Browsing by Author "Lockhart, James"

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An exploration of the organisational excellence architecture required to support an award-winning business excellence journey : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024-12-09) Baig, Mirza Atif
The Business Excellence (BE) approach and its underlying philosophy are now established means of enhancing organisations’ performance. BE is institutionalised through BE models to achieve excellence in strategies; business practices; and, stakeholder-related performance results. In turn, these activities contribute to the organisation becoming best in their respective market. While numerous studies have examined different aspects of BE, there remains a lack of research on the actual BE implementation required to guide researchers, consultants and practitioners. The absence of a unified framework has led to inconsistent practices across organisations, of which some has resulted in results less than expected. To bridge this gap, this research introduces the novel concept of Organisational Excellence Architecture (OEA). OEA refers to the formal support structure, resources, processes and assessment tools used to assist the implementation of BE within an organisation. This research explores the OEA supporting award-winning BE maturity. A sequential mixed methods approach was adopted that resulted in participation from 50 organisations across 17 countries. Contributions were acquired by way of an online survey, followed by optional structured interviews to identify BE their implementation approaches and best practices. The empirical data guided the iterative development of the OEA model established from the literature and the subsequent refinement of the final OEA model. This model is supported with an OEA design toolkit. The toolkit includes OEA design tool guidelines; an OEA design assessment tool; best practices examples; and, four research articles. This study makes a contribution to the BE literature, providing detailed, updated research on BE implementation approaches and best practices. It offers practical insights for BE practitioners and organisations, enhancing the understanding of effective BE implementation strategies. Future research is now invited to validate and refine the OEA model and the OEA design toolkit to improve their applicability and effectiveness across diverse organisational contexts.
An examination of CSR decoupling in Pakistan : a research journey through tight and loosely coupled environments : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Management, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2020) Khan, Majid
The literature on CSR has been debated among organisational scholars not only for its benefit to society and the environment but also its positive influence on business and organisations. Research suggests that strong government, markets and civil society are also necessary conditions for businesses to behave in a socially responsible way. However, due to its focus on developed economies limited contextual knowledge has emerged, especially that from developing countries. Within this latter context there is a lack of understanding of how businesses use reporting to create an impression of social responsibility while masking their actual performance, suspected to be the result of a weak institutional environment. By drawing on (neo)-institutional theory this research addresses this theoretical gap, demonstrating that CSR policies and practices are shaped by their embeddedness in the prevailing institutional environment. More specifically, this research explores questions related to CSR reporting, practice, and the decoupling between CSR rhetoric and actual performance in Pakistan. The research design comprised a multi-methodological approach using data quadrangulation. First, quantitative content analysis of 29 listed companies was conducted, drawing longitudinal data from publicly listed annual reports (2001, 2006, 2011 & 2017 – five-yearly intervals) to understand the extent of CSR reporting in Pakistan. Second, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 respondents comprising of CSR/sustainability managers, national regulators, and members of CSR promoting institutions in the country. Third, the originality of reports was examined using TurnitinTM and TinEyeTM. Finally, a discourse analysis of text and related images in reports was conducted to describe, interpret and explain contextualised meanings of language used. The results show that CSR, as perceived by many stakeholders actually has limited understanding and currently few benefits in Pakistan. The drivers identified for CSR policies and practices were found to be significantly different from that studied in the developed world. Additionally, unique instances of widespread decoupling are highlighted in the form of the lack of originality in texts, and the use of digitally manipulated images in CSR reports, thereby, suggesting that such behaviour is deliberate. The research makes important theoretical and methodological contributions to the nexus of business and society in a developing country, especially one suffering from a weak institutional environment.
Fulfilling the curious omission of host company responses to reshoring : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Management, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2021) Zhang, Lei
While offshoring has become one of the most significant strategies adopted by home companies, its subsequent reshoring has created new challenges to research. For reasons that remain unexplained, the extant literature focuses on 'Why' and 'How' to reshore near exclusively from the home company's perspective. However, an interactive dyadic relationship exists between the two resource bundles during reshoring. The findings of a content-analysis based literature review reveal that published case studies focus on Western firms' offshoring and subsequent reshoring strategies, ignoring the host company response. Single and multiple case studies were completed using data collected from four host companies in China. The single case study explores the host company's response to reshoring and its influence on the home companies' decisions. Thematic analysis generated four response strategies: cost-related; market-related; knowledge-related; and, relationship-related. The multiple-case study was used to identify how the host company orchestrates resources obtained from the offshoring network in response to reshoring. Four dimensions of resources acquired from the offshoring network: financial; physical-asset related; knowledge; and, human resources were identified. The network for resource exchange was also observed to contain actors beyond the dyad, notably clients who contributed to the resource bundle. The home company's repatriation leaves resources in the host country, defined as the available residual resource (ARR). This resource bundle then leads to risks and potential sources of competition for the home company. This study adds a new dimension, the host company, to reshoring studies restoring what has become unilateral research into a bilateral dialogue.