Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges that face leaders when implementing business excellence programmes in the Jordanian public sector. Design/methodology/approach – The study adopted a content analysis approach to analyse the excellence assessment reports that have been produced by the King Abdullah II Centre for Excellence. The sample comprises ten public organisations which have participated in the King Abdullah Award for Excellence more than once and acknowledge in their reports that they have failed to achieve satisfactory results. Findings – The key challenges to effect the implementation of leadership criteria in the public sector in Jordan were found to be poor strategic planning, lack of employee empowerment, weaknesses in benchmarking performance, and a lack of financial resources, poor integration and coordination, and poor measurement system. Practical implications – This study proposes a conceptual model for the assessment of challenges that face managers when seeking to implement excellence in leadership in the Jordanian public sector. Originality/value – Leadership challenges in the public sector are generally widely studied, but it is important to gain a better understanding of how these challenges can be overcome. In comparison to many existing studies, this research has provided specific and detailed insights these organisational excellence challenges in the public sector and provides a conceptual model for use by other researchers into the future.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is the identification of the impacts that innovation and service excellence have upon organisational reputation within public sector organisations in Jordan.Design/methodology/approachAn approach was adopted that was quantitative with a questionnaire designed that was to be self-administrated for the primary data collection. In total, there was distribution of 600 questionnaires from which 556 were retrieved with a high rate of response (92.7%).FindingsThrough analysis of the data, several findings were revealed by the study, including that innovation was the factor with the most influence (beta = 0.81) upon organisational reputation within the public sector in Jordan compared to the factor for service excellence (beta = 0.54).Practical implicationsThe research has several potential implications for theory and management for those making decisions and policies within public administration such as in relation to enhancement of innovation strategy application for improving the reputations of organisations within the public sector. Furthermore, the paper fills a gap within the theory of organisational reputation and within the literature generally, especially in the context of public administration.Originality/valueIn regard to value and originality of this paper, it can be considered the first of its type for the public sector in Jordan, and perhaps the Arab region as a whole, that has examined the impacts that innovation and service excellence have upon organisational reputation within the context of public administration.

This paper aims to identify the impact of institutional governance on perceived organizational reputation in the Jordanian public sector. A quantitative approach was adopted through designing a questionnaire which was distributed to 600 employees in 6 governmental institutions. A total of 556 valid questionnaires were retrieved in the first stage and 97 questionnaires (items) were removed in the second SEM stage, so that 459 questionnaires were subject to analysis. In light of the data analysis, the study revealed a number of findings. Most notably, there is a significant impact of justice and rule of law, integrity and work ethics and social responsibility upon perceived organizational reputation in the Jordanian public sector. Justice and rule of law came first (79%), then, integrity and work ethics (65%), followed by social responsibility (61%). This means the endeavor of Jordanian public sector organizations towards adherence to laws and resorting to them in their functions, operations and services. Also, this result reflects the level of awareness of the importance of justice as a core value and an essential input in building a good organizational reputation for Jordanian public-sector organizations. This paper provides evidence from the public sector employees and concludes the impact of institutional governance factors on organizational reputation, which has not been researched enough previously in the public-sector context. These are important factors underlying organizational reputation and trust from the users of public services. Finally, new insights have been provided into the organizational reputation theory in the public sector.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to undertake an exploration of the challenges related to knowledge management (KM) within public sector organisations in Jordan.Design/methodology/approachThere was the adoption of a qualitative method to achieve the objective of the study, with content analysis undertaken on ten assessment reports, so the results of the content analysis could be validated. A total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted within the sample organisations. The sample was made up of ten public sector organisations that had participated at least twice within the King Abdullah Excellence Award with acknowledgement within their reports of failure to achieve results that were satisfactory for KM.FindingsKM challenges identified reflect various aspects of different factors, such as organisational structure, culture, KM processes and the evaluation of KM. In practical terms, the main KM-related challenges for the Jordanian public sector are considered to be a lack of a culture of teamwork to support sharing and exchange of knowledge, lack of required documentation for the building of organisational memory needed for processes of KM, lack of training for KM, lack of clear vision and strategy for KM and lack of proper methodologies for the management of internal knowledge and weaknesses in the integration of information and data.Originality/valueThe study puts forward a conceptual model that can be used in assessing the challenges that managers face when they seek to implement KM in organisations within the public sector. The challenges of KM within the public sector have been studied widely, in general; however there is an importance to gaining better understanding of how to overcome those challenges. Compared with most of the existent studies, this particular research has offered detailed, specific insights into challenges for KM within the public sector, along with provision of a conceptual model that other researchers could use in the future.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility on organizational reputation in Jordanian universities. Quantitative approach was adopted; electronic survey was employed wherein there was distribution of questionnaires to a sample of employees selected through a simple random approach. The sample was made up of a total of 340 employees based within both private and public universities in Jordan. This current study was founded upon the assumption that the commitment of organizations to social responsibility leads to increases in their abilities to achieve an organizational reputation that is good. The findings showed that all social responsibility practices (ethical, philanthropic and legal) have a significant and positive impact upon improving organizational reputation. In addition, the findings found that the legal responsibility is considered most practiced in Jordanian universities followed by ethical responsibility. Finally, there no significant impact for economic responsibility on organizational reputation. This paper can provide theoretical and practical contribution to social corporate responsibility and organizational reputation knowledge through explored the role of social responsibility in organizational reputation in new context in general and universities in particular.