Purpose This study examines how ESG performance reduces firm risk and how AI disclosure strengthens this effect, using 2020-2024 panel data from 1,310 European firms. Results show that ESG lowers leverage-based risk, especially when firms disclose AI initiatives. Design/methodology/approach The study analyzes panel data from 1,310 listed firms across 15 European countries over the period 2020-2024, yielding 6,550 firm-year observations. Firm risk is measured using financial leverage, ESG scores are obtained from Bloomberg and AI disclosure is measured through content analysis using both a binary disclosure indicator and an AI word-count measure. The analysis applies fixed effects regression as the baseline model, supported by generalized method of moments (GMM), random effects, Heckman two-step estimation and additional robustness checks. Findings The results reveal a significant negative relationship between ESG performance and firm risk, supporting the risk-reducing potential of sustainability engagement. Moreover, AI disclosure strengthens this relationship, indicating that firms disclosing AI-related initiatives in their reports experience greater risk mitigation benefits from ESG practices. Robustness tests confirm the consistency of the findings across alternative specifications. Originality/value This study contributes to the sustainability, risk management and digital governance literature by showing that AI disclosure acts as a complementary transparency mechanism that enhances the effectiveness of ESG performance in reducing firm risk. Rather than treating ESG and digital transformation as separate dimensions, the study highlights their interaction and provides evidence that AI-related disclosure can improve stakeholder confidence, reduce information asymmetry and support more effective risk management.
There is a range of methodologies and techniques aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of operational activity. Examples are business process reengineering, total quality management and organisation development. Such methods differ from each other in how “improvement” should be achieved and implemented and even what to improve. In this paper a number of improvement methods, together with their aims and implementation processes, are discussed. It becomes apparent from a review of these methods, based on the literature available, that none of the methods presented is particularly adept at identifying what to improve – how to find potential improvement areas. The paper describes a performance factor model and a measurement model designed to fill this gap; they are guides as to what to analyse and how to measure in improvement work.
As global markets grow increasingly efficient, competition no longer takes place between individual businesses, but between entire supply chains. Collaboration can provide the competitive edge that enables all the business partners in a supply chain to prevail and grow. This paper presents a framework for customer‐supplier collaboration that facilitates effective and efficient supply chain operation. The paper reveals that the level of involvement of customers and suppliers differs across different supply chain processes and also across different sectors. While the involvement of customers is high in demand management and product development, the involvement of suppliers is high in transportation and inventory management processes. The paper also reveals that about 50 percent of the organizations surveyed indicate that suppliers and customers have little or virtually no role in the demand management, inventory management, and product development processes.
When you take on responsibility for other people you need a framework to understand and address how they think, feel and behave. Facilitation provides that framework. It doesn't offer you proscriptive solutions; instead it uses, proven principles and practice to enable you to get the best out of each of the people with whom you are working. As a facilitator, you also need to be able to adapt your style and approach to the situation you are in. This requires good self-awareness and a solid understanding of your role and responsibilities. Once this is in place you can then start to facilitate teams, coach colleagues and train groups effectively. In Anthony Landale and Mica Douglas's The Fast Facilitator, the authors have established a format based around both the core skills that facilitators need to develop as well as the issues they will have to face at work. It is divided into three parts - Essential Facilitation, Groups and Team Facilitation and Creative Facilitation - offering material to suit all facilitators whatever their level of expertise. The manual will help you develop your own understanding of facilitation as well as providing interventions and activities that you can use with others. It includes: ¢ Theoretical insights and models to help you understand the dynamics of people management; ¢ Activities, exercises, games and practice sessions which managers or trainers can use with their groups to build skills around work issues; ¢ Coaching ideas and techniques for managers who may want extra guidance when working one-to-one with team members; and ¢ A wealth of techniques, reading sources, inspirational ideas and practical exercises for the facilitator's own self-development. The Fast Facilitator illustrates the competencies that practising facilitators need to develop and shows just how this distinctive approach can make a real difference to the way people operate and the outcomes that can be achieved in organizations.
Many industrial engineers perform one‐factor‐at‐a‐time (OFAT) experiments to examine situations of process improvement and for problem‐solving activities. However, OFAT experiments can prove to be inefficient and unreliable, leading to false optimal conditions. Moreover, they often consist largely of “trial and error”, relying on luck, intuition, guesswork and experience for their success. Design of experiments (DOE) takes an alternative, more structured approach. DOE is a powerful technique for discovering a set of process or design variables which are most important to the process/product/system and then assisting experimenters to determine at what levels these variables should be set/kept to optimise performance. In order to demonstrate the power of designed experiments over the traditional OFAT approach, the authors use a simple catapult experiment. They suggest that such an experiment could act as a powerful weapon in the training of engineers and managers who might be intimidated by a more “up front” statistical approach.
The commitment or loyalty of organizational members is one of the important determinants of leadership success. This study examines the relationship between leaders’ locus of control and value orientation to the performance of the members in a type of not‐for‐profit organization. The results indicate that leaders with conservative values and internal locus of control tend to elicit higher levels of performance from their members. The implications of these results are discussed.
Supply chain networks are generally associated with inter‐organisational communications, leading to reduction of time delays in services and information flows. Recognising the importance of communication, this paper deals with the management of information across a network of organisations that are involved in the design and construction process. The paper presents an overview of problems associated with the process of managing construction project information and explores the key role Web‐based technology systems can play in making this process more effective. The paper also reports on the utilisation of such a system on a number of construction projects. It discusses the efficiency gained in the traditional process of architectural drawings transmittal, and reports on a questionnaire survey targeting system users to gain some insight into their perception of its usefulness, performance and role in improving communications amongst the entire project team.
Suggests that there is an optimal level of trust in many team situations. Too much trust can impact negatively on performance. Uses empirical research involving 142 members of 28 teams to identify factors that relate to this optimal level of trust, and those factors that demonstrate undesirable behaviors. In order to maximize team performance, teams must exhibit critical enquiry and constructive criticism in addition to a supportive understanding.
Education is a service industry. It needs to adopt the techniques of other industries in measuring the quality of its services and the satisfaction of its customers. This paper reports on a study of educational institutes in India in terms of how well they meet the needs of local industrial customers. It involves the use of quality function deployment, and a range of statistical techniques, to design and analyze a questionnaire which results in a clear demonstration of a lack of satisfaction. The analysis also identifies those factors which should be specifically addressed to improve quality and customer satisfaction.
From the Publisher:"Hewlett-Packard, the venerable computer maker, was seeing hard times for the first time in its six-decade history. In an effort to shake things up, the company brought in an outside CEO - the daring and charismatic Carly Fiorina. Fiorina brought style and new thinking to HP, but she also brought change. Her efforts at rapid reform frequently collided with the familiar "HP Way," the egalitarian corporate culture and integrity that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had instilled in the company from its very beginning. Many say her initiatives brought little immediate improvement in the company's fortunes. Then came the single biggest move that would change HP forever: a proposed merger with Compaq. Rubber-stamped by the board, it semed the deal would go through without a hitch. But board member and family scion Walter Hewlett saw HP's merger with Compaq as potentially disastrous." Backfire tells the inside story of HP's struggle to regain its former glory, and of the high-stakes battle between Fiorina and Hewlett over how best to achieve that goal.
Human resource management must change as the business environment in which it operates changes. Outlines the key challenges facing human resources managers as they move from simply handling personnel issues to making a strategic contribution to the future directions and development of an organization. Demonstrates that human resources managers can contribute both to performance enhancement and cost reduction thus contributing directly to the productivity of the organization.
Knowledge management (KM) is the process of leveraging organizational knowledge to deliver long‐term advantage to a business and is based on a business strategy that involves engineering various knowledge‐centric business processes and developing organization structures to support these. These, in turn, require technology to capture, codify, store, disseminate and reuse the knowledge. Successful deployment of KM is not a simple process. This paper suggests that a major reason for the failure of many KM projects is the absence of a well‐defined strategic plan to guide implementation. This paper discusses the strategic planning needs of the KM deployment process, and develops a framework that could be used specifically by engineering firms to guide the KM implementation process.
Performance measures are often used to increase the competitiveness and profitability of manufacturing companies through the support and encouragement of productivity improvements. This paper reviews the most frequently used performance measures to identify their strengths and weaknesses and the situations in which they are most appropriately deployed. The performance measures under review are compared in terms of how easily they are derived from strategic objectives, how easy they are to understand and whether they help form a long‐term view of performance. Suggests that it is important to select performance measures to match the situation in which they are to be used; more importantly, it is necessary to combine various types of performance measure to provide a fair complete and balanced view of a company or the operations under evaluation.
In 2000, the European Union called for the enhancement of innovation performance within member states. As part of the support for this exhortation, it has since provided the latest version of a set of indicators, which are collectively referred to as the European Innovation Scoreboard. This paper describes these indicators, shows summary results from the 2001 data and comments on these results.
With the rise of the generalist manager, and the demise of the productivity specialist, there has been a decline in the use of “standard” productivity tools and a move towards the application of “management systems”. This paper argues that the range of available productivity tools means that there is almost certainly a tool available for every productivity improvement situation. However, the paper points out that the deployment of such tools must be within a structured framework that manages the overall change process implicit in productivity improvement.
The case study method has been widely used as a research instrument for data collection to build theory. Reports on the use of case study method for new product development (NPD) in an engineer‐to‐order (ETO) organization. Discusses previous work on NPD in the literature in order to determine the knowledge gap that exists. Discovers that NPD work in an ETO organization is lacking despite its importance. Proposes a case study method as a tool to bridge this gap. Explains and justifies the reasons for choosing the case study method. Also describes case study design with the case study protocol. Then discusses the execution of the case study, method of analysis and the limitations of case study research. The findings will assist researchers who are interested in pursuing future research work in this area.
Despite total quality management (TQM) playing an important role in the survival and growth of the Indian automobile sector, India is still a player of little consequence in the global automobile production market. The paper identifies various dynamic interactions among the sub systems of TQM. The implications of these interactions have been captured using system dynamics modeling, which is based on causal relationship among different variables that constitute enablers and results. The model results have been discussed and validated based on a case study.
From the Publisher:This recurring management question, perhaps the most pressing of the Information Age, is insightfully answered in this groundbreaking book. Acute knowledge loss from downsizing and imminent baby-boomer retirements has exacerbated chronic knowledge loss from high job turnover; together, these factors pose an unprecedented threat to organizational productivity, profits, even survival. The loss of knowledge that accompanies an employee's transfer, resignation, termination, or retirement is the single most pervasive and costly source of knowledge mismanagement in corporate America today. But it doesn't have to be. Continuity Management describes a breakthrough process that transfers operational knowledge from departing employees to their successors. Knowledge continuity initiatives at Pfizer, Deloitte Consulting, EMC Corporation, the U.S. Army, and hundreds of other organizations are already under way. But such initiatives are just the beginning. They herald the sweeping change that continuity management will bring, revolutionizing how leaders manage and companies compete. Continuity management implementation generates decisive competitive advantages: faster ramp-up of new employees, improved customer satisfaction, greater innovation, a sustained commitment to learning, and increased productivity. Until now, knowledge continuity has been the missing link in the new paradigm that recognizes the organization as a network of thoughts rather than a hierarchy of positions -- and knowledge as the force that binds, directs, and vitalizes it. Revolutionary in its effect, but evolutionary in its practice, continuity management is central to the tidal wave that is reshaping organizational knowledge flow and creation in the new century and transforming the way we think about knowledge. Based on extensive research, this book offers a solution to knowledge loss that managers at any organizational level can use. Continuity management is fueling a new knowledge revolution. This book is about that revolution -- and how to lead it.
The Invest to Save Budget is a kind of venture capital fund designed to support innovative activity based on partnership working across the public and voluntary sectors. It has been operating since 1998 and now has sufficient evidence of innovation projects to start drawing out generic lessons about the success and failure of innovation projects within the public sector. This paper explains the aims of the initiative, the workings of the fund, and identifies the broad lessons learned so far for innovation, sustainability and dissemination/rollout of successful projects.
