International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Production Research

Community college computer instructors provide a valuable service by preparing students for challenging careers. At the same time, they face many challenges to stay current in their field and to maintain industry certifications. Therefore, community college administrators need to determine what perceptions are held by computer instructors, address any negative perceptions, and determine if instructors are satisfied with their job. To address this need, a study of North Carolina community college computer instructors’ job satisfaction was conducted using the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) Short Form. The MSQ Short Form is a 20 question survey developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota to study job satisfaction among workers. Although, the majority of the 182 respondents reported they were satisfied with their job and hold positive perceptions of their supervisors, only slightly over half of the respondents reported being either satisfied or very satisfied with the way policies are implemented within their organization, indicating for the first time that a significant percentage of computer instructors in North Carolina perceive a problem exists within this area. The results of this study should encourage academic institutions to find better ways to implement policies in ways that don’t negatively affect job satisfaction and worker productivity .

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has become the most strategic tool for an organization to employ. A leading ERP solution is SAP®. It has been employed by organizations to enable them to collaborate on different projects and to integrate all aspects of operations. Just as organizations have adopted ERP solutions, they employed quality initiatives that are designed to help organizations maximize efficiency. One of these quality initiatives organizations have turned to is Six Sigma. This paper explores the impact of SAP® solutions on the success of Six Sigma initiative implementation in an agile environment, where the needs of the customer changes rapidly. The literature shows that SAP® type ERP products play a critical role in the implementation process like Six Sigma, where the implementation process takes time. Also, the literature implies that in agile environments Six Sigma implementation can be ineffective.

The main objective of the present survey is to conduct a comparative analysis of the challenges of the performance evaluation system in two private and public sectors and their impact on effectiveness of human resources management practices. This survey was conducted using the field-descriptive method. The historical study method was used to collect theoretical subjects and the field study method was applied to answer the research questions and confirm or reject the research hypotheses. Statistical population of the research included all experts and managers at various levels in two private and public sectors of the petrochemical industry. Cluster-stratified sampling method in two phases was utilized. According to the results of the present survey, there is a significant difference among identified challenges in the performance evaluation system in two private and public sectors of the petrochemical industry. Results demonstrate that the effectiveness level of human resource management practices in the performance evaluation system is higher than the average level in the public sector, effectiveness level of human resource management practices in the performance evaluation system is lower than the average level in the private sector of the petrochemical industry, and there is a significant difference between the effectiveness level of human resource management practices in the performance evaluation system in two private and public sectors of petrochemical industry. Studying the impact of existing challenges in the performance evaluation system on effectiveness of human resource management practices shows existence of a significant and reversed relation among the existing challenges in the performance evaluation system and effectiveness of human resource management practices in this regard.