Industrial Management - March/April 2011
Contributors in this issue
Cultivating your backup 'quarterback'
By Dan Carrison
Instead of keeping it lonely at the top, executives and businesses would do well to include their second string in the decision-making process. Not only are two heads better than one, but such inclusion helps future replacements prepare for leadership. After all, the two NFL teams that reached the Super Bowl this year – the Packers and the Steelers – needed their backup quarterbacks during the season.
By the Society for Engineering and Management Systems Board
Umit S. Bititci highlights performance measurement research that will be presented at the Industrial Engineering Research Conference, part of the IIE Annual Conference and Expo, scheduled for May 21-25 in Reno, Nev. Raf Sluismans discusses “innovation performance contracts,” which have been effective in the Netherlands during the last few years.
A guide to creating the future
By Stephen C. Harper
If your company’s markets are not that promising or if your company does not develop significant and sustainable competitive advantages, then your company’s future is in doubt. To create your company’s future, embrace the prelude to Star Trek: Be prepared to boldly go where your company and possibly no other company has gone before.
The fourth theory of worker motivation
By J.J. Haefner
The three motivation theories – X, Y and Z – and other notions may be fine for academic theory. But in reality, a fourth theory of motivation can make a world of difference. A case study shows how linking leadership, environment and personalities with positive core values can help underperforming work shifts not only meet expectations, but shatter production records.
Benchmarking for quality
By Deven Shah and Brian Kleiner
While quality is a relative term, businesses need solid standards that their products and services can meet to help them compete in the marketplace. Managing a proper strategy for benchmarking helps generate data that can be used to improve a company’s offerings, as evidenced by this study of benchmarking at a major coatings manufacturer.
Overseas knowledge transfer
By José Moleiro Martins and Nelson Santos António
Multinational enterprises that operate subsidiaries in lesser developed countries have a problem. They need to teach employees, many from cultures that have no industrial tradition, the skills needed to operate efficiently. The success of such knowledge transfers depends on three analytical dimensions: the multinational enterprise’s ability to transfer knowledge; the climate of cooperation between the enterprise and its subsidiary; and the subsidiary’s capacity to absorb the knowledge.