<p>Managers play a major role in ensuring the practice of ethical behavior in organizations. The problem addressed in this study was that bank failures in Nigeria have been associated with fraud, unethical behavior, and malpractices. The purpose of this descriptive multiple qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of managers regarding the role of spirituality of managers in banks in the Nigerian financial sector and its perceived influence on ethical behavior. The sample study consisted of managers in three Banks in Nigeria, subordinates working under these managers, and executives supervising the managers. A total of 39 participants were interviewed comprising of 18 managers, 18 subordinates, and three executive directors. Purposive sampling was used in the selection of participants in each organization. The findings from the study indicated that workplace spirituality is essential to preventing organizational malpractice, unethical behavior and fraud in banks, in Nigeria. Managers, subordinates, and executives indicated that integrity, honesty, fairness, and professionalism were necessary for ethical practices in the banking sector. The findings were consistent with claims of other researchers, and also achieved the study purpose, which was to highlight the role of workplace spirituality in preventing fraud, unethical behavior and malpractice in banks. The implications are that bank managers in Nigeria should practice the aforementioned spiritual values, and encourage their subordinates to do likewise. This is considered possible through training or inclusion of ethics curricula in professional development programs for managers. The recruitment of bank managers with a strong propensity towards spirituality and ethical values is also recommended to enhance workplace spirituality. Building organizational culture on principles of ethics so that newly hired managers are put in the ethical environment is also recommended. Future similar studies on the role of employee spirituality in preventing fraud, unethical behavior and malpractice in settings other than banks, other African countries, as well as non-African countries is recommended. Quantitative studies such as the need to assess the existence, strength, and direction of potential relationship between the level of spirituality of managers in banks and the level of fraud, unethical behavior, and malpractice is also recommended. </p>

<p> By the year 2020, Generation Ys (Gen Ys), born 1981&ndash;1999, will far outnumber any other generation in the workplace, making it imperative for employers to understand their needs. Thus, an organization's future vitality is dependent on its ability to work effectively with Gen Ys. Although Gen Y characteristics and needs are documented in existing literature, leadership styles and approaches that best support such needs are not clear. Therefore, this study sought to answer two questions: What are Gen Y's needs in the workplace? What type of leadership best supports these needs? Data were collected from 135 Gen Y employees working in the United States across a variety of industries, from technology to nonprofit sectors. One hundred twenty-five online surveys were completed, and 10 face-to-face interviews were conducted. Flexibility and challenging work were found to be the highest priority needs of Gen Y employees, followed by a second tier of needs: access to up-to-date technology, open communication, collaboration and teamwork, an adequate compensation package, growth and development, and a hospitable culture. It was found that Gen Ys prefer to work for someone who incorporates a participative leadership style. It was concluded that Gen Y employees have high expectations for their employers, posing a challenge for organizations to accommodate all needs. They insist on a workplace that allows for their participation. Retention will be increased by ensuring growth and development opportunities.</p>

<p>The nonprofit sector has historically faced a multitude of challenges that threaten sustainability. Such continues even today. Nonprofit organizations struggle to respond to changes imposed by external environmental influences. These changes revolve around accountability and resources. With all of this, the sector now faces yet another challenge of a significant executive leadership deficit. During the past ten years to the present, the sector has experienced a mass retirement of baby boomer executives. The nonprofit sector has warned of the leadership deficit. However, nonprofit organizations have failed to urgently respond to the developing leadership void. Nonprofit organizations tend to not address executive leadership needs of the organization until an occurrence of vacancy. While nonprofit organizations are encouraged to utilize successor planning, under utilizing is prevalent. This qualitative research explores nonprofit executive successor planning from a phenomenological approach. The research emphasizes perspectives of twelve nonprofit executives who experienced leadership transition during the years 2008&ndash;2012. The research approach is framed by theories of organizational management and human behavior. This research informs the issue of nonprofit successor planning utilization decisions in two areas. One area is the influence of incumbent executives in facilitating successor planning. A second area is consideration of ascribing resource value to the executive position. Such can encourage strategic assessment and planning for future leadership needs. Findings of the research indicate continued under utilization of successor planning characterized by the following: a reality of nonprofit executives facing operational distractions; governing boards avoiding the issue of leadership transition; and nonprofit organizations under utilizing strategic planning. </p>

Increasing competitive pressures due to globalisation of markets, fuelled by developments in communication and information systems have led Egypt to embark upon ambitious ecomomic structural reform programmes. Although major improvements in the country's monetary and financial position have been achieved, Egypt's trade defecit continues to worsen. The Egyptian government is not pursuing policies that encourage exports such as liberalisation of trade privatisation and encouragement of foreign investments. Despite these efforts progress is limited with respect to the quantities and value of exported fresh produce which Egypt has comparative advantage in producing. The challenge to supply the EU, which is a net importer of fresh produce and Egypt's main agricultural trade partner, with consistent and timely deliveries that satisfy its quality specifications at competitive prices remians strong, despite some export opportunities offered by trade agreements between Egypt and the EU. Supply Chain Management is now considered a key competitive weapon. More and more developing countries like Egypt are beginning to realise the importance of its efficiency and the opportunities it offers in terms of cost savings, improved customer servicves, more efficient use of resources, environmental benefits, competitive advantage ande bigger market share. What it takes to implement in terms of infrastructure, skilled personnel, information technology and procedures need to be pointed out. There has been little research in the field of Supply Chain Management in Egypt to date. Through studying the case of fresh produce moved from Egypt to EU countries, a contribution to a profound analysis of the current practices and problems inherent in the system is made possible. After investigating the problem through interviews and questionnaires and reviewing the relevant literature, a set of barriers have been identified that impede the smooth and co-ordinated flow of goods and information throughout the supply chain. Barrers in air, maritime and land transport as well as procurement and institutional barriers have been identified and their causes are analysied in order to draw a realy picture of the problem situation. due to the complexity and the interdisciplinary nature of the investigated problem a holistic approach was considered to be more appropriate. Reviewing different methodologies, the Soft System Methodology was chosen as it provides a well established tool for analysis of complex management problems. Its application provides a basis for problem situation improvement by designing conceptual models based on root definitions for systems and subsystems of the supply chain under investigation. The research is evaluated in terms of its satisfaction to criteria set in recent literature for competent interpretive field research based on the hermeneutic philosophy that notable match the holistic nature and systems thinking of both the research topic and the interpretive methodology adopted.

This study is set within the context of the tourism and hospitality sector in Egypt, a popular and expanding tourism destination in the Middle East/North Africa. The study specifically investigates the impact of culture on expectations and perceptions of service quality in hotels. In the literature it has been pointed out that there is a shortage of studies focusing on the impact of culture on service quality. What research has been done generally indicates that expectations of service quality by an individual may vary according to whether that person is from a high or low power distance, and whether from a high context or low context, cultural background. With increasing competition in the hospitality sector service quality could be an important factor in gaining competitive advantage, and understanding cultural differences and can be helpful in dealing with customers from different backgrounds. Following a positivistic methodology and quantitative methods, an adapted version of the SERVQUAL questionnaire was administered to Arab and British hotel guests in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Consequently 504 correctly completed copies were analysed using hypotheses testing and correlation analysis. To the five dimensions of SERVQUAL- tangibles, empathy, responsiveness, assurance and reliability-a sixth dimension of sustainability was also added. This was a novel idea. The findings showed that Arabs had, overall, lower expectations and perceptions of service quality than the British guests. This showed that there is a relationship between expectations of service quality and culture but that the finding could not be explained in terms of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as the literature review generally suggests. Follow up interviews with hotel guests showed that the lower expectations of Arabs in general and Egyptians in particular, could be the result of their beliefs that Westerners are always treated better than Arabs by the hotel staff. The findings also show that environmentally friendly practices by hotels can be added as a dimension to SERVQUAL in respect of the hospitality sector.

Enterprise education is a mandatory part of the national curriculum, and all secondary schools in England must provide some kind of enterprise education for pupils. This ranges from work experience and enterprise programmes delivered by voluntary organisations, to economic literacy classes. The aims and objectives of these programmes are many and varied, making the task of evaluating them fraught with difficulties. Indeed, many evaluation studies of enterprise initiatives in general, have been criticised for a lack of scientific rigour. If there is inadequate empirical evidence about the efficacy of these programmes, then how do schools decide which ones to choose? How do programme providers develop their content and reach intended target populations? Worse, how do policy makers make decisions based on the varied and often contradictory aims and objectives of enterprise initiatives, about the design and development their policies? The aim of this research is to try and help to answer some of these questions by developing a methodology for evaluation studies that could be widely used on enterprise education programmes. By using the same methodology, comparisons can be made between different programmes, and take into account the differential impacts on different populations. Specifically, the main objective was to develop a robust programme evaluation tool, which could be widely used to evaluate enterprise education programmes targeted at young people in schools. This research involved the design and piloting of an attitude scale to measure enterprise potential in young people still at school. The development of the scale involved following accepted procedures for scale development, including reliability and validity testing. Two pilot studies are reported in this thesis, along with a longitudinal evaluation of a year-long Young Enterprise Company Programme. By using the attitude scale it was possible to design a methodology using pre-and posttesting, with control groups. Scores on the attitude scale were then compared using a series of statistical tests. This approach was thus able to overcome many of the criticisms frequently made of evaluations of enterprise initiatives. The scale enables researchers to take into account other moderating factors, which may influence attitudes towards enterprise. For policy makers the scale can provide evidence of the efficacy of different types of enterprise education programmes for different target groups, thus helping to identify how best to target resources and investment. The attitude scale can also highlight the potential impact of contextual and demographic factors such as type of school, ethnic background, and a family background of business ownership.

This research aims to understand why Beyond Budgeting, a management accounting innovation, has not been widely adopted. The traditional budgeting process has been the dominant control mechanism for managing businesses for over 100 years. It has been much criticised over the years and the shortcomings have been extensively documented. There have been attempts to develop and improve the budgeting process or elements of it, with Beyond Budgeting being the most recent heavyweight solution put forward. Beyond Budgeting was announced as a CAM-I project in 1997 and presented at the end of the project as a general management model by Hope & Fraser in 2003. The proponents of Beyond Budgeting report significant benefits from implementing it but despite the criticisms of the traditional budget the adoption level of Beyond Budgeting has been low. During the literature review, theories relevant to the adoption of new management accounting innovations were identified and research questions were derived. The multiphase empirical research took a two phase approach. In the first phase, management accountants worldwide, accessed through the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), were surveyed using a web-based questionnaire which culminated in 185 replies. In the second phase, following the analysis of the questionnaires, semi structured interviews were conducted with 50 respondents who had signalled their willingness to participate. The interviews gave further depth to the research expanding into areas not covered by the survey. From the empirical research it was concluded that although adoption of the concept of Beyond Budgeting as a whole has been low, the constituent parts of Beyond Budgeting are being adopted more widely than previously believed, but often not using the term Beyond Budgeting and also by managers who have not heard of the term. Abandoning the traditional budget, a cornerstone to moving to the concept as a whole, has turned out to be one of the biggest hurdles to its wider dissemination. Regulatory and other stakeholder pressure obliges organisations to compile annual budgets added to which accountants and non-finance managers are comfortable with budgeting and understand it. This has led to certain Beyond Budgeting techniques being introduced while retaining the traditional budget. Practical recommendations to professional bodies for more effective dissemination of innovations in future and a summary of pitfalls hindering the implementation of management accounting innovations make up the contribution to practice. The research contributes to theory by adding to the body of literature on the adoption of Beyond Budgeting, comparing the results with the findings of prior research, underlining the continuing relevance of existing theories by using their explanatory power to underpin the findings, documenting additional insights not found in the literature and by proposing a theoretical framework to document factors preventing the adoption of management accounting innovations.

<p> The purpose of this study was to create additional research and outcomes on the theory of applying a whole systems approach to strategic planning through a large group intervention in a non-profit organization. This study utilized grounded theory and qualitative analysis. The research focused on the positive whole systems approach to examine the construct of strategic planning in a large group intervention utilizing the strategic planning frameworks of SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results; Starvos &amp; Hinrichs, 2009) and appreciative inquiry (AI; Cooperrider, Sorensen, Yaeger, &amp; Whitney, 2005) as outcomes-focused alternatives to strategic planning in organizations. This qualitative study was executed in conjunction with appreciative interviews utilizing SOAR strategic visioning process and a strategic visioning SOAR Summit.</p><p> This study provided additional insight into whole systems change approach by utilizing strategic planning methods including: AI, SOAR, large group intervention, positive organization psychology, and World Cafe since such studies were limited that analyzed this approach in the development of public sector organizations. This research study consisted of 63 interviews that were conducted with employees, administrators, trustees, and community residents of the community-funded, non-profit fire protection department. The study timeline was from September 2014 until February 2015. Findings suggested that both non-profit and private sector organizations could drive their missions forward by engaging in a whole systems approach and large group intervention, focusing on appreciative and positive organizational change methodologies.</p>

<p> Decision making is among the chief liabilities and risks recurring foremost on a daily basis for human resources professionals in today&rsquo;s workplace. Therefore, human resources professionals as decision makers are often required to be aware of, and comply with, a variety of subject matters, trends, concepts, issues, practices, and laws. For human resources professionals, decision making a core job function. The problem addressed in this study is how the absence of formal decision-making criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources can cause human resources professionals to make decisions that are above not only costly for organizations, but can increase their own personal liability and risk. The purpose of this qualitative research via multiple case study was to investigate how the absence of formal decision-making criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources can cause human resources professionals to make decisions that are often financially and perceptually costly for the organizations in which they work, and can also increase their own personal liability and risk. Additionally, the focus of this research study was to contribute new knowledge for the process of decision making as it pertained to the occupational field of human resources management. This qualitative multiple case study examined the perceptions and experiences of human resources professionals working within the public sector in state government in Georgia. The human resources professionals as participants represented varying levels of decision-making responsibility, inclusive of tax-based and revenue-generated entities from small, medium, and large organizational structures. Results from this research study provided insight for use to inform human resources professionals regarding the mostly negative impacts, effects, and outcomes as perceived and experienced by human resources professionals resulting from the absence of formal decision-making criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources. Examination of the data collected from participants regarding the actual decisions made resulting from the absence of decision-making criteria for the management of human resources highlighted evidence connecting the absence of formal decision-making criteria leading to mostly negative impacts, effects, and outcomes based upon perceptions or experiences. Such evidence via the claims by participants featured personal and organizational results that could be further studied against the backdrop of existing literature, albeit limited, to develop a formal decision-making process (i.e., model) inclusive of criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources to achieve results that lessen cost, mitigate liability, and avoid risk.</p>

<p> Too many outsourcing models fail to deliver expected results in Integrated Facility Management (IFM) models. IFM is a type of outsourcing model that transfers in-house work to an outside company that performs it onsite as if it were part of the client&rsquo;s organization. This process requires collaboration, coordination, and communication, merging 2 corporate cultures into 1 cohesive business model. Managing the change process related to an IFM outsourcing arrangement is crucial because changing an organizational culture can heighten risk and potentially produce unsatisfactory results. Creating, changing, and managing an IFM outsourcing model require acceptance, coordination, and a clear understanding of expectations from both the client and the service provider. People in general are apprehensive about change, especially when they don&rsquo;t understand it. IFM, being a complex process, requires the proper training and education in order to avoid resistance that creates leadership challenges. According to the literature, effective leadership was the solution to mitigate the resistance to change associated with outsourcing but little research exists to explain the phenomenon experienced by leaders during the initial transition (first-generation) to an IFM model. This descriptive, qualitative study was conducted in order to determine what strategies and practices leaders employ during a first-generation IFM outsourcing initiative. Additionally, challenges associated with implementation, measurement of success, and recommendations from leaders of IFM outsourcing was explored. Fourteen IFM leaders were interviewed and asked 10 questions. These interview questions yielded results such as leadership, communication, and clarity in scope of work as some of the dominant themes. These themes were then used to develop recommendations for further research and recommendations for future leaders of change.</p>