Olmstead writes from an open systems perspective—a viewpoint of organizations that adapt quickly to turbulent, uncertain business environments—offering an integrated, understandable, and highly practical way to analyze, assess, and improve organization performance. He demonstrates how organizations actually function, and shows how they can identify and overcome obstacles by creating organizational competence-the critical elements that give organizations the ability to perform effectively in the modern business world. Upper level students, scholars, and teachers will find Olmstead's book an important addition to their academic reading lists. For practitioners, particularly those in rapid response organizations, this book will be an indispensable aid in the struggle to keep their organizations up to date and abreast of the competition.

Travel where you will in todays America, and youre likely to be drawn into a conversation about mistreatment by one or more of todays organizations. Someone ordered something. But when the order came it wasnt what they ordered. That was two years ago and still ongoing. Or Your call is very important to us. Thats why youre number 19 in the queue. Doctors and hospitals make mistakes. Only a few are really fatal. But they have insurance for that. Will you get what you want from an organization? It may depend upon whom in the organizations youre talking to. An organizations marketing is not an organizations performance. Its just talk. Organizations live and die by their deeds. This book tells you how. Malfunctions in organizations are ubiquitous. They occur in every kind of organization of every size. Why is that? How do you avoid falling victim to the conventional, to mediocrity? This book can be your guide. Add to that the fact that highly paid CEOs are often frustrated by the performance of their own organizations. Thats one reason for their ever-shortening tenure in that role. They are often disgruntled by the performance of their own executives and managers. And those employees are often openly dissatisfied with the organizations where they work. Even after thousands of books and many thousands of conferences since the 1970s, our organizations dont seem to be doing much better. Here is that rare book that tells you how to perform in the real world. This book addresses those problems head-on. It addresses the sources (not the symptoms) of organizational dysfunctions. Regardless of title, you wont find elsewhere a better guide to making competent organizations, which is where the problems lie. This book is about how you, the CEO or CEO aspirant, need to think about what needs thinking about, for how you think about what needs thinking about will determine who you are. And who you are determines what you can and cannot do about making yours a fully functioning, competent organization. Just reading about it is not of much help. Aristotle said many years ago, What you must learn, you must learn by doing. This book is unique; it tells you how to do just that.

As with all previous editions of Project Management in Construction, this sixth edition focuses on systems theory as the approach suitable for organizing and managing people skilled in the design and completion of construction projects. It discusses the many competing paradigms and alternative perspectives available, for example in relation to differentiation and integration, as well as the emerging study of temporary organizations and its relevance to construction project management. Whilst encompassing the need to develop further theoretical aspects of construction project organization theory, this edition has also enhanced the application of organization studies to practical issues of construction project management. More emphasis has been placed on the added complexity of construction project management by issues surrounding clients and stakeholders, and the control and empowerment of project participants. Additional focus has been placed on sustainability issues as they impinge on construction project management, on reworked views on supply chain management and on developments in partnering, together with clarification of the shifting terms and definitions relating to construction organization structures and their uses.

Highly accessible A-Z of the major terms in the social and behavioural sciences, spanning anthropology, communication and media studies, criminal justice, economics, education, geography, human services, management, political science, psychology and sociology.

Tim Posselt investigates the factors leading to organizational competence for servitization - a key strategic alternative in times of digitalization and globalization -, and analyses the transformation process servitizing firms undergo. He explores the issue through conceptual research and case studies, and identifies the ability to access and leverage customer knowledge as the foundation of successful servitization. The findings provide valuable insight for managers looking to strengthen their service business, and add to literature on servitization and service-dominant logic.

The papers in volume 6 of Research in Competence-Based Management identify, elaborate theoretically, and investigate empirically a number of new kinds of dynamics in industries and product markets.

In this volume researchers from American and European universities and institutes present their recent research on 'Functional Communication Quality'. Functional refers to the purposes of the communication process. The relations between these purposes and the best way to describe them, are some of the topics discussed. Communication refers to a complex interactive process. Relevant variables include the speech act of the participants, features of the message, chosen channel, moment, duration, frequency, environment. The participants in this process are individuals and groups as well as organizations and parts of organizations. Quality can be described from several points of view: a technical point of view with efficiency as its goal, an operative point of view which aims for effectiveness or an aesthetic point of view. This volume shows that a multi-perspective approach to Functional Communication Quality (FCQ) is the only way to obtain a better insight into this area of communication studies. The papers are grouped in four different chapters, each dealing with a different perspective on the theme: • FCQ in an organizational context; • FCQ and research methods; • FCQ and text analysis; • FCQ and electronic tools. The book also contains an overview of organizational communication research in France and Spain. This volume will be of interest to a broad audience of researchers and students in the field of organizational communication studies and the field of writing studies, communication consultants and communication managers, professional writers and software engineers.

This book provides a genuine understanding of practical leadership based upon years of research and development. It identifies the essential components of leadership, and supplies guidelines for developing and implementing those skills. Clear, straightforward explanations and examples direct executives on how to establish objectives, delegate authority, direct subordinates, and motivate the team. Executive Leadership supplies a comprehensive analysis of effective leadership at senior levels and presents a model for establishing an efficient and productive workplace. Joseph A. Olmstead, Ph.D., is vice-president for product development with the Vanguard Research Group. His experience includes 22 years as a senior staff scientist and a program director for the Human Resources Research Organization. Dr. Olmstead is the author of numerous books on leadership and organizational effectiveness

Workplace training and education have increasingly been seen as pivotal factors in improving the abilities, skills and competitiveness of industry, and the aim of the Management Charter Initiative (MCI), was to improve managers' practical competency in line with this. Under the MCI, qualification was gained by proving managerial competence in work related tasks, rather than by studying for a theoretical, educational qualification such as an MBA or degree. This book provides a welcome and comprehensive analysis of the MCI within the context of modern management development. It emphasizes the benefits of linking management development with organizational strategy, and includes: * up-to-date analysis of how management development can be measured * the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of using Management Standards * practical illustrations with sixteen in-depth case studies of contemporary organizations. This revealing book is endorsed by the MCI and includes a foreword by Professor Tom Cannon, whose leadership spearheaded and developed the MCI itself.