This chapter explores the management strategies adopted by manufacturing firms operating in high ... more This chapter explores the management strategies adopted by manufacturing firms operating in high versus low cost economies and investigates the reasons for differences in the management practice choices. The study reported in this chapter identifies a subset of countries that have either high or low labour costs, with USA, Sweden, and Japan being high, and India, China, and Brazil being low labour cost economies. The high labour cost manufacturing firms are found to have better management practices. In this chapter, the authors find that Australia and New Zealand manufacturing firms face relatively high labour cost but lag behind world best practice in management performance. The chapter concludes by highlighting the need for improvement in management capability for Australian and New Zealand manufacturing firms if they are to experience a reinvigoration of productivity, competitiveness, and long-term growth.
The increasing interest from technology enthusiasts and organisational practitioners in big data ... more The increasing interest from technology enthusiasts and organisational practitioners in big data applications in the supply chain has encouraged us to review recent research development. This paper proposes a systematic literature review to explore the available peer-reviewed literature on how big data is widely optimised and managed within the supply chain management context. Although big data applications in supply chain management appear to be often studied and reported in the literature, different angles of big data optimisation and management technologies in the supply chain are not clearly identified. This paper adopts the explanatory literature review involving bibliometric analysis as the primary research method to answer two research questions, namely: (1) How to optimise big data in supply chain management? and (2) What tools are most used to manage big data in supply chain management? A total of thirty-seven related papers are reviewed to answer the two research questions...
ABSTRACT Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between 5% and 7% f... more ABSTRACT Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between 5% and 7% for top tier airlines. Its application in other service industries with high fixed costs and little marginal cost for additional customers, however, is still in its infancy and yet to be explored. In this context, this paper introduces the fundamental concepts and trade-offs of yield management in the education services sector, in particular the vocational education training (VET) sector. We initially examine the components of yield management then describe yield management in the transportation and hospitality sectors, and draw parallels with the those sectors. Finally, we explore the applicability of yield management to the education services sector. We specifically examine a potential strategic application of yield management theory and concepts to increasing the disbursement of international students opting to study in regional areas of Australia. While preliminary findings indicate that yield management concepts apply in the VET sector in Australia, further research is required to validate this through defining: the market size, price break points, and the economic, social and cultural benefits. In addition, the generalizability of yield management concepts to other education services sectors, such as schools and higher education service providers, requires further work.
Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between five to seven percen... more Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between five to seven percent for top tier airlines. Since that time, its application has been extended to other service sectors within the travel and tourism industry. However, its application in other service industries which have high fixed costs and little marginal cost for additional customers is still in its infancy or is yet to be explored. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the fundamental concepts and trade-offs of yield management in the education services sector; as such we initially examine the components of yield management; describe yield management in the transportation and hospitality sectors; and finally, draw parallels with transportation and hospitality sector and explore its applicability in the education services sector. Beyond this, we look at a potential strategic application of yield management theory and concepts in increasing the disbursement of international students opting to study in regional areas of Australia. Examination of the limitations and barriers to implementing a yield management system in the education sector along with recommendations for further research are discussed.
This report explores Australia’s productivity slowdown and the policy measures that are being pro... more This report explores Australia’s productivity slowdown and the policy measures that are being proposed to address it. There is increasing recognition and agreement among policy-makers in Australia that productivity is a key driver of growth, competitiveness and living standards. But there is less agreement on the sources and measurement of productivity performance, and consequently on the policies that may contribute to a sustainable improvement in performance. The need for such improvement has been sharpened and made more urgent by two separate but related problems that have recently received considerable public attention. The first problem is the impending fall in Australia’s terms of trade from the heights reached during the commodity boom. The unprecedented rise in our terms of trade as a result of increased commodity prices delivered a massive boost to the growth in our national income in the early 2000s, helped to shield Australia from the worst of the global financial crisis and made our economy the envy of the world. However, it masked a second problem which is the underlying deterioration of Australia’s productivity performance since the 1990s. While this problem could be safely ignored, and was ignored in the past, with rising terms of trade taking up the slack, it is now fully exposed by the turnaround in our terms of trade as the commodity cycle runs its course. There were warning signs but a cyclical event was confused by many policymakers and commentators with structural change. The report finds that just as the slowdown was previously ignored, it is now misinterpreted and exaggerated to justify measures that may have little or no relevance to our future productivity performance, and which may themselves have contributed to the slowdown.
Business Strategy and The Environment, Jul 1, 2018
Traditionally, wasted resources are considered a burden that imposes a cost on organizations. How... more Traditionally, wasted resources are considered a burden that imposes a cost on organizations. However, ecological sustainability principles underpinning the linked discourses of industrial ecology and the Circular Economy conceptualize waste as intrinsically valuable. Our research identified exemplar business organizations that had each changed their business models to resolve the tension of waste as a burden and/or resource. Synthesizing these cases, we found these organizations applied systems thinking to reframe their product and service offerings and developed material circular flows in their business models. Analysis of how our exemplar organizations changed their business models to tackle pressing sustainability issues and to resolve the burden-resource tension show that the focus of change is on reconceptualizing their understanding of the role of waste in the value chain of their products and services. This altered understanding of waste as a resource across their value networks initiated negotiations with their existing suppliers to also modify their supply chain practices.
Digital services are a disruptive innovation helping the Australian government deliver public ser... more Digital services are a disruptive innovation helping the Australian government deliver public services to a greater number of citizens faster and more efficiently than ever before (United Nations, 2016). Over the last 20 years, the Australian federal government has been able to achieve nearly full availability of digital government services through public sector innovation. A recent commitment to such innovation occurred with the May 2015 release of a Digital Service Standard (DSS). Two years has passed since Australia introduced its DSS and this research reviews the role of this standard in fostering public service innovation. To perform this analysis, this research evaluates the alignment between the DSS and the commonly adopted approaches for managing organisational innovation of Innovation Process Management (Cooper, 1990) and Innovation Portfolio Management (Tuff & Nadji, 2012) in the public sector context. The analysis draws on publicly available data on 19 Digital Service Standard assessments from July 2015 to June 2017 and case studies of three assessments including: Digital Marketplace, MyGov and BloodNet. This evaluation found that the DSS exemplifies innovation process and innovation portfolio management in its use of gates, assessment criteria and reach across eight different agencies. The analysis also identified design limitations in the DSS as a whole of government innovation management approach due to its limited uptake in the majority of large government agencies and lack of specific standards to encourage different types of innovation. The paper proposes a framework to realign the DSS to better practices of innovation process and portfolio management, including tailoring the standard for new and existing services across a greater proportion of government agencies, and adjusting the DSS to encourage both incremental and disruptive innovations
Analysing and understanding donor behaviour in Non-profit Organisations (NPOs) is challenging due... more Analysing and understanding donor behaviour in Non-profit Organisations (NPOs) is challenging due to the lack of human and technical resources. Machine learning (ML) techniques can analyse and understand donor behaviour at a certain level; however, it remains to be seen how to build and design an Artificial Intelligence enabled Decision Support System (AI-enabled DSS) to analyse donor behaviour. Thus, this paper proposes an AI-enabled DSS conceptual design to analyse donor behaviour in NPOs. A conceptual design is created following a Design Science Research approach to evaluate an AI-enabled DSS's initial DPs and features to analyse donor behaviour in NPOs. The evaluation process of the conceptual design applied formative assessment through conducting interviews with stakeholders from NPOs. The interviews were conducted using the Appreciative Inquiry framework to facilitate the process of interviews. The results of analysis based on the interviews provide insightful information ...
2019 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2019
Innovation and change are fundamental to the long-term sustainability of any organisation. Whilst... more Innovation and change are fundamental to the long-term sustainability of any organisation. Whilst it is important to improve operating efficiency in the bid to become more cost competitive, there is still an underlying need to venture out of the norm and explore new opportunities. Though a great deal of research has emerged regarding the achievement of ambidexterity, there remains a gap in understanding how this is actually operationalised in organisations. This paper takes aim at this problem in the context of SME manufacturers that produce a high variety of customised products at low volumes (HVLV). Under such circumstances, ambidexterity appears intuitively easier to achieve given the manufacturer is designed to be as flexible as possible in the first place-though, it would seem this may be to their detriment. Based on a literature review and drawing from ambidexterity and organisational theory, our contribution is geared towards investigating the underlying mechanisms that make HVLV manufacturers ambidextrous in the first place. In particular, we concern ourselves with exploring how ambidexterity is enacted through what are deemed "better" management practices that result in innovative organisations. By better understanding the more latent characteristics of HVLV manufacturers, we shed some light on the interactions between external and internal influences affecting the impact of ambidexterity under such an environment. Further theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
The emerging economies are key factors in the future growth of world trade and the maintenance of... more The emerging economies are key factors in the future growth of world trade and the maintenance of global financial stability. Little is known about the way in which firms in emerging economies strategically manage the learning – creativity process to develop competitive advantage in both domestic and global markets. We extend the literature on learning and human capital by positing a model and examining 1) the mediating role of higherorder human capital in the relationship between learning facilitation and knowledge exploitation (KE); and 2) the mediating role of endogenous creativity in the KE – firm performance relationship. Qualitative method based on the sample in China’s firms was adopted and the results indicate that all the hypothesized relationships are supported.
The traditional manufacturing model of volume-variety influencing the conduct of business is not ... more The traditional manufacturing model of volume-variety influencing the conduct of business is not entirely representative of service-centric business. The latter has two key differences – it is much more end-user centric and individualistic in experience. The complex nature of service attributes also make it much more convoluted. The notion of product being the centre of interaction is being replaced with service processes involving participants and generally defined between a service provider and service consumer. The aim of this paper is to validate the service innovation hypotheses put forward based on significant developments in value networks, open interfaces, and business models recently. In doing so, this theoretical paper substantiates the claim that prescriptive volume-variety relationships are little meaningful in service delivery environment.
Service organisations create new service offerings that are the result of collaborative arrangeme... more Service organisations create new service offerings that are the result of collaborative arrangements operating on a value network level. This leads to the notion of "elevated service offering", implying new or enhanced service offerings which can only be eventuated as a result of partnering, and one that could not be delivered on individual organisational merits. Thus, organisations are faced with important challenges and opportunities which require strategic focus. This paper provides an integrated view of the outcomes of elevated service offering in a collaborative environment and focuses on the theory and concepts of the dynamic process of capability building. A model for creating elevated service offerings is developed, as well as a set of constructs that are instrumental to partnering, for example, organizational learning, entrepreneurial alertness, innovative capacity, and collaborative agility.
This chapter explores the management strategies adopted by manufacturing firms operating in high ... more This chapter explores the management strategies adopted by manufacturing firms operating in high versus low cost economies and investigates the reasons for differences in the management practice choices. The study reported in this chapter identifies a subset of countries that have either high or low labour costs, with USA, Sweden, and Japan being high, and India, China, and Brazil being low labour cost economies. The high labour cost manufacturing firms are found to have better management practices. In this chapter, the authors find that Australia and New Zealand manufacturing firms face relatively high labour cost but lag behind world best practice in management performance. The chapter concludes by highlighting the need for improvement in management capability for Australian and New Zealand manufacturing firms if they are to experience a reinvigoration of productivity, competitiveness, and long-term growth.
The increasing interest from technology enthusiasts and organisational practitioners in big data ... more The increasing interest from technology enthusiasts and organisational practitioners in big data applications in the supply chain has encouraged us to review recent research development. This paper proposes a systematic literature review to explore the available peer-reviewed literature on how big data is widely optimised and managed within the supply chain management context. Although big data applications in supply chain management appear to be often studied and reported in the literature, different angles of big data optimisation and management technologies in the supply chain are not clearly identified. This paper adopts the explanatory literature review involving bibliometric analysis as the primary research method to answer two research questions, namely: (1) How to optimise big data in supply chain management? and (2) What tools are most used to manage big data in supply chain management? A total of thirty-seven related papers are reviewed to answer the two research questions...
ABSTRACT Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between 5% and 7% f... more ABSTRACT Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between 5% and 7% for top tier airlines. Its application in other service industries with high fixed costs and little marginal cost for additional customers, however, is still in its infancy and yet to be explored. In this context, this paper introduces the fundamental concepts and trade-offs of yield management in the education services sector, in particular the vocational education training (VET) sector. We initially examine the components of yield management then describe yield management in the transportation and hospitality sectors, and draw parallels with the those sectors. Finally, we explore the applicability of yield management to the education services sector. We specifically examine a potential strategic application of yield management theory and concepts to increasing the disbursement of international students opting to study in regional areas of Australia. While preliminary findings indicate that yield management concepts apply in the VET sector in Australia, further research is required to validate this through defining: the market size, price break points, and the economic, social and cultural benefits. In addition, the generalizability of yield management concepts to other education services sectors, such as schools and higher education service providers, requires further work.
Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between five to seven percen... more Yield management is credited with delivering increases in revenue of between five to seven percent for top tier airlines. Since that time, its application has been extended to other service sectors within the travel and tourism industry. However, its application in other service industries which have high fixed costs and little marginal cost for additional customers is still in its infancy or is yet to be explored. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the fundamental concepts and trade-offs of yield management in the education services sector; as such we initially examine the components of yield management; describe yield management in the transportation and hospitality sectors; and finally, draw parallels with transportation and hospitality sector and explore its applicability in the education services sector. Beyond this, we look at a potential strategic application of yield management theory and concepts in increasing the disbursement of international students opting to study in regional areas of Australia. Examination of the limitations and barriers to implementing a yield management system in the education sector along with recommendations for further research are discussed.
This report explores Australia’s productivity slowdown and the policy measures that are being pro... more This report explores Australia’s productivity slowdown and the policy measures that are being proposed to address it. There is increasing recognition and agreement among policy-makers in Australia that productivity is a key driver of growth, competitiveness and living standards. But there is less agreement on the sources and measurement of productivity performance, and consequently on the policies that may contribute to a sustainable improvement in performance. The need for such improvement has been sharpened and made more urgent by two separate but related problems that have recently received considerable public attention. The first problem is the impending fall in Australia’s terms of trade from the heights reached during the commodity boom. The unprecedented rise in our terms of trade as a result of increased commodity prices delivered a massive boost to the growth in our national income in the early 2000s, helped to shield Australia from the worst of the global financial crisis and made our economy the envy of the world. However, it masked a second problem which is the underlying deterioration of Australia’s productivity performance since the 1990s. While this problem could be safely ignored, and was ignored in the past, with rising terms of trade taking up the slack, it is now fully exposed by the turnaround in our terms of trade as the commodity cycle runs its course. There were warning signs but a cyclical event was confused by many policymakers and commentators with structural change. The report finds that just as the slowdown was previously ignored, it is now misinterpreted and exaggerated to justify measures that may have little or no relevance to our future productivity performance, and which may themselves have contributed to the slowdown.
Business Strategy and The Environment, Jul 1, 2018
Traditionally, wasted resources are considered a burden that imposes a cost on organizations. How... more Traditionally, wasted resources are considered a burden that imposes a cost on organizations. However, ecological sustainability principles underpinning the linked discourses of industrial ecology and the Circular Economy conceptualize waste as intrinsically valuable. Our research identified exemplar business organizations that had each changed their business models to resolve the tension of waste as a burden and/or resource. Synthesizing these cases, we found these organizations applied systems thinking to reframe their product and service offerings and developed material circular flows in their business models. Analysis of how our exemplar organizations changed their business models to tackle pressing sustainability issues and to resolve the burden-resource tension show that the focus of change is on reconceptualizing their understanding of the role of waste in the value chain of their products and services. This altered understanding of waste as a resource across their value networks initiated negotiations with their existing suppliers to also modify their supply chain practices.
Digital services are a disruptive innovation helping the Australian government deliver public ser... more Digital services are a disruptive innovation helping the Australian government deliver public services to a greater number of citizens faster and more efficiently than ever before (United Nations, 2016). Over the last 20 years, the Australian federal government has been able to achieve nearly full availability of digital government services through public sector innovation. A recent commitment to such innovation occurred with the May 2015 release of a Digital Service Standard (DSS). Two years has passed since Australia introduced its DSS and this research reviews the role of this standard in fostering public service innovation. To perform this analysis, this research evaluates the alignment between the DSS and the commonly adopted approaches for managing organisational innovation of Innovation Process Management (Cooper, 1990) and Innovation Portfolio Management (Tuff & Nadji, 2012) in the public sector context. The analysis draws on publicly available data on 19 Digital Service Standard assessments from July 2015 to June 2017 and case studies of three assessments including: Digital Marketplace, MyGov and BloodNet. This evaluation found that the DSS exemplifies innovation process and innovation portfolio management in its use of gates, assessment criteria and reach across eight different agencies. The analysis also identified design limitations in the DSS as a whole of government innovation management approach due to its limited uptake in the majority of large government agencies and lack of specific standards to encourage different types of innovation. The paper proposes a framework to realign the DSS to better practices of innovation process and portfolio management, including tailoring the standard for new and existing services across a greater proportion of government agencies, and adjusting the DSS to encourage both incremental and disruptive innovations
Analysing and understanding donor behaviour in Non-profit Organisations (NPOs) is challenging due... more Analysing and understanding donor behaviour in Non-profit Organisations (NPOs) is challenging due to the lack of human and technical resources. Machine learning (ML) techniques can analyse and understand donor behaviour at a certain level; however, it remains to be seen how to build and design an Artificial Intelligence enabled Decision Support System (AI-enabled DSS) to analyse donor behaviour. Thus, this paper proposes an AI-enabled DSS conceptual design to analyse donor behaviour in NPOs. A conceptual design is created following a Design Science Research approach to evaluate an AI-enabled DSS's initial DPs and features to analyse donor behaviour in NPOs. The evaluation process of the conceptual design applied formative assessment through conducting interviews with stakeholders from NPOs. The interviews were conducted using the Appreciative Inquiry framework to facilitate the process of interviews. The results of analysis based on the interviews provide insightful information ...
2019 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2019
Innovation and change are fundamental to the long-term sustainability of any organisation. Whilst... more Innovation and change are fundamental to the long-term sustainability of any organisation. Whilst it is important to improve operating efficiency in the bid to become more cost competitive, there is still an underlying need to venture out of the norm and explore new opportunities. Though a great deal of research has emerged regarding the achievement of ambidexterity, there remains a gap in understanding how this is actually operationalised in organisations. This paper takes aim at this problem in the context of SME manufacturers that produce a high variety of customised products at low volumes (HVLV). Under such circumstances, ambidexterity appears intuitively easier to achieve given the manufacturer is designed to be as flexible as possible in the first place-though, it would seem this may be to their detriment. Based on a literature review and drawing from ambidexterity and organisational theory, our contribution is geared towards investigating the underlying mechanisms that make HVLV manufacturers ambidextrous in the first place. In particular, we concern ourselves with exploring how ambidexterity is enacted through what are deemed "better" management practices that result in innovative organisations. By better understanding the more latent characteristics of HVLV manufacturers, we shed some light on the interactions between external and internal influences affecting the impact of ambidexterity under such an environment. Further theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
The emerging economies are key factors in the future growth of world trade and the maintenance of... more The emerging economies are key factors in the future growth of world trade and the maintenance of global financial stability. Little is known about the way in which firms in emerging economies strategically manage the learning – creativity process to develop competitive advantage in both domestic and global markets. We extend the literature on learning and human capital by positing a model and examining 1) the mediating role of higherorder human capital in the relationship between learning facilitation and knowledge exploitation (KE); and 2) the mediating role of endogenous creativity in the KE – firm performance relationship. Qualitative method based on the sample in China’s firms was adopted and the results indicate that all the hypothesized relationships are supported.
The traditional manufacturing model of volume-variety influencing the conduct of business is not ... more The traditional manufacturing model of volume-variety influencing the conduct of business is not entirely representative of service-centric business. The latter has two key differences – it is much more end-user centric and individualistic in experience. The complex nature of service attributes also make it much more convoluted. The notion of product being the centre of interaction is being replaced with service processes involving participants and generally defined between a service provider and service consumer. The aim of this paper is to validate the service innovation hypotheses put forward based on significant developments in value networks, open interfaces, and business models recently. In doing so, this theoretical paper substantiates the claim that prescriptive volume-variety relationships are little meaningful in service delivery environment.
Service organisations create new service offerings that are the result of collaborative arrangeme... more Service organisations create new service offerings that are the result of collaborative arrangements operating on a value network level. This leads to the notion of "elevated service offering", implying new or enhanced service offerings which can only be eventuated as a result of partnering, and one that could not be delivered on individual organisational merits. Thus, organisations are faced with important challenges and opportunities which require strategic focus. This paper provides an integrated view of the outcomes of elevated service offering in a collaborative environment and focuses on the theory and concepts of the dynamic process of capability building. A model for creating elevated service offerings is developed, as well as a set of constructs that are instrumental to partnering, for example, organizational learning, entrepreneurial alertness, innovative capacity, and collaborative agility.
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Papers by Renu Agarwal