- United Arab Emirates
Mian Ajmal
University of Vaasa, Industrial Management, Faculty Member
Purpose Despite making significant strides in transforming its environmental outlook over the past few years and promoting sustainable procurement (SP) in the public sector, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is still facing serious... more
Purpose Despite making significant strides in transforming its environmental outlook over the past few years and promoting sustainable procurement (SP) in the public sector, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is still facing serious challenges in moving up the global sustainability ranks. Thus, this study aims to assess and prioritize critical factors, including cost, organization, innovation capability, stakeholder, culture and market-related factors, and their respective sub-factors for the implementation of SP, and come up with recommendations. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the analytical hierarchy process model to prioritize the main factors and sub-factors that can critically affect the implementation of SP in the UAE public sector. Data were collected through a survey of 17 procurement experts working in procurement departments in public organizations in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Findings The results reveal that cost is the highest ranked critical factor, followed by an organi...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that impact knowledge sharing (KS) and their importance in technology-intensive service organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach An... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that impact knowledge sharing (KS) and their importance in technology-intensive service organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach An extensive literature review was conducted to identify the critical factors for KS in technology-intensive organizations. Then, an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was applied to prioritize the primary criteria and sub-criteria. This study consists of nine primary criteria and 34 sub-criteria that are relevant to KS in technology-intensive organizations. Findings The results show that organizational leadership (OL) is the most important factor that impacts KS in technology-intensive organizations, which is followed by organizational culture (OC), organizational strategy (OSY), corporate performance (CP), organizational process (OP), employee engagement (EE) and organizational structure (OST). According to the results, the least impactful factor ...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying dimensional structure of project management practices to identify key factors that underpin the successful completion of projects. Design/methodology/approach It employs... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying dimensional structure of project management practices to identify key factors that underpin the successful completion of projects. Design/methodology/approach It employs exploratory factor analyses to investigate the interrelationships of the survey items synthesized from the literature by retaining and reorganizing the important information from the original data while redundant information is removed. Findings The nine theoretical constructs comprising 64 items were coalesced onto five latent constructs comprising 50 items while explaining 50.914 percent of the total variance. The extracted five constructs that describe the best project management practices have been labelled risk management, organizational culture, stakeholder approach, management approach, and project leadership. Practical implications The study results benefit both practitioners and the academic community as five broad categories of best project man...
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Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify attributes of knowledge management (KM) for large and small manufacturing companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to propose a process to evaluate the competitive priorities of these... more
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify attributes of knowledge management (KM) for large and small manufacturing companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to propose a process to evaluate the competitive priorities of these companies.Design/methodology/approach– This research is designed by composing multi criteria decision making of KM attributes in order to identify competitive priorities of large and small manufacturing companies to achieve better customer focus. To deal with this complexity of multi criteria decision-making process, Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) method has been used in this research.Findings– Results show that large manufacturing companies are putting more emphasis on “Know-Why” knowledge attribute in all four competitive priorities for achieving customer focus. While, small size manufacturing companies put higher weight on “Know-What” knowledge attribute by focussing on two competitive priorities (flexibility and quality).Research limitatio...
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This paper examines knowledge sharing in supply chain by developing analytical models to minimize knowledge sharing uncertainty. Analogies from thermodynamics are used to describe the phenomenon in supply chain knowledge sharing. The... more
This paper examines knowledge sharing in supply chain by developing analytical models to minimize knowledge sharing uncertainty. Analogies from thermodynamics are used to describe the phenomenon in supply chain knowledge sharing. The study finds that distance and sender capacity are important to reduce knowledge sharing uncertainty. Furthermore, higher contact frequency between the sender and the receiver without considering sender capacity is proven to be insignificant to reduce uncertainty. This mechanism provides a new approach to explicate knowledge sharing in supply networks. It also serves as a deep-rooted opening point for supplementary empirical assessment. The mechanism facilitates managers to expand their understanding of composite circumstances embedded into global supply networks to share their knowledge. With enhanced understanding, managers can spotlight their actions, increasing their firms’ competitiveness. This study provides a deeper theoretical understanding of kn...
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PurposeProjects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people from different national, organisational, and professional cultural backgrounds. These people come together for a specific period of time to accomplish certain... more
PurposeProjects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people from different national, organisational, and professional cultural backgrounds. These people come together for a specific period of time to accomplish certain unique, unpredictable, and complex objectives. These distinctive characteristics mean that project‐based firms require a particular approach to knowledge management (KM) and learning activities that differs significantly from prevailing strategies. This paper aims to explore the way in which these distinctive cultural issues (national, organisational, and professional) influence KM in project‐based firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first looks at the general issues of KM and the “learning organisation”. Second, the study discusses the more specific issue of KM in project‐based firms. Third, the paper explores national, organisational, and professional cultures in the context of project‐based business. Finally, the paper draws the three pre...
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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction with regard to the strategy of total quality management (TQM) adopted in a wheat flour milling company.Design/methodology/approachA survey was... more
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction with regard to the strategy of total quality management (TQM) adopted in a wheat flour milling company.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted to learn more about customer expectations and satisfaction. The respondents were all customers of a flour‐based food processor. Quality function deployment (QFD) was applied to improve customer service performance by focusing on customer satisfaction, value and retention.FindingsThe results show that customer satisfaction has increased steadily over a period of three years. The QFD approach helped to design a competitive product by aligning the company resources to customers’ needs.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited to a specific food manufacturing company and for this reason they cannot be generalized to the whole in service sector. Further research is needed for other service companies.Practical implicationsThe fi...
Research Interests: Business, Marketing, Quality Management, TQM, Customer Satisfaction, and 15 moreBenchmarking, Customer Retention, Quality Function Deployment, Business and Management, Case Study, Customer Service, Total Quality Management, Design Methodology, Food Industry, Manufacturing Industry, Market Share, Service Sector, Profit Maximization, Wheat flour, and Manufacturing Industries
This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project-based organizations from the perspective of organizational culture. The paper identifies obstacles to knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and... more
This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project-based organizations from the perspective of organizational culture. The paper identifies obstacles to knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and emphasizes the importance of organizational and project cultures in this process. The study provides some suggestions for improving knowledge transfer in project-based organizations and notes the implications of the paper for project management.
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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of technology adoption on operational competitiveness by taking an example from international manufacturing companies.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a conceptual... more
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the effect of technology adoption on operational competitiveness by taking an example from international manufacturing companies.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a conceptual model to generate strategic flexibility and benefit for a manufacturing firm by managing manufacturing strategy and technology adoption with different leadership roles.FindingsThe results show that the leadership role is a significant factor to motivate strategic flexibility and generate higher benefit. For intellectuals, the mechanism provides a new approach to explicate technology adoption in a manufacturing company. Besides, it provides a deep‐rooted preliminary point for supplementary empirical assessment. The mechanism facilitates managers to expand their understanding of the leadership role for trust building and knowledge sharing in manufacturing firms.Practical implicationsWith that enhanced understanding, the managers can spotlight their action...
Research Interests: Business, Leadership, Manufacturing, Knowledge sharing, Business and Management, and 10 moreStrategic Flexibility, Manufacturing Engineering, Technology Adoption, Conceptual Model, Design Methodology, Manufacturing strategy, Manufacturing Technology, Flexibility in engineering design, Manufacturing Industry, and Manufacturing Industries
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the success or failure of knowledge management (KM) initiatives in project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a literature... more
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the success or failure of knowledge management (KM) initiatives in project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a literature review, the study proposes a conceptual model of six factors of potential importance to the success of KM initiatives. The model is then examined through an online survey of project managers and assistant managers from project‐based businesses in Finland.FindingsThe study finds that a lack of incentives and the absence of an appropriate information system are the most significant barriers to successful KM initiatives in projects.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the study may be restricted in terms of generalisability because of the limited empirical study.Practical implicationsProject managers should formulate an attractive incentive package to encourage project members to participate in KM initiatives and to suggest ideas for new KM oppor...
Research Interests: Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, Knowledge Management, Logistics, and 15 moreChange Management, Knowledge, Literature Review, Conceptual Model, Design Methodology, Incentive, Empirical Study, Critical Success Factors, Critical Success Factor, Hafez Shurrab, Chalmers, Gothenburg, KM Initiatives, Linnaeus University, and Information System
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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. It does this by analysing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business... more
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. It does this by analysing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business consultants who applied the theory of constraints to a series of development projects.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the presentation of an overview of business consultants and the need to measure the effectiveness of business consulting practices, the paper presents empirical data on the return on investment achieved from 20 development projects in the multinational company under study.FindingsThe findings indicate that the involvement of business consultants in development projects has a positive impact on outcomes and can be justified in financial terms.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalise ability of the results in service sector companies remains to be tested. The data is limited to a set of internal operations development consu...
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The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical source for understanding how the cultural artefacts in project-based organisations affect Knowledge Management (KM) activities. The paper primarily provides a theoretical investigation... more
The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical source for understanding how the cultural artefacts in project-based organisations affect Knowledge Management (KM) activities. The paper primarily provides a theoretical investigation identifying the key concepts within the literature. Then, it follows an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire. Findings are obtained from the data analysis by applying statistical methods. It appears from the findings that organisational culture artefacts have significant effects on ...
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PurposeThe general purpose of the paper is to improve supply chain (SC) responsiveness and agility by developing advanced planning and scheduling (APS) with collaboration process into agile supply and demand networks... more
PurposeThe general purpose of the paper is to improve supply chain (SC) responsiveness and agility by developing advanced planning and scheduling (APS) with collaboration process into agile supply and demand networks (ASDN).Design/methodology/approachSome industrial examples are presented to extract the APS requirements, then business models that are supported by analytical models are developed into APS modules to respond to the requirements. At the end, the modules are attached into an ASDN simulator to measure the benefit of the APS with collaboration process.FindingsThe results show that the APS with collaboration process is superior to existing APS software in terms of promising lead times to customers at minimum inventory level.Research limitations/implicationsSince the APS with collaboration process cannot optimize transportation planning, SCs cannot therefore optimize networks by finding the optimum network configuration. Currently, the simulator needs to be tested in several...
Research Interests: Information Systems, Computer Science, Supply Chain Management, Business Process Management, Supply Chain, and 15 moreValue Chain, Business and Management, Production Scheduling, Business Model, Design Methodology, Agile software development, Analytical Model, Market Share, Advanced planning and scheduling, Labour Supply, Supply and Demand, Enterprise Resource Planning, Lead Time, Optimal Transportation, and Network Configuration
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that the quality function deployment (QFD) matrix that has been successfully used for developing products from customer needs can also be applied to improve the service quality of... more
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that the quality function deployment (QFD) matrix that has been successfully used for developing products from customer needs can also be applied to improve the service quality of telecommunication companies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a case study of the two big telecom companies (Ufone and Mobilink) of Pakistan. Data have been collected by a cross‐sectional field study of users, frontline employees and management of telecom companies. The QFD matrix has been applied to identify customer needs, to do comparative analysis of the prepaid services of these companies and to recommend the suitable measure for incorporating these requirements into their services.FindingsIt has been found that through emphasizing two technical descriptors (Antennas and Base Station Controller System), a company will not only be in a competitive position to meet the customer's demand but will also gain an advantage over its competitor.Resea...
Research Interests: Business, Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, Quality Function Deployment, Business and Management, and 11 moreCase Study, Manufacturing Engineering, House of quality, Comparative Analysis, Total Quality Management, Design Methodology, Field Study, Cross Section, Point of View, Service Provider, and Base Station Controller
Project-based organizations are diverse from functional business organizations due to uniqueness, uncertainty and the complexity of the project business. On these grounds, project organizations necessitate a special approach than the... more
Project-based organizations are diverse from functional business organizations due to uniqueness, uncertainty and the complexity of the project business. On these grounds, project organizations necessitate a special approach than the functional business firms and consequently management of knowledge also have need of different techniques than the available contributions. The nature of project business stresses that organizations involved in project management must be specialized in managing their knowledge to make more ...
Purpose – This research aims to investigate the adoption of electronic communication tools and seeks to shed more light on their diffusion process, a challenging task for project-based (PBO) and traditional business organizations (TBO).... more
Purpose – This research aims to investigate the adoption of electronic communication tools and seeks to shed more light on their diffusion process, a challenging task for project-based (PBO) and traditional business organizations (TBO). Design/methodology/approach – The data for the study were collected through three surveys, one total population survey in the Finnish and Swedish house building industries representing traditional
Research Interests: Business, Information Systems, Organizational Communication, Knowledge Management, Organizational structure, and 10 moreCommunication System, Communication Technology, Library and Information Studies, Population, Business and Management, Electronic Communication, Design Methodology, Enterprise Information Management, Electronic Document Management, and population survey
Purpose Supply chain quality management (SCQM) has gained less attention in the Arab world, and there is a clear dearth in existing research on this topic, particularly in service organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to... more
Purpose Supply chain quality management (SCQM) has gained less attention in the Arab world, and there is a clear dearth in existing research on this topic, particularly in service organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for investigating the impact of SCQM and associated indicators on organizational performance (OP). Design/methodology/approach Empirical data have been collected through a survey distributed to a sample of major telecom companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE). To test the conceptual framework, structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to analyze the data collected from 248 respondents of telecom companies. Findings The empirical data showed that SCQM practices are significantly correlated with innovation and operations performance. Statistical analysis through SEM also revealed that customer satisfaction has highest direct impact on OP. Research limitations/implications External factors (government regulations, ...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the different views of major project stakeholders about the factors that contribute to poor project scope leading to project scope creep. Design/methodology/approach Major factors of project... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the different views of major project stakeholders about the factors that contribute to poor project scope leading to project scope creep. Design/methodology/approach Major factors of project scope creep are identified using commonality analysis of stakeholders’ views. An interview-based industry research method is applied to collect data from different projects in the United Arab Emirates. Findings Relying on stakeholders’ theory, the study proposes a framework for managing project scope creep. Results indicate that communication is among the major causes of project scope creep, as reported by all project stakeholder groups in this study. Practical implications The study is expected to support the assessment of the causes of project scope creep, simultaneously expanding knowledge on the topic for both researchers and practitioners. Originality/value This study is among the first few to explore the commonality of various stakeholder vie...
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Abstract Project-based organizations are diverse from functional business organizations due to uniqueness, uncertainty and the complexity of the project business. On these grounds, project organizations necessitate a special approach than... more
Abstract Project-based organizations are diverse from functional business organizations due to uniqueness, uncertainty and the complexity of the project business. On these grounds, project organizations necessitate a special approach than the functional business firms and consequently management of knowledge also have need of different techniques than the available contributions. The nature of project business stresses that organizations involved in project management must be specialized in managing their knowledge to make more ...