Knowledge Management (KM) helps extend the knowledge of individuals or groups across organisations in ways that directly affect performance. Further, it is a formalised and integrated approach to identify and manage an organisation's knowledge assets. The study is an exploratory investigation of the implementation of IT-based Knowledge Management Systems. It is also a comparative study of the Kuwait and UK public sectors with the specific aim of building a best practice model for KM implementation in conjunction with IT. This includes examination of the relevant literature, a comprehensive analysis of case studies of KM implementation in 91 organisations presented in the literature, in order to arrive at the most critical factors of KM implementation and their degree of criticality, and an exploratory survey of 68 organisations both in the UK and Kuwait relating to their experiences in implementing initiatives such as KM and the role of IT in that process. In view of the intensive and extensive data for interdependence relationships between variables, statistical techniques were used, and in-depth studies of 16 leading organisations, to understand how the KM implementation processes and the critical factors identified were addressed and implemented. This study identifies critical factors of success in KM domain that applicable to Kuwaiti organisations. These factors were categorised under four different headings: (1) Technology, (2) KM processes, (3) Change management, (4) Top management commitment. A generic holistic model for effective KM implementation is proposed. / Kuwait Ministry of Interior.

The implications of introducing shift work and flexible working hours into the UK clothing industry were examined, with special reference to the effects on personnel, plant utilisation and garment costs. A total of 37 garment manufacturing establishments, within 17 companies, were visited; 91 managers (for production and economic data)and 1018 supervisors and operatives, 87% female and 13% male, (for social data) were consulted. The main points arising from the survey are:- 1 . Social (i) The average age and length of service of respondents were respectively 30.4 and 7.1 for women and 40 and 13.9 for men. Nearly three fifths were married and over half of the women had children, most of them at school or pre-school stage. (ii) Over four fifths were committed to some kind of housework; 3 to 5 hours between 17.00 and 24.00 hours were usually spent on this task but about 9% spent more than 5 hours on it. (iii) Over half would be very much bothered by the inability to carry on their individual and/or group social activities. About two thirds would also be concerned by a change in the period of and time for sleep and meal times. Nearly two fifths used public transport for the journey to work. (iv) Only 15% had worked on multiple shifts previous to their present employment and 16% left their previous job because of being on shifts or unsuitable hours. About one fifth worked currently part-time and only 13% wanted to change their existing working system so that they might gain extra convenience and leisure in their working life. (v) The unsolicited personal choice of working systems were mainly shifts (13%), flexible working hours (14%) and part-time day work (30%); working only in school hours appeared to attract the choice of about 40% of the women. (vi) From the points above, it seemed that a high proportion of married female workers, mostly with dependent children and committed to housework, would probably react against shift work. The availability of part-time work together with the normal day work habit acquired would also affect the employees' attitudes towards the acceptance of even flexible working hours. 2. Production (i) The main problems involved with introducing shift work were considered to be sharing of equipment, bonus and piece rate payment and responsibility for quality failures. Dislike of sharing machines by operatives was considered to be a severe problem in sewing section and the extent of this dislike seemed higher in traditional rather than non traditional clothing areas; the operatives' age and length of service appeared to affect their attitudes. The smaller the period of time for each job then the less the problem of sharing payment and responsibility could become. (ii) Introduction of flexible working hours could create the difficulties of shortage and/or excess of supply of work within the production flow with interdependent operations; the extent of the problem could vary with the amount of work in progress and the period of time spent by each operative on the garment and/or its parts. Economic (i) Garment cost elements are material, labour, variable and fixed overheads (survey averages 50.6%, 24.9%, 8% and 16.5%), of which labour and variable overheads would be affected by introducing multiple shifts and only fixed overheads by flexible working hours. There should be a decrease in variable overheads per garment because of sharing a fixed amount of cost between shifts, an increase in labour cost due to shift premium and an increase in fixed overheads because of longer opening hours of the plant on flexible working hours. (ii) The capital employed on plant and machinery, C, could often be divided by the number of shifts so that this could help to increase profitability by a factor of 2 or 3. (iii) General formulae were established, using the most relevant variables, for calculating the profitability and profitability ratios of different working schemes. Generally, if the number of shifts are increased then the profitability of the plant could be very greatly increased. This was well illustrated from the calculated profitability ratios of about 2 and 3 respectively, when industrial survey values were used, for 2 and 3 shift systems replacing a single shift system. Profitability of flexible working hours would, theoretically, be less than that of single shift, but there might be some economic gains, such as reduced rates of labour turnover and absenteeism (which are currently high in the garment industry), arising from the introduction of flexible working hours. / Iranian Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Teheran Polytechnic

Yes

Iran, with its attractive geographical position and its abundant natural resources, has had an undeniable attraction for the world's greatest powers over the history. Well before the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this country established high level of economic interactions with a great variety of political partners. In recent years, the country's change of regime has had a crucial impact on those relationships. By analysing the trade data between Iran and Western countries (the U.S.A., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, and Italy) as well as the major Eastern countries (China, Russia, and India), it is possible to establish a better understanding of how political events have impacted Iran's commerce with the world's major economic players. It is also possible to understand how the change of direction of the Iranian's imports and exports can impact the behavior of the other nations studied. This research focuses on the analysis of Iranian trade since 1969, ten years before the revolution and until 2009.

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No / This study sought to investigate the characteristics of 'nearby' leaders by eliciting the constructs of male and female top, senior, and middle-level managers and professionals working in organizations in two large UK public sectors (local government and the National Health Service). An instrument, the Transformational Leadership Questionnaire (TLQ-LGV), was developed and piloted on a national sample of 1464 managers working for local government organizations. Analysis of the data, presented here, revealed the existence of nine highly robust scales with high reliabilities (.85) and with convergent validity (range r = .46 to .85). These findings are discussed, together with suggestions for subsequent research.

No / Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine those factors perceived by users to influence the successful on-going use of e-commerce systems in business-to-business (B2B) buying and selling transactions through examination of the views of individuals acting in both purchasing and selling roles within the UK National Health Service (NHS) pharmaceutical supply chain. Design/methodology/approach Literature from the fields of operations and supply chain management (SCM) and information systems (IS) is used to determine candidate factors that might influence the success of the use of e¿commerce. A questionnaire based on these is used for primary data collection in the UK NHS pharmaceutical supply chain. Factor analysis is used to analyse the data. Findings The paper yields five composite factors that are perceived by users to influence successful e-commerce use. "System quality," "information quality," "management and use," "world wide web - assurance and empathy," and "trust" are proposed as potential critical success factors. Of these, all respondents ranked information quality, system quality, and trust as being of most importance, but differences in the rankings between purchasing and selling respondents are evident. Research limitations/implications The empirical study is limited to a single supply network, and although the findings seem intuitively to be of relevance to other sectors and supply contexts, there remains an opportunity to test this through further research. There is also an opportunity to extend the survey research, particularly into the wholesaler organisations that operate in the sector of study. Practical implications The managerial implications that result from this research provide practical guidance to organisations in this sector on how to ensure that e¿commerce systems for B2B buying and selling are used successfully. Originality/value This paper furthers knowledge and understanding in the fields of operations management, IS, and SCM, by suggesting potential determinants of successful e¿commerce use in both buying and selling organisations within supply networks.

Yes / Universities are increasingly being seen as key sites for transformation around sustainability. However, much of the literature in this area uses the terms transformation and transformative learning rather uncritically. Moreover, there is little extant research which has investigated the links between transformative learning theories and Education for Sustainability (EfS). This paper reports on a research project which explored academic and student perceptions of the opportunities for transformation around sustainability in two UK universities. The findings suggest that, despite shared understanding about the nature of pedagogic approaches that promote deep learning, academics are wary about promoting transformation beyond the professional sphere and students are more likely to have transformative experiences outside the formal curriculum. There are indications that although universities have significant potential as sites for transformation around sustainability, at present, this is not being achieved.

No / I-MEET is an Integrated Model for Evaluating E-government services Transformation from stakeholders' perspectives. It is based on an integration of concepts from value chain management and business process transformation to optimize the system-wide value chain of providers and users simultaneously. It aims to align stakeholders on a common global value against traditional disintegrated approaches where each stakeholder optimizes its e-service local value at the expense of others. The measured variables are derived from the literature and focused groups. They are then categorized into cost and risk (Inputs) and (benefit and opportunity) Outputs after a validation process based on Structured Equation Models using a sample of 1540 user-responses of e-services in the UK. Finally, Data Envelopment Analysis is conducted to derive an aggregated of an e-service satisfaction value using the various inputs and outputs. The empirical results demonstrate that data-derived weights for aggregating indicators are variable rather than fixed across e-services. The novelty of the assessment approach lies in its capability to provide informed suggestions to set targets to improve an eservice from the perspective of all engaging users. Hence it provides a better transformation of public administration services and improved take up by citizens and businesses.