Management Decision: Volume 30 Issue 8

Total Strategy

John Peters

Organizations take strategic direction decisions in four key areas:culture, policy, strategic plans and in the way they select and approachtheir markets. Presents an approach…

Traditional Performance Appraisal Systems: The Deming Challenge

Dean Elmuti, Yunus Kathawala, Robert Wayland

Compares the traditional performance appraisal systems withDeming′s philosophy of operating a production system focused on qualityfor the consumer. W. Edwards Deming has long…

External Considerations: Their Influence on Future Strategic Planning

Marilyn M. Helms, Peter Wright

Changes in the role of information, workplace technologies, and thecomposition and attitudes of the workforce will have a bearing oncompanies′ competitive position in the…

Triumph or Disaster: What Is Reality?

Helga Drummond

Someone tells you there is a problem. Is there – how do youknow? Someone says there are three options – how do they know?Decisions turn upon what people believe is reality, yet…

Generating Ideas Using Randomized Search Methods: A Method of Managed Convergence

Graham Hitchings, Sara Cox

In the light of experience, traditional ways of using the techniqueof brainstorming are examined. Flaws in the technique include dominance,fixation, inhibition, lack of structure…

Thriving on Chaos: The Route to Management Survival

Gerald Vinten

Chaos theory is about to invade the thinking and vocabulary ofpractising managers and management academics. It will mark the majorbreakthrough in the 1990s, just as systems theory…

Managing User‐supplier Interactions: Management of R&D Activity

Mohamed Zairi

AMT implementation has brought with it many opportunities for thosebusinesses which subscribed to it. It also introduced a large number ofproblems, many of which were internal to…

Managing in Difficult Times: Lessons from the Most Recent Recession

Ronald Bigelow, Peng S. Chan

The history of business is full of ups and downs. The present (orpast?) recession is worrying many businesses and people. Indications arethat corporations and management have more…