Purpose: This paper analyses a series of engineering services partnerships to better understand requisites needed in building high value co-creation alliances - especially where innovation is the strategic goal. Methodology/approach: Using a combination of quantitative surveys, qualitative `deep-dive assessments and a small number of in-situ mini-case investigations this research sets out to analyse 99 joint-venture innovation partnerships. These ventures represent a variety of asymmetric and symmetric alliances within the engineering services sector. Particular emphasis is given to those where the prerequisites for co-creative innovation are either in place or could be built. Findings: Partnering and progressing innovative ideas are important behaviours for organisations seeking higher levels of commercial success and competitive advantage. Navigating the partnering dynamic can also be harder than expected, potentially hindered by misunderstandings and differing expectations between enterprises. Particularly for symmetric endeavours success often hinges upon not only having clarity in the degree of innovation sought but also alignment as to the depth and stage of the partnering dynamic itself. However, when such collaboration works customer satisfaction and associated contract retention can increase significantly. Originality/value Most inter-company innovation projects historically seem to occur where one firm is significantly larger than the other. In contrast, this study highlights issues encountered when innovation co-creation projects are undertaken by a mature (as opposed to maturing) organisation in collaboration with partners where the power balance is similar between the two enterprises. In such cases, customer satisfaction surveys can be useful tools for objectively navigating the innovation co-creation experience.

Innovation is often identified as a major driver of organisational growth in free market economies. However, just as often, there is lack of understanding on how best to enable the desired innovation outcomes. This paper addresses assessment of the internal culture of a large commercial engineering company seeking to enhance its ability to build, promote and sustain competitive advantage within its market. The paper's objective is to describe a framework that was designed and tested within the enterprise. The framework identifies and tracks cultural prerequisites underpinning employees' creative activities and how these align with the organisation's readiness to enact innovative outcomes. The findings confirm that many of the prerequisites for developing and progressing new ideas are socially dependent. In addition, efforts to innovate can easily be dissipated and derailed unless the prevailing organisation culture actively encourages interaction of staff and provides tuned and visible practices to easily capture, assess, reward and action new ideas produced by that interaction.

HRM is one of the most poorly understood areas in construction management despite an increasing recognition of its importance.This paper discusses the results of a survey conducted across 78 publicly-listed Australian and Malaysian construction companies. Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to determine the most dominant HRM configuration utilised in these companies. Also, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to determine HRM parameters at a project level. Overall, the survey results confirmed Hofstede's cross cultural analysis across these two regions. © Common Ground, Renard Siew, Hiyam al-Kilidar.

© 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). All rights reserved. Airport security screening processes are essential to ensure the safety of passengers and the aviation industry. The level of airport security is continuously improving with the help of advanced technology and trained security officers. However, airports have witnessed a significant increase in the number of passengers, which makes optimal security screening processes costly to implement for airport operations, and time-consuming for passengers and airlines. Different methods have been proposed to optimise the queueing process, reduce processing time, and strike a balance between security and time delay. This paper reviews the existing methods used to optimise the security process at airports, the technology being used, the importance of experienced security officers, and the impact of the screening process on passengers and the economy.

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the readers understanding of critical success factors (CSFs) for taming wicked problems. In particular, it aims to provide practitioners facing wicked problems with practical recommendations of the order in which the CSFs should be addressed to ensure the most effective use of time. In order to achieve this, the paper presents the results of a systematic literature of the topic and ranks the importance of each CSF according to their frequency of appearance in the literature. The ease in which various actors can control each CSF was then evaluated according to the number of parties involved. These two aspects were then combined to develop a ranking in which the CSFs should be addressed in order to accomplish the most progress towards taming a wicked problem in the least amount of time. In addition, this research can also be used to facilitate the development of more effective and holistic approaches for taming wicked problems or for the improvement of existing ones.

© 2017 International Business Information Management Association IBIMA. All Rights Reserved. Quality directly influences organizational performance in the manufacturing industry. Through an examination of literature, critical success factors that lead to the implementation of six-sigma in the manufacturing industry are identified for organisations of differing sizes: SMEs, large enterprises and general/ unspecified organisations (not specified as either SMEs or Large in literature). It is found that general success factors across organisations (unspecified) include Employee Education/Training, Top Management Commitment, Project Selection, Employee Involvement/Communication, Project Management/Leadership. While for large enterprises the following factors were identified: Project Selection, Alignment with Customer Requirements, Employee Education/Training, Senior Management Commitment, Use of Quality Tools, Visible Cost Saving. The results serve as a guide for a better understanding of the requirements leading to the successful implementation of six-sigma in organizations and where to best direct resources.

Innovation and flexibility have long been understood as key elements in the competitive repertoire of todays' manufacturing SME (Small to Medium Sized Enterprise). For SME's that produce a high variety of customised products at low volumes (HVLV), the necessity to innovate and simultaneously maintain flexibility poses a significant organisational challenge.
HVLV manufacturers are typically designed in such a manner to enable the manufacture of a wide range of highly customised products. The organisational success of the HVLV manufacturer, then, largely depends on its' ability to reconfigure resources and adapt to new circumstances (in other words, the ability to be flexible). In fact, it is in the pursuit of flexibility that HVLV manufacturers choose to adopt the job-shop style of production and "project-based" organisational structure. There is evidence which suggests flexibility and innovation are complementary in the realm of mass-customisation. Yet, authors investigating the adoption of "project-based" organisational forms (as observed in HVLV manufacturing) warn the quest for "fast, flat and flexible" organisational designs often result in environments which hinder innovation. Indeed, the applicability of organisational practices designed to foster flexibility and its effects on the ability of a HVLV manufacturer to innovate requires further investigation – thus, a core objective of this paper.
In order to achieve this objective, this paper provides two outcomes. Firstly, a comparative analysis based on a literature review is undertaken between HVLV manufacturers and those adopting lesser, more standardised, forms of customisation. This will determine key differences in both flexibility dimensions and the organisational practices designed to facilitate this flexibility. Secondly, a conceptual model is developed (based on the comparative analysis) to demonstrate the relationship between key flexibility dimensions and the likelihood of developing successful in...

Wikispaces was piloted as an educational tool for improving teaching and learning at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales with class of 54 enrolled students. An active and self-directed learning approach was used in this subject based on interactive/ discussion-based lectures and tutorials, debates and presentations as well as private study. Students experiences and readings were to be reflected through contributions to class and wiki discussions to facilitate brain-storming, inquisitions and facilitate students' learning from each other. This paper reflects on the use of Wikispaces as a teaching strategy and presents results of students' responses to a questionnaire about the use of the wiki tool, and general teaching and learning of the subject. Analyses of responses suggested that students expressed positive experiences using wikispaces and that wikispaces correlated positively with students' performance.

Quality is a key issue in the development of software products. Although the literature acknowledges the importance of the design phase of software lifecycle and the effects of the design process and intermediate products on the final product, little progress has been achieved in addressing the quality of designs. This is partly due to difficulties associated in defining quality attributes with precision and measurement of the many different types and styles of design products, as well as problems with assessing the methodologies utilized in the design process. In this research we report on an empirical investigation that we conducted to examine and evaluate quality attributes of design products created through a process of pair-design and solo-design. The process of pair-design methodology involves pair programming principles where two people work together and periodically switch between the roles of driver and navigator. The evaluation of the quality of design products was based on ISO/IEC 9126 standards. Our results show some mixed findings about the effects of pair work on the quality of design products.