Management Science

"Since its very inception, social work has been considered an organizationally based profession, with the majority of its workforce employed within formal organizations. Whether in nonprofit, for-profit, or governmental agencies, the practical realities of human service organizations are a central element of professional social work. This book explores the climate and culture of these agencies and provides essential information for surviving and thriving in this setting. It prepares students for their future careers so that they will feel empowered in their work and be able to fulfill their responsibilities toward organizational, community, and social change. Using real-life examples, the authors examine the internal structures of management, financing, and supervision and discuss common conflicts between agencies and professionals. The book’s straightforward tone and practical advice make it an asset to anyone entering human service organizations.

This new edition contains updated examples, case studies, and references. It also contains valuable information on the effects of the recent financial crisis on human service organizations. Agencies now face increased caseloads and more complex social problems with fewer resources and less money. Understanding how these events have changed the nature of human service organizations will allow students to be better prepared for the work ahead of them.

Features

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Expanded content on the practical aspects of organizational theory and suggestions for developing leadership skills
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Updated examples, case studies, and references throughout the book
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Key points and discussion questions following each chapter
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Updated instructor’s manual available online as a PDF or Word document"

Dr. Jan Jonker Nijmegen School of Management (NSM) Radboud University Nijmegen (RU) PO BOX 9108 6500 HK Nijmegen The Netherlands [email protected] [email protected] Dr. Bartjan W. Pennink Faculty of Economics and Business University ...

The paper describes general determinants of quality measurement. There are discussed four assumptions that have been formulated to develop the framework of quality measurement. The assumptions are: (1) quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements, (2) requirements and inherent characteristics create finite sets, (3) requirements may have both different importance and different values depending on who formulates them, and (4) requirements do not have to be constant in time. The article contains the framework of quality measurement based on above four assumptions. There are proposed notation on the quality measurement on booth synthetic and the analytical level. It also contains examples of selected distance metrics in m-dimensional space as well as examples of selected aggregate functions that may be used in quality measurement on synthetic level.

This paper presents the SR-GCWS-CS probabilistic algorithm that combines Monte Carlo simulation with splitting techniques and the Clarke and Wright savings heuristic to find competitive quasi-optimal solutions to the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) in reasonable response times. The algorithm, which does not require complex fine-tuning processes, can be used as an alternative to other metaheuristics—such as Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search, Genetic Algorithms, Ant Colony Optimization or GRASP, which ...

Software maintenance claims a large proportion of organizational resources. It is thought that many maintenance problems derive from inadequate software design and development practices. Poor design choices can result in complex software that is costly to support and difficult to change. However, it is difficult to assess the actual maintenance performance effects of software development practices because their impact is

Any organization that wishes to excel at KM needs to improve its knowledge creation processes, both at the individual and at the group level. In this way, the theory of organizational knowledge creation has developed rapidly in academic world and been broadly scattered in management science over the last 19 years. This paper conducts a general study about the theory's

his research examines the evolution of cooperative interorganizational relationships and provides an empiri- cal test of four propositions from the DSO (Dwyer et al. 1987) life-cycle theory, and one proposition from the RV (Ring and Van de Ven 1994) theory of relationship development. Using primary data from over 1,500 resellers in a channel of distribution, we find that the mature