Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been in existence for over 2 decades yet businesses are still losing billions of dollars annually in the implementation of software designed to reduce costs and increase profitability. The inability to manage risks is an area that contributes to these losses, specifically due to uncertain outcomes when dealing with an interconnected construct such as risk, and a research gap at the tactical and operational levels between risks and controls. A comparative case study approach, encompassing 12 different organisations was adopted to explore emerging patterns at the project implementation level, and from this three contributions emerged. After observing risks behaving in a hierarchical fashion with predictable results, Hierarchy of Risk models representing different implementation stages were constructed. Although these models are still in their formative stages, it may prove useful in furthering our understanding of the close inter-relationship between different risks, where they occur in ERP implementations and the implications of managerial choice when determining risk prioritisation. A second finding is that no direct linear relationship appears to exist between risks and controls. Rather, this counter-intuitive finding suggests that it is additional factors including risk categories, implementation stages, prior control decision making and the hierarchical flow-on effect of impacts as a consequence of identified risks. Finally, by combining the Hierarchy of Risk models and the risk-to-impact-to-control relationship, a method of reverse engineering portfolios of control was discovered. This potentially offers an explanation as to how portfolios of control can be constructed, and why they are essential in ERP implementations.

Background: Strategic capabilities are vital components for organisations to include in their business. Another essential elements in a strategy that can affect the performance of an organisation in both a negative and positive direction are critical success factors. This research will study if it possible to evaluate organisations CSFs in order to see whether a well performed CSF also can be identified as a strategic capability. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate organisations CSF in order to identify strategic capabilities Research question: What CSFs can be identified? Which CSFs are identified as strategic capabilities? Methodology: This thesis involved a qualitative pre-study consistent of a content analysis and semi-structured interview that were used to provide measurements to the quantitative survey. Conclusion: The findings indicate that it is possible to identify strategic capabilities by evaluating CSFs. In this study transportation, number of stores and the atmosphere were considered as strategic capabilities.

World-wide it is estimated that workers suffer 250 million accidents every year, with 330 000 fatalities. In South a c a , the fatality rate is 426 per annum. Sishen mine also experienced safety problems, namely a high injury rate, an average of one fatality per annum, and 85% of injuries being caused by risk behaviour. Furthermore, the safety culture at the mine was moderate. A proper safety management system requires continual attention to three domains, namely the environment (equipment, tools and housekeeping), the person (knowledge, skills, abilities, intelligence and personality), and behaviour. Sishen mine previously concentrated on the domains of environment and person, and virtually ignored safety behaviour. To correct this, Sishen mine adapted a behaviour based safety intervention programme. The aims of this research were to determine drivers that motivate safety and risk behaviour, to identify critical factors for the successful implementation of such a programme, and to determine if the safety culture and performance were affected by the implementation of a behaviour based safety intervention programme. A single-group non-experimental design was used. Questionnaires were used to conduct non-experimental surveys. The questionnaires addressed certain safety culture dimensions. A longitudinal survey was carried out before and after implementation of the behaviour based safety intervention programme. The results showed that the safety culture at the mine improved since implementation of the intervention programme. Management support for safety improved by 6%, peer support for safety by 13%, personal responsibility for safety by 7%, management systems by 6%, and employees actively caring for safety, by 3%. The improvement in safety culture also positively impacted on the injury rate at Sishen mine. Results indicated the following factors as being critical for a successful behaviour based safety implementation (in order of importance): participation, structured implementation, training, readiness for such a programme, communication, observation and feedback, target critical behaviours, flexibility, effective intervention actions, and data management. The study identified issues and challenges which must be dealt with, especially those applicable in developing countries like South Africa, with unique circumstances such as social and political diversity. The conclusion was that safety behaviour is mainly d i e d by activators, and motivated by consequences. The ABC model was identified as an important tool to analyse the drivers for safety behaviour in an effort to develop effective intervention actions. It is recommended that companies shift their focus from traditional safety approaches to the human dimension of safety. Thus, it is recommended that the behaviour based safety model must be applied by companies in order to focus on behaviour. Secondly, it is recommended that factors that are critical for a successful implementation must be identified and ranked in order of importance. The attention which is paid to each critical factor should then be related to its relative importance. It is also recommended that activators and consequences must be regarded as important drivers for safety behaviour when intervention actions are to be developed, and that the ABC technique should be applied in practice to analyse the appropriateness of the intervention actions. By way of conclusion, recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:35:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-02-26Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:05:50Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 rocha_hm_dr_guara.pdf: 978455 bytes, checksum: b5f0c588360528590d2e12d3fea840f2 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este estudo buscou identificar os fatores críticos de sucesso dos processos de desenvolvimento de produtos na indústria automotiva situada na região Sulfluminense. Os referenciais teóricos utilizados são os fatores críticos de sucesso de Rockart. Partindo da literatura existente sobre o assunto e das deduções obtidas por prognósticos, foram identificados oito fatores críticos de sucesso. Estes foram avaliados por meio de pesquisa, na forma de entrevistas e questionários (método Delphi) em duas montadoras instaladas na citada região. Utilizando o método hipotético-dedutivo, os resultados foram testados estatisticamente e pelo método da lógica paraconsistente. Sete fatores foram considerados críticos para os processos de desenvolvimento de produtos: gerenciamento de custos e orçamentos; gerenciamento do tempo e prazos; posicionamento estratégico definido para o produto; atendimento das necessidades dos clientes; alinhamento organizacional; características do time de desenvolvimento; e processos de trabalho estabelecidos pelas organizações para o desenvolvimento de seus novos produtos. / This research purported to identify the critical success factors for the product development process used by the automotive industry in southern Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. The theoretical referential used in this research was Rockart’s critical success factors. Having the existing literature about the subject and prognostic deductions as start points for this study, eight critical success factors have been identified and evaluated through research – interviews and questionnaires applied in two automaker plants in the Southern State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Through the hypotheticaldeductive method, results have been statistical tested and also submitted to the paraconsistent logic evaluation. Seven success factors have been considered critical: management of costs and budgets, deadlines and time management, product strategic positioning, customer needs fulfillment, organizational alignment, characteristics of the development team, and work processes established by the organizations for new product development.

Resumo: Este estudo buscou identificar os fatores críticos de sucesso dos processos de desenvolvimento de produtos na indústria automotiva situada na região Sulfluminense. Os referenciais teóricos utilizados são os fatores críticos de sucesso de Rockart. Partindo da literatura existente sobre o assunto e das deduções obtidas por prognósticos, foram identificados oito fatores críticos de sucesso. Estes foram avaliados por meio de pesquisa, na forma de entrevistas e questionários (método Delphi) em duas montadoras instaladas na citada região. Utilizando o método hipotético-dedutivo, os resultados foram testados estatisticamente e pelo método da lógica paraconsistente. Sete fatores foram considerados críticos para os processos de desenvolvimento de produtos: gerenciamento de custos e orçamentos; gerenciamento do tempo e prazos; posicionamento estratégico definido para o produto; atendimento das necessidades dos clientes; alinhamento organizacional; características do time de desenvolvimento; e processos de trabalho estabelecidos pelas organizações para o desenvolvimento de seus novos produtos. / Abstract: This research purported to identify the critical success factors for the product development process used by the automotive industry in southern Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. The theoretical referential used in this research was Rockart's critical success factors. Having the existing literature about the subject and prognostic deductions as start points for this study, eight critical success factors have been identified and evaluated through research - interviews and questionnaires applied in two automaker plants in the Southern State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Through the hypotheticaldeductive method, results have been statistical tested and also submitted to the paraconsistent logic evaluation. Seven success factors have been considered critical: management of costs and budgets, deadlines and time management, product strategic positioning, customer needs fulfillment, organizational alignment, characteristics of the development team, and work processes established by the organizations for new product development. / Orientador: Mauricio Cesar Delamaro / Coorientador: Heitor Luiz Murat de Meirelles Quintella / Banca: Fernando Augusto Silva Marins / Banca: Messias Borges Silva / Banca: José Glênio Medeiros de Barros / Banca: João Alberto Neves dos Santos / Doutor

This research focuses on project complexity with the aim to better understand it and to highlight the factors that affect/contribute to it. In addition, this research also highlights key project management practices and project critical success factors considered important to manage project complexity/complex projects. The two main motivating factors behind this research were, the lack of understanding of complex projects and the lack of relevance of project management theory to practice, which have been highlighted by many researchers. Since projects in different sectors are increasingly being characterised as complex, this entails a better project management knowledge base focusing on the dynamic, social and complex contexts of projects, so that the interrelationships, interdependencies and uncertainties between different project interfaces can be understood and managed properly. In order to understand this 'project actuality', it was necessary to obtain the views from practitioners working in these project settings and managing project dynamics and intricacies. To establish this pragmatic view, a series of interviews and questionnaire surveys was carried out and all efforts were made to select the participants working on complex projects with complex products falling under the Complex Product Systems (CoPS) category which was the case in the 2nd phase interviews and questionnaire, whereas in the 1st phase practitioners with industrial experience and also involved and/or in the process of getting academic qualification in project management were preferred. The first phase helped in establishing the theoretical and pragmatic perspective and the 2nd phase in refining and validating the findings. The questions were inline with the research focus mentioned earlier.The main findings of the research show that the perception of project complexity and its contributing factors were very much influenced by the project context, i.e. from organization level to work discipline level. No difference in the practitioners' perception of project complexity and its contributing factors was observed among the practitioners based in a similar organization and project setting. Novelty was found to be one of the key project complexity characteristics related to three project elements-people, product and process. In terms of key project management practices and skills considered important in managing project complexity, soft skills were reported useful by majority of the participants. The key processes found useful were either the ones which focused on people or others which helped to manage changes/deviations in projects. Influence and relationship, delegation, flexibility and trust were the main project critical success factors which emerged out of this research for complex projects.

In the last 30 years has seen a cutthroat competition among many organizations across the world.The Swedish industries were not an exception in this phase of globalization. However,entrepreneurs in Sweden, especially, in the manufacturing sector, are rapidly losing competitiveadvantage in the global marketing environment, a concern some researchers have attributed tolow productivity, and poor organizational performance. Therefore, this paper will identify criticalsuccess factors in entrepreneurship, with reference to Johnson Controls ManufacturingCompany. The instruments used to collect and analyse data, discourse analysis, interview andopen coding, were tested and proved to be efficient and consistent with the research method.Furthermore, the collected data was tested and found reliable with a high coefficient of 0.8,which is considered qualified. Through the data collection instrument, the study generated eightcritical success factors for Johnson Controls. The factors include leader management andstructure, competitors, manufacturing operational excellence, stakeholder‟s engagement, andproduct. These factors were then cast onto 6 broader themes as generated from open coding,which included top management, human resource, organization culture, quality management, andregulatory practice. These themes were useful in describing and correlating the critical successfactors with the basic units of the organization. Also, based on a discourse analysis, this studywas able to establish that there is a strong relationship between primary data and secondary data.Therefore, the study concluded that the eight identified critical success factors, leadermanagement and structure, competitors, manufacturing operational excellence, stakeholder‟sengagement, and product, could be used to change the current status of entrepreneurs in Swedenand help them improve their performance standing in the global business environment.

Increasing population and urbanization motivates the capability of consuming more fashion goods than ever. This push creates more momentum on global companies to focus on clothing sectors. Recent advancements, including globalization and e-commerce, have made this sector as one of the top businesses worldwide. Top clothing brands made several strategies to satisfy the stakeholders to sustain in this hot, profitable business. This results in practicing more sustainable strategies, including corporate social responsibility in their clothing business throughout their operations, including the supply chain. However, most of the developed nations are consumers of textiles, which are produced and processed by any of the developing and under developing nations. Meanwhile, achieving sustainability in clothing business includes promoting sustainability in the whole chain of suppliers. Pressure from developed nations urges developing nations to promote sustainable practices in their operations. Several studies discussed the CSR related strategies in textile sectors but failed to explore their critical success factors based on their region. With this concern, this study attempts to study the critical success factors of CSR in textile industries situated in one of the developing nations, China. This study collected the critical success factors from literature and validated with the field experts; then the same were evaluated with the assistance of Chinese textile case industrial managers. Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory tool has been used to evaluate the influential critical success factors of CSR to promote CSR through motivating those most influential success factors. These results could help the Chinese textile industrial managers to further extend strong roots on CSR implementation. Finally, this study sheds some light on future opportunities that exist within Chinese contexts with the implementation of CSR. / Revisión por pares / Revisión por pares

The objective of this study was to uncover the critical success factors that have significant value-added impacts on corporate acquisitions in the lodging industry. Specifically, this study attempted to systematically discover evidence about the determinants of a successful pre-acquisition management process, and the determinants of successful post-acquisition integration, as well as to identify an appropriate evaluation criteria for determining the post-acquisition performance of an acquisition deal. In addition, this study tried to identify important acquisition objectives of hotel acquirers. This study employed an integrated and holistic viewpoint that includes the most critical corporate acquisition issues simultaneously and in a multi-dimensional framework. As a research methodology, a Delphi technique, which is a non-face-to-face communication method, was employed and proved its effectiveness throughout the study. The key question guiding this research is, what are the critical factors in the overall acquisition process that contribute to successful acquisitions? The findings of this study indicate that the most important acquisition objective for acquirers in the lodging industry is to accelerate the growth of their firms. Further, the most important critical success factor for hotel acquirers before the deal is completed is the identification of the trend of the target firm's cash flow from operations, and reliable and valid information about the target is the most significant dimension in the pre-acquisition management phase. The study results suggest that the most significant key success factor in the post-acquisition integration stage for the lodging industry is to plan and establish a post-acquisition strategy as early as possible, even before the deal is done, while the development of an effective post-acquisition transition strategy immediately after the deal is closed is the most crucial dimension in the post-acquisition integration phase. One of the most significant findings of this study was that hotel executives gave relatively higher importance to pre-acquisition management strategy than to the post-acquisition integration process. In terms of post-acquisition performance evaluation criteria, measures from a value-based management (VBM) approach received the highest rank in evaluating the economic gains of corporate acquisitions in the lodging industry. The study results can help to improve hospitality industry academics' and practitioners' understanding of important M&A phenomena leading to significant changes in the industry's competitive landscape. / Ph. D.

Large-scale international science projects (LISPs) are those projects where two or more countries formally agree to cooperate toward the achievement of a scientific, research and development, or engineering goal. In general, only projects exceeding $1 billion U.S. are considered LISPs, so sheer size commands attention, and because they are so costly and visible, failure can lead to significant scientific, financial and political consequences. This researched focused on how 7 different critical success factors impacted the level of technical interface knowledge shared among international partners involved in a large-scale international space science project (LISSP) – the International Space Station (ISS), which is currently under assembly and testing at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The research methodology employed documentation review, individual interviews and surveys of experienced engineers and managers from three different countries associated with the ISS. The research methodology was applied to three different cases (retrospectively) involving the processing of flight hardware from the three different international partners. The analysis showed that only 5 out of the 7-factor model played a significant role in the level of knowledge sharing between partners. The developed model provides future international partnerships with critical success factors that they can apply to their specific project / mission teams in order to improve the level of knowledge shared between them.