwide. It examines the terms accountability
and effectiveness by how they apply to civil society organizations (CSOs) and discusses
their implications. The so-called ‘nonprofit accountability movement’
is a recent phenomenon inside the Hungarian nonprofit world, even though there are
various factors challenging the transparency, legitimacy and answerability of the
sector’s organizations. Therefore it is argued in the paper that Hungarian
CSOs need to become more transparent and accountable to their stakeholders in order
to increase public trust. An integrated framework of accountability with international
implications is proposed to be applied by CSOs to ensure the highest standards of
accountability.
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The Potential of Face Book in Creating Commercial Value for Service Companies
Oren Gil-Or
This paper is describing an ongoing research that intends to analyze the best routes
that companies should take in order to get into consumers’ conversations within
Facebook (and the other social networks) in a way that will benefit both sides.
Encouraging and influencing this electronic World of Mouth can generate substantial
commercial value. The commonly-used “push” approaches that are currently
used by most of the vendors in the online social networks are creating negative
responses and this research is looking for the expeditors that will make the social
networkers willing to participate in a commercial electronic Word of Mouth. This
research is focused around service companies, since eWOM is much more critical for
these companies. From initial results of the research, a “hate and use”
phenomenon seems to exist among the Facebook users with regards to usage and information
sharing within the social network.
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The need for a comprehensive fund raising approach
Kuti Éva
This paper addresses a question of nonprofit management which is especially important
under the conditions of the global economic crisis. When the financial stability
of voluntary organizations is endangered, it becomes crucial how successful their
fund raising efforts are. The aim of the paper is to provide nonprofit managers
with research information that can help them to meet this fund raising challenge.
The paper first gives an analysis of the results of sample surveys of corporate
and individual donations, statistical surveys of nonprofit organizations, and interviews
with donors and nonprofit managers. It explores the fund raising implications of
the research information and summarizes the lessons to be learnt by nonprofit managers.
Finally it concludes with some recommendations concerning the development of a more
comprehensive fund raising approach. The paper proves that numerous nonprofit organizations
have a rather monolithic income structure despite the fact that many of their donors
may be in a position to support them in several forms. Either individual or corporate
donations constitute the basis of financing, the donors’ preferences, values, attitudes
and emotions prove to be rather similar. If nonprofit organizations attached more
importance to the connections between the different kinds of donations, they could
probably develop much more efficient fund raising strategies. Although the empirical
basis of the analysis presented in the paper is limited to Hungary, the results
and their fund raising implications are likely to be also relevant in other countries.
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Public Value and ROI in the Government Sector
Al-Raisi Ahmad N. and Al-Khouri Ali M.
Assessing the returns of public sector investments in Information Technology (IT)
has been the subject of a round of debates between practitioners and the academic
researchers. The range and complexity of government Information Technology (IT)
investments and broad community of benefit owners make assessing investment returns
a daunting prospect. This paper provides a short review of existing literature on
Public Return on Investment (ROI) and the general approaches to measurement of such
returns. It also presents some examples of successful Public ROI programs and practices
in the United Arab Emirates.
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Model of a strategic analysis of manufacturing: application of general planning
and analysis process methodology
Borut Rusjan
There is a real need for improved management processes to develop manufacturing
strategies. The paper studies analysis as a part of the strategic planning process.
In order to guarantee effective decision-making, the role of the analysis in the
process of planning has to be understood. This phase of the planning process is
not getting enough attention from practitioners. This results in decision-making
for which quick jumping to solution-seeking is characteristic without appropriate
determination of problems before hand. The purpose is to discuss the phases of strategic
analysis of manufacturing which is the basis of manufacturing strategy formulation.
The aim is to develop a model of process of analysis which will provide managers
with a practical approach to improve their operations. Development of a model has
to be based on the conceptual frameworks for strategic planning of manufacturing
developed in the past theoretical work. Based on the differentiation between two
levels of strategic decision-making, the role of strategic analysis in the process
of strategic planning at business and functional levels is identified. By taking
into account relations between strategic planning processes at both levels and relations
between strategic analyses at both levels, we define the purpose and objective of
strategic manufacturing planning and consequently the purpose and objective of strategic
analysis of manufacturing. .
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RFID – The Best Technology in Supply Chain Management
Kamaladevi B.
During the last decade, most organizations have implemented enterprise-wide applications
and integration platforms. These implementations have delivered benefits in terms
of data synchronization and information flows within the organization and with trading
partners providing valuable inputs for planning and optimization of schedules and
reporting. However, automated data capture and tracking in real-time has been a
major bottleneck, affecting the ability of organizations to optimize their investments
in supply chain solutions. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology is emerging
as a technology that could provide the answer to these problems. Using tags, readers
and radio waves to communicate between the two, RFID combined with the EPC (Electronic
Product Code) would be able to address these pain points and deliver a whole range
of benefits across various verticals like manufacturing, distribution, retail, logistics
and security. The potential benefits arise from increase in supply chain visibility,
increase in efficiencies and decrease in costs due to better data synchronization,
increase in responsiveness to changes due to real time information visibility and
a number of additional industry / vertical specific benefits. RFID promises to have
a major impact on supply chains allowing trading partners to collaborate more effectively
and achieve new levels of efficiency and responsiveness.
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Recruitment and Selection Practices in SMEs: Empirical Evidence from a Developing
Country Perspective
Ongori Henry* and Temtime Z.
This paper purports to investigate the recruitment and selection practices of SMEs
and suggests appropriate strategies on how to improve human resource management
practices to enhance organisational performance. Recruitment and selection practices
are the key factors to the entry point of human resources to any organisation which
also tends determine the success and sustainability of SMEs. These practices are
said to encourage innovation, survival and growth of SME if taken serious by owner/
managers. Many studies which have been conducted on recruitment and selection practices
by SMEs have only concentrated on large and multinational firms on the west and
little has been done on recruitment and selection of SMEs in developing economies
and yet SME tend to contribute a lot in employment creation and economic growth.
This research therefore tries to develop unique recruitment and selection practices
which are applicable to the needs of SMEs in developing countries. The random samplings
of eighty managers/owners of SMEs were selected for the study, in which data were
analyzed by using descriptive statistics. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge
especially in provoking a debate amongst managers/owners to come up with appropriate
strategies to encourage SMEs to develop formal ways of recruitment and selection
practices in organisations. The finding from the study shows that most SMEs tends
to practice both informal and formal approach in hiring their employees. The limitation
of the study is that the sample size selected was not large enough to generalise
the results.
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‘The Art of Decision Making’ in Institutions of Higher Education
A Case Study: Notre Dame University and The Lebanese American University
Hasham Elham S.
Perceiving the accuracy of connection among problems, the essential prerequisites,
the importance of the surrounding environment, experience and communication, will
lead to the most effective and efficient decisions for a particular situation. Decisions
range from the simplest issues to the most critical…’the human being.’ Educational
leaders mold the minds of the future. In addition, they are confronted with delicate
circumstances that, if taken haphazardly, may affect careers. An educational environment
houses such a variety of personalities that calls for extreme caution. Moreover,
the problem must be sensed and solutions sought, evaluated, accepted or rejected
for authorization and implementation. In brief, the process should involve both
thought and action that should culminate in a prize choice. Decision making is the
heart of executive activity. It is a skill that will either make or break a manager.
The objective of the survey was to identify those variables that are significant
to the decision makers in institutions of higher education in Lebanon.
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