RISK MANAGEMENT: E-BUSINESS STRATEGY RISK MANAGEMENT

In recent years dynamic internet-based start-ups have captured the public imagination through the creation of revolutionary business models. As we are now seeing, many lack the financial stamina to survive and become profitable. Attention has switched to how established companies are trying to clone these new models to their competitive advantage. However, in the rush to do so, many organizations are making quite fundamental strategic mistakes; mistakes that are often then repeated by others. This may be because they have failed to recognize the need to apply advanced risk management thinking to both the strategic and implementation issues surrounding the E-business imperative.     

Of ‘Strong’ Leadership,Crisis Communication,and Pooper Scoopers: Change in the Queensland Public Service Under Newman

Governments have historically offered their workforce a public service bargain founded on stable pay and conditions and job security. However, while the Westminster system aims for public service employment to be protected from the whims of government, public servants are nonetheless affected by the political environment in which they operate and changes to this bargain can occur with a new government. This paper focuses on a Queensland public service change process that resulted in large‐scale forced redundancies, non‐renewal of temporary contracts, and legislative changes that nullified the provisions in job security, organisational change, and redundancy policies. Using communication as a lens through which to understand leadership, it examines how the government communicated with the public service about this organisational change, immediately before and after the 2012 election. In particular, through analysis of public and media commentary, speeches and Hansard records, it examines Premier Newman's change leadership and communication by contrasting pre‐election messages to the public service with post‐election messages about the public service and the justifications for change during this period of downsizing. This analysis is used to reflect on political leadership, communication, fair treatment, and trust in public service change.     

Law Enforcement Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina

Major disasters represent infrequent events that often require response organizations to vicariously learn from the experiences of others in order to improve their operations. A primary mechanism for such knowledge diffusion is the different practitioner and empirical journals for the organizational fields that comprise disaster response. A review of the literature for the law enforcement field, however, reveals that little attention is given to how these organizations manage actual disasters. In particular, the presentation of organizational experiences, whether through case studies or other methodologies, is very limited in the practitioner and empirical literature of this field. This represents a considerable problem for improvements of disaster response operations given that law enforcement agencies represent a key component in such efforts. The research presented in this article is an effort to fill this knowledge gap and thereby facilitate organizational learning to improve future law enforcement disaster response activities. The authors traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina to examine the response efforts of state and local law enforcement agencies to the storm. The findings from this research are reported here in a lessons‐learned format to inform law enforcement disaster response policy.     

Collaboration,information, and preservation: The role of expertise in farmland preservation task forces

Collaboration between agencies, private groups, and citizens in the field of natural resource management is generally seen as a productive strategy in challenging management situations. Collaborative management is particularly appealing in efforts like farmland preservation, which depend for their success on local initiative and support. However, such partnerships may create new dilemmas about the appropriate use of information in management. This paper analyzes the use of information by 15 county-wide Farmland Preservation task forces in the state of Ohio, U.S.A.     

Managing the "New Normalcy" with Values-Based Leadership: Lessons from Admiral James Loy

Tensions remain in adapting to the "new normalcy"—that is, the balance between national security and other democratic and administrative priorities in the aftermath of 9/11. Perhaps no one appreciates this balance more than Admiral James Loy. Immediately following the September 11 attacks, he left his post as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard to accept the challenge of standing up the Transportation Security Administration. Next, Loy tackled the role of deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Loy's efforts to articulate a set of core organizational values in three organizational contexts offer lessons for public managers who seek to enhance internal cohesion. Strong cultural cohesion is expected to support organizational transformation and, ultimately, performance. Loy's example puts that connection to the test.