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CSR marketing outcomes and branch managers' perceptions of CSR
|
[
"CSR branch manager",
"CSR customer",
"CSR marketing outcomes",
"Retail banking industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the last decade, interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has spread widely in banking industry and among academics (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; Chomvilailuk and Butcher, 2013; Perez and Rodriguez, 2014; Carroll, 2015, 2017; Khan et al., 2015; Jaiyeoba et al., 2018; Pratihari and Uzma, 2018). The banking industry was heavily implicated in the origins of the last crisis by marketing complex high-risk products to people who were unable to assess their implications (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; Carroll, 2015; Jaiyeoba et al., 2018). Financial companies have been forced to strategically rearm, adopting CSR policies that not only prevent the repetition of the recent cases of irresponsibility, but also rebuild their image and reputation through the adoption of ethical principles and a commitment to improving the banking environment. In this new competitive framework, financial institutions must be seen as actively protecting the environment, looking after their employees, conducting their business in an ethical manner and cultivating their image as contributors to the welfare of society (Jaiyeoba et al., 2018). CSR has, therefore, become a major aspect of banks' corporate identity and a key competitive differentiator. Financial institutions are investing heavily in projecting a differentiated image to their stakeholders by promoting socially responsible practices and strengthening their ethical dimension internally (Chomvilailuk and Butcher, 2013; Khan et al., 2015; Perez and Rodriguez, 2017; Jaiyeoba et al., 2018; Pratihari and Uzma, 2018).\n2. Conceptual framework: 2.1 The concept of CSR and stakeholder theory\n3. Study approach and research method: 3.1 Data collection and sample\n4. Analysis and findings: After confirming the scales' validity and reliability, items that shared the same dimensions were averaged to form composite measures for the second order variables (Bandalos and Finney, 2001; Landis et al., 2000). Then, as with the validation of the scales, the hypotheses were tested using SEM with version 6.1 of the EQS multivariate software package (the covariance matrix is presented in Table IV). All the hypotheses were confirmed as shown in Table V, which also presents optimal model fit measures.\n5. Conclusions: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of bank branch managers' perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in CSR marketing outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper proposes a causal model establishing that managers' perceptions of CSR influence the perception of CSR held by the branch's customers, which in turn directly affects customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer engagement and customer loyalty. The unit of analysis in this quantitative study is the bank branch. Two questionnaires were administered: one to branch managers and another to five customers in each branch.\nFindings: Branch managers' perceptions of CSR have a marked influence on customers' perceptions of CSR, which again have a notable impact on the relationship variables studied: customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer engagement and customer loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample was taken from two banks in the same country (Spain) and only five customers were interviewed in each branch. The type of customers analyzed should be taken into account since a growing number of customers now carry out all of their banking online and are less likely to visit their branch.\nPractical implications: The results highlight the importance of adopting socially responsible actions not only in the bank as a whole, but also in individual branches. It would, therefore, seem crucial for high level bank executives not only to involve branch managers in the bank's CSR strategy, but also to empower them to undertake CSR actions that involve the customers and local community with which they interact.\nOriginality/value: First, the paper reveals the differences within the same organization in the way its CSR strategy is implemented. Second, intermediary figures or supervisors are shown to have a key role in ensuring the organization's CSR strategy is effective. Third, the study emphasizes the importance of customers' perception of CSR in achieving the main outcomes of relationship marketing (satisfaction, trust, engagement and loyalty). Fourth, the methodology applied in the study is innovative in its construction of dyads in which the branch is the unit of analysis, enabling a comparison between the manager's perceptions of CSR with that of five customers from the same branch. Fifth, the findings add to the knowledge of a particularly relevant sector in the recent economic crisis, namely, the retail banking industry.\n",
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Clinical governance - the turn of continuous improvement?
|
[
"Clinical governance",
"Continuous improvement",
"Management accountability",
"Quality assurance",
"National Health Service"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Clinical Governance was established in the NHS in 1997 (Department of Health, 1997). It is described by the Department of Health as:A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continually improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish (Department of Health, 1998).In the first guidance (Department of Health, 1998, 1999) on the duty of NHS Trusts to implement clinical governance, the broad functions of clinical governance were set out, along with some of the structures required to be in place. Since its introduction, the concept of clinical governance has become better understood within the wider NHS (Murray et al., 2004). Frequently the organisational view may differ from the perception of clinical staff, and this may be through poor communication.The scope of clinical governance is vast, and organisations frequently encounter difficulties in the development of systems and structures to manage and monitor the complexity of clinical governance. The benefit of clinical governance has been argued (Miles et al., 2000), and the experience in the NHS to date has been that quality improvement has been overlooked at the expense of assurance and structure (Freeman and Walshe, 2004). When considering the concept of clinical governance, at least three dimensions must be taken into consideration:1. Accountability - the responsibility for the delivery of safe and effective care.2. Assurance - the means to assure the Trust Board, the general public and the wider NHS that the standards required of clinical governance are attained.3. Innovation - the development of new ways of working and promoting continuous improvement.A fundamental principle of clinical governance, often overshadowed by its emphasis on accountability, is the ability to implement change and make continuous improvement. Therefore the balance between innovation and accountability is an important regulator of true clinical governance. The systems and processes for accountability should not be so constraining as to stifle the development of new ways of working and continuous improvement.This paper describes a model for clinical governance developed at Royal Liverpool Children's NHS Trust that seeks to promote continuous quality improvement, and which may be transferable to other settings and organisations.\nThe Trust: Royal Liverpool Children's NHS Trust is one of the largest and busiest providers of children's health care in Western Europe. It provides acute, secondary and tertiary care, including community-based and child and adolescent mental health services. The Trust cares for 200,000 children and young people each year, including 75,000 attendances in A&E. Secondary and tertiary care services extend over a large geographical area, encompassing the whole North-West of England, Shropshire, North Wales and the Isle of Man. The Trust has approximately 2,500 staff, 290 beds and over 20 specialist services, managing more than 800 clinics at 31 different sites, and serving a population of 7.6 million people. This is in addition to managing community services on almost 40 sites across Liverpool.This complex array of services is organised into large aggregates called care groups, each of which covers a number of specialities or directorates, and is designed to fit around commonly presenting patient journeys or episodes. Each care group has a clinical director (assistant medical director) and a supporting management team.The complexity of services provided by the Trust confers an equally complex range of issues for the management of clinical governance. The Board of Clinical Governance is charged with setting the framework for this, and is the delegated committee of the Trust Board.\nRoles and responsibilities for clinical governance: The following is a definition of roles and responsibilities for clinical governance as agreed by executive and non-executive leads for clinical governance within the Trust. The majority of these roles, or their equivalents, are widely recognised throughout the NHS and their relevance to clinical governance published (Lugon and Secker-Walker, 2001).Chief executive and Trust Board\nThe early experience of clinical governance in the organisation: Within the Trust, clinical governance is a live entity and has some meaning to most clinical staff in the organisation, although its interpretation may vary. Frequently staff work and innovate practice in a means entirely consistent with good principles of clinical governance, but may not have made the intellectual connection. A number of underlying factors contributed to the general awareness of clinical governance (see Table I).In common with the published findings in NHS Trusts across England (Freeman and Walshe, 2004), the implementation of clinical governance within this Trust, and to an extent within individual care groups, initially adopted a \"top-down\" process that focused on the accountability and assurance requirements. In order to embed fully clinical governance throughout the organisation in a meaningful way, it was deemed necessary to reposition some of the focus towards continuous improvement in care groups and departments. This requires some degree of clarification on the roles and responsibilities relating to clinical governance. In parallel, some devolution of ownership to care groups allows innovation and creativity to flourish. In other words, a bottom-up approach to clinical governance in each care group was encouraged with the confidence that appropriate structures for accountability were in place. In order to support this, the concept of a clinical governance cycle was developed and introduced.\nThe \"governance cycle\": A model for a \"governance cycle\" has been developed, and represents a continual process of assurance, accountability/review, and innovation. The model incorporates the functional domains of clinical governance, measurable outcomes, and key roles and responsibilities (see Figure 1).Each phase of the cycle represents a function that has:* a distinct endpoint or outcome; and* a key role (individual or group).Assurance\nImplementing the model: A number of steps were taken to validate and communicate the model of the governance cycle.Clarification of roles\nSummary: This paper presents a model for the implementation of clinical governance that is based on the three core dimensions of accountability, assurance, and innovation. The governance cycle links function with structure, role and outcomes, and places continuous improvement at the heart of clinical governance.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - To provide an overview of a model for clinical governance in the National Health Service that incorporates continuous improvement and innovation as a core theme.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper considers the core functions of clinical governance and how these are related to established structures and roles within the modern NHS. A case study approach is used to describe the implementation of a theoretical model in a large teaching NHS Trust.\nFindings: - A clinical governance cycle is described that comprises three functional domains: accountability, assurance, and innovation. For each domain there is a definable outcome and a key role. Critical success factors for implementation of the model are described.\nOriginality/value: - This paper introduces a new model for clinical governance that focuses on continuous improvement. The paper will be of particular interest to managers and lead clinicians responsible for the development of robust systems for clinical governance and modernisation in the NHS.\n",
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Gendered geographical inequalities in junior high school enrollment: Do infrastructure, human, and financial resources matter?
|
[
"Ghana",
"Economic resources",
"Sub-Saharan Africa",
"Gender parity",
"Geographical disparities",
"School enrolment",
"Geographical inequalities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Education fosters economic growth for individuals, families, communities, and nations, yet, many young people lack the opportunity to access basic education. In this paper, we examine how the allocation of three types of educational resources (infrastructural resources, human resources, and financial resources) helps shape gender parity in school enrollment. Globally, about 63.2 million lower secondary school-age children were not enrolled in school (out-of-school) in 2012 (UNICEF, 2015). The out-of-school rate is particularly high in developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where 30 million children are currently not enrolled in school (UNESCO Institute for Statistics and UNICEF, 2015). The current study focuses on the case of Ghana, where the estimated net enrollment rate for lower secondary was 55 percent in 2015 (World Bank, 2018).\n2. Barriers to education: Despite significant improvement in enhancing educational opportunities for the girl child, the gender gap in enrollment persists in some communities because of the many barriers that continue to hinder girls from obtaining basic education. A 2012 UNESCO report indicated that majority of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa failed to achieve gender parity in school enrollment as required by MDG 2. Hence, addressing the gender parity in basic education enrollment remains a major hurdle in the attainment of educational equality (Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 4))[2] in most Sub-Saharan African countries.\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data and measures\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample description\n5. Discussion: This study examined the spatial patterns in the gender parity in junior high school enrollment and the six indicators of educational resources, namely schools, classrooms, seating and writing places, teachers, and educational expenditure. Overall, the evidence from the data shows that gender parity varies spatially, and the nature of the relationships between gender parity and the educational resources depends on the locality. A synthesis of the global and local results revealed that except for the number of schools and availability of seating places, all the indicators of educational resources are positively associated with gender parity both at the national and local level, particularly in the Northern part of Ghana. Our study findings are consistent with the findings of Shuqair and Abdel-Aziz (2015), which suggest that strategic allocation of infrastructure, financial, and human resources through local governments hold promise for a more impactful and sustainable development. In patriarchal societies of Sub-Saharan Africa, gender equality can best be achieved when adequate investments are channeled into children and women's education, thus providing opportunities for many to benefit (Duflo, 2012).\n6. Conclusion: In communities with limited resources, school-aged children from rural areas are at a greater risk of not receiving an education due to limited resources within their communities, compared to school-aged children in urban areas who have access to more resources (Senadza, 2012). It is imperative that, in addition to seeking solutions that address the availability of limited resources at the country level, we also remove the barriers to equitable distribution of educational resources across gender and socioeconomic groups. From the conflict theory perspective, the conflict produced by inequality can only be defeated through a fundamental change in existing societal relationships and structures (Sears, 2008). A targeted approach to eliminating educational inequalities may be the way forward. Further research in this area can promote awareness about the unequal distribution of resources across Ghana and other developing countries, which can subsequently equip policymakers to implement changes at the policy level. It is through such policy-level changes that we can empower marginalized groups in developing countries to ensure that girls and children in rural, poorer areas may achieve equal opportunity in school enrollment and retention.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the spatial patterns of gender inequality in junior high school enrollment and the educational resource investments associated with the spatial trends.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses data on 170 districts in Ghana and hot spot analysis based on the Getis-Ord Gi statistic, linear regression, and geographically weighted regression to assess spatial variability in gender parity in junior high school enrollment and its association with resource allocation.\nFindings: The results reveal rural-urban and north-south variability in gender parity. Results show that educational resources contribute to gender parity. At the national level, educational expenditure, and the number of classrooms, teachers, and available writing places have the strongest positive associations with girls' enrollment. These relationships are spatially moderated, such that predominantly rural and Northern districts experience the most substantial benefits of educational investments.\nPractical implications: The findings show that strategic allocation of infrastructure, financial, and human resources through local governments holds promise for a more impactful and sustainable educational development of all children, regardless of gender. Besides seeking solutions that address the lack of resources at the national level, there is a need for locally tailored efforts to remove the barriers to equitable distribution of educational resources across gender and socioeconomic groups.\nOriginality/value: This paper's use of advanced spatial analysis techniques allows for in-depth examination of gender parity and investments in educational resources, and highlights the spatial nuances in how such investments predict gender disparities in junior high school enrollment. The findings speak to the need for targeted and localized efforts to address gender and geographical disparities in educational opportunities.\n",
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Principal instructional leadership in Taiwan: lessons from two decades of research
|
[
"Taiwan",
"Instructional leadership",
"Principal leadership"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Almost 20 years ago, Bajunid (1996) encouraged scholars to explore \"indigenous perspectives and practices\" associated with successful leadership in Asian societies, implying that successful leadership practice is constructed in line with the educational values embedded in a nation's social culture (Bajunid, 1996; Cheng, 1995). Bajunid's call has since encouraged scholars across Asia to understand, not only global (i.e. Western) theories of leadership, but also to discover \"local\" practices and perspectives that achieve the goals valued in particular societies.\nInternational perspectives on principal instructional leadership: The origins of instructional leadership can be traced back to the late 1970s and early 1980s with the emergence of research on comparisons of successful and unsuccessful urban elementary schools serving poor children in North America known as the effective schools research. In contrast to prior research which focussed on the socioeconomic status, societal or racial background as the indicator of student success, the effective schools research focussed on identifying the characteristics and practices of schools that promoted student achievement (Brookover and Lezotte, 1979; Edmonds, 1979). Edmonds (1979) noted that factors associated with high-performing schools are all under the control of schools, in that administrative practices have a significant impact. Leadership, particularly instructional leadership, was identified as a key component to student success, as effective principals assume an assertive instructional role engaging in tasks such as conducting consistent walk-throughs, engaging in dialogue with teachers about instructional strategies, and providing teacher development (Edmonds, 1979; Rutter et al., 1979).\nMethod: In reviewing the literature on school leadership in Taiwan, we have adopted an \"exploratory approach\" which seeks to identify trends and synthesize themes rather than draw analytical conclusions based on the quantitative integration of results from many studies such as in meta-analysis (Hallinger, 2013). Exploratory reviews are deemed suitable when literature are in their formative stages, which is the case for the Taiwanese literature on educational leadership and management.\nFindings: Our review yielded a number of findings regarding the study of principal instructional leadership in Taiwan. In subsequent sections, we address the characteristics of the studies, explore the subjects being studied, examine the conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches employed, and finally discuss the main findings of these studies.\nDiscussion: From an initial review of researches conducted by university faculty in Taiwan, Pan (2010) found that a variety of topics on educational leadership were explored but instructional leadership constituted only a small proportion. This has somehow constrained the amount of literature to be reviewed in this paper. From the reviewed pieces on instructional leadership, we found that even though principals in Taiwan were expected to be instructional leaders as advocated in official reform documents and academic publications, principals still spent most of their time on administrative matters. The lack of legal authority to supervise teaching through walk-through observations as well as a lack of training on pedagogy and curriculum development might illustrate why Taiwanese principals executed a high level of indirect leadership such as the most frequently observed behavior, supporting work environment. Working in asetting in which \"power over\" was replaced with \"power with\" and a valid teacher appraisal system was absent, principals were deprived of power to match their duties. This engendered a predicament for principals who tried not to encroach on teacher autonomy when exerting instructional leadership.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how instructional leadership, a concept imported from Western scholarship, has been conceptualized in the Taiwanese context and how principal instructional leadership is realized in schools. The development trajectory of principal instructional leadership is delineated by examining empirical studies in the past two decades.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper adopts an exploratory approach to review the Taiwanese empirical literature on principal instructional leadership. A total of 80 studies were systematically analyzed and common themes were identified.\nFindings: This paper finds that a hybrid model of the conceptualization of instructional leadership has been developed in Taiwan. Principals performed more indirect than direct leadership behaviors. A gap exists between the ideal instructional leader and the reality.\nResearch limitations/implications: The development of a formal theory of instructional leadership is expected as various substantive theories are developed and more data are accumulated. To yield the desired outcome of knowledge acceleration, the coordination of research efforts across scholars and institutions is a must.\nPractical implications: The articles reviewed suggest less effort spent by principals on the teachers. Yet with a national promotion of teacher learning community, as well as cooperative and collaborative learning in recent years, principal instructional leadership behaviors are expected to rise in terms of ensuring instruction quality and professional development.\nOriginality/value: This paper is an attempt to accumulate knowledge about principal instructional leadership in Taiwan. It is a contribution to the exploration of indigenous perspectives and practices and the understanding and building of educational leadership in Asia.\n",
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Mind your attitude: the impact of patriarchy on women's workplace behaviour
|
[
"Women",
"Nigeria",
"Job performance",
"Patriarchy",
"Organizational citizenship behaviour",
"Workplace behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Women in developing countries such as Nigeria are continuing to accumulate skills and participate in the labour force at an unprecedented pace (Klasen et al., 2018). However, women are also continuing to struggle against patriarchy and patriarchal norms both at home and in the workplace (Adisa et al., 2019; Makama, 2013). According to Aina (1998), patriarchy is a feminist concept that is used to understand and analyse the systematic organisation of male supremacy and female subordination, or the domination of women by men. Patriarchy is hugely entrenched in most African settings (such as Nigeria) in norms, values and customs, such that separating it from African culture in particular and life in general is unthinkable for many people (Bvukutwa, 2019).\nGender role and workplace behaviour: Appropriate workplace behaviour is critical for the good functioning and success of an organisation (Lynch, 2002). Researchers have studied workplace behaviour from many viewpoints, which have provided multivariate perspectives on the subject. These include multidisciplinary (Zald and Ash, 1966), systematic research (McShane and Von Glinow, 2018), contingency (Greenberg and Baron, 2008) and open-system (Cook and Hunsaker, 2001) perspectives. Other researchers have highlighted the multilevel analysis of workplace behaviour and have emphasised the importance of studying OB at individual, group and organisational levels (McShane and Von Glinow, 2018). Organisations comprise individuals who are central to workplace behaviour; groups who interact with and influence each other; and organisations in which interactions and various activities take place (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). Different levels of analysis are therefore necessary for understanding individual behaviours within organisations, because people always act within the context of their environment.\nConceptualising patriarchy: Patriarchy is a feminist concept that is used to understand and analyse the systematic organisation of male supremacy and female subordination on the one hand or the domination of women by men on the other (Aina, 1998). Patriarchy is probably the most overused feminist theory, but it is also the most under-theorised (Kandiyoti, 1998). Walby (1990) described patriarchy as a social system in which men hold authority over women, children and property. The values of a patriarchal culture include control and domination, and it is male centred and male identified (Becker, 1999; Kalabamu, 2006). Patriarchy is a system in which women are subject to economic dependence, violence, domestication and the peripherals of decision making. Existing research evidence shows that patriarchy, often existing in developing countries and Islamic contexts, is the prime obstacle to women's advancement and development (e.g. Abalkhail, 2017; Lekchiri et al., 2019; Karam and Afiouni, 2014; Sidani et al., 2015; Sultana, 2011).\nPatriarchy in the Nigerian context: Like most African countries, patriarchy is prevalent in Nigerian institutions, from places of religious worship (e.g. churches and mosques) to the home and family domain, extending to work organisations. This is accompanied by unequal gender relations, which place women in a subordinate position (Abara, 2012; Akintan, 2013; Makama, 2013). Patriarchy, as a dominant framework in Nigeria, therefore tends to govern everyday interactions. It is manifested in gender differences across socioeconomic and political sectors, practices and behaviours (Adisa et al., 2019; Makama, 2013).\nResearch methodology: This study examines the impact of patriarchy on women's workplace behaviour. To understand better this complex issue, the study deploys a qualitative research approach. We have adopted this approach because it is concerned with life as it is lived, activities as they unfold and situations as they occur in day-to-day activities (Bryman and Bell, 2011). In this study, our focus is on exploring lived experiences, particularly the accounts of the lived experiences of the female participants in the research. We seek to understand, explain and articulate what these experiences uniquely infer for our participants in the sociocultural context of the society in which they live and work. It is for this reason that we believe a qualitative research paradigm is best suited to this study given its fundamental emphasis on intentionality, rationality and meaning in human social relations as well as on the social construction of meaning in a way that cannot be statistically measured in terms of quantity, amount or frequency (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998; Walliman, 2006).\nResearch findings: Four major themes related to the impact of patriarchy on the women's workplace behaviour were identified: levels of patriarchal display - an indicator for workplace behaviour; patriarchy and organisational performance; patriarchy and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB); and the idealism and reality of patriarchy in organisational practice. Each theme is characterised by ingrained patriarchal norms that reflect the patriarchal nature of Nigerian society and its impact on the participants' workplace behaviour. Participants drew on their experiences of working in organisations in which patriarchy is an established norm. The overall findings show that the embedded practice of patriarchy does indeed shape women's work behaviour. More interestingly, patriarchy in this context is nuanced, where the levels of its display (ranging from \"weak\" or \"liberal\", to \"strong\") present as different, depending on each man's own individual personality and in some cases on the organisational position of the women with whom these men interact. We address this nuanced representation in the next sections.\nLevel of patriarchal display - an indicator for workplace behaviour: Examining their organisational lives in depth, the participants described patriarchy as a contextual force that shapes their workplace behaviour. One participant observed: \"let me put it this way: In Nigeria, masculinity and patriarchy are regarded as a 'birth right' for men rather than an ascribed status [...] therefore it is only natural that they exhibit their 'patriarchal authority' wherever they go\" (Suzanne, 31 years old). The participants noted that the level of patriarchy that their male managers and peers exhibit towards them has a strong influence on their workplace behaviour. One interviewee remarked:Nigerian men are extremely patriarchal in nature, and most of them tend to bring their patriarchal attitudes to the workplace. However, the propensity to display patriarchal attitudes varies among them: some strong, some weak. Working with men with \"weak\" patriarchal attitudes makes working life easier for me and brings out the best in me, because they treat me with respect, seek my opinions on issues, carry me along at work, and apologise whenever they need to. Unfortunately, you don't get that all the time.(Patricia, 27 years old)\nPatriarchy and organisational performance: Patriarchy traditionally undervalues the social conditions of women in Nigerian society and empowers men to dominate women at work, which ultimately affects their performance and that of the organisation. Participants tend to associate patriarchy/being patriarchal with managerial attitudes of \"bossiness\" and other forms of disrespect and high-handedness. They commented on how this phenomenon negatively impacted their work-related activities. One participant remarked:It really nauseates me. My manager is, irritatingly, very bossy. He likes to order me [and other women] around, and he talks to me with disdain. I have complained to him a few times about his patriarchal attitude [...] he was upset and told me: \"How dare you complain about my attitude. I have someone like you as a wife at home. You don't query what I do or what I say\". His attitude affects my performance because he always upsets me. Many times, I will complain to my colleagues, and other ladies also express having experienced similar encounters with him. His patriarchal attitude [which happens quite often] always upsets and unsettles me and sometimes causes me to make mistakes.(Joy, 40 years old)\nPatriarchy and organisational citizenship behaviour: OCB is important for both individual and organisational success. OCB includes actions that are \"discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognised by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate, promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization\" (Organ, 1988, p. 4). Such behaviours range from performing extra duties without complaint to helping other employees within the organisation. Highlighting the impact of patriarchy on women's workplace behaviour, the participants reported that their male managers' and colleagues' patriarchal attitudes often negatively affect their OCB. All of the participants perceived patriarchy as a deterrent to OCB. The accounts of several participants highlight this fact:I do not owe anybody, not even my extremely patriarchal and rude manager, 100% of my performance or loyalty. The atmosphere is very patriarchal. The manager and even my male colleagues do not relate to me [and other women] as colleagues. They are used to treating women as subordinates. Would I go out of my way to do anything for the organisation? I am sorry - I cannot. I just want to do my basic duty and leave.(Fatty, 37 years old)\nThe idealism and reality of patriarchy in organisational practice: Exploring the interplay between what is ideal and what is real workplace behaviour, the participants reported that the ideal workplace behaviour in relation to men and women only exists on paper. Nigerian organisations are patriarchal, and men unconsciously move around with their \"toga of patriarchy\" in society, including in the workplace. The organisational system reinforces patriarchy and effectively creates inequality and discrimination. One participant revealed:Personally, I don't think that women can achieve equality with men. In fact, the discrimination, in my opinion, will go on forever. For example, the position of assistant operations manager became vacant last year. I was the best fit for the position in terms of qualification and experience at work, but a man was appointed even though I was more qualified. I lost out because I am a woman. It confirms the reality of being a woman and working in a patriarchal and male-dominated organisation.(Lilian, 29 years old)\nDiscussion: The women interviewed for this study worked in heavily male-dominated working environments in which patriarchal norms and gender biases are deeply ingrained. Using patriarchy as a theoretical lens, this study revealed how a male-dominated gender structure negatively impacted women's workplace behaviour. We have been able to demonstrate that the Nigerian organisations' gender structure acts as a social structure with particular powers that enabled male to dominate and consign female workers to the peripherals of the organisations. This has ultimately revealed the nature of the gender relationship prevalent in workplaces in Nigeria and the degree of discrimination experienced by women working there.\nConclusions: This paper has highlighted the inimical consequences of strong patriarchal norms and attitudes concerning women's workplace behaviour in the context of Nigerian organisations. The study has demonstrated that the patriarchal system promotes greater gender inequality and supports patriarchal gender order at work, which Walby (1990) described as public patriarchy. The study has demonstrated the participants' situation of being forced to accept the patriarchal structure and respond with passive resistance at work through the withdrawal of OCB and patchy organisational performance. The study further reveals that the patriarchal regime prevalent in Nigerian organisations appears to be culturally motivated because female managers also find managing male colleagues difficult. A deeper understanding of the huge challenges women face in this context may go some way towards highlighting and challenging entrenched patriarchal attitudes and practices that negatively affect women's workplace behaviour. Conclusively, this paper provides a strong empirical contribution to the wider issues of gender and work in the key area of non-western context and thus suggests women's propensity to embrace OCB could be high in a work environment in which patriarchal proclivity is low. Conversely, women's workplace behaviour, work performance and organisational development will suffer in environments in which patriarchal proclivity is strong. These conclusions highlight the potential danger posed by strong patriarchal proclivity to both human and organisational development.\nImplications, limitations and agenda for future research: The analysis presented in this study has demonstrated that strong patriarchy ultimately drives the culture in most organisations in Nigeria. Patriarchal attitudes tactically establish a situation in which women are dominated, discriminated against and permanently placed in inferior positions - even when they have risen to a managerial rank. This patriarchal regime therefore has important consequences for women's workplace behaviour to which organisations must now pay attention in order to ensure a fairer workplace in which employees can thrive. Conducting periodic reviews on culture and employee behaviour that ensure all employees, regardless of gender, are fairly and inclusively treated may be one possible way for organisations to achieve this. It is essential that organisations provide women with the much needed voice that is critical to challenging patriarchal behaviour and fighting oppressive gender discrimination that undermine their performance and OCB. This requires that organisations maintain and duly observe institutional policies regarding equal opportunities, equal rights and workplace fairness to ensure a fairer workplace, including the option to explore legal means to penalise offenders where necessary.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: By conceptualising patriarchy in the workplace as a social situation, the purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of patriarchal attitudes and their impact on women's workplace behaviour among Nigerian organisations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a qualitative research approach, drawing on data from 32 semi-structured interviews with female employees and managers in two high-street banks in Nigeria.\nFindings: The study finds that patriarchy shapes women's behaviour in ways that undermine their performance and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Furthermore, the study finds that patriarchal attitudes, often practised at home, are frequently transferred to organisational settings. This transference affects women's workplace behaviour and maintains men's (self-perceived) superior status quo, whereby women are dominated, discriminated against and permanently placed in inferior positions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited sample and scope of the research.\nPractical implications: The challenges posed by the strong patriarchy on women's workplace behaviour are real and complex, and organisations must address them in order to create a fairer workplace in which employees can thrive. It is therefore essential for organisations to examine periodically their culture to ensure that all employees, regardless of gender, are involved in the organisation's affairs. Furthermore, organisations need to help women become more proactive in combating patriarchal behaviour, which often affects their performance and OCB. This requires organisations to affirm consistently their equal opportunities, equal rights and equal treatment policies. It is essential that organisations take this problem seriously by attaching due penalty to gender discrimination, as this will go a long way in ensuring positive outcomes for women and providing a fairer workplace.\nOriginality/value: This study provides empirical evidence that a more egalitarian work environment (in Nigerian banking) will result in improved performance from female employees and organisations. It calls for greater policy and organisational interventions to create a more inclusive work environment and an equal society.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Implementing knowledge management in university libraries of Punjab, Pakistan
|
[
"Pakistan",
"Libraries",
"Information management",
"Knowledge management",
"Academic librarians",
"Knowledge implementation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Rapid technological changes are taking place in the current age of information. Kumar (2010) and Sian Lee and Kelkar (2013) report that libraries are going through extraordinary changes in their environment due to impact of, globalization, flow of information, economic competition and communication technologies. Knowledge management (KM) is an emerging concept and method of management (Massingham, 2014). It emerged as a business trend in 1990, and now it has become a crucial tool for enhancement of performance in all types of organizations, including business or service oriented and government or private organizations. KM is a process of creating, storing, sharing and re-using organizational knowledge, which enables an organization to achieve its goals and objectives (White, 2004). KM has great significance for librarians, libraries and information centers (Nazim and Husain, 2013; Nazim and Mukherjee, 2013a; Serenko et al., 2016; Abukhader, 2016). It is a key for the success and existence of academic libraries (Porumbeanu, 2010) and is an important asset of any organization (Gandhi, 2004). The goal of KM is to improve the efficacy and to maintain the existence of an organization (Marouf, 2017) and to raise the outputs and functional efficiency through maximum usage of knowledge (Wen, 2005).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 The concepts of knowledge\n3. Statement of the problem: The technological innovations have greatly impacted on library environment. The nature of library collections, functions, services and the needs of users have relatively changed (Raja et al., 2009). Academic librarians possess a vast explicit and tacit knowledge, which they use in performing library tasks and operations, but they do not know what type of knowledge they are using. There is also a need to organize the assets of libraries in a meaningful way to improve their operations and services. Therefore, studies regarding implementing KM in academic libraries are essential to determine the prospects of implementation of this concept in different countries (Islam et al., 2015). Implementation of KM in academic libraries is crucial to meet the technological challenges and current needs of users. The literature review showed that various studies have been conducted on the topic of KM in a libraries perspective. Most of these studies have been conducted in developed countries, but literature in Pakistan lacks on the implementation of KM in academic libraries. This indicates that a major gap exists in the literature, and this has motivated the researchers to investigate this topic in Pakistani university libraries. This study will provide a base to develop a KM strategy and plan the implementation in academic libraries in Pakistan. This study facilitates an important step toward the management of intangible assets in Pakistani libraries. The results of the study will also help to understand the relationship between KM and LIS.\n4. Objectives of the study: The objectives of the study were to:\n5. Research methodology: 5.1 Instrument\n6. Delimitations and limitations of the study: The study was delimited to the public and private universities recognized by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and located in the province of Punjab and in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. The main libraries of universities were included in the study, while departmental libraries were excluded. Professional librarians having a degree of LIS and working in capacity of chief librarian, acting chief librarian or reference librarians were invited to participate in the study. The researchers could not cover most of the universities due to departmental restrictions, time and cost problems. Therefore, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to all libraries in Pakistan.\n7. Results and discussion: This study was conducted to explore various aspects of implementing KM in the university libraries of Pakistan. To achieve these objectives, diverse areas associated with KM were examined. The results and analysis of all aspects of KM explored in this study are presented as follows.\n8. Conclusions: In light of the findings of this study, it is concluded that Pakistani academic librarians have the opinion that \"KM is a purposeful management process to capture, exploit, share and apply both tacit and explicit knowledge for the benefit of the employees, organization and its customers\". The majority of academic librarians are aware of KM concept. There is a level of understanding about KM among library professionals in Pakistan. The respondents of this study largely became familiar with KM by reading the literature and perceive that KM is not a new discipline; rather it is simply a re-branding of librarianship or information management. Most of the academic librarians understand the purposes of implementing KM in libraries, and that this should lead to improvement of library services, to better meet the needs of users, to improve the control existing knowledge and to manage the explosion of information. The study also asserts that KM can be applied in all sections of libraries, particularly in reference services, digital and online services, resource sharing and networking, information literacy program, resources management, decision-making and planning and policy making.\n9. Recommendations: In light of the findings of this study, some recommendations of the researchers are discussed as follows. Information and communication technologies play a key role in the implementation of KM; therefore, it is highly recommended that ICT-related infrastructure should be made available in all university libraries of Pakistan. This will help the Pakistani LIS professionals in the better implementation of KM in their respective libraries. To enhance the library services, the Pakistani LIS professionals need to apply KM in all potential sections of their libraries. Likewise, for the better utilization and implementation of KM in Pakistani libraries, LIS professionals need to share their KM-related knowledge and expertise with colleagues serving in their universities and in other universities. University library in-charge/heads should encourage and empower their library professionals, to create awareness about KM among their colleagues and peers. In this respect, they need to exploit social media networks for KM and knowledge sharing best practices. Library professionals need to learn the core skills of KM implementation, especially communication skills, information management skills, IT skills, leadership skills, team working skills, decision-making skills and project management skills.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Knowledge management (KM) is an emerging method of management. This study aims to explore the various aspects of implementing KM in university libraries of Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire, and data were collected from 75 chief librarians and reference librarians of 48 university libraries of Pakistan. A total of 60 valid responses received and analyzed using SPSS version-21.\nFindings: The results disclose that a majority of respondents are familiar with KM, and literature reading is the major source of their awareness. The Pakistani academic librarians believe that KM can be applied, in the reference services, resources sharing, networking and information literacy programs of libraries. While, need for professional training and KM education are also reported. KM can be implemented in libraries through, use of ICT, developing knowledge sharing culture and developing mentorship in organizations. A lack of staff training, lack of expertise in KM, lack of knowledge gaining and sharing culture, lack of understanding of KM concept and its benefits and a lack of IT infrastructure are the major challenges faced by library and information science (LIS) professionals. Communication skills, information management skills, IT skills, leadership skills, human resource management skills are identified as key skills for the implementation of KM.\nPractical implications: This study provides a base to develop a KM strategy and implementation plan for academic libraries in Pakistan. It will facilitate to constitute an important step toward the management of intangible assets in Pakistani libraries.\nOriginality/value: The results of the study will unveil the perceptions of academic librarians toward KM. It will help to understand the relationship between KM and LIS. The study will also identify the challenges faced by librarians and skills required for the implementation of KM in libraries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Promoting women to MD in investment banking: multi-level influences
|
[
"Organizational culture",
"Meso-level influences",
"Professional service firms",
"Promotion processes",
"Relational processes",
"Women in banking",
"Work identity",
"Financial services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For the last 25 years the professional services sector has provided opportunities for women to achieve their professional career ambitions (Burke, 1996). Although women continue to join professional service firms (PSFs) in record numbers, including investment banking, few are reaching managing director (MD) and partnership positions (Kumra and Vinnicombe, 2008), despite publicly made commitments to pursue greater levels of equality and diversity (Kornberger et al., 2010).\nBackground: One of the biggest challenges within sociological research has been understanding the relationship between the individual and society - the individual lives within and is shaped by society and s/he in turn shapes the society in which they live, they are \"agents in the social world\" (Layder, 2006, p. 4). This approach represents a dualism between agency (individual action) and structure (of society) and a distinction between macro and micro level influences (Layder, 2006), but neglects meso level influences. Organizations are a particular type of social structure and there has long been a call for greater consideration of different levels of influence on organizational phenomena and the interplay between them (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993; House et al., 1995; Rousseau, 1985). Ashforth and Humphrey (1993, p. 109) argue that \"Micro, meso and macro perspectives are not, of course, mutually exclusive. Indeed it can be argued they constitute a system of interacting parts\".\nThe study: We use data from two projects, spanning 2008-2010, considering women's experiences and perceptions of promotion to MD. Both studies were conducted in major international investment banks using samples taken from the same hierarchical level; the same approach to research design and analysis was used in both cases. Study 1, conducted by one author, includes 33 semi-structured interviews with women at director and MD grade across six global investment banks. Then, to look at the promotion process more precisely, study 2, in which both authors were involved, considers 17 semi-structured interviews of male and female directors and MDs who recently experienced the promotion process to MD from one of those banks.\nFindings: Analysis revealed how success in the promotion process was affected by influences from outside and within the organization and reflected the importance of individual and interpersonal behaviours. By using the relational framework proposed by Syed and Ozbilgin (2009), we were able to identify macro, meso and micro-level influences on women's experiences of promotion and demonstrate how these levels are linked and interwoven. Characteristics of the sample population are provided in Table I.\nDiscussion: The above findings demonstrate the complex interplay between multiple levels of influence on the promotion process to MD within investment banks. This study builds empirically on the relational framework proposed by Syed and Ozbilgin (2009) confirming how no level within the promotion process is independent of the others: this is shown in Figure 1.\nConclusion: The financial sector is in a state of flux - its operational practices have been heavily criticised and much of this has been laid at the door of a culture steeped in male-dominated competitiveness alongside a desire to accumulate great wealth. Men continue to dominate at senior levels and remain responsible for the strategic direction of their firms. Those responsible for diversity and inclusion, both within organizations and within wider society, are now accepting that the problem of gender imbalance at senior levels will not be solved with a \"fix the women\" approach. Our findings contribute to the limited qualitative research exploring senior women's career progression experiences within investment banking. Our use of a multi-level approach provides a more grounded and deeper understanding of the promotion processes within the sector. Our findings emphasise that, whilst there is a move to look at the meso-level influences within women's careers (i.e. the selection, retention and promotion policies and procedures), these cannot be considered in isolation either. Practitioners responsible for the development of their people need to understand that they design their processes in a context of deeply ingrained patterns of behaviours (organizational habitus) which reflect the historical and complex interplay between macro, meso and micro levels of influence. If they are to achieve gender balance at senior levels then processes and procedures should be designed to disrupt rather than reinforce the habitus. This may require them to be both imaginative and brave.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Women remain underrepresented at senior levels in global investment banks. By investigating promotion processes in this sector, and using the concept of a multi-level, relational framework, this paper seeks to examine macro, micro, and meso-level influences, and the interplay between them, as explanations for why more progress is not being made.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are taken from two projects with a total of 50 semi-structured interviews with male and female directors and managing directors (MDs), across six investment banks discussing careers and promotions. An inductive approach was taken to data analysis.\nFindings: Women's lack of representation at the top of investment banks is not simply an individual level problem but is the result of the dynamic interplay between macro- and meso-level influences that impact individual agency, identity and perception of fit.\nResearch limitations/implications: Public debate should be refocused around the meso-level influences of what organizations can do to promote more inclusive cultures and structures thereby enabling more women to achieve MD positions in investment banking.\nOriginality/value: The paper considers challenges women face in their promotion to MD using a multi-level framework demonstrating the impact of each level and their interconnectedness. It contributes to the limited qualitative research exploring the career experiences of senior level individuals in global financial services firms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Why is everything old new again? Revisiting debates about the form and function of research in educational administration
|
[
"Educational research",
"Research methodology",
"Theory",
"History",
"Evaluation",
"Educational administration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Anyone familiar with the mid-twentieth century theory movement within the Educational Administration/Leadership field should have experienced feelings of deja vu while reading the National Research Council's (NRC) 2002 publication, Scientific Research in Education. Critics' reactions to Scientific Research in Education [1], also, undoubtedly conjured up deja vu-like feelings for those familiar with the educational research community's so-called paradigm wars (Gage, 1989) about qualitative and quantitative methods during the twentieth century's final decades. Indeed, in the educational administration field, advocacy for qualitative methods often was coupled with critiques of theory-movement thinking, and these critiques closely resemble the critiques of Scientific Research in Education articulated five decades later.\nThe theory movement: The theory movement in educational administration can be traced back to the middle of the twentieth century. From the start, according to Culbertson (1983), theory movement advocates were guided by a number of assumptions including: (1) \"effective research has its origins in theory and is guided by theory,\" (2) \"the social sciences...[are] essential in theory development and training,\" (3) \"scientific theories treat phenomena as they are,\" and (4) \"statements about what administrators and organizations ought to do cannot be encompassed in science or theory\" (p. 15).Culbertson (1983) acknowledged that theory-movement thinking was not original, and, in fact, he traced the movement's thinking back to the version of logical positivism promoted by the Vienna Circle several decades earlier. What he did not say is that those who advocated for the development and use of empirically grounded theory in the educational administration field were responding to a very different problem and addressing a very different audience than members of the Vienna Circle. The Vienna Circle challenged traditional philosophers who espoused grand metaphysical visions of the world and what Vienna Circle members saw as intellectually groundless ethical prescriptions. Theory movement advocates, by contrast, were challenging a field in which the socialization and education of its members had been built largely around the craft knowledge of practitioners--knowledge that often was portrayed as \"a mere collection of 'war stories' told and retold by retired school administrators\" (Fusarelli, 2006b, p. 1,044).The social scientists who served as the titular leaders of the theory movement also claimed that the limited research that had been conducted in the educational administration field prior to the advent of the theory movement was woefully inadequate. Halpin (in Papa, 2009), for example, described a 1954 meeting of the National Conference of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) during whichthe first confrontation between behavioral scientists and professors of educational administration took place. Coladarci (of Stanford), Getzels (of Chicago), and Halpin (then of Ohio State University) pointed out to the group--and not gently--that what...members of NCPEA were doing in the name of research was distinctly a-theoretical in character and sloppy in quality. The reception that these three behavioral scientists received at that meeting can scarcely be described as cordial. (pp. 154)The encounter at the 1954 meeting described by Halpin was quickly followed by publications such as Coladarci and Getzel's (1955) The Use of Theory in Educational Administrations and Griffiths' (1956) Human Relations in School Administration, both of which made the case for modeling educational administration research on the modus operandi of social scientists. A key piece of that modus operandi, of course, was social scientists' focus on theory development and validation. Other influential books that were published during the same period made similar arguments. (For a discussion of these, see Culbertson, 1988.)Arguably, over the years, one of the most influential publications advocating theory-movement thinking has been a widely used textbook, Hoy and Miskel's Educational Administration: Theory, Research, and Practice, the first edition of which was published in 1978, roughly 20 years after the theory movement began. The book touted the virtues of leaders using generalizable scientific theory that linked causes and effects to make decisions in and for schools and suggested that such theory could only be developed through rigorous and systematic empirical research. One indicator of the continuing impact of this book is the publication in 2012 of book's ninth edition. In this edition, John Tartar is listed as a co-author, along with Hoy and Miskel.\nParadigm war critiques of theory-movement thinking: Theory-movement thinking was challenged during the so-called paradigm wars (Gage, 1989) that occurred in the educational research field during the final quarter of the twentieth century. Ostensibly, the paradigm wars were about the legitimacy and utility of qualitative research methods. But, as Parsons (1937, p. 481) long ago observed, methodological disputes are seldom about methodology alone. Parson's insight certainly applies to debates about methods that occurred in the educational administration field during the final quarter of the twentieth century.Thomas Greenfield's critique\nEverything old is new again: the twenty-first century science wars: Nobody declared victory in the paradigm wars; rather, the educational research field, including the subfield of educational administration/leadership, simply drifted into a period of detente during the last decade or so of the twentieth century. During this period, the educational research community practiced what elsewhere I characterized as big-tent politics (Donmoyer, 1999). AERA journals and journals in the Educational-Administration field, for example, began publishing qualitative studies, and at AERA annual meetings, some researchers quite literally \"danced their data.\" Even among researchers who were not inclined to dance their research results, there were many who followed the lead of Bates and Foster and made research-for-social-justice their professional mantra [5]. In short, room was made under the field's new \"big tent\" for a variety of paradigmatically different scholarship.The end of detente\nIn search of a new approach to managing unresolvable disputes: The realization that the twenty-first century science wars could, to some extent, be seen by reasonable people as a kind of historical reenactment of the twentieth century paradigm wars, not only in terms of the arguments made by the warring parties but also in terms of the outcome (or, to be precise, the lack of outcome) produced, encouraged me to search for a way to circumvent epistemological and methodological disputes in our field when such disputes cannot be resolved and when they distract from focusing on matters of practice. That search netted a new and somewhat different inquiry strategy for our field.Preliminary thinking\nConclusion: Schwab's deliberation concept has the potential to make university-based administrator preparation programs once again viable. The notion allows administrator preparation to stay focused on the real-world problems of the field while employing a wide range of research and theory as decision-making tools about which real-world options to implement. Embracing the deliberation strategy also should help us circumvent the methodological and epistemological disputes of the past and avoid spending time and energy in the future engaging in yet another historical re-enactment of the paradigm or science wars. When deliberation becomes a signature pedagogy in the educational administration/leadership field, everything old should no longer be new again.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper has a twofold purpose: (1) to demonstrate, largely with historical evidence, that, contrary to what some have argued, thinking about educational research articulated at the start of the twenty-first century was not really \"new wine in new bottles\" but, rather, a continuation of the so-called paradigm wars about, ultimately, unresolvable methodological and epistemological issues that occurred during the twentieth century; (2) to suggest a way members of the educational administration field might transcend, or at least circumvent, time-consuming and distracting battles about unresolvable methodological and epistemological issues in the future while keeping their focus on issues of practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a quasi-historical essay that uses influential literature during the historical periods focused on as evidence to support the essay's arguments.\nFindings: The paper demonstrates that twentieth century philosophical disagreements about research methods and the role that educational research can play in policy and practice decision making were not resolved but, rather, were largely reenacted during the first decade of the twenty-first century, again without a resolution. The paper proposes a way that administrators, policymakers and researchers can manage this situation and still use research to make policy and practice decisions.\nPractical implications: The paper suggests a new role for both school administrators and policymakers to play. If administrators/policymakers play this role successfully, all types of research can inform decision making about policy and practice, and researchers can concentrate on doing their research rather than engaging in unresolvable philosophical disputes.\nOriginality/value: Although a great deal has been written about the twentieth century's theory movement and paradigm wars and the twenty-first century's so-called science wars, the link between these phenomena has not been discussed in the literature. In addition, there have been few attempts to articulate an operational strategy for managing unresolvable philosophical disputes about research methods and the role that research can play in decision making. This paper tackles both matters.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Can systems dynamics be effective in modelling dynamic business systems?
|
[
"Process management",
"Management information systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The economist and statistician Box (1979), with reference to statistical probability models, notably opined that \"All models are wrong - but some models are useful\". This largely misquoted but nonetheless famous statement, outlined Box's view that decision makers sometimes have to make decisions with incomplete information, which may be only explained by the best available models. As such, any mental or conceptual model which attempts to encapsulate all possible facets of a given system or situation, may be limited in its expression due to real-world complexity or due to subjective over-simplification of the same reality, at the time that the model was formulated. Box's argument is that if the boundaries of a system can be defined as far as possible, then the resulting systems model, can also be restricted to be within realistic and quantifiable bounds.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To consider whether business process and management information systems adequately generate \"complete\" models of the particular business environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A conceptual discussion and approach are taken.\nFindings: - Because of the flexibility and simplicity with which business system tools can be applied to modelling a system, it is quite possible to apply the wrong method to a given case; and thereby reach the wrong conclusions about the behaviour of that system. Considers that systems dynamics methods should be applied more openly in the BPM and MIS research fields. Tools and techniques available are under-rated in terms of their applicability and capability to provide novel representations of real-world situations.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is of value to all those involved with management information.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Revenue management in road-based freight transportation: Impacts of uncertainty of capacity consumption
|
[
"Freight forwarding",
"Demand forecasting",
"Decision making",
"Decision support systems",
"Revenue management",
"Capacity control",
"Freight transportation",
"Demand uncertainty",
"Simulation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Freight carriers operate trucks and vans to offer the movement of diversified freight items on roads. They are regularly faced with an important decision-making problem: should a customer request be fulfilled (accepted) or not (rejected)? Capacity control as part of revenue management (RM) is applied successfully in related decision problems from passenger transportation (airline ticketing, train tickets, cruise voyages). However, there are significant differences in the demand for passenger transportation and for freight transportation. The forecast accuracy in freight transportation is considerably lower than in passenger transportation. In particular, the capacity consumption of a freight item is often subject to ad hoc variations so that a forecast of the actual capacity requirement becomes impossible. Notwithstanding, capacity control tools assume the existence of fairly precise demand forecasts. Furthermore, the proposed decision models typically consider products rather than particular requests, so that the capacity consumption of a particular request is not considered.\n2 Decision situation: 2.1 Decision support for accepting/rejecting transport requests\n3 Capacity control system: The procedure capacity_control( ) whose pseudo-code, as shown below, is used to process the online model (M1, ... , M\n4 Computational simulation experiments: 4.1 Setup of the experiments\n5 Conclusions: We have analyzed a complicated dynamic decision problem from transportation logistics. This problem represents the acceptance problem of a freight carrier who has to decide which proposed requests should be accepted and which proposals should be rejected. A capacity control strategy has been suggested. For reducing the negative impacts of inadequate capacity consumption forecasts we have proposed to reflect already collected knowledge about the actual capacity consumption of recently accepted requests into the calculation of least revenues (bid-prices) that must be gained from further request proposals. The application of this feedback information leads to a partial compensation of revenue losses caused by underestimated and/or overestimated capacity consumptions. Thus, we have proposed an extension of the capacity control toolbox that is able to raise revenues by observing continuously the booking process and adjusting the bid-price calculation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Freight carriers operating in a spot-market environment are faced with uncertain future capacity demand, actual revenues, and properties of freight items. They require information about the expected future consumption of limited capacity to derive suitable request acceptance decisions. The purpose of this paper is to present a new idea to improve the handling of inaccurate information on the weight and volume of upcoming requests.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors start with the definition of a new mathematical optimization model as the backbone of a capacity control system. This model is embedded within a rolling-horizon decision-making process involving consecutively arriving requests. Computational simulation experiments are carried out to evaluate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed decision support system. The authors investigate how the new model contributes towards keeping the negative impacts of inadequate forecasts of the expected volume of future requests as low as possible.\nFindings: In traditional application fields of capacity control (airline ticketing or hotel reservations) the physical extent of a request is always 1 (set/bed/room). In road-based freight transportation the variety of the physical extent of requests is much more complicated and complex. The major finding is that existing capacity control approaches are unable to meet the special requirements of road-haulage. Innovative capacity control features are necessary in order to cope with the higher request portfolio complexity.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses the requirements of a capacity control system for road-based freight transportation. An innovative decision support system is evaluated. For the first time, the authors present a comprehensive quantitative simulation study dedicated to this complicated decision-making situation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Business model innovation in the agri-food sector: a literature review
|
[
"Innovation",
"Literature review",
"Business model",
"Agri-food sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The agri-food sector[1], the combined agricultural and food sector, is an important part of the European Union's economy. It accounts for 19.2 million jobs (9 per cent of total employment) and for 4.3 per cent of GDP in the EU-27. The European Commission (2007) defines the agri-food sector as the combination of the primary sector (agriculture, hunting, and forestry) and the food industry (production of food products, beverages, and tobacco). According to Leis et al. (2011), most firms in the EU agri-food sector are micro-sized enterprises with fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover of EUR2 million or less.\nBMs and BMI: The BM concept, which is multifaceted, focuses on the systems level with its holistic approach to describing how companies do business. The concept can communicate strategic choices, explain how companies create, deliver, and capture value, and facilitate identification of competitors within a complex system of interrelated activities (Lambert and Davidson, 2012; Zott et al., 2011). The BM, as Doganova and Eyquem-Renault (2009, p. 1559) state, is a specific device that \"embodies the uncertain and distributed nature of innovation\".\nMethodological approach: This paper, as a review of empirical and conceptual articles, was inspired by the work of several researchers. Among those researchers are the following: Collin et al. (1996), Hart (2001), Fagerberg et al. (2012), and Horte et al. (2008). Figure 1 is an overview of the working process in this paper.\nFindings: As far as publication dates, two facts are observable. First, around 2005 the number of article increased when research in the agri-food sector became a significant research area. More than 50 articles, or about 10 per cent of the articles in the review, appeared in publications in 2005. Second, research in the agri-food sector is a relatively new research area. More than 50 per cent of the articles in the review were published in the years between 2010 and 2014. Table III presents the distribution of the reviewed articles from 1990 to 2014.\nMost cited articles: Table VI lists the most cited articles from our review. Most of these articles were published in the last seven years. It is also evident that the articles have appeared in journals that focus on disparate subjects (e.g. politics, legislation, ethics, social entrepreneurship, and technology). The agri-food sector has broad appeal and is relevant in many social, political, and business areas (Caiazza et al., 2014).\nUnit of analysis: Five analytical units related to BMs and BMI are observable in the reviewed articles: the individual level, the company level, the regional level, the national level, and the global level. The most common unit of analysis is the company level. Table VII presents the distribution of the units of analysis. (Only 308 articles are listed because of the inability to categorize some articles because of limited access to content.)\nMethodology of the articles: Of the 403 articles that could be categorized by methodology, 283 (around 70 per cent) take an empirical approach. The remaining 120 articles (around 30 per cent) take a conceptual approach. The empirical articles use scientific data for explorative, descriptive, or explanatory purposes. The conceptual articles, which focus on a concept or theory, do not present scientific data. Table VIII presents these categories.\nTheory in the articles: Of the 505 articles reviewed, 251 articles have no, or very limited, foundation in theories linked to BMs, BMI, or the agri-food sector. Table IX presents the seven main theoretical approaches in the 254 articles that use theory to a larger extent.\nConclusions: The intention of this SLR is to analyse the research on BMs and BMI in the agri-food sector. Of the 505 peer-reviewed articles (identified in a web-based search) that were published in more than 300 different journals in the years between 1990 and 2014, some 50 per cent appeared between 2010 and 2014. The review addresses the where, when, and how this research was conducted. It is both an author-centred and a concept-centred analysis. Thus, the review reports on the articles' research setting and journal of publication as well as examines the articles' research methodology, use of theory, and unit of analysis.\nImplications for future research: Consistent with the discussion by Baregheh et al. (2014), this review suggests that the research in the agri-food sector would benefit from further development of its theoretical foundations. Given the importance of the sector, particularly with respect to the many small and medium-sized firms in the EU, more attention should be given to how such firms can use BMs and BMI to compete in world markets. It is an important issue for society as well. Thus, more research is needed into how the agri-food sector can benefit by investigations of its unique identity. For example, researchers could study the relevant agricultural value chains such as milk chains, food chains, supply chains, and marketing chains. More research into the use of networks and clusters in the agri-food sector is also needed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Because the business model (BM) is a fairly new concept, research is lacking on business model innovation (BMI) in certain industry sectors. One such sector is the agri-food sector. Using a systematic literature review (SLR) of peer-reviewed journal articles published from 1990 to 2014, the purpose of this paper is to examine the where, when, and how of the use of BMs and BMI in the agri-food sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A web-based search was conducted to identify peer-reviewed journal articles that contained a combination of \"BM\" or \"BMI\" with agriculture-related and food-related terms (e.g. \"agri-food sector\"). After winnowing out irrelevant and duplicate articles, 505 articles were chosen for analysis.\nFindings: Using categories, the paper analyses various data about the selected articles. The categories include research settings, units of analysis, methodologies, and theories. Based on this analysis, the paper finds that these agri-food sector articles are primarily qualitative, empirical studies that focus on one or a few companies (i.e. case studies). The paper also finds that theory is not yet well-developed in the research on the agri-food sector.\nOriginality/value: SLRs of various concepts, theories, and models are common in many fields (e.g. information/software technology, healthcare, and organizational management). However, no such review is available for the agri-food sector, in particular in its use of BMs and BMI. This paper addresses that gap with its review of relevant articles published in more than 300 journals in recent years. Based on this review, the paper draws conclusions about BMI in the agri-food sector and offers suggestions for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A two-level EFQM self-assessment in an Italian hospital
|
[
"Total quality management",
"Self assessment",
"Leadership",
"European Foundation for Quality Management",
"Hospitals",
"Italy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and background: Italian healthcare organisations have a lengthy tradition of improving care. Professional quality issues were proposed for the first time in the fifties and sixties, stimulated by experiences in other European countries and the USA. During the seventies and eighties, quality circles and other quality improvement methods were introduced. During the same period, Italy's quality authority, VRQ, was founded in Udine and several national and international quality conferences were organised throughout the country. A national accreditation law was passed, establishing minimum healthcare organisation structural, technological and organisational standards. Consequently, a number of organisations implemented accreditation programmes for their specialist medical departments. At the end of the twentieth century, total quality management (TQM) and continuous quality improvement (CQI) were discussed by healthcare service policy-makers and innovators. The TQM movement was regarded as the most promising approach for preparing hospitals to meet epidemiological and technological changes. This led, in recent years, to hospitals developing a quality policy and implementing modern quality management principles, aimed at motivating healthcare professionals and transforming hospital culture. In 2001, a group of seven hospitals in north-eastern and central Italy used the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model as a TQM framework (De Pieri et al., 2002; Vernero et al., 2004). One of these pioneer organisations was Udine Hospital (Vernero et al., 2002).The first EFQM step entails self-assessment aimed at identifying strengths and areas for improvement. As might be expected, leadership, policy making, processes, customers and result orientation are the main assessment areas. The second step specifies, conducts and monitors improvement projects. Hospitals carrying out EFQM self-assessment usually involve top managers only. The Udine Hospital team, however, wanted to reach more people in order to obtain a complete overview and have a stronger impact on quality culture. A two-level approach was developed and implemented with the aim of involving top-level hospital and departmental managers. The central self-assessment questions were:* How do first- and second-level managers assess the hospital and its departments?* What are the strengths and areas for improvement in the hospital and departments?These general aspects can be explored using five questions directly related to the EFQM excellence model:1. What are the first-level managers' opinions of the nine EFQM criteria applied to their hospital and departments?2. What score do five different professional groups in first-level management give the nine EFQM criteria?3. What are the second-level managers' opinions of the nine EFQM criteria applied to the hospital and their departments?4. How do doctors and nurses in the ten clinical departments rate the hospital's overall quality?5. Which improvement projects can be implemented to increase the quality level of low-scoring criteria?This article reports Udine Hospital's EFQM self-assessment project by describing the EFQM approach, the hospital setting and the method used including the self-assessment procedure, questionnaire and data processing. Results from top-level and second-level assessments are presented. The findings are discussed with reference to future quality improvement projects at Udine Hospital and six other Italian hospitals.\nThe EFQM approach: The EFQM is a membership-based, no-profit organisation founded in 1988 by 14 representatives of European multinational companies, with the mission of driving sustainable excellence in Europe. The European Commission and the European Organisation for Quality supported the initiative. The founding members developed a multi-dimensional quality management representation, known as the EFQM model, and introduced the principles of self-assessment and the European Quality Award Program (Nabitz et al., 2000). The EFQM excellence model (see Figure 1) is a non-prescriptive framework with nine dimensions, called criteria, of which five are enablers (leadership, policy and strategy, people, partnerships and resources and processes describe how things are done in the organisation) and four results criteria (customers, people, society and key performance describe what is achieved by the enablers). Each criterion is weighted according to its importance; the most important, customer results, has a 20 per cent weighting. The four results and five enabler criteria have a total weight of 50 per cent (EFQM, 1999).The EFQM's underlying assumption is that:Excellent results with respect to performance, customers, people and society are achieved through leadership driving policy and strategy, people, partnerships and resources and processes (EFQM web site, 2006).Healthcare organisation in the Netherlands (Nabitz and Klazinga, 1999), Germany (Moeller, 2001), UK (Stahr et al., 2000; Jackson, 2001) and Spain (Arcelay et al., 1999; Ruiz et al., 1999) were the first to use the EFQM approach on a broad scale. The European Commission-funded ExPeRT project (Heaton, 2000; Shaw, 2000) was set up in 1996 to evaluate the use and development of external peer review within the European Union, and included EFQM as one of the external quality approaches most frequently used in Europe, together with International Standards Organisation (ISO), \"Visitatie\" and Accreditation. The EFQM approach is promoted by the EFQM Health Community of Practice (COP), which was founded in 1998 and meets several times a year to collect knowledge and share experiences on its use in healthcare settings (Jackson, 1998). The group includes representatives from most European countries including the Italian hospital network.\nThe Udine hospital setting: Udine's S. Maria della Misericordia Hospital is one of the main healthcare organisations in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in north east Italy. The hospital offers highly specialized healthcare including cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery, grafting and provides important accident and emergency care. It serves a 550,000 population from the local area and other parts of the country. The hospital completes 31,000 inpatient episodes and 2,100,000 outpatient attendances a year. It is equipped with 800 beds, including 46 intensive care, 74 for intermediate care and 90 for day hospital and day surgery. It has 2,900 staff, of which 450 are clinicians and 1,450 nurses and technicians. The hospital's annual budget exceeds EUR200 million. The hospital is governed by a Strategic Directorate including the Chief Executive, Medical Director and Managing Director. In 2001, the hospital was broken down into departments, each one including a number of wards. The hospital's structure and its ten clinical departments are described in Figure 2.Each department has a Clinical Director and a Head Nurse appointed by the Strategic Directorate. The Department Committee that directs and coordinates policy and daily tasks includes all Clinical Directors, Head Nurses and a number of elected representatives. Udine University General Hospital is located next to Udine Hospital and deals with certain specialties. The two hospitals cooperate and a full integration is planned shortly. In order to handle the region's healthcare demands more efficiently, and to prepare for expected epidemiological changes and emerging healthcare technologies, three global improvement programmes were launched in 2001. The first entailed building a new combined hospital, planned to suit the departments' organisation and workload. The new hospital structure takes into account the merger between the two hospitals, which become the central reference point for accident and emergency, day surgery and day hospital activities. The second programme involved hefty investment in new equipment, materials, technology, information and communication technology (ICT). The package included the development, implementation and promotion of the hospital's web site, widespread access to the internet and e-mail, online medical journals, a reference centre and an electronic medical record system. The third project involved far-reaching investments in education, training, knowledge and cultural change aimed at fostering professional development and directing the organisation's culture towards a systemic and result-oriented one, through greater integration and cooperation between professionals. Berwick (1998) mentioned the need for \"system thinking\" in healthcare, as having a holistic view of the organisation and crossing internal and external boundaries. Senge (1990) also identifies \"system thinking\" as one of the key factors of organisational learning. The first step towards this goal, therefore, was EFQM's excellence model-based self-assessment.\nMethod: Introducing the EFQM approach and planning self-assessment\nResearch design: The study is a cross-sectional survey carried out using a 153-item questionnaire that focussed on two objects: the hospital as a whole and its ten clinical departments. The respondents had broad hospital experience, were educated to use the instrument and were categorized as top-level managers (first level, n=41) and departmental managers (second level, n=160). The methodological support, data processing, analyses and reporting were carried out by the hospital's statistical department.First-level data collection: top managers' self-assessment\nResults: First level: top management scores\nDiscussion, conclusions and recommendations: A two-level self-assessment of the EFQM excellence model was carried out at Udine hospital as part of a fundamental organisational and cultural improvement programme. More than 200 managers and professionals (about 7 per cent of the total workforce) were involved in our EFQM self-assessment project. They discussed and learned about the EFQM approach, the basic notions of quality management and the systematic assessment of enablers and results. The hospital's professionals, along with a strong and committed Strategic Directorate, led a journey lasting almost two years. Our two-level hospital and its departments' assessment identifies the main strengths as leadership, policy and strategy, partnership and resources. The areas requiring improvement are the result criteria, mainly people, society and customer results. There was a good correlation between top and middle managers opinions; however significant differences exist between the various professional groups and departments. As a consequence of our education and assessment initiative, hospital staff acquired a common language shared by managers and health professionals, and a systemic approach to quality issues.The general picture emerging from our assessment is clear. The enablers occupy a priority position for both top and middle managers. This provides a solid base for developing a quality culture. Enablers, such as leadership, policy and strategy, partners and resources are well developed in the hospital and in the departments. Key performance results were also measured and are positive. However, people management is weak and presently, customer and society results are not positive either. This picture is consistent for the whole hospital; however, there are major differences between the professional groups and the different departments. For example, administrative directors and emergency staff have different views to other employees. Nevertheless, overall, first-level assessment shows a positive perception of the organisation, slightly higher than other departments. The fact that Enabler scores were higher than those for results showed that many actions were implemented but not routinely measured. Partnership and resources, key performance results and leadership measures currently in progress are consistent with the construction of the new integrated hospital, equipment innovation, materials and technology and promotion of ICT. Recent partnerships with other regional and extra-regional healthcare organisations and the effect on hospital efficiency (shorter length of stay, increased appropriateness of admissions and development of day surgery) are improvements related positively to enablers.Two main areas for improvement were identified: People and society results. In the case of healthcare organisations, the latter is difficult to define and it is, therefore, difficult to develop indicators. At the same time, society and hospital are crucial partners. Local citizens are the Hospital's potential customers and their opinion reflects their confidence in treatment and care - an important aspect and one to be taken seriously. The second area for improvement concerns people results. The low score is mainly owing to the lack of measurements conducted in the past, as well as low motivation and dissatisfaction among nurses and technicians. The different scores obtained for various clinical, managerial, administrative and technological structures also suggest the existence of separate \"worlds\" within the same organisation. However, people management and people results criteria were weak in all seven Italian healthcare organisations performing EFQM self-assessment (Vernero et al., 2004). An inter-organisational work group was established on this issue, which considered how to promote and empower people within the organisations through the integration of personal, professional and organisational values and goals. The aim of the inter-organisational working group was to introduce a new consistent and systematic approach to human resource management, to replace the administrative and bureaucratic approach adopted previously.Other improvement actions were planned and implemented, such as focus groups with patients, relatives and staff and new communications channels between top management and staff. In short, the EFQM model proved to be a good diagnostic tool for the organisation as a whole, as well as for individual departments. Our two-level self-assessment process not only gave answers to five questions directly related to the EFQM excellence model but also achieved other tangible results. Managers and directors recognised that assessing the hospital helped them look beyond the confines of their own individual wards and departments and acquire a more systemic view of the whole organisation. Department assessment also prompted them to focus more on organisational and clinical outcomes as well as staff interaction and external customers. All participants recognised that self-assessment helped them understand the organisation's complexity and the different worlds within it. A first integration of separate situations was achieved through the introduction of a common mental model and language. The strategic directorate received early feedback from the staff involved in self-assessment, which is to be integrated with in depth surveys at a later stage.The questionnaire approach proved to be a simple, fast and efficient way to conduct an EFQM self-assessment and a useful way of introducing Excellence issues to an organisation for the first time. Professionals had to learn and think about EFQM criteria and the notions of quality management. However, the questionnaire and scoring system were found to have certain weaknesses. First, the questions covered too many aspects at the same time, making it difficult to relate the score to the items. Furthermore, the scoring system results cannot be compared with profiles obtained using more complex approaches such as the RADAR scoring matrix used by EFQM assessors. The RADAR logic has a far more differentiated rating system, uses more elements than D, C, B and A, and is scored by trained assessors, either internal or external to the organisation. We aim to convert the scoring systems to allow comparisons. The high response rate and low number of unanswered values, on the other hand, was good. Most professionals considered self-assessment as an opportunity to express their opinion and to address hospital decision-makers. Only few participants stated that an anonymous questionnaire would have been preferable. Systematic feedback from staff has probably improved communication within the hospital, which may lead to better integration between departments. The EFQM excellence model, which emphasizes the causal relationship between enablers and results and results feedback, is a simple and a potent model that was introduced through a two-level self-assessment process at Udine Hospital. Clearly, an overall quality culture is being developed as a consequence.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - An assessment of the EFQM excellence model was carried out in Italy's Udine Hospital, aimed at evaluating how first and second-level managers perceived their hospital and individual departments. The study objectives also included identifying strengths and areas requiring improvement and stimulating a quality culture.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Udine's S. Maria della Misericordia Hospital is a large specialised unit in North East Italy and similar to many regional hospitals throughout the country. The survey is a single case study of the hospital and its ten clinical departments. A 153-item questionnaire was completed by 201 experienced respondents.\nFindings: - Leadership, policy and strategy, partnership and resources were rated highly, whereas people, society and customer results received lower ratings. Several improvement actions were planned, primarily with regard to the results criteria.\nPractical implications: - A two-level self-assessment was successfully carried out in a hospital, giving insight into the organisation's strengths and areas requiring improvement. Through the study, a systemic approach was introduced and quality awareness was heightened.\nOriginality/value: - The findings are useful for other hospitals conducting EFQM self-assessment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Creating a sustainable national index for social, environmental and economic productivity
|
[
"Social productivity",
"Environment",
"Economic performance",
"Benchmarking"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sustainability has recently been recognised as one of the major issues to confront mankind on planet earth. Sustainable development, according to the UN's Brundtland commission \"is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs\" (United Nations, 2005a). The United Nations General Assembly has identified \"economic development, social development and environmental protection as interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars\" of sustainability (United Nations, 2005b, p. 12). While such as the Club of Rome report in the 1970s (Meadows et al., 1972) highlighted the unsustainability of then current rates of resource depletion, man-made climate change was not recognised as an issue until more recently and its existence is still challenged by some.This recent recognition of the impact of climate change demonstrates the complexity of the interaction between social, environment and economic factors (even those who are \"man-made climate change nay-sayers\" - seeing the symptoms of rising global temperatures purely as evidence of a natural cyclical climate change phenomenon - recognise that sustainability is important in terms of husbanding vital and diminishing fossil fuels).Elkington (1999) coined the term \"triple bottom line\" to represent this emerging focus on the three factors of social, environmental and economic added value. This concept has been modified over time and is now often summarised as people, planet, profit.More recently, these social, environmental and economic factors have been addressed by the World Confederation of Productivity Science (WCPS), a global think-tank on productivity based in Montreal, Canada (www.wcps.info). The WCPS became convinced that these three factors had to be viewed holistically and had to be viewed as a business issue, not as an \"add-on\" issue of corporate social responsibility. At the World Productivity Congress in South Africa in 2008, the WCPS launched their concept of SEE productivity, reflecting this wider recognition that, to be sustainable in the longer-term, organisations, nations and regions need to improve all of social, environmental and economic productivities so that their operations are socially equitable, environmentally bearable and economically viable (see Figure 1).The WCPS understands that if collectively the world is going to address this important topic, then absolute or relative measures of these productivities would be helpful in:* understanding and diagnosing current behaviours and current performance;* comparing current performance to \"best in class\"; and* driving efforts to improve performance.It therefore sought to identify ways in which SEE productivity can be measured or assessed (there are numerous measures for the individual components of SEE productivity but there seems to be no consensus on a measurement or assessment model representing the combined factors).Further, the WCPS identified that since much of the needed action has to be at the level of governments of individual countries, often acting in concert with other countries, then performance measures are required at the country level and above.Any measurement or assessment regime for SEE productivity (like all effective measurement regimes) should:* provide information in a timely fashion, within the \"time span of discretion\" of those able to influence see activities;* provide a balanced view so that subsequent improvement actions are not sub-optimal;* present information clearly and concisely so that the underlying messages are themselves clear;* involve the use of measures that are deemed credible by both those being measured and by those using the measures as a means of decision-making; and* be cost effective.WCPS has within its structure, the World Academy of Productivity Science, a body that recognises individuals as having made a significant contribution to the development of, or the promotion of, productivity science. WCPS logically therefore approached Fellows of the Academy to contribute to the discussion and debate.Heap (2010), the President of WCPS, presented a very early model for a SEE index at the World Productivity congress in Turkey in 2010. This paper builds on the discussion that arose from that presentation and is an attempt to take forward the concept and build a simple and up to date, but robust and rigorous, social, environmental and economic (SEE) index that supports progress towards sustainability. Therefore the initial audience for the paper could be considered to be members of the WCPS such as national productivity bodies, institutions and individuals, and hence the technical content of the paper. However, the topic addressed in the paper is of such fundamental significance that the audience is wide-ranging and spans from productivity specialists to the environmentally-aware lay person.The structure of the paper reflects its technical nature, although it is written to be as accessible as possible. The next section contains the methodology. This is followed by sections that deal with the theoretical framework of the index, data sources, and the issue of missing data. The analysis is described next and this comprises normalisation, weighting and aggregation, and robustness and sensitivity. The following section conveys the details of the SEE index for each country and connects the index to aspects such as population size. Finally we make some concluding remarks.\nMethodology: The OECD handbook (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2008) describes how \"a composite indicator is formed when individual indicators are compiled into a single index on the basis of an underlying model\". The idea is that the composite index captures multi-dimensional concepts that cannot be handled by a single indicator and is therefore relevant to the situation in this paper of combining three, separate aspects of country performance.The OECD handbook suggests a ten-step guide to building a composite index (or indicator):1. Theoretical framework.2. Data selection.3. Imputation of missing data.4. Multivariate analysis.5. Normalisation.6. Weighting and aggregation.7. Robustness and sensitivity analysis.8. Back to the detail.9. Links to other indicators.10. Visualisation of the results.In general these ten steps will be used to carry forward our discussion of the construction of the SEE index. Step 4, the multivariate analysis will be deferred until after the normalisation and integrated with step 8, \"back to the detail\". Similarly we will combine steps 8 and 9 while the results will be presented visually throughout the various steps and therefore a separate visualisation section is not required.Theoretical framework\nConclusion: What has been achieved is the construction of a SEE index using a rigorous, defensible methodology. The resulting index is one that embraces the heart of the debate around this area namely that a country's environmental performance appears to trade-off against performance in the economic and social realms. The three groups of countries which map to the high, medium and low performance on the SEE dimensions seem to square with what one would intuitively expect the members of these groups to be. Of course for some individuals the position of their country in this list could be politically embarrassing and stimulate criticism of the approach taken - we hope not. By using the well-respected OECD methodology and transparently providing details of the calculations we hope to mitigate any negative response. However, the theoretical basis of the work is clearly one that could be challenged on a number of grounds.The social and economic components of the index are more defensible than the environmental one. For example, the social index is based on three components, whose measures are reasonably reliable, in a similar way to the UN HDI index. The economic index relies, like many such indices do, on GDP per capita - a tried and trusted measurement approach. The environment index can be criticised because it relies on a single dimension, carbon per capita, and the quality of measurement of carbon emission is still being refined. The quality of a country's environment is a complex concept that can be argued as related to intrinsic features of the country and to historical development and not just today's emissions. Nevertheless, carbon emission is the one factor that attracts a lot of attention in the current debate about protecting the environment.The SEE index is based on 2009 data for 194 countries; although there are some limited areas where data were missing. Clearly tightening up the data availability is an area for further work. The parameters determined in the analysis allow for flexibility in that:1. Indices for later years can be calculated as data becomes available. Later indices can be compared back to the base year to monitor progress; both for individual countries but also for the world. If the mean[2] SEE index across the data set increases over time then globally we will be improving matters; a decrease will show we are slipping back.2. SEE indices can also be calculated for earlier years, providing data are available, and a time series of yearly performance can be constructed.3. Although the existing data set is comprehensive, some minor countries are omitted. However, any countries presently omitted could be fitted in if data were made available.Returning to the five criteria for construction of the measurement regime that were listed in the introduction, we can make the following comments. First, the system can easily provide SEE indices in a speedy manner; however it can only be as timely as the data availability. Second, the system gives a view that balances the three components and therefore guards against a sub-optimal focus on one component. Third, the methods chosen enable the values to be clearly presented. Fourth, the data come from credible sources and the method has been presented transparently so decision-makers can be reassured of the validity of the results. Finally, constructing the index has been done at no cost to the community and does not require any substantial investment to update in future.We offer in this paper a standard method for benchmarking the SEE productivity of countries, regions and the globe. We have erred on the side of simply presenting the index rather than indulging in the \"blame game\" of why some countries are \"good\" and others \"bad\". The method could clearly lead on to further research, e.g. researching what factors determine SEE performance. However in a more practical vein, this method could help focus people's thoughts and actions toward better managing our planet; whether they are members of government, policy makers, business people, environmental activists or simply the person in the street. Our hope is that we have created something that could be useful in helping to improve future conditions on planet earth.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to create a social, environmental and economic (SEE) index for countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology in the OECD handbook on building composite indicators is followed. The data are taken from UN data sources.\nFindings: - An index is created that describes each of 194 countries. The countries were clustered in three groups, i.e. high, medium and low performing. The country positions matched intuitively those expected. A more focused grouping of the 35 most populous countries was examined. The method was felt to be rigorous and successful in creating an informative measure of SEE.\nResearch implications/limitations: - Future research could include identifying factors that determine a country's SEE productivity. A similar index could be envisaged at more local level.\nPractical implications: - The SEE index offers a standard method for benchmarking the SEE productivity of countries, regions and the globe.\nSocial implications: - It is hoped that this research could have an important contribution to make in enabling society, government, business and policy makers to focus their discussions and actions on areas that will lead to substantial environmental improvement and improved quality of life.\nOriginality/value: - A SEE index is created using a rigorous methodology. The authors believe this to be a unique and valuable contribution.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Early wealth effects of regional ADRs: A comparison of Latin American and European issues listed on the NYSE
|
[
"American Depository Receipts",
"Portfolio diversification",
"International investing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: American Depository Receipts (ADRs) were created in 1927 by the investment firm of J.P. Morgan. They provide foreign firms a way to obtain equity capital in the USA by listing their shares on the domestic exchange while also providing US investors with an easy way to achieve international diversification in their portfolios. Although the shares are valued in their own respective currencies, the large US bank that sponsors the ADR translates the value into dollars (and also translates and passes along dividend payments as well). This allows US investors to diversify internationally with investments purchased in their own currency and on their own exchange.\n2. Literature review: An ADR represents a receipt issued against equity shares of a foreign firm that are held in trust by a large US bank. The international firm may approach the bank about issuing its shares in the USA (called sponsored ADRs) or the US bank may just acquire the shares from foreign markets without the involvement of the foreign firm (called unsponsored ADRs). The bank then translates the share price into dollars and packages the shares in order to get the ADR value to be similar to domestic shares (some ADRs represent several shares while some represent a fraction of a share of the foreign stock). Even though buying an ADR does not require an investor to access foreign equity or currency markets, the underlying shares still contain exchange rate and country risk associated with the issuing firm.\n3. Methodology: NYSE-listed ADRs included in the samples were obtained from their website. The Latin American ADR sample and the European ADR sample were subdivided by type of issue (IPOs vs SEOs) and date of issue (1990s vs 2000s). Based on Schaub (2012, 2013) the decades of the 1990s and 2000s were characterized by US market stability (1990s) and US market extreme volatility (2000s). These decade breakdowns provide an indication of how well the ADR portfolios performed during times of high risk differences in US equity markets. Table I provides the sample breakdown for the two regions.\n4. Results: Tables II-V provide the results for the sample of European ADRs. In Table II, the excess return results for the full sample of European ADRs and the subsamples of the ADRs listed in 1990s (before 2000) and those listed in the 2000s are provided. On the first day of trading the total sample returned on average 0.35 percent more than the index. After the first day, several days of successive underperformance had the sample significantly underperforming the index from day 9 through day 13. The total sample ended the month cumulatively outperforming the S\n5. Conclusions: This study provides some evidence of stock market timing and issue type effects on short term excess returns of European and Latin American ADRs listed on the NYSE for two decades. The timing of the ADR listings captures the performance ability of the foreign equity relative to the US market based on differing US market conditions. The decade of the 1990s was characterized by a high level of return stability in the USA while the decade of the 2000s was wrought with volatility from the September 11 terrorist attacks and the financial crisis that began in the mortgage market. Also, issue types should have differing levels of risk. For example, an IPO or first equity issue would theoretically be more risky than a seasoned or second equity issue for a firm that has already faced scrutiny with its IPO. The study finds the European IPOs performed better relative to the US index on average in the 1990s while the SEOs did better in the 2000s. Quite the opposite, the Latin American IPOs performed better in the 2000s while the SEOs did better in the 1990s. That alone should suggest these regional issues have returns that are not highly correlated and may provide good diversification benefits in the early trading.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine what types of short-term wealth effects accrued to European and Latin American American Depository Receipt (ADR) investors and whether these were affected by the type of issue (initial public offerings (IPO) vs seasoned equity offerings (SEO)) or the date of issue (1990s vs 2000s).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Standard ADR and IPO excess return methodology is utilized to compute and test excess returns against a US investment benchmark. This methodology is used in many ADR and IPO studies.\nFindings: European SEOs listed in the 2000s did better than those listed in the 1990s. The results for European IPOs were the opposite. Latin American SEOs did better relative to the US market index for issues listed in the 1990s as compared to those listed in the 2000s. Once again the results for Latin American IPOs were the opposite.\nOriginality/value: This study differs from previous studies by emphasizing differences in short-term return behaviour for Latin American and European ADRs listed during a decade of US market stability (the 1990s) vs those listed in the 2000s when the US stock market encountered times of extreme return volatility. These timing differences affect not only the returns of all the ADRs but also show how ADR IPOs and SEOs tend to have opposite return behaviour based on timing. These return differences are important because the major benefits of portfolio diversification are achieved when asset returns are less correlated with each other.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Is a bit more experience bad? The role of entrepreneurial experience on investment rate
|
[
"Vietnam",
"Opportunity recognition",
"Investment",
"Small businesses",
"Entrepreneurial experience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Investment is important to small businesses because it affects their survival and growth (Ding et al., 2013). In this study, investment is measured as the additional financial capital invested in a venture (whether as fixed assets or working capital) as a ratio of the total capital of the venture (Guariglia, 2008). The most examined form of investment decision in the extant entrepreneurship literature is the initial investment (i.e. the venture establishment) (Davidsson and Henrekson, 2002; Stenholm et al., 2013; van Stel and Storey, 2004). However, this is only the first step in the entrepreneurship journey. Decisions concerning post-establishment investments may be more challenging, and probably also more sophisticated, as entrepreneurs assimilate real-world information and feedback from the market on their products and services (Cassar, 2014). It remains open to debate whether or not entrepreneurs' start-up experiences can help them to distinguish the useful information from the noise, identify opportunities, and keep making subsequent investments (Arte, 2017). While prior start-up experience may help entrepreneurs to recognise opportunities more quickly, it may also make them too inclined to rely on past heuristics and recipes, encouraging them to fall back on exploiting their experience rather than to explore new patterns and seek out new business opportunities (Politis, 2005). The question therefore arises whether entrepreneurial experience is an asset or liability to small business owners' investments?\nTheory and hypotheses: Investment as a process of opportunity realisation\nData and methodology: Data\nEmpirical results and robustness test: Empirical results\nDiscussion: This study investigates the impact of entrepreneurial experience on the post-establishment investments of entrepreneurial ventures. The authors consider the investment decision to be an outcome of the process of identifying, evaluating and realising business opportunities. Following Ardichvili et al. (2003), they argue that while elements of opportunities may be recognised, opportunities are made rather than found. Thus, this study holds a sharply distinct theoretical viewpoint in comparison to the conventional literature that focusses on the factors that affect opportunity recognition. This study extends the literature by proposing a three-step process of opportunity recognition, evaluation and realisation. Specifically, it suggests that the opportunities that fail to materialise into investment projects are merely elements of opportunities. This theoretical argument is consistent with the early literature that affirms that entrepreneurship is not only about innovation but also relates to risk-taking, financing and fundraising activities (Baumol, 1968).\nConclusion: Using a sample of more than 9,500 small business observations in Vietnam from 2005 to 2013, this study analyses the role of entrepreneurial experience on small firm investments. It proposes that investment decisions are the outcome of a process that starts with an entrepreneur recognising opportunities, evaluating them and finalising them into investment projects. This paper suggests that, supplementary to this framework, entrepreneurial experience is an important determinant of investment decisions. The key argument is that adequate prior start-up experience may equip entrepreneurs with the relevant knowledge and skills required to identify and realise business opportunities in their current ventures. However, too much entrepreneurial experience may exert a negative effect on investments because it makes entrepreneurs overly reliant on successful recipes and well set-up routines, which largely reduce the chances of identifying new opportunities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study investigates the influence of entrepreneurial experience on small business investment. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether entrepreneurs with more prior start-up experience are better able to identify business opportunities and successfully transform these opportunities into investment projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical setting in this study is Vietnam. The authors employ a panel data of small businesses (mostly households) from 2005 to 2013, and use a fixed effect method to estimate the regression coefficients. The results are also re-checked using the general method of moments and matching technique.\nFindings: Empirically, it is found that entrepreneurial experience is an important determinant of investment decisions. Specifically, entrepreneurs with one start-up experience make more investments than novice entrepreneurs. However, entrepreneurs with more than one start-up experience do not make more investments than entrepreneurs with one start-up experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is country-specific research. Further study may employ data from multi-countries to re-test the validity of the hypotheses.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a new perspective for analysing the role of entrepreneurial experience on entrepreneurial investments. It shows that prior start-up experience may turn out to be a liability to entrepreneurs since it restricts their ability to identify new opportunities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Generating story problems via controlled parameters in a web-based intelligent tutoring system
|
[
"Automatic problem generation",
"Intelligent tutoring system",
"Natural language generation",
"Rhetorical structure theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) are considered to be an effective learning paradigm due to their ability to tailor system interactions to the specific student needs and characteristics (Desmarais and Baker, 2012; Chrysafiadi and Virvou, 2013). Problems and questions are used in such systems for assessment, learning, and diagnosis purposes. Assessment of the student knowledge is fundamentally based on the analysis of the student answer and behavior to a presented problem. According to this analysis, a student model (SM) is built as a representation of the student understanding level of the domain concepts (Yue Gong, 2014), and (Mitrovic and Ohlsson, 2015). When used for the purpose of learning, typically, different types of problems are utilized to guide and encourage students to engage in a self-explanation process (Lin and Atkinson, 2013; Najar and Mitrovic, 2014; Fabic et al., 2017). In addition, dialog, scaffolding and follow-up questions are used to diagnose the student errors and enhance the learning outcome (Feng and Heffernan, 2010; Piwek and Stoyanchev 2010; Olney et al., 2012; Khodeir and Wanas, 2013; Janarthanam and Oliver, 2014; Khodeir et al., 2018). Problems do not vary only in their roles within ITSs, but also in their types, difficulty and the required level of thinking to answer them as defined in Bloom's Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). This variability is utilized to assess different students' skills and possibly, adapt and control the presented problem parameters to accommodate each individual student's needs.\n2. Automated mathematics word PG: Several research studies in the literature have been concerned with the automated generation of problems in the mathematics domain (Goguadze et al., 2005; Heeren et al., 2010; Papasalouros, 2013; Singh et al., 2012). Nevertheless, relatively few research studies addressed the problem of generating narrative mathematical word problems. For example, Williams (2011) used the Web Ontology Language to represent such problems. English statements are then extracted from this knowledge representation. However, this approach produces limited types of word problems, in which the difficulty level is controlled merely through changing the generated sentence or adding some distraction to the sentence. Holling et al. (2009), on the other hand, utilized templates for generating probability word problems. Similarly, Polozov et al. (2015) proposed generating personalized mathematical word problems based on templates. Tutors are allowed to specify the required problem types while the students are allowed to specify context and related words. Templates are built automatically based on this information using answer set programming. Theune et al. (2011) also introduced some variations in automatically generated narrative probability exercises. Trees are developed as templates for all possible problem types. Users are allowed to select specific problem types and context, and tune some linguistic parameters. Gupta et al. (2017) built a tool called intelligent math tutor (IMT) that automatically generates mathematical word problems. IMT can generate mathematical word problems drawn from one or more focused subjects. It extracts the problem template using an NLP parser and the generated concept map of input math sample. Then, it replaces variable portions in the template with matched subgraph entities and relationships to generate a new math word problem.\n3. MAST: MAST is a web-based ITS that has been developed for automated tutoring of probability story problems. MAST generates story problems with a set of parameters that control the problem difficulty level, context, and natural language text. Three RST schemas are used to generate problems classified into four categories - low, medium, high, and advanced - according to their header difficulty levels as shown in Figure 1. Each schema determines the structure of one or more problem story types. In MAST, a single schema determines the structure of the low and medium problem categories, while the structures of the high and advanced problem categories are determined exclusively by corresponding schemas. Each schema can be utilized in different contexts, with different finer-grained difficulty levels. Additionally, for every specific context, there are distinctive difficulty levels of the associated question statements. Figure 2 shows a snapshot of MAST depicting an example of a probability story problem of the advanced difficulty level. As shown in the figure, within this difficulty level, there are two contexts: coin condition and die condition. It is worth noting that these contexts are for illustration purpose, and the system could be generalize with ease. The question statements associated with each context are of various difficulty levels, and are presented to the student to select among them. The story problem in MAST is composed of a header and a set of associated questions with distinctive inquiries. The header is the problem part that depicts the narrative story in a specific context. It describes some objects, their numbers, and the sequence of actions that are applicable. On the other hand, each associated question, which specifies a requirement, includes a statement describing an event such as \"being at most one Head and not appearance of a perfect square number.\"\n4. Mast story problem parameters: The difficulty level of the story problem category, the problem context, and the difficulty level of the statements of the associated probability questions, selected by the student, are the three parameters that can be controlled in generating problems. The first parameter specifies the difficulty level of the problem header. In other words, the difficulty level of the main sample space question. This difficulty level gradually increases from one category of problems to another by increasing the complexity of the header structure. It leads to selecting the corresponding problem schema. Since, as previously noted, each schema can be used in different contexts, the second parameter specifies the context in which the schema will be applied. Selecting different contexts for a single category results in problems with similar header structures, but different header difficulty levels. Table I demonstrates the classes of the different problem headers with various contexts, corresponding header difficulty levels, and related examples.\n5. Natural language PG mechanism in the PG module: The PG process starts by specifying the problem schema and its story spans, among the relevant available behaviors, in addition to its rhetorical relations, in light of the student selection of the category, context, and difficulty level. This permits utilization of a single schema for various problems. The selected behaviors are realized into phrases, clauses, and sentences that, along with the relations, constitute the problem story.\n6. Evaluation: Since this paper is mainly concerned with the PG module of MAST, the goal of the evaluation was to assess the reliability of the difficulty levels of the different problem types in MAST and the included operators as well as the quality (clarity and naturality) of the generated problems. This is in addition to evaluating the usability of MAST. It is worth emphasizing that we delegate assessing the tutoring effect of MAST problems to another paper concerned with student modeling in MAST (Khodeir et al., 2018).\n7. Conclusion: This paper introduced MAST, a web-based automated tutoring system for probability story problems. It allows students to select problems in different contexts and difficulty levels for self-paced learning. It also helps in tutoring the students by providing helpful feedback, hints, and explanations of the correct answers as needed. The paper is mainly concerned with the PG module of MAST. The PG module integrates RST with language knowledge and context (domain) knowledge to generate different types of problems with different difficulty levels in grammatically correct natural English language with variable structures, wordings, and operations to help tutor the students along several dimensions. The PG module has been empirically evaluated, and the results show the clarity and naturalness of the generated problems. This is in addition to the high usability of MAST. It should be noted that the PG module organizes knowledge into modules separating rhetorical knowledge from language knowledge and domain knowledge. This allows for the inclusion of new problem types and porting the module to other contexts and domains and other natural languages without a complete redesign. We are currently working on this issue. Additionally, MAST is being developed into an ITS that can adapt the PG process to the assessed student knowledge level in addition to the self-paced learning capability.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an algorithm to generate story problems via controlled parameters in the domain of mathematics. The generation process is performed in the problem generation module in the context of an intelligent tutoring system suggested in this paper. Controlling the question parameters allows for adapting the generated questions according to the specific student needs. Story problems are selected since they are one of the most important types of problems in mathematics, as they help train students to apply their knowledge to real-world problems. Such problems target improving different student's skills including literacy skills through reading the problem, recognizing the embedded mathematical information, and applying the required arithmetic operators.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Natural language generation (NLG) techniques are used to control the difficulty level of the generated story problem header in addition to effecting variations from the natural language point of view. The proposed NLG technique is based on different separated knowledge categories to provide flexibility in the generation process and allow porting the module to other contexts, domains, and to other natural languages without a complete redesign.\nFindings: The approach has been empirically evaluated, and the results show that the generated problems are sound, clear, and naturally readable. This is in addition to the usability of the tutoring system itself.\nResearch limitations/implications: The generation technique is confined to the problem described using rhetorical schemas. Nevertheless, it can generate any problem provided that the rhetorical schema is available.\nOriginality/value: Most story problems generation systems limit the variation of the story problems to formulating the sentences that describe the story problem and the associated mathematical operations. In contrast, this paper presents a story problems generation technique that allows variations in the structure of the narrative story as well as the context, sentences, wordings, and mathematical operations. This variability allows assessing different student skills along different dimensions with gradually increasing difficulty levels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The design of logistics operations for the Olympic Games
|
[
"Olympic Games",
"Logistics data processing",
"Business planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The summer Olympic games are considered by many experts to be the greatest, non-defence related, world-wide logistics event. It is the gathering of over 15,000 of the world's finest athletes competing in over 28 sports (SOCOG, 2001), in a period that spans approximately one month. Recent games typically attract 20,000 members of the media (both International Broadcasters and Press), are supported by about 150,000 staff members and volunteers, host over 5.5 million ticketed spectators and are watched by billions of TV viewers (ACOG, 1997; SOCOG, 2001).In order to stage this great event, there are immense logistics challenges that focus on planning, managing and executing the receipt, tracking, storage, transportation, distribution, installation and recovery of all equipment and materials related to:* external clients (National Olympic Committees, Broadcasters, Media, etc.);* functional areas (FAs) of the Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (OCOG); and* the logistics of the Olympic venues.Some of these challenges are faced frequently in other large events, such as political conventions, trade shows, as well as sports events (e.g. the World Cup, Super Bowl and Formula 1 races). Despite the business importance of such events and the unique aspects of event logistics, the latter have been largely overlooked by in the relevant literature.The authors of this paper were tasked to develop the strategy and the principles of operations, as well as to design the detailed operations of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. This task was conducted in years 3 and 2 prior to Games-time (G-3 and G-2). Subsequently, two of the authors were tasked to lead the delivery of Olympic logistics operations. In order to define the scope and characteristics of Olympic logistics, the authors initially reviewed the post-games evaluation reports from the Atlanta 1996 (ACOG, 1997) and the Sydney 2000 (SOCOG, 2001) Olympic games, which contained mostly high-level information on games logistics operations. However, due to the lack of significant related literature, the gathering of key data and the acquisition of actual operational experience was deemed necessary. To this end, two of the authors served as ATHOC observers in the Sydney games and had the opportunity to visit the related logistics facilities, observe part of the operations, and interviewed extensively top logistics managers. In addition, repeated workshops were held in Athens with the logistics managers of Atlanta, Sydney and of the most recent Commonwealth Games (Manchester 2002) to transfer scope-related knowledge and data, operations knowledge, as well as lessons learned from these events. In fact, aspects of the strategy for the Athens Olympic logistics and critical concepts of operations were discussed extensively with the Atlanta and Sydney logistics directors.This paper presents the design of the Olympic logistics organization, processes and systems in order to achieve efficient and cost effective operations, while taking into account all significant constraints and factors that stem from the nature of the games. The methodology applied has taken into account Olympic-specific characteristics, host country specific characteristics, as well as lessons learned from previous Games. This methodology is based on generation of reasonable alternatives, evaluation of these alternatives, and selection of the most appropriate one (Lambert and Stock, 2000). The design process also provides generic rules that may be applied to guide the set up of operations for future games. This is perhaps the most significant contribution of this paper, since it is the first time that a systematic view of Olympic logistics is dealt with, as opposed to experiential knowledge with local applicability that has been used in the past to plan similar operations. Furthermore, the paper offers some useful insights applicable to the logistics of large events.The structure of the remainder of the paper is as follows: first, the scope of Olympic logistics and its unique characteristics are presented. Next, a summary of the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 experiences and the related lessons learned are discussed. The strategy for the Athens 2004 logistics operations is presented next along with the basic directions for setting up significant business processes and for sizing the necessary resources for the Athens case. Finally, recommendations concerning the design of future Olympic logistics operations, as well as the logistics of other major events are summarized.\nThe scope and characteristics of Olympic logistics: Scope of Olympic logistics\nThe logistics operations of recent Games: The implementation of logistics services varies in several aspects between the various host cities of the previous games. The information below concerns the Atlanta 1996 and the Sydney 2000 Olympic games and encapsulates valuable lessons concerning strategy and organization, which should be considered in designing the logistics operations of future games.The logistics operations of Atlanta 1996\nStrategy for the Athens 2004 logistics operations: The key issue in setting the logistics strategy of the Athens Organising Committee (ATHOC) concerns outsourcing. It has been clear that outsourcing certain major logistics activities should be examined carefully, given the high specialization required to accomplish these activities, the intrinsic temporary nature of Olympic logistics, as well as the non-core (although critical for the success of the Olympics) processes involved.Feasibility of outsourcing for the Athens Olympic logistics\nTactical planning for the Athens 2004 logistics operations: Having made the decisions that chart the logistics strategy for the games, the basic business processes that implement this strategy were developed and overviewed below along with the organization that supports these processes.Freight forwarding and customs clearance\nRecommendations for designing the logistics operations of future Olympic games and other major events: The design process of Olympic logistics is shown in Figure 8. As shown in this figure, the Olympic-specific characteristics, host country specific characteristics, as well as lessons learned from previous Games have been used to design the organization, processes and systems of the logistics functions within the OCOG. The design itself has been based on generation of reasonable alternatives, evaluation of these alternatives, and selection of the most appropriate one. A similar framework is also relevant to designing the logistics operations of other major events (sports events, trade shows, political concessions, etc.).The specific characteristics of Olympic logistics (and indeed of other major events) arise mainly from the transient nature of the Games, the diversity and uncertainty of demand, as well as the firm schedule and immovable milestones. Other important Games-specific parameters include the mix of paid staff and (inexperienced) volunteers, and the inability to learn from mistakes and improve as you go along.The environment of the country that hosts the games (or the event) also needs to be considered carefully in designing logistics operations. Some of the significant aspects of the external environment to be considered include the host country location (affecting freight forwarding), the country's logistics infrastructure, as well as the country's logistics know-how and logistics business environment.Most of the recommendations included in Table X are applicable to other major events besides the Olympic Games. Their relevance, however, depends on the nature of the event. For example, in trade shows, in which the performance of freight forwarding is critical to the success of the event, securing a warehousing infrastructure early on is not relevant. However, the host country location and its logistics business environment need to be considered carefully in the early stages of planning. Thus, in planning the logistics of any major event, the characteristics that are critical for the success of that particular event should be identified early on, and the design of logistics operations should fully address them.In addition to the recommendations of Table X, the design process should consider the principles that have been proven successful in previous games (Table XI). Several of these principles, such as model venue planning, standardization of materials, the establishment of the LCC, as well as establishment of an independent administration function, can be applied regardless of the specific characteristics of the host country. However, there are principles such as outsourcing, warehousing, or JIT deliveries, that are based on certain specific characteristics (constraints/advantages) of the host country, such as a mature 3PL market, the existence and availability of large warehouses, and the completion of the venues in sufficient time prior to the beginning of the Games.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to focus on the design of the organization, processes, and systems of Olympic logistics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A systematic methodology has been developed to design the strategy and tactics of logistics operations for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. This methodology considers Olympic-specific characteristics, host country characteristics, as well as lessons learned from previous games. It comprises the generation, analysis and evaluation of strategic alternatives, the development of core business processes and the prediction of resource requirements. Furthermore, the proposed method provides guidelines to complement the experiential knowledge that has been used exclusively in the past to plan the logistics operations of the games and similar large-scale events.\nFindings: - Successful design principles, such as model venue planning, standardization of materials, the establishment of the Logistics Command Center (LCC), as well as establishment of an independent administration function, can be applied regardless of the specific characteristics of the host country. However, there are principles such as outsourcing, warehousing, or just-in-time (JIT) deliveries, that are based on certain specific characteristics (constraints/advantages) of the host country, such as a mature 3PL market, the existence and availability of large warehouses, and the completion of the venues in sufficient time prior to the beginning of the games.\nPractical implications: - The proposed design process provides generic rules that may be applied to guide the set up of operations for future games. Furthermore, the paper offers some useful insights applicable to the logistics of large events.\nOriginality/value: - It is the first time that a systematic view of Olympic logistics is dealt with, as opposed to experiential knowledge with local applicability that has been used in the past to plan similar operations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Beyond customer experience models: identifying idiosyncratic perceptions
|
[
"Segmentation",
"Banking",
"Individual perception",
"Customer experience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Executives in several industries have paid growing attention to the concept of customer experience (CE) in the last decade. According to Gartner, CE entered the top 10 CIO technology priorities for 2012, while CRM was ranked 18th in 2011[1]. A Forrester study states that CE has gained a strategic stature over the last years because of both marketing forces and the wide adoption of consumer technology (Bodine and Rogowski, 2013). In a 2013 survey, IBM valued the yearly lost sales due to poor and inconsistent CEs in the US market as $83bn[2]. Emerging technologies are expected to contribute to the improvement and even personalization of consumer experience according to McKinsey analysts (Dahlstrom and Edelman, 2013). According to McKinsey experts, technology has given customers such a huge control over the purchasing experience, that they expect the same level of satisfaction by both market leaders and small businesses (Duncan et al., 2016). Therefore, companies do not compete any longer on the quality of products and services but rather on the experience they deliver.\nPrior work: In this section, we first recall the theoretical foundations of CE, then we review the main methods for modeling and measuring CE and we finally describe the state of the art in the management of CE. The review is based on the work by Klaus et al. (2013) and extends that work by reviewing the literature on the effects of personal factors on the customer's experience.\nMethodology: We analyzed the data pertaining to a sample of 346 customers of a medium-sized Italian retail bank. The customers in the sample are representative of one of the bank market segments. The data set was gathered during a previous research that built an holistic model of CE (Klaus et al., 2013). Details on the methodology can be found in that paper. Briefly, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with a small set of customers and analyzed the results by a laddering technique. Then, a list of items was generated and refined. The list was included in a survey that was administered to a larger sample and validated through factor analysis. The final data set included 34 perceptual items (statements about customer's experience), 21 marketing outcomes (statements about loyalty, word-of-mouth and satisfaction) and 11 demographic items (such as, age and gender). The list of the 34 perceptual items is reported in the Appendix. After running a confirmatory factor analysis and a partial least squares model, a CE model was built. Table I reports the list of 13 items which were found to be representative of CE and positively correlated with the marketing outcomes. The last column shows the values of means and standard deviations in a (1, 7) scale (with 1=\"I do not agree at all\" and 7=\"I completely agree\").\nSegmentation analysis: Before running a clustering analysis, we excluded a small set of outliers, i.e. customers showing characteristics very different from the rest of the sample. Keeping these data points in a segmentation analysis do not add anything to the results while only complicates the convergence of the clustering algorithm. In order to identify the outliers in the original sample, we computed the Euclidean distance of each one of the vectors representing the 346 customers in the sample from the sample centroid and excluded the points with a distance higher than the 90th percentile. The new sample included 311 customers. Figure 1 shows the Euclidean distance (customers are reported on the x-axis).\nProfiling and identification of idiosyncratic clusters: For each one of the three segmentation solutions, we analyzed the profiles of each cluster. In this research, a cluster profile is described by its centroid, i.e. the vector reporting the mean values of the 34 perceptual items computed over the customers in the cluster. The 34 items in our data set are measured by an ordinal variable ranging in a (1, 7) scale. Therefore, for each centroid's item a value greater (smaller) than 4 denote that the customers in the cluster agree (disagree) with the statement corresponding to the item.\nIdentification of critical clusters: In order to learn whether some of the idiosyncratic profiles in Table III are considered critical from a managerial standpoint or can be neglected, we designed a survey based on the results in Table III. Each item in the survey described a situation corresponding to each cluster in Table III in terms of the percentage of customers and their perception. In order to design the survey, we had some preliminary conversations with managers in the retail bank industry. We presented the survey by listing each distinct item in Table III and associating it with the whole number of customers sharing the same perception, as in Table IV. As an example, the first sentence in Table IV presents the perception corresponding to PRS and refers it to 34.4 percent of customers, corresponding to the sum of Clusters 17 and 57 (11.9 plus 22.5 percent). The managers were asked to respond to a question like \"Suppose 34.4% of your bank's customers state they would consider moving their account if their advisor would change company. How critical would you consider this situation?\" The respondents were asked to answer with a (1, 7) ordinal scale (where 1=\"not critical at all\" and 7=\"very critical\"). We administered the survey to a sample of managers working for medium-sized Italian banks. We obtained 37 qualified responses. The results are reported in Table IV.\nConclusions: Research has highlighted the importance of analyzing and improving CE. Several models of CE have been developed and tested. Most of them are based on the analysis of a sample of customers and the result is a holistic picture of CE. Research has also revealed that the perception of CE is shaped by personal factors that make that perception idiosyncratic to every individual. However, none of the existing models considers these personal factors in the analysis of CE based on the hypothesis that idiosyncratic perceptions should be neglected because they pertain to only single individuals. However, this may hide small groups of customers who perceive their experience differently from the majority and may represent critical signals for the business.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that a deeper analysis of customer experience (CE) can identify idiosyncratic and critical perceptions in the experiences of groups of customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology that the authors used is made of three main steps: segmentation analysis, profiling and identification of idiosyncratic clusters' profiles (i.e. those with a CE perception different respect to the whole sample) and among these idiosyncratic clusters, identification of those that may be critical for the business.\nFindings: The authors identified clusters of customers showing significant differences in their perceived experience with respect to the holistic CE model. Nevertheless, a sample of bank managers assessed three cluster profiles among them to be critical signals a company. The identification of these idiosyncratic patterns provides managers with interesting additional insights that would be hidden in a holistic CE model.\nPractical implications: Managers can gain valuable insights of CE from this analysis that should be added to those coming from an holistic CE model.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the scientific research in that it extends the knowledge about CE by showing how personal factors can be identified and how drawing additional managerial insights.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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E-books: yes or no? A case study of undergraduate students at the University of Namibia
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Undergraduate students",
"User studies",
"E-books",
"Information seeking behavior",
"Use of e-books"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The advancement of information and communications technology (ICT), especially the development of the internet and increased access to it changed the face of the publishing industry. Electronic publications such as e-journals and e-books originated because of internet communication systems such as the World Wide Web. The emergency of e-books has changed the publishing industry in many ways. A 2012 Huffington Post report reflected that the:\nAwareness and use of e-books: Higher education institutions over the world recognise the potential of e-books and spend a fair amount of money to provide e-books for their students and staff (SCONUL, 2009). Various studies examined the use of e-books at academic institutions in developed countries and revealed that a high percentage of students, about 70 per cent and more, are aware and regularly use e-books for various purposes and in a variety of ways (Nicholas et al., 2008; Nicholas and Clark, 2012; Chandra, 2013; Wilkinson, 2015).\nPurposes for using e-books: The purposes and motivations for using e-books also differ according to context as is described in the following examples. In higher institutions of Malaysia, e-books are mainly used for finding relevant content and to support research work, but not for extended reading (Noorhidawati and Gibb, 2008). About 60 per cent of the academic staff and students at the University of Maryland in the USA use e-books for research, whilst 52 per cent use e-books for recreational reading purposes (Corlett-Rivera and Hackman, 2014). Students in China, particularly undergraduate students, use e-books mainly for leisure purposes, whilst postgraduate students tend to use e-books more for academic purposes (Wang and Bai, 2016). The purposes for which e-books are used influence the way in which they are used. Students who use e-books for assignment and research purposes read only the relevant sections of the book, whilst those who use e-books for leisure reading, read them from the beginning to end. Some students browse through the book, whilst others download and print a chapter to read at a later stage (Rowlands et al., 2007; Nicholas et al., 2008; Shelburne, 2009; Hasan et al., 2011; Noorhidawati and Gibb, 2008). In an academic context, e-books are mainly used for selective reading, in the same way that e-journals are often used (Shelburne, 2009; Nicholas et al., 2010; Gregory, 2008; Berg et al., 2010). Chandra (2013) found that, because e-citizens spend many hours in front of computers, they do not want to read complete books on the computer. They use e-books \"for dipping in\" to look for specific information or references.\nAdvantages and disadvantages of e-books: E-books have many attributes that can be used in academic institutions. In a study to investigate the experiences of faculty and students with e-books at the University of Kansas, reported aspects like highlighting and searching capabilities; accessibility and convenience (portability), having a lighter load to carry, being able to access e-books from any computer and the ability to download on more than one device were identified the perceived benefits of e-books (Gueval et al., 2015). In Malaysia, Bozarth and Zhong (2016) adopted a mixed-method approach to explore the users' preferences and behaviours towards e-books. They found that users like the benefits of having features such as easy downloading, the ability to search in a book, highlighting, annotation, citation and bookmarks. Potnis et al. (2018) referred to the abilities to bookmark pages, copy text and search across full text are the most important features that students in the USA like about e-books.\nAim of the article: The aim of this article is to investigate the views and uses of e-books by undergraduate students at UNAM. Important objectives of this article are to determine how many undergraduate students at UNAM are aware of e-books, what students' perceptions about e-books are, which user patterns exist and which factors influence the use or non-use of e-books.\nLocation of the study: This study was conducted at UNAM, one of the public universities in the country. There are also two other universities in Namibia, namely, the Namibia University of Science and Technology, a public university, and International University of Management, a private university. There is also a public colleges such as Namibia College of Open Learning (NAMCOL) and about seven public vocational education centres countrywide. In addition to public universities, colleges and vocational training centres, there are private colleges Lingua College, Triumphant College and Welwichia, etc.\nResearch methodology: In a mixed-method research approach in which both qualitative and quantitative methods were used, the data were collected by means of focus group discussions, observations (think-aloud method) and a questionnaire. The collection and analysis of the qualitative data took place in the first phase of the research. The findings from the first phase were used to design the questionnaire which was used during the second phase of the research.\nResults: The demographic detail of the respondents collected via the questionnaire are provided in the pie charts below.\nAn integrated analysis of the findings: Table I.\nFindings: The findings below are presented in line with the objectives of the article. Themes will be categorised and discussed according to these objectives.\nConclusive notes on the findings: This study found that the lack of awareness and searching skills are the major impediments for using e-books. This is corroborated in studies by Ajayi et al. (2014) and Ismail and Zainab (2007). Searching and retrieval skills are important requirements to effectively using library resources. Akpojotor (2016) also observed that a lack of information retrieval skills for exploiting electronic resources contribute to the low use of the electronic information resources in Nigeria. It also became clear that an awareness of e-books does not necessarily translate to the actual use of e-books in academic libraries.\nDiscussion and recommendation: In view of the findings, conclusive notes and other comments provided by the respondents of this study, the following recommendations emanating from the results and conclusions of the study should be adopted to improve the use of e-books at UNAM. Therefore, the library should do the following:\nFurther research: A limitation of this study is that only a small sample of the fourth-year students from the Windhoek campus was included in the study due to shortage of time. A broader study on the use of e-books or a replication study should be conducted amongst all the undergraduate students across 12 UNAM campuses. This study attempted to investigate the usage of and views about e-books in general. There is a need for further study that can look at the variances in the usage of e-books in different disciplines and from other groups of library users such as academics, postgraduate students and distance students. The researchers also recommend that a further study should be conducted to investigate the actual behaviour of students when using e-books and other online resources, by using log analysis as a method of collecting data.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to determine how undergraduate students at the University of Namibia perceive and use e-books. This paper aims to report on the result of a study that investigated the adoption of, views about and use of e-books at the University of Namibia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used a mixed-method approach. It used three methods, namely, focus group interviews, observation combined with the think aloud and a survey to investigate how undergraduate students use e-books.\nFindings: Major findings of the study indicated that students use and prefer e-books for course and research purposes. But they mainly use non-library search engines such as Google, Yahoo and commercial sites. Lack of searching skills, slow/unreliable internet and limited or lack of relevant content of e-book collections were the major hindrances affecting e-book use.\nOriginality/value: The findings of the study could be used to understand the use of e-books at the University of Namibia and at academic institutions with similar context to Namibia. The study contributes to the knowledge base of library and information science (LIS) by providing a detailed analysis on the views and use of e-books at the University of Namibia. The recommendations of this study can be adopted by libraries in other countries with similar socio-economic conditions like Namibia.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strategic core change, faultlines and team flux: insight from punctuated equilibrium model
|
[
"Member change",
"Punctuated equilibrium model",
"Strategic core role",
"Team faultlines"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Change is less predictable and more dramatic than ever before, which pervades researchers' thinking on how it affects organizational teams. As to the characteristics of origination, changes come in many shapes and sizes, incrementally or dramatically, internally or externally. Despite of heterogeneous and contested views on change theory, scholars appear to share the view that change is multiform and has sophisticated process, and it generates non-directional results. They have proposed that how teams respond to change and develop transformational patterns vary in where the impetus for change originates (Arrow and McGrath, 1995) and how unexpected the change is (Van der Voet et al., 2014).\nTheoretical background and hypothesis: Hypotheses\nMethods: Setting\nResults: We applied several different data analytic techniques according to the research question explored in this study. Since all job-related skill measures were aggregated to the team level, we tested H1a, H1b, H2a, H2b and H3a, H3b by using multiple linear and moderated regression analysis. In addition, for H2a and H2b, we also tested the indirect effects following Preacher and Hayes (2004) and Edwards and Lambert (2007). The regression and mediation techniques are well established and are employed in a majority of social science research. To test the moderated mediation relationship suggested in H4a and H4b, we followed the steps provided by Preacher et al. (2007).\nDiscussion: We have drawn on member change theory and punctuated equilibrium model to argue that when a member change to strategic core happened in a team, the job-related skills of both departing strategic core role holders and new strategic core role holders were relevant to the disruption or team performance loss. More specifically, the primary skill of strategic core role holders exerted the effect directly, whereas the subsidiary skill of strategic core role holders did in an indirect way. In addition, the results also demonstrated that team faultlines intensified the detrimental effect of the loss of job-related skill filling departing strategic core on team performance loss, but impaired the favorable effect of the acquisition of job-related skill from new strategic core role holders on team performance loss.\nConclusion: Based on the punctuated equilibrium model, this study examined how characteristics of both departing and new core role holders influence team flux in different ways. In general, this research offers insight into the dynamic mechanism for a team adjusting to core role change by considering different types of job-related skills possessed by departing and new core roles. This research also initiatively combines member change theory and faultline theory and we hope that our results point to potentially new and fruitful avenues for future work design research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Combining the punctuated equilibrium theory with the faultline theory, the purpose of this paper is to focus on member change of strategic core role holders in teams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors test the model using data from 30 National Basketball Association teams covering 11 regular seasons, carrying out regression analyses.\nFindings: This research illustrates how different types of job-related skills of core role holders that involved in member change might influence the team performance loss, and how team demographic faultlines would serve as a moderator.\nPractical implications: This research demonstrates that punctuational change in a team is not always bad, flux in coordination and team performance loss could be avoided by staffing strategic core role based on specific job-related skill levels and manipulating team composition based on demographic attributes.\nOriginality/value: The research model initially provides an integrated perspective of member change, core role and faultline theory to explain the team process for punctuational change.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effects of empowering leadership on psychological well-being and job engagement: The mediating role of psychological capital
|
[
"Psychological capital",
"Job engagement",
"Psychological well-being",
"Empowering leadership",
"Positive organizational behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizations today want and need employees who are emotionally connected to their work and willing to do everything they can in order to support their organizations' success. Leaders, believing that satisfied, capable, and committed employees are their most important resource, take steps to enhance employees' well-being and job performance (Walumbwa, Peterson, Avolio and Hartnell, 2010). Consequently, positive psychology has become a critical topic in the field of leadership and organization development.\nReview of the literature: Empowering leadership\nProposed hypotheses: Empowering leadership and PsyCap\nMethods: Sample and procedures\nAnalyses and results: To examine the hypothesized model, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISREL 8.72. Adopting Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) comprehensive two-step analytical strategy to test the hypothesized model, we first conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the convergent validity of our construct measures. Then we performed SEM based on the measurement model to estimate the fit of the hypothesized model to the data. It is noted that before testing the measurement and structural models, we averaged items for each dimension of empowering leadership, PsyCap, PWB, and job engagement and treated the different dimensions as separate indicators of their corresponding construct in our SEM analyses.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of empowering leadership on employees' psychological well-being (PWB) and job engagement. This study also examines the mediating role of psychological capital (PsyCap) in these relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study draws on survey data (n=285) from employees in eight large-sized firms in South Korea. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the convergent validity of the construct measures. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the fit of the hypothesized model to the data.\nFindings: The authors found that empowering leadership influenced job engagement both directly and indirectly through PsyCap. Employees' PsyCap fully mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and employees' PWB, while partially mediating the relationship between empowering leadership and job engagement.\nOriginality/value: This is the first empirical study to examine the effects of empowering leadership behaviors of leaders on both PWB and PsyCap, which are positive psychological resources of employees. The study has also provided empirical evidence for the importance of PsyCap, which plays a positive role in the ability of employees to manage their overall feelings in achievement situations and in employees' engagement in the workplace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Change, no change or big change? The discontinuous development of trade unions in Nepal
|
[
"Nepal",
"Alliance",
"Ban on trade unions",
"Discontinuous",
"Labour movement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is a large amount of literature on the weak prospects of trade unions in the global context. Having passed their period of growth in mainstream advanced economies, trade unions are seen as likely to suffer a decline in number (Lee, 2005; Western, 1995), a decline in membership and a decline in density (Visser, 2006). The same trend can be found in moderate and emerging economies, such as in Asia (Kuruvilla et al., 2002), and so the prospect for trade unions in other parts of the world calls for serious attention on the part of those concerned about the future of industrial relations (Tapia et al., 2015). Along with the negative environment for unions in western countries, the most recent literature argues that unions globally are losing ground, going through hard times and facing difficult choices to ensure their survival. To respond to these conditions, there is an urgent need for unions to reinvent themselves as more strategic, finding alternative sources of power (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013). In Nepal, however, the trade union growth pattern is on a unique trajectory with high membership, high density and a high level of voice or influence, going against the tide of decline in other parts of the world.\nLabor movement and its consequences: The antecedents of the nascent labor movement of 1947 in Nepal are closely linked with the trade union movement in India. With the success of the Indian independence movement, key players such as the late Prime Ministers of Nepal Man Mohan Adhikari and B.P. Koirala (who stayed in India and supported the communist and socialist parties, respectively) brought similar practices, and similar organization, leadership and working styles to the labor movement for political system change (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions, 2018). The debates or controversies held among the key players (as they were coming from two different schools of thought) on issues of flag, banner and the name of the trade unions here held with reference to the Indian versions of the same questions. Finally, the choice of flag was similar to that of the All India Trade Union Congress (Rimal, 2009a), which was a clear sign of the application of an Indian model of trade union practice. After the introduction of democracy in 1951, the trade unions held clear lines, supporting the major political parties based on socialist or communist schools of thought (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions, 2018), which is close to the Indian tradition of trade union affiliation with political parties (Saxena, 1993).\nExploring forces behind the discontinuity of trade unions: The history of trade union development in Nepal begins shortly after the Second World War, by which time other parts of the world had entered an era of collective bargaining. Until then, industrial relations in Nepal were unheard of or unarticulated, as were trade unions (Acharya and Bhattarai, 2012). The All Nepal Trade Union Congress (ANTUC) was the first trade union to be founded, in 1946. However, the labor movement of 1947 intensified the growth of trade unions. Mostly, the post-Second World War era was one of transitional politics, poor economic growth and little or no space for workers and workers' organizations in terms of labor rights (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions, 2018). In such an environment, the joint understanding was that unless a newer and better political system were to be introduced, the freedom and rights of the people and of workers were unlikely to arrive. Based on a consensus formed between them, political leaders and trade union members worked side-by-side with high levels of commitment and dedication to push for their twin objectives of labor and political rights.\nMapping trade unions and their behaviors: As one of the major IR actors, trade unions play significant roles in boosting economic growth in a country (Dunlop, 1993). Through consultation, participation and feedback, their position is always likely to be in flux, but at any time they could play a strategic role. However, their role has been projected differently in developed, developing and least developed countries. The role of trade unions in the USA has typically been co-operative and productive with management in industrial relations (Kochan, 1994). With newer efforts in terms of collective bargaining, the trade unions are suggested to have helped management-labor relations flourish at workplaces (Deery et al., 1999). But they were more geared toward influencing other IR actors, depending on the situation. However, with transformations in industrial relations throughout the world, trade union membership, density and voice in the west (the USA for instance) are in decline (Koeller, 1994) and such is also the case in recently developed countries in Asia such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong (Kuruvilla et al., 2002). In contrast, the experience of Nepal in terms of trade union membership, density and voice is very different, with a rapid rise over recent years.\nThe research model: Biological growth theories have been extended from biology to other fields, such as group development, history of science, adult development, technological innovation, transformation of industrial relations, history of labor movement strategies, history of labor transformation to organizations and it is used to an increasing scale outside of these fields as well (Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998). Analogous to biological growth, two different types of growth take place during the course of a life: \"incremental\" and \"discontinuous\" growth. Thus, the growth of trade unions in Nepal has been considered from a Darwinian perspective in three stages making up an S-curve pattern of ferment, take-off and maturity. Alternatively, a neo-Darwinian perspective highlights discontinuity (Foster, 1997). Following that approach, the growth pattern of trade unions is figured out as an S-curve based on the formal legal framework.\nThe four-juncture development of trade unions: The politicization of unions at the highest level is the fundamental characteristic of multi-trade unions in Nepal. This is because trade unions have been maneuverers of their mother political parties for aiding with political objectives and agendas, almost throughout the junctures of trade union growth. Consequently, the bargaining framework is mostly at the enterprise level in both public and private enterprises and in both the formal and informal sectors, where more voice is given to workers in personal and collective bargaining (Nepal Law Commission, 2018b). Thus, the paper investigates why such practices characterize Nepalese industrial relations, by considering the historical development of trade unions. In brief, action in the period between 1946 and 2006 was concentrated on political system change, with the belief that this would result in workers gaining better labor and political rights. However, with the lack of a labor-related legal framework and an official ban on trade unions, they had nothing to materialize in terms of labor rights, increases in wages, distribution of benefits and improved living conditions through collective bargaining (Adhikari and Muller, 2001).\nConclusion: With reference to the analysis presented above, discontinuity (or non-gradualism) is the major characteristic of trade unions in Nepal. Much rests on the long conflict between the desire for big change (radical one) among the workers and trade unions against the desire for no change on the part of the monarchial regime. The labor upsurge of 1947 and the alliance of the trade unions with the mother political parties have contributed to bringing about an unusual pattern of trade union growth in Nepal. The ban on trade unions during the monarchial regime is the major driving force in halting the take-off of the first stage of the trade unions, and bringing about the discontinuity of trade unions in the second stage. The deviation of trade unions in the third juncture further led to high increases in trade union membership, density and voice, which contrasts with a sharp decline in developed, recently developed and developing countries. Figure 1 depicts the alternative framework as to why and how trade unions deviated from the normal path of gradual growth.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the systematic development of trade unions in Nepal. To that end, it considers historical political paradigm shifts and institutional dynamics from the beginning of trade unions to today.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper adopts the background of biological growth theories and tests them with the use of qualitative and quantitative data, official records and historical literature.\nFindings: The second juncture of trade unions was vacuum marked by the absence of a legal labor framework. The first stage of trade unionism was prevented from an official take-off as such in terms of unionization and union activities. The major reason for this phenomenon was the complete ban on trade unions placed by the monarchial regime. However, the alliance of trade unions with mother political parties helped them to bounce back in the early 1990s. Thus, the overall biological growth pattern of trade unions in Nepal appears as \"discontinuous.\"\nOriginality/value: The paper argues that the discontinuous development of trade unions appeared without undergoing a complete growth course of ferment, take-off and maturity as in the S-curve pattern. Second, the discontinuity of the trade unions led eventually to its formal existence as an institutionalized IR actor. Third, the trend of trade unionism since the 1980s and 1990s is one of gradual decline in developed, recently developed and developing countries, whereas it is on a sharp incline in Nepal.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Study shows both e-recruitment and training comprehensiveness help to improve employer branding
|
[
"Value proposition",
"Comprehensiveness training",
"E-recruitment",
"Employer branding"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A literature review by two Indian writers has shown how both e-recruitment and training comprehensiveness help to improve employer branding (EB). The results have important implications for businesses. Using modern digital technology to recruit employees can create a positive image of the company, helping to differentiate it from its competitors and attract talented people. Meanwhile, providing rich and extensive training programs is another way to creates a positive impression of the organization and encourage employees to commit to their jobs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review existing literature about both e-recruitment and training comprehensiveness to find out if there was a link to perceptions of the organization among employees. The authors felt this would lead to more positive beliefs and higher levels of employer branding (EB).\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test their beliefs, they analyzed literature published between 1964 and 2017. The strategy was to use the databases of Emerald, EBSCO, Scopus, ProQuest and JSTOR, and search engines like Google Scholar. They searched for key words and came up with 51 articles, 17 dealing with employer branding, 23 about e-recruitment and employer branding, and 11 about training comprehensiveness and employer branding.\nFindings: The authors felt the literature review confirmed their beliefs that e-recruitment was a good way to create a more positive view of organizations, and training comprehensiveness helped to develop both employee skills and levels of commitment.\nOriginality/value: Very little research has previously addressed e-recruitment and training comprehensiveness as drivers of EB.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
ERP implementation efforts at three firms: Integrating lessons from the SISP and IT-enabled change literature
|
[
"Manufacturing resource planning",
"Management information systems",
"Operations management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The objective of this paper is two-fold. First, we use a case study approach to examine the ERP specification, selection, and implementation efforts at three companies in light of the recommendations found in the strategic information systems planning (SISP) and IT-enabled change literature. Doing so allows us to evaluate the usefulness of these prescriptive models.Second, we seek to strengthen the ties between the OM and MIS research streams by positioning ERP research in the OM literature against existing works on SISP and IT-enabled change. This is necessary because, even though OM papers frequently cite works in the MIS literature, they rarely take full advantage of the constructs and models contained in these works.\nLiterature review: While researchers still debate whether information systems investments such as ERP lead to better performance and even how such benefits should be measured (McAfee, 2002; Brynjolfsson and Hitt, 1996; Brynjolfsson, 1998; Loveman, 1994; Weill, 1992), nearly everyone agrees that failing to develop an IS strategy or poorly managing the change process itself will have negative consequences (Palaniswamy and Tyler, 2000). As a result, MIS researchers have long sought to provide companies with guidance in developing their IS strategies and implementing specific IS solutions.For the purposes of this paper, we review two research streams. The first concerns SISP. SISP focuses on the process by which companies go about developing a comprehensive IS strategy. The second stream of research comes out of the change management literature, and examines ways in which companies can ensure the successful implementation of specific information technology solutions. For both research streams, we identify parallels in the OM literature.Strategic information systems planning\nStudy companies: In the remainder of this paper, we document the actual experiences of three companies involved in ERP decision and implementation efforts. We examine these efforts in light of the recommendations found in both the SISP and IT implementation literature. ERP systems are a particularly good subject because of the magnitude of the investment and the long-term impact on a company's IS strategy and future initiatives (Akkermans et al., 2002; Pant et al., 2003; Mabert et al., 2000). But unlike Segars et al. (1998), we do not see a clear dividing point between the development of an overall IS strategy and the ERP decision. Rather, our contention, and the findings support this, is that both activities are relevant to such efforts.The three study companies were members of the Supply Chain Resource Consortium at the author's home college, and were chosen because of their strong commitment to work with the author and student teams. Two of the companies were in the power-generating sector with multiple nuclear and fossil fuel burning plants. The third was a multi-plant manufacturer of discrete industrial products. While much of the OM-based research has dealt with either large-sample surveys or single case studies, we felt that multiple case studies would be advantageous because it would allow us to compare practices across multiple companies while still drilling deeply into the individual companies' specific actions (Eisenhardt, 1989; Meredith, 1998).Table I provides an overview of the three study companies. The time frames attest to the scope of these ERP efforts. Interestingly, two of the three companies chose packages that were tailored to the unique operational and supply chain requirements of their particular sector, and in all three cases, the ERP systems interfaced with more widely known packages running financial and HR applications. This suggests that while major ERP players such as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle, may be best-suited for more \"generic\" business processes, most notably financial applications, there is still room for ERP systems that cater to industry-specific requirements.Companies B and C were seeking to standardize purchasing activities across multiple power generation facilities, while company A was seeking to integrate planning and control decisions across multiple manufacturing facilities.\nResearch methodology: The author and teams of MBA and masters-level engineering students used a case study methodology (Eisenhardt, 1989; Meredith, 1998) to examine how consistent the company's actual experiences were with the recommendations in the literature.The main sources of data were structured face-to-face interviews with key personnel (with the author taking a lead role; questions available upon request). We also asked these personnel to provide supporting internal documents where applicable. For each company, we conducted five separate two-hour interviews with:1. The key decision-maker in the organization. This was typically someone at the VP or above level who had primary responsibility for the ERP effort. In one company, the key decision-maker was also the change champion.2. The MIS director or equivalent.3. The manager or team directly responsible for implementation of the system.4. The manager(s) responsible for developing the specifications, including the request for information (RFI) and request for proposal (RFP). These individuals typically came from purchasing or legal backgrounds.5. The representative(s) of key user groups.The interviews were structured around four topic areas:1. ERP motivation and justification;2. ERP project organization;3. ERP specification and selection; and4. managing customizationTable II illustrates how the interviews were structured to allow us to evaluate the various recommendations found in the SISP and IT-enabled change literature. For example, the interviews with the key decision-maker and MIS director focused on issues such as IS strategic alignment with the overall business strategy, the comprehensiveness and formalization of the planning processes, and the balance between creativity and control. In contrast, we looked to the implementation manager/team to shed light on how the ERP project was organized, including such factors as top-down flow, breadth of participation, and the role of the change champion.\nResults: In this section, we review interview results in each of the four topic areas, and follow this with a discussion that ties these results back to the recommendations in the literature. We end the paper with a summary of the findings, insights, and directions for future research.ERP motivation and justification\nConclusions: In this paper, we used a case study approach to examine the ERP specification, selection, and implementation efforts at three companies. We specifically looked at how company practices lined up with recommendations found in the SISP and IT-enabled change literature. Tables III and IV summarize our findings.The ERP efforts at all three companies were closely aligned with each company's supply chain strategies. In addition, all three companies clearly preferred an integrative orientation that focused more on control than creativity (Segars et al., 1998). This is consistent with the transactional/tactical planning nature of ERP systems.None of the three companies developed adequate financial justifications, suggesting that the decision process was not as comprehensive or formal as might have been expected. The experiences of the three companies point to the difficulty of putting precise numbers on an investment whose operational and learning benefits will take some time to translate into financial results (Kaplan and Norton, 1996; Mabert et al., 2000).All three companies had well-structured core project teams and at least one executive champion. Guidance for the ERP efforts was not purely top-down; rather, the strategic vision for the ERP system resided in the core project teams. On the downside, two of the three companies did a poor job of managing stakeholder commitment - they brought key users into the process only after an ERP package had been selected.Of all the areas we examined, we found the most gaps in the specification and selection process. Only one of the three companies had a specification and selection process that adequately addressed the size of the change effort and proactively managed stakeholder commitment. The idea of managing the energy required for change also would have been a useful concept for managers to explicitly consider here. Put another way, we felt the three companies would have benefited from being exposed to the recommendations found in the IT-enabled change management literature.Finally, all three companies had a formal process for managing customization of the ERP systems, via organizational mechanisms and budget restrictions. Efforts in this area confirmed that all three companies clearly put more emphasis on maintaining an integrative orientation (Segars et al., 1998).To summarize, the most significant prescription/practice gaps were at companies B and C. Both companies failed to develop comprehensive specifications prior to making the ERP selection decision, and one of the companies failed to consider alternative software vendors. While the long-term impact of these short-cuts is not known, the two companies certainly missed an opportunity to think independently about their long-term information requirements and capabilities, proactively manage the debate with the vendors, and obtain early buy-in from key users.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To compare actual company ERP implementation practices with the prescriptions found in the strategic information systems planning (SISP) and IT-enabled change management literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The case study method is used to study ERP specification, selection, and implementation efforts at three companies. The main sources of data were structured face-to-face interviews with key personnel, and supporting internal documents provided by the study companies.\nFindings: - All three companies did an adequate job linking the ERP decision to higher-level IS and supply chain strategies, although mid-level managers dominated the strategic debate. However, two of the companies fell far short in the specification and selection processes, particularly with regard to achieving broad participation and managing stakeholder commitment. As such, these two companies missed an opportunity to think independently about their long-term information requirements and capabilities, proactively manage the debate with the vendors, and obtain early buy-in from key users.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The case study method limits the sample size, but allows more depth than would be possible using survey instruments or secondary sources. In time, follow-up research will examine the ultimate success of the companies' efforts.\nPractical implications: - An important insight is the importance of involving key users in the specification and selection process, especially when the new system promised radical change to current work methods.\nOriginality/value: - This research provides a concise comparison of the ERP efforts across three companies, and pulls together the OM-based ERP research, SISP, and IT-enabled change literatures. It is suitable for practitioners and students, as well as researchers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
When person-organization (mis)fit and (dis)satisfaction lead to turnover: The moderating role of perceived job mobility
|
[
"Job mobility",
"Job satisfaction",
"Employee turnover"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The empirical findings and the advice to organizations are clear. Increase person-organization (P-O) fit to increase job satisfaction and to decrease intent to turnover, with the converse of those relationships being true, as well (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer et al., 2003). Perhaps no other construct studied in organizational research has led so many scholars to draw the same conclusion and offer the same advice. Indeed, from applying to the organization (Saks and Ashforth, 2002) to entering into the organization (Judge et al., 2000) to socializing employees within the organization (Cable and Parsons, 2001) to exiting the organization (Chatman, 1991), P-O fit has been used to explain the fundamental psychological process underlying the daily experiences of job applicants, employees, and employers. While nearly two decades of research consistently support the beneficial outcomes associated with increased P-O fit (c.f. Kristof, 1996; Verquer et al., 2003), thus creating the maxim stated above, it is assumed that poor P-O fit necessarily leads to decreased job satisfaction and thus leads to turnover (Wheeler et al., 2005).\nTheoretical background, review of literature, and hypotheses development: Unfolding model of voluntary turnover\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Table I presents means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha) estimates for variables collect in the present study. To test H1-H3, we conducted hierarchical mediated regression as outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986), and we present the results from this analysis in Table II. In step 1 of the analysis, P-O fit was regressed onto job satisfaction. Consistent with H1, we found a statistically significant relationship between P-O fit and job satisfaction such that as levels of P-O fit increased so did levels of satisfaction. In step 2 of the analysis, P-O fit was regressed onto participant intent to turnover, which also yielded a statistically significant negative relationship between P-O fit and intent to turnover. That is, as participant levels of P-O fit increased, participant intent to turnover decreased. To complete the mediated regression, in step 3 we then regressed job satisfaction onto intent to turnover. In order to find full-mediated regression, the beta weight for the P-O fit - intent to turnover relationship should become non-significant as the beta weight for the job satisfaction - intent to turnover relationship becomes statistically significant. As seen in Table II, we observed this pattern; thus H2 and H3 were supported. As participant job satisfaction increased, participant intent to turnover decreased. Moreover, interpreting the mediated regression results, P-O fit decreases participant intent to turnover in so far as levels of participant job satisfaction remain sufficiently high. That is, the relationship between P-O fit and intent to turnover is not direct. P-O fit must first increase levels of job satisfaction in order to then decrease intent to turnover.To test H4, the moderating influence of perceived job mobility on the job satisfaction - intent to turnover relationship, we conducted a hierarchical moderated regression as outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). We present the results of this analysis in Table III. Due to significant correlations between participant age and organizational tenure with intent to turnover, which are implied in Schneider's (1987) ASA framework and empirically supported in Schneider et al. (1995), we included these two demographic variables as control variables in this regression. Therefore, in step 1 of this analysis, we regressed participant age and organizational tenure onto participant intent to turnover. Holding this relationship constant, we then regressed the main effects of participant job satisfaction and perceived job mobility onto intent to turnover in steps 2 and 3 of the analysis, respectively. Finally, in order to test the interaction between job satisfaction and perceived job mobility, we entered the interaction term at step 4 of the analysis. As seen in Table III, we found statistical support for the model at each step of the analysis, including statistically significant changes in the R2 values. To interpret the direction of the interaction, we graphed the interaction utilizing Aiken and West's (1991) guidelines for interpreting interactions (e.g. graphing one standard deviation above and below the median score of each predictor on the dependent variable). As Figure 2 depicts, participants perceiving high job mobility that also report low levels of satisfaction are more likely to report increased intent to turnover, especially compared to participants perceiving low job mobility in low job satisfaction situations. Moreover, upon examining the beta weights for each main effect in the presence of the significant interaction, these main effects remained statistically significant. These findings provide strong support H4.Combining the results from H1-H4, we offer the following interpretation. While increases in P-O fit does foster increases in participant job satisfaction, which would typically lead to decreased intent to turnover, this relationship is contingent upon perceived job mobility. Should a participant report low levels of P-O fit and experience subsequent reductions in job satisfaction, that participant is more likely to leave the organization only if that participant believes that he or she has viable alternate employment options. This is consistent with Lee and Mitchell's (1994) unfolding model of turnover. Moreover, these findings are consistent with Wheeler et al.'s (2005) assertions that misfit in terms of P-O fit does not necessarily lead to employee turnover.\nDiscussion: The present study examined the relationship between P-O fit, job satisfaction, perceived job mobility, and intent to turnover. Specifically, the present study explored these variables in the context of misfit. That is, this is one of the first empirical studies to examine what occurs to individuals when they do not fit with an organization. We found that decreases in P-O fit, which led to decreases in job satisfaction, were more likely to result in increases in intent to turnover if the individual also perceived alternative job opportunities. Stated differently, an individual who feels misfit with an organization will only leave the organization if he or she believes that alterative job opportunities exist. The present study provides empirical support for Lee and Mitchell's (1994) UMVT and Wheeler et al.'s (2005) comprehensive conceptual research on the outcomes of fit and misfit.The present research makes other notable contributions to the literature. From a theoretical perspective, the use of the UMVT research to account for two decades worth of studies relating P-O fit to both job satisfaction and intent to turnover is notable. Two major meta-analyses of P-O fit yielded interesting results related to the predictive validity of P-O fit on job satisfaction and intent to turnover, namely that P-O fit better predicts job satisfaction than it does intent to turnover (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer et al., 2003). We attributed these findings to two causes. First, P-O fit researchers do not have a suitable theoretical framework to study the combined effects of P-O fit and job satisfaction on intent to turnover. Second, because of these theoretical shortcomings, P-O fit researchers test P-O fit - job satisfaction and P-O fit - intent to turnover relationships as independent effects. The UMVT provides that theoretical grounding; moreover, our results confirmed that P-O fit acts to reduce intent to turnover is so far as P-O fit increases job satisfaction.The second large contribution that the present research makes to the literature is the finding that perceived job mobility moderates the relationship between job satisfaction and intent to turnover. In conjunction with our results regarding how P-O fit indirectly predicted intent to turnover through job satisfaction, our research showed that the previously held maxim that P-O fit leads to turnover was only true for those employees who perceive alternative job opportunities. Thus, the present research bolsters not only Lee and Mitchell's (1994) UMVT but it also provides initial support for Wheeler et al.'s (2005) model of misfit. That is, we provide evidence that many employees will choose to stay with an organization in spite of poor P-O fit or job satisfaction because they do not perceive better options.We find this point both interesting and important. Job search researchers increasingly view job search as a function job availability and applicant marketability (Trevor, 2001). In the event of high job demand environments (e.g. low unemployment and high job availability), less marketable employees are likely to search for new jobs as a means of improving status or salary; whereas, in low job demand environments, these less marketable employees are likely to remain with their current jobs (Trevor, 2001). However, highly marketable employees will begin job search regardless of prevailing job availability conditions because their high marketability inoculates them from prevailing economic conditions. In terms of our study, it could be argued that highly marketable employees are most susceptible to the P-O misfit - job dissatisfaction - intent to turnover path because it is these highly skilled employees who will always perceive greater job mobility.Our findings potentially leave organizations without practical advice relating to the topic of P-O fit. Although almost two decades of research consistently report the beneficial outcomes of P-O fit, meta-analytic findings provide evidence that P-O fit minimally accounts for predicted levels of either job satisfaction or intent to turnover. Moreover, in the present research, we found that poor fitting and dissatisfied participants would choose to remain in the organization if they had no other opportunities. What, then, does this mean about the construct of P-O fit if it does not account for explained variability of important outcomes and that it does not explain how poor fitting employees will behave in the face of misfit? We believe that P-O fit should be viewed in the context of a larger psychological construct called job embeddedness (JE) (Mitchell et al., 2001).JE describes how employees become enmeshed not just with organizations but also with the communities in which employees live; furthermore, JE focuses why people stay in organizations as opposed to why people leave (Mitchell et al., 2001). Mitchell et al. (2001) theorized that JE had two components, organizational JE and community JE; and each dimension consists of three factors: fit, links, and sacrifice. Organizational JE fit describes the congruence between an individual's \"personal values, career goals, and plans for the future ... with the larger corporate culture and the demands for his or her immediate job\" (Mitchell et al., 2001, p. 1104), with community JE fit describing the individual's congruence with the community. Links \"are characterized as formal or informal connections between a person and institutions or other people\" (Mitchell et al., 2001, p. 1104), which includes links with the community. Sacrifice describes the \"perceived cost of material or psychological benefits that may be forfeited by leaving the job ... or the community\" (Mitchell et al., 2001, p. 1105). While P-O fit, in terms of value congruence, is included in the construct of JE, the role that P-O fit plays in retention represents just one aspect of something as complex as employee retention.Early empirical tests of JE are positive (Mitchell et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2004). Importantly, Lee et al. (2004) found that organizational JE, the combined effect of fit, links, and sacrifice, predicted employee performance; however, they found that community JE predicted employee retention better than organizational JE. This suggests that while P-O fit plays an important role in performance, organizations concerned with retention should focus resources on programs such as employee assistance programs (EAPs), which are \"formal programs that assist employees with personal problems that may be affecting their work-related behaviors\" (Spell and Blum, 2005, p. 1125). Furthermore, Wayne et al. (1997) found that perceived organizational social support, such as EAPs, did in fact reduce employee turnover intentions. While organizational scholars sometimes prefer to recommend job-based solutions to organizational problems like turnover and job satisfaction, we are now beginning to better understand that these job-based solutions affect performance. To decrease employee turnover, organizations should maybe focus on off the job solutions for on the job problems. This might explain why P-O misfit might not always lead to turnover, as turnover might have little to do with the organization itself.Future directions\nConclusion: We have attempted to explore the relationships between P-O fit and two heavily studied outcomes of P-O fit, job satisfaction and intent to turnover. Our research suggests that these relationships are more complex than previously thought. We asserted and found support for our hypothesis that P-O fit indirectly predicted intent to turnover by more directly predicting employee job satisfaction. Moreover, we asserted that these relationships are influenced by perceived job mobility. In doing so, we have attempted to explain why P-O misfit and job dissatisfaction do not always predict employee intent to turnover. While more research needs to be conducted, our research provides an intriguing starting point for researchers interested in the concept of misfit.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The present study examined the relationships between P-O fit, job satisfaction, perceived job mobility, and intent to turnover. It was hypothesized that job satisfaction mediated the P-O fit-intent to turnover relationship and that perceived job mobility moderated the job satisfaction-intent to turnover relationship such that the combined effect of high job dissatisfaction and high perceived job mobility predicted intent to turnover.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were obtained utilizing a field survey from a sample of 205 full-time employed adults working in two geographic regions in the USA. Participants completed an HTML-based web survey that contained measures of the constructs of interest to this study.\nFindings: - Mediated and moderated regression analyses revealed statistical support for the hypothesized relationships, which were interpreted as evidence that P-O misfit and job dissatisfaction do not necessarily lead to intent to turnover.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The potential for common method variability was present in the study, the impact of which could either attenuate or inflate estimated statistical relationships.\nPractical implications: - While P-O fit researchers typically associate misfit with decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover, the present research suggests that intervening variables, such as job mobility, influence employee intentions to turnover.\nOriginality/value: - The phenomenon of misfit is understudied in larger context of P-O fit; thus this research represents one of the first studies in this area of research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Experiential learning: analyzing success and failures in Indian telecom sector
|
[
"Experiential learning",
"Vicarious learning",
"Aspiration performance gap",
"Benchmark failure experience",
"Operating success experience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A key idea in the organizational learning theory and behavioral theory is that firms learn from their experiences (Cyert and March, 1963; Levitt and March, 1988; Argote and Greve, 2007; Gavetti et al., 2012) and accordingly adjust their aspirations which in turn guide their performance goals. This aspiration performance gap leads to the formation of new aspirations based on past learning experiences. Aspiration performance gap and experiential learning are intertwined concepts originating from behavioral theory (Baum and Dahlin, 2007) which affect each other through a feedback loop. Thus, each time a firm faces an attainment discrepancy gap (aspiration performance gap) it enters into a search mode which can be both problematic search and slack search based on negative or positive gap, respectively. These searches moderate the opportunity prospect rule in the case of multiple decision-making choices (Barreto, 2012). Since a continuous scale of attainment discrepancy would be difficult to comprehend hence, we use a simplistic model. Here, we treat attainment discrepancy as a dichotomous variable representing success or failure (positive or negative gap, respectively) experiences of a firm.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Aspiration formation\n3. Model formulation: 3.1 Benchmark failure reduction\n4. Data and methods: Selected firms are Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and RCOM which together hold roughly 70 percent market share. Aircel, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Tata Teleservices together hold another 23 percent market share but data were unavailable for all variables of study for these firms, so we had to drop them from our analysis. Each of the selected firms individually holds more than 5 percent of market share while Airtel is the biggest firm in terms of market share (24.76 percent). Table I shows the market share, and revenue values for the firms studied. The main data for this study is benchmark failure counts on the basis of KPI's that are set by TRAI which was obtained from quarterly reports of TRAI (available on TRAI's website). In addition, we obtained metrics for operating experience, network cost and other financial metrics from firm's quarterly reports. We collected data for these four firms for ten years from 2007 to 2010.\n5. Results: Descriptive statistics are summarized in Table III. In general, correlations among the variables are low to moderate, and there are chances of multicollinearity among explanatory variables resulting in larger standard errors, but the coefficient estimates would still not be biased. In such cases, it would be difficult to infer the model, so we use hierarchically nested models to check if multicollinearity was causing a problem.\n6. Discussion: Main effects of own operating experience and other's operating experience were significant and positive. Positive coefficient of operating experience may indicate industry-wide increase in operational cost which cannot be merely controlled by operating activities alone. Also, the main effect of own benchmark failure experience is significant and negative which means that telecom firms learn from their failures and attempt to reduce their future failures.\n7. Theoretical and managerial implications: Literature suggests that firms will engage in exploitative learning when performance is near aspiration while will explore for external solutions when performance is far from aspiration. However, in this case, we found a contrary result, learning from routine operating activities and benchmark failure occurred optimally from focal firm's own experience in positive attainment discrepancy scenario. Vicarious learning was minimal in this case due to similar task nature among all firms. Thus, this finding contributes to the learning literature by suggesting that task attributes must be taken into consideration while studying the direction and pattern of learning among firms. Also, nature of failures effects learning schema, in this case, benchmark failures were routine thus it provided low incentive to replicate solutions from peer firms. At times, in a failure scenario, coping mechanism involves cost which is over the benefits which could be reaped out of implementing effective solutions, and hence firms allow some amount of inefficiency in the system. We add to the experiential learning literature on the firms by empirically validating a counter proposition. We suggest that aspiration gap will determine learning source only when the task nature demands it. Thus, the firms will go for near learning even if aspiration performance gap is high due similarity of nature of failure among peer firms. We also augment the failure literature by suggesting that the firms will enter into search mode only if their failure nature is unique from their peer firms.\n8. Limitation and future scope: We could think of following limitations and related future scope of this paper. Aspiration performance feedback model inducing learning may not fit well with behavioral theory proposition of satisficing behavior and instead reflect maximization of expectation propounded by rational choice theory (Sakhartov and Folta, 2013). Therefore, the results are true judgment of firm behavior subject to the condition that aspiration performance feedback is representative of firm's satisficing behavior. A firm's search behavior can be affected by both performance feedback and performance prospect that is an inclusive formation of goals based on both experiential learning theory and prospect theory is needed (Chen, 2008). Performance prospect is the future expectation of a firm for its performance in the coming year. But this paper is limited in its scope as we only looked at search adjusted by backward-looking aspiration performance gap. Future work may consider both aspirations and expectations about future in the goal formation process. Aspiration model is drawn from behavioral theory. However, Ansoff's strategic management view and strategic reference point theory can be other frameworks for aspiration formation (Shinkle, 2012). Comparative use of these frameworks would fetch us stronger theoretical results as to how firms form their aspirations. Castellaneta and Zollo (2014) studied four dimensions of experiential learning: stock, homogeneity, pacing and past success. This study's scope was limited to experiential learning from past successes and failures. Future studies may bring other dimensions of experiential learning to unravel different issues. Differential treatment of different KPI failures may produce more robust results. Also, future studies can look at varied abilities of firms to manage different KPI failure risk effectively.\n9. Conclusion: Learning curve literature and aspiration performance feedback theory suggests that firms engage in vicarious and self-learning conditional upon whether their performance is near aspiration or far from aspiration. In this study, our theoretical focus was how a telecom firm learns from its own and others' operating success and benchmark failure experiences based on attainment discrepancy gap. We found that telecom firms learn from their own failure experience to reduce network operating costs. However, they do not do so for other interactions. We found contradictory results to the learning curve theory such as the network operating cost increased with increase in own and others' operating experience. This analysis adds to learning curve literature by indicating that there can be situations when despite an increase in cumulative operating experience, the resultant cost reductions (productivity) might not be achieved due to effects, such as interdependence of operational activities and diseconomies of scale. Also, this paper formulates aspiration model based on empirical tests rather than presenting mere theoretical propositions. We found contrary results that firms engage in exploitative learning even when their performances are far from aspiration. So, more empirical studies testing this model in different scenarios would benefit from the development of a clearer theory in varied contexts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the self and vicarious learning patterns of organizations through operational success and benchmark failure experiences. The study is specific to the Indian telecom sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses published data of four major telecom firms in India reported by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and analyzed the influence of aspiration performance discrepancy on organizational learning by hypotheses testing. Feasible generalized least square model with year fixed effects is used to run panel data regression.\nFindings: In the case of operating experience for performance above aspiration, firms fail to learn from their own experience as well as from others' experiences. For benchmark failure experience under positive discrepancy, firms learn from their own experience. For performance below aspiration, no significant result was found. These insights allow managers to reconfigure their learning orientation and to develop an effective mechanism for absorbing crucial knowledge from themselves and peer firms.\nPractical implications: Practitioners should take into account that their knowledge repertoire is essential for learning in good times. This study also motivates managers involved in operating activities to make use of publicly disclosed reports, engage in vicarious learning or form a coalition for developing coping mechanism under negative discrepancy scenarios.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents a unique context by studying operational success, and failure experiences of telecom sector in India wherein benchmark for failure was decided by the governing regulatory body, TRAI, unlike other studies where success and failures reference points are intrinsically selected.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Performance drivers of serial entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurial and team experience
|
[
"Habitual entrepreneurs",
"Networks",
"Experience",
"Teams",
"Europe",
"Entrepreneurialism",
"Team working",
"Business performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Penrose's (1959) growth theory proposes that the role of the entrepreneur is fundamental in realising firm growth: entrepreneurial and managerial capacity - needed to identify and exploit opportunities by implementing resources for productive use - are necessary to successfully run a business. Entrepreneurial and managerial capacity is mainly held by the entrepreneur and by the entrepreneurial team. Variance in entrepreneurial and managerial capacity leads to variance in firm performance. Research on knowledge and competences within the growing small firm focuses on the need for key knowledge resources in small firms (MacPherson and Holt, 2007; Phelps et al., 2007), which are acquired either by learning from experience or recruiting from outside. MacPherson (2005) argued that firms overcome crises of \"knowing\" as they grow by accessing diverse knowledge resources (MacPherson, 2005). Such a firm's ability to grow and overcome crises depends on its ability to acquire and develop the knowledge of resources needed (Barringer and Jones, 2004; MacPherson, 2005).Therefore, entrepreneurial experience as well as entrepreneurial teams appear to play a key role in explaining performance differences. We link experience effects to previous start-up experience in the same industry. By drawing from the entrepreneurial learning perspective and growth theory, we first develop arguments as to why repeated entrepreneurial experience (serial entrepreneurship) can have positive effects on firm performance. Second, we argue that team diversity will have positive effects on firm performance. Most importantly, we link entrepreneurial experience to the development of better teams. Research assumes that habitual entrepreneurs have certain advantages over novice entrepreneurs, but that they can also have certain disadvantages (Starr and Bygrave, 1991; Ucbasaran et al., 2003). Two main advantages are mentioned: the development and existence of superior social networks and thus teams (Kolvereid and Bullvag, 1993), and entrepreneurial experience effects (MacMillan, 1986). Previous research proposed the idea that entrepreneurs build and develop social networks during their prior activities that help them to attract and assemble resources, and to build teams more efficiently and more effectively in their current venture (Wright, 2001). MacMillan raised the possibility of building an \"experience curve of entrepreneuring\" (MacMillan, 1986). Disadvantages found in the literature include overconfidence, cash richness and constraining social networks (Starr and Bygrave, 1991). Moreover, it appears that entrepreneurs try to replicate past \"success formula\" (Minniti and Bygrave, 2001). From growth theory, we draw the hypothesis that management capacity needs to fit with the opportunity and allow for innovative solutions; in this sense to carry over team members through repeated partnerships from one venture is assumed to be detrimental for firm performance.This study is relevant for entrepreneurship theory and practice since it is an attempt to test various assumptions and propositions about habitual entrepreneurship that are often based on anecdotal evidence. Mostly, habitual entrepreneurship research compares novice with habitual entrepreneurs by treating habitual entrepreneurs as a homogeneous group not taking into account the extent of entrepreneurial experience (Ucbasaran et al., 2006). The questions whether experienced entrepreneurs should be better at building diverse teams and whether repeated partnerships (as an option available to serial entrepreneurs) could be beneficial or harmful are relevant but untested propositions for habitual entrepreneurship. We tested the hypotheses on a single European-industry sample (multi-media), focusing on serial entrepreneurs with prior industry experience. The results confirm that increasing relevant experience matters as well as the building of a diverse team. Repeated partnerships have, however, a negative impact on firm performance. Moreover, experienced entrepreneurs are better at building diverse teams.The next section briefly reviews the current research situation and the relevant definitions of habitual entrepreneurs, and then poses the research question. Subsequently, the hypotheses are developed, the methodology discussed and the results presented. The paper ends with the discussion of the results and its implications, the limitations of the research, and a summarising conclusion.\n2. Current research situation, definitions and research questions: 2.1 Serial entrepreneurs: definitions\n3. Hypotheses: Entrepreneurial firm growth depends on one hand on the resources attracted and possessed by the entrepreneurial firm and on the other hand on the entrepreneurial and managerial capacity (Penrose, 1959). Entrepreneurial capacity concerns the identification of opportunities and the attraction of resources while management capacity concerns the exploitation of opportunities through the management of the entrepreneurial firm (West and Noel, 2009). According to the resource based view, firm performance differentials are due to differences in resources (Penrose, 1959; Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1986, 1991; Peteraf, 1993). The growth and performance of an entrepreneurial venture is thus a function of entrepreneurial and managerial capacity held by the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial team, and the resources controlled by the firm (Penrose, 1959; Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001). Entrepreneurs need to master a variety of competences in order to allow for firm growth (Beaver and Jennings, 1996). Consequently, limits to growth are insufficient resources, insufficient entrepreneurial and managerial capital. However, since entrepreneurial and managerial capacity problems cannot be resolved quickly by simply adding these capacities to a firm - the management capacity problem - (Penrose, 1959; Barringer and Jones, 2004), resource and capacity needs have to be anticipated by the entrepreneur. In the following, we develop hypotheses concerning how relevant entrepreneurial experience and team composition can help entrepreneurial firms to overcome capacity problems and to increase firm performance.3.1 Relevant entrepreneurial experience\n4. Method: After having developed the hypotheses, we now describe the methodology, the sample, the questionnaire, and how we measured the variables in our models. We then present the descriptive statistics and, in the subsequent section, the results.4.1. Sample and questionnaire\n5. Results: We now present the results, while the discussion will follow in the next section. Table II depicts the hierarchical OLS regressions. Model 1, which contains the control variables only, is significant and already explains a proportion of the variance (adjusted R2=0.45; p<0.001). As expected, the number of employees was positively significant but the age variable was not. The multimedia industry is a project-based industry (similar to consulting) and therefore it is not surprising that the number of employees is the strongest explanatory variable (b=0.70, p<0.001 in model 1; b=0.57, p<0.001 in model 2) for the sales volume. In a second step, the explanatory variables (main effects) were introduced as shown in model 2. Model 2 is significant with a high explanatory power (adjusted R2=0.67; p<0.001) but most importantly the R2-change is significant (p<0.001), indicating that the explanatory variables are effectively adding explanatory value. Generally, the hypotheses can be considered as confirmed but H2a concerning team diversity was only significant at a p-value level of 0.1 and can thus (given the small sample size) not be considered as confirmed (b=0.15, p=0.097). The R2-change in model 3 (introducing the interaction terms) is also significant (p<0.01). The interaction terms were used to assess the moderating effects. A moderator is defined as a variable that influences the direction and strength of the relationship between a predictor and a dependent variable (Baron and Kenny, 1986). Technically, a multiplicative connection between the predictor and the moderator variable (interaction term) is introduced in the regression model (Helm and Mark, 2011). For testing moderating effects, the use of hierarchical regression has been recommended by introducing the interaction terms after the main effects, which allow for interpretation for the main effects and of the moderating effects in a second step (Cohen et al., 2003). In interpreting the results, the interaction terms are considered as of higher-order (Helm and Mark, 2011).There was a positive and significant influence of the number of ventures created on sales (b=0.54, p<0.001). H1 is therefore confirmed. As stated above, H2a was only significant at a p-value level of 0.1 but there was a significant positive moderation of entrepreneurial experience on the relationship between team diversity and firm performance (b=0.66; p<0.01): H2b is thus confirmed. As expected, the extent of repeated partnerships had a significant negative influence on sales (b=-0.26; p<0.01): H3a is thus confirmed. There was no significant moderation effect on repeated partnerships: H3b needs to be rejected. Therefore entrepreneurial experience fully moderates the relationship between team diversity and firm performance but does not moderate the relationship between repeated partnerships and performance.\n6. Discussion: Having presented the results, we now turn to a discussion of their implications. We will also consider the limitations of this current study, and suggest directions for future research.6.1 Serial entrepreneurs and venture performance\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to focus on the role of team and entrepreneurial experience for firm performance of serial entrepreneurs in the multi-media industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research assumes that serial entrepreneurs have certain advantages over novice entrepreneurs, such as the development of effective start-up teams and entrepreneurial experience effects. Disadvantages, however, are also mentioned in the literature, and these are assumed to out-balance the advantages, leading to mixed research findings. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 52 European multimedia companies.\nFindings: - The results show a positive impact of relevant entrepreneurial experience and evidence both team advantages as well as disadvantages. Team diversity had a positive impact on performance while the extent of repeated partnerships (or relative team stability) had a negative impact on performance. Moreover, entrepreneurial experience helps to build better diverse teams but has no impact on repeated partnerships.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The degree of experience of serial entrepreneurs in the same industry matters, and suggests that more experience is better. The findings challenge a general assumption about serial entrepreneurs: that the building of superior teams creates performance differences. Team diversity drives performance and the study could also show that habitual entrepreneurs are better in building diverse teams (through a positive moderation of team diversity by entrepreneurial experience). However, relying heavily on previous partners is counter-productive. Limitations of this study are due to self-reported data, small sample size and survivor bias.\nPractical implications: - Entrepreneurs need to focus on opportunities and resource needs linked to these opportunities, and use their experience to build stronger teams but to resist the temptation of replicating perceived past success formula by over-relying on previous partners. The latter is also important for stakeholders in the entrepreneurial venture.\nOriginality/value: - This paper tests various assumptions and propositions about serial entrepreneurship that are rarely based on sound evidence. The role of entrepreneurial experience to build better diverse teams and the role of repeated partnerships constitute an original contribution to habitual entrepreneurship research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A new model for assessment fast food customer behavior case study: An Iranian fast-food restaurant
|
[
"Customer relationship management",
"K‐means algorithm",
"RFM model",
"Fast food restaurant",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Fast foods",
"Iran",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, customers in different industries have become the most important asset in each business unit. So an effective key for organizations to get excelled is developing long-term relationships with customers. The consumer behavior trends have changed recently. The three important changes include an increased need for individual solutions, more attention to health and product availability (Bijnen et al., 2002). These new trends made supplier to change the supply chain. In fact, these changes, coupled with an increasing level of competition, reveal that new customizations for each group of customers are needed. One of the industries that have recently changed a lot is fast food industry. While customers become intensively health-conscious and different fast food restaurants are more available, food industry operators have to change their strategies. Increasing competition in an already struggling market causes fast food restaurants to plan for customized solutions in order to achieve customer satisfaction and prevent customers from eating at other rival restaurants. In the food industry, the concern is on identifying customers' characteristics and needs in different segments and offering special options related to each segment (Johnsa and Pineb, 2002).Many organizations, including fast food restaurants, collect and store a wealth of data about their current customers. However, most of them are unable to transform raw data into valuable and useful knowledge and discover valuable information hidden in them (Berson et al., 2000). Data mining is the process of extracting and detecting hidden patterns or knowledge from the enormous amount of data using statistical, mathematical, artificial intelligence and machine-learning techniques (Turban et al., 2007). The common theme in all definitions of data mining is extracting and identifying hidden knowledge from large databases (Turban et al., 2007; Ahmed, 2004; Berry and Linoff, 2004). This popular means by analyzing customer data could help organizations to discover useful information and subsequently employ this knowledge in decision-making and generating new opportunities based on customer characteristics.The aim of this research is to provide a model to analyze customer behavior in food industry by using data mining tools. The structure of this paper is organized as follows: In the next three sections, a literature review including Customer Relationship Management, RFM analysis and K-means algorithm is presented. Section 2 explains the model of this research and in the third section in a case study the behavior of customers in a branch of a fast food chain is analyzed. At the end, the conclusion and our future work are discussed.1.1 The CRM concept\n2. Fast food customer behavior assessment model: In this section, the research model of this study for analyzing customer behavior in fast food restaurants is presented. This model is based on using data mining techniques to analyze customer's value and customer's behavior.As mentioned before, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the process of designing an organization around its customers, so the customers' needs are considered as the main focus of each organization in decision-making process. In the food industry, customers are considered as the most important assets. As a result, retaining them because of special circumstances in this industry is much harder than retaining them in other industries. In this study, a special clustering of customers in the form of a model is presented to analyze customer behavior by using data mining techniques. The main aim of this model is to help restaurants owners better understand their customers' needs and address them. So although this model is applied in an Iranian fast food restaurant chain, it could be helpful for all types of restaurants.To direct the process of data mining, a common standard is developed by experts from the data mining industry. This model is called CRoss Industry Standard Practice (CRISP) (Han and Kamber, 2006) and describes the life cycle of every data-mining project through six phases: business understanding, data understanding, data preparation, modeling, evaluation and deployment. The main phases of our methodology are developed based on CRISP methodology to help restaurants owners benefit from data mining techniques and better understand their customer's needs. The main phases of this model include: data preprocess, modeling, and analyzing the model output. Since the purpose of this research is providing some clusters of customers in fast food restaurants, first, customers are clustered based on RFM concept by K-means algorithm; Second, each cluster is labeled based on special categories in the concept of customers' account portfolio; finally, for each cluster, customers' behaviors are analyzed. Figure 1 shows the main phases as well as detailed steps of our model.2.1 Data gathering and data preprocessing\n3. Case study: Fast food restaurants have an old history in Iran. Popular fast food items in Iran include \"joojeh kabab\" (grilled or broiled chicken), \"naan o kabab\" (literally bread with kabab), \"kabab sandwiches\", and a number of different derivatives of traditional slow-cooked meals. However, the impact of American style food, especially among a younger generation, is undeniable. Today, fast food restaurants in Iran serve different foods, including pizza, hamburgers, chicken burgers, etc. First fast food restaurant chain was founded in 1995. Then, fast food chains grow and now there are almost 20 fast food chains in Iran.In this section, the developed model is implemented in a fast food restaurant chain in Iran named Shila (founded in 2002). Shila aims at providing healthy foods as well as focusing on customer relationship management. Shila restaurant has more than 16 branches in Iran. We have worked on the Tajrish branch, which is the most successful branch with the highest annual sell, and we are planning to work on the other branches in our future researches. This branch was chosen because it is located in a competitive region; it also covers both home and office customers. This case study shows how our model could be applied in analyzing customers' behavior. In this paper SPSS Clementine which is a mature data mining toolkit has been used to analyze the restaurant's data and follow the model's steps. The computing process can be expressed in detail as follows.3.1 Step 1: data gathering and data preprocess\n4. Conclusion: This study has proposed a new model to assess fast food restaurant customers' behavior. This model uses RFM attributes and K-means algorithm to segment customers. In the analyzing phase of the model, for defining the behavior of customers in each cluster we benefit from a new category in account portfolio analysis. A practical dataset from a branch of a fast food chain in Iran is employed in the empirical case study to illustrate the proposed model. The purchase behavior of customers in each cluster is analyzed based on the days and hours of the week, as well as their foods. The results show that there is no significant difference between the behavior of the most valuable customers and customers who have left the restaurant. Thereupon, the restaurant should seek other reasons for detecting churn behavior. Two probable reasons could be the lack of food diversity as well as distance of customers from the restaurant. For future research, we are planning to study these factors moreover, investigating other branches and compared with each other.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Nowadays, because of more availability of products, there is an increasing need for companies to establish a strong relationship with their customers. As the fast food industry is not an exception and has a competitive environment, analyzing customers' behavior helps bridge this gap. Data mining techniques help to segment customers as well as to drive improved customer relationship management. This paper seeks to address these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study proposes a new model based on RFM model for defining customers' value as well as using K-means algorithm to segment restaurants' customers. In addition, the authors combine a new category in the account portfolio analysis in order to analyze the behavior of each cluster.\nFindings: - A real dataset of an Iranian fast food restaurant chain is employed to show the procedure of the authors' model. The customers are segmented into four clusters. The clusters are analyzed and named based on categories in the account portfolio analysis. The result of this analysis shows that there is no significant difference between the behavior of the most valuable customer and customers who have left the restaurant. Therefore, restaurant managers should seek other reasons for detecting churn behavior.\nOriginality/value: - This paper helps managers in the fast food industry to readily analyze their customer behavior in order to understand their needs and establish strong relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Contractual arrangements and commitment in the Indonesian supermarket channel
|
[
"Commitment",
"Contractual arrangements",
"Supermarket"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The rapid increase of supermarkets in many developing countries has led to a transformation of the fresh produce supply chain (Reardon et al., 2009). In particular, the implementation of private standards by supermarkets and the problems faced by small farmers entering in the supermarket channels have led to closer vertical coordination in the supply chains of many food products (Swinnen, 2007; Reardon et al., 2009). A contract is one form of vertical coordination between a spot market and vertical integration (Minot, 2007). Contracts link small farmers to modern market chains and solves a number of problems faced by small farmers attempting to access modern markets such as accessing credit and output markets and information asymmetries between farmers and buyers (Minot, 2007; Reardon et al., 2009).\n2. Conceptual framework and hypotheses: 2.1 Contractual arrangements in agricultural and food chains\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Statistical analysis\n4. Results and discussions: 4.1 Description of the sample\n5. Conclusions and implications: In many developing countries, the role of modern market agents involving contractual arrangements with farmers is growing. This study compares the contractual arrangements between farmers selling to traditional and supermarket channels. The results provide evidence of the importance of verbal agreements in the contractual arrangements between farmers and buyers in both channels. In view of this, policies that aim to promote written agreements between farmers and buyers might not be relevant. Under verbal agreements, buyers have to communicate aspects that are regulated in their agreements more frequently. This can prevent misunderstanding between farmers and buyers. Buyers can advise farmers in advance what grading and quality of chilies are required by customers in both markets. Buyers can also discuss with farmers about payment and price mechanisms.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of contractual relationships between farmers and buyers in the traditional and supermarket channels, and to explore determinants of farmers' commitment in the two channels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reports the results of a field study of 602 chili farmers in the largest chilli production area in Indonesia, West Java Province. The contractual arrangements were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while determinants of farmers' commitment were examined using factor analysis and Ordinary Least square (OLS) regression.\nFindings: The contractual arrangements between farmers and traders in both traditional and supermarket channels are characterized by verbal agreements. Price is the main aspect of the contract in the traditional channel, while grading aspects are the most important aspects in the supermarket channel. Trust and satisfaction have significant influence on farmers' commitment in the two channels, while the actual price has no influence.\nPractical implications: To improve farmers' commitment, traders should not only focus on absolute price, but also on building trust and satisfaction. Trust can be improved by providing payments on time and following through with their promises. Satisfaction can be improved by offering fair prices for farmers' products and providing quicker responses in handling farmers' concerns.\nOriginality/value: This study compares the trade relationships between traditional and supermarket channels. It incorporates actual price and behaviour variables in the analysis of farmers' commitment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Member loyalty and WOM in co-operative and mutual enterprises
|
[
"Word-of-mouth",
"Co-operative enterprise",
"Member loyalty",
"Mutual enterprise"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs) are crucial parts of many markets, servicing an estimated 1.2 billion members worldwide (ICA-Euricse, 2018). Despite their importance, there has been surprisingly little research into these business entities, which led to the present study. Although there is no universally accepted definition, a CME was defined here as follows:\nCo-operatives and mutual enterprises: CMEs are a large, but often ignored, segment of the wider business community. In 2017, there were around 2.6 million CMEs operating across the world with a combined annual turnover of more than US$2.2 trn that provided employment for an estimated 250 million people (ICA-Euricse, 2018). CMEs operate across a wide range of industries and can be broadly classified into \"consumer-owned\", \"producer-owned\" and \"consumer-producer-owned\" enterprises (Birchall, 2011, 2014). The \"producer-owned\" CMEs commonly include agribusiness co-operatives (e.g. grains, dairy, meats, fruits and fishing), but can include retailer-owned wholesale co-operatives (e.g. hardware, supermarkets, grocers and pharmacies). Shared services co-operatives (e.g. taxis, builders and artists) are also common. Within the \"consumer-owned\" category, there are a mixture of co-operatives (e.g. housing, retailing, pharmacies, utilities, child care and schools), as well as mutual enterprises (e.g. insurance, credit societies, friendly societies, building societies, life insurance, health insurance and motoring services).\nDifferences between the co-operative and mutual enterprise business model and other types of enterprise: CME is a unique business model that is different from investor owned firms (IOFs), not-for-profit social enterprises (NFPSEs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Although CMEs can be found in a wide range of different industry sectors and have strong social and economic purposes, they differ from other types of business in some respects. These relate to purpose, ownership, governance and financing (i.e. how share capital is distributed).\nCreating value for members through a service experience: An important aspect of any business model is its ability to create value for customers (Morris et al., 2005; Chesbrough, 2007; Zott and Amit, 2007, 2010; Teece, 2010; Zott et al., 2011). In a CME, this is associated with the creation of value for members or what can be described as a member value proposition (MVP). To achieve a viable and compelling MVP, the value a CME offers its members should be difficult for members to acquire from other types of business (Nguyen, 2006). Furthermore, the CME's overall performance is effectively measured by whether it achieves the goals set out under its purpose and whether members feel their economic and social well-being are better off by remaining with the enterprise (Sexton and Iskow, 1988).\nMember commitment and loyalty: CME member commitment is strategically important because of member's roles as owners, patrons, investors and members of a community of common purpose for which the enterprise was founded. Any reduction in member commitment is likely to have negative impacts on a CME's sustainability (Bijman and Verhees, 2011). Member loyalty, measured by member's ongoing patronage, is an outcome of member commitment (Fulton and Giannakas, 2001; Kalogeras et al., 2007). Member commitment and loyalty is complex and can be influenced by a range of factors, including the age of the member, which can impact on producer co-operatives as the members reach retirement (Fulton and Adamowicz, 1993). A key test of members' commitment is their willingness to remain a patron even when prices and/or services are not as competitive with those offered by IOFs (Fulton, 1999; Bijman and Verhees, 2011).\nWord of mouth: WOM communication has been defined as \"informal communication between private parties concerning evaluations of goods and services\" (Anderson, 1998, p. 6). It is recognised as a highly effective form of marketing communication, which has credibility and is particularly valuable in the promotion of services (Mazzarol et al., 2007; Sweeney et al., 2012). Loyal customers who provide positive WOM have a \"ripple effect\" as they attract new patrons and create value for the organisation (Gremler and Brown, 1999).\nA conceptual model: The prior research outlined in the literature review suggested a number of hypotheses, namely,\nMethodology and sample: The study began with the development of a questionnaire that included the items used to measure the constructs of interest. A pilot study was undertaken with a large co-operative in the agricultural sector so as to assess the validity and reliability of the scales. Then, the questionnaire was revised and some items were removed as noted previously. In each case and following Thomas et al. (2001) suggestion, the correlation between the scores obtained from the original set of items and the reduced set of items was computed. As all of these exceeded 0.90, it was clear the reduction in the number of items did not change the nature of the construct being measured.\nData analysis and findings: Initial data analysis included the computation of descriptive statistics. The model was then estimated using a partial least squares (PLS) approach within the WarpPLS software package (version 6) (Kock, 2017). The choice of PLS over covariance-based approaches was determined by the relatively large number of indicator items and the model's complexity (Chin and Newsted, 1999). PLS analysis has become an established approach in recent years (Garson, 2014), especially because of the availability of appropriate software programs (Chin, 1988; Hult et al., 2006; Henseler et al., 2009; Hair et al., 2014; Kock, 2017).\nDiscussion: This study provides further empirical support to the importance of \"soft\" or intangible motivators for loyalty within service market environments rather than \"hard\" ones (e.g. price, service quality). It is acknowledged that these findings reinforce what is already understood within the mainstream services marketing literature. However, they offer valuable evidence to researchers and practitioners within the CME sector that it is \"soft\" rather than \"hard\" factors that are likely to be the key drivers of member loyalty. Our findings can offer some insights into both the common drivers of loyalty in service environments and those that are unique to CMEs. We discuss these in the following sub-sections.\nConclusions: This study was consistent with some prior suggestions about the factors that are likely to enhance CME member loyalty. It makes a significant contribution to this literature by providing an empirical assessment of these factors and, in doing so, fills a gap within the CME research field. It highlights the importance of non-financial and non-functional attributes because they were key factors in motivating member loyalty. Affective commitment has the biggest impact on member loyalty, with continuance commitment also playing a significant role. While financial and functional values have a significant influence on affective and continuance commitment and on WOM and loyalty, emotional value has a bigger influence on affective commitment, WOM and loyalty.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a large-scale survey of members of co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs) that examines the factors influencing members' intentions to remain loyal to the enterprise and to provide word of mouth (WOM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A model was suggested and tested to examine the interrelationships between constructs measuring emotional, functional and financial value, affective and continuance commitment, intention to remain loyal to a CME and WOM communication. A large sample was drawn from a range of co-operative and mutual enterprises, and the suggested model was estimated using a partial least squares approach.\nFindings: Significant relationships were found between all constructs. However, emotional value and affective commitment were found to have particularly strong relationships. Emotional value had a strong influence on both affective and continuance commitment, while affective commitment had a strong influence on loyalty and WOM.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides empirical support for suggestions about the factors that influence member loyalty within CMEs and the relative importance of non-financial motivations. It also provides a strong foundation upon which directors and executive managers of CMEs can build more effective member marketing and communications strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sales take off at Midlands Co-operative Travel: X-Factor training boosts customer service
|
[
"United Kingdom",
"Retailing",
"Workplace training",
"Travel agencies",
"Customer service",
"Food industry",
"Training",
"Awards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In the midst of economic downturn, the travel industry is feeling the pinch more than most.\nExceptional customer experience: Nicci Harper explained:\"The focus of the training was to create an exceptional customer experience that would, in turn, deliver an exceptional sales performance. Selling is a problem-solving mission and the training helped our teams to understand, anticipate and exceed customer needs.\"Midlands Co-operative devised innovative events for three groups of employees - managers, sales assistants who make sales of more than PS250,000 and sales assistants who make sales of less than PS250,000. Called X-Factor, the development program aimed to remind participants about Midlands Co-operative's ethical values and how the co-operative society differs from other businesses. Furthermore, participants were informed about the new generation of customers, new selling techniques and teamwork.The courses were delivered by the society's learning and development team. Within a year of delivering them, the society is already reaping the benefits. The number of passengers booking flights has increased by 5 percent year-on-year and revenue has risen by 9 percent a year.One of the reasons given for the boost in sales is the relationship sales staff are forging with their customers. In the society's Welcome Home survey, 87 percent of customers revealed that they were extremely satisfied with the overall service given and were also likely to recommend the service to their friends and family. Some 90 percent of customers surveyed said they were extremely likely to rebook with Midlands Co-operative Travel.Thanks to the success of the program, the society's travel business has launched X-Factor 3 so that colleagues can benefit from further training. In addition, new starters will also be given the opportunity to take part in the scheme.\nTraining in food safety: Meanwhile, the food-retailing arm of the Midlands Co-operative Society has also boosted training - in food safety.Like all retail outlets that sell food, the Co-op has to comply with environmental-health regulations. All employees working with food received regular food-safety training and the local authorities in which it operates were pleased with the standard of knowledge employees had. But Midlands Co-operative wanted to surpass the expectations of both inspectors and customers.The Co-op gave food managers the opportunity to study the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health level 3 award in food-safety supervision. \"This course aimed to give employees the skills they needed to effectively supervise food safety, comprehensively train their colleagues, spot and control hazards and improve store standards,\" said the HR services manager, Simone Comelio.A total of 36 senior assistants, who had already achieved a level 2 award in food safety, were nominated to undergo the training. Divided into three groups, the employees studied topics such as generic food safety, store audits and management techniques.The program was delivered over four days - three days for training and a day for examinations. Participants were then given four weeks to design and implement an improvement project. Delivered by Midlands Co-operative's own learning and development team, the course blended food-safety information and society policies.A total of 12 months later, all but one of the participants achieved the qualification. Area and operational managers have noticed a significant improvement in cleanliness, appearance and stock management. Now almost half of stores that achieve a weekly turnover of PS35,000 have an employee who holds this qualification.Alison Hodgens, Midlands Co-operative's HR policy and development manager, said:\"The certificate has helped to ensure our relationship with local authorities continues to develop by showing our adherence to the law. But also, it proves to our customers that we are willing to go above the legal requirements to ensure the food they buy from us is protected from harm.\"All participants will receive a refresher course, while new candidates continue to be recruited.Both training initiatives were regional winners in the latest National Training Awards.Midlands Co-operative is the largest independent retail co-operative in the UK. It employs more than 8,000 people, across 11 counties.\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest Editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe two training programs at Midlands Co-operative Society - one for employees in its travel agency and the other for its food-retailing employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper explains the reasons for the programs, the form they took and the results they have achieved.\nFindings: - It is found that improvements in customer service have resulted from the X-Factor training for travel-agency employees, and the food-safety training for employees of the food-retailing business.\nPractical implications: - The paper reveals that within a year of delivering the X-Factor training to travel-agency employees, the number of passengers booking flights increased by 5 percent and revenue rose by 9 percent. The food-safety training has helped to ensure that the organization's relationship with local authorities continues to develop by showing its adherence to the law. It proves to customers that the organization is willing to go above the legal requirements to ensure the food customers buy is protected from harm.\nOriginality/value: - The paper reveals the benefits to Midlands Co-operative Society of two award-winning training programs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Document supply services enhance access to information resources in Uganda
|
[
"Uganda",
"Document delivery"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Uganda is situated at the Equator in Eastern Africa. It is a landlocked country; the nearest port, Mombasa, being over 1,000 miles away in neighbouring Kenya. This contributes to the high cost of reading materials and bandwidth; hence making document delivery a key option for both libraries and their users.Makerere University was established in Uganda in 1922, making it one of the oldest public Universities in Africa. In 1958, an Act of Uganda's Parliament made Makerere University Library one of Uganda's legal deposit units. In 1972, Makerere University Library became the National Reference Library in addition to its primary role of serving the highest academic institution in the region.Makerere University Library (Mulib) comprises the Main Library and eight branch libraries. Two of the branch libraries are located off campus, namely: Albert Cook Medical Library serving the College of Medicine, and Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute Library serving the Agricultural farm and institute; while the rest are located at the Main Makerere University campus: Education, Makerere Institute of Social Research, Institute of Adult and Continuing Education, Veterinary Medicine, Social Sciences, and the East African School of Library and Information Science branch libraries.Mulib has continued to play a leading role in Uganda and in 2001, when Ugandan institutions started subscribing to electronic journals, Mulib became Uganda's national coordinator for electronic resources. Among other things, Mulib has the responsibility for mobilising other academic and research institutions in sustaining subscriptions to e-resources and it monitors and evaluates their usage of e-resources nationally. Furthermore, Mulib conducts information literacy and practical training sessions for librarians, academics and researchers in the use of global and local information resources.One of the issues highlighted in the evaluation of e-resources usage was that users were discouraged by the lack of full-text articles. Mulib then revised its strategy by adding a Document Supply Service (DSS) to the electronic resources activity plan and budget. The e-resources are paid for nationally in order to benefit universities and research institutions across Uganda. The DSS was then advertised, a form was put on Mulib website for use by registered users (individuals or institutions) and DSS became an integral part of the information literacy sessions. A librarian and one assistant were assigned to the DSS in anticipation of the expected demand. Furthermore, the Albert Cook Medical Librarians conducted rural outreach information literacy sessions in six districts and 564 rural health workers were trained to access the global knowledge base as well to share the resources available at the Medical Library. Document supply (DS) request forms were distributed during the training sessions. In addition, a DS form was included in the periodical digest that is distributed to health units in Uganda. As a result, DS requests started being made by rural health workers who had never made such requests before (Musoke, 2006).To address the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructural challenges in rural Uganda, Makerere University Faculty of Medicine, Uganda Chartered Healthnet (UCH) and Satellife (of USA) started a Uganda Health Information Network (UHIN) pilot project in September 2003. This project aims to improve health workers' access to accurate and timely information for informed clinical and managerial decision making. This should lead, among other things, to an improved quality of health service delivery. The project has successfully built a wireless network using handheld computers/personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless access points, and the GSM/GPRS telecommunications network for two-way communication and data exchange in Rakai, Lyantonde, Mbale, Bududa and Manfwa pilot districts. The pilot project has proved the viability and cost-effectiveness of integrating PDAs, wireless access points (initially, WideRay Jacks, but now Africa Access Point from South Africa) and cellular telephones into a network capable of supporting information delivery in low-resource environments. Building on the initial accomplishments, UHIN expanded to encompass 150 health workers from health units in the pilot districts by March 2006.This paper focuses mainly on two types of DS: across borders from international sources to Makerere University; and from Makerere University resources to other academic, research and health institutions in Uganda. The documents are delivered in either print or electronic formats depending on the ICT infrastructure and/or the choice made by the requesting institution/individual. Makerere University is also involved in commercial DS services, e.g. from The British Library (print) and Subito (electronic) where it pays annually for the service. The commercial DSS, however, will not be discussed in this paper. The paper focuses on the non-commercial DS activities to highlight how a university, which traditionally served its students and staff, has transcended its boundaries by extending its service to other academic, research and health institutions in Uganda.Resource sharing and particularly DSS is needed now more than ever before because of the ever-increasing volume and cost of published works. In addition, Uganda has a limited ICT infrastructure compounded by the high cost of bandwidth.\n2. Document supply and resource sharing remain on the agenda: To some Ugandan scholars and practitioners, information is available but not accessible; while to others, information is neither available nor accessible. Hence, although there is a need to produce more information relevant to African scholars and practitioners, the first challenge is to ensure that the already available information can be accessed. Resource sharing by document supply goes a long way to providing a solution to this problem.In the recent past, there has been a global and rapid growth of published works and improved methods of information processing and retrieval resulting from developments in technology. These advances have resulted in faster and better methods of accessing information in the developed world. However, in the developing countries, frustration resulting from limited information access continues as the cost of technological infrastructure and bandwidth remain prohibitive. Hence, resource sharing is one of the best available options.It is therefore not surprising that networking and resource sharing have remained on the international agenda of librarians for a long time. In the 1970s, these topics were course units in most library and information science (LIS) programmes. Library cooperation in order to foster resource sharing is a concept that has been frequently cited in LIS literature (Kaul, 1999, 2001). Furthermore, the benefits of collaboration, consortia, networks and peer support have been emphasized in LIS literature for a long time. Most of the success stories reported by African librarians (Wanyama, 2002; Demilew, 2001; Gelaw, 1998; Musoke and Kinengyere, 2008), involve collaboration and networking within institutions to lobby policy makers within the country. The purpose being to form consortia and share the subscription of e-resources, implement document supply service and other resource sharing measures, build capacity and obtain professional support. Therefore the actual and potential of networking, cooperation and resource sharing in modifying the functions of acquiring, storing and disseminating information and knowledge to support teaching, learning, research and professional practice need to be reported, discussed and best practices shared.\n3. Document supply services (DSS) at different levels and in different formats: A dedicated DSS has played an important role in increasing access to information resources both at Makerere University and at other institutions and professionals in Uganda who make requests for documents to Makerere University Library (Mulib). When users gain access to journal abstracts, they often request the full text via DSS. As a result, full text journal articles form the bulk of document requests. As more full-text online journals are accessed by Mulib through increased subscription to e-journals, document supply requests from abroad have tended to reduce.However the cost of bandwidth has remained too high for many Ugandan institutions, which means that they are not able to access online resources. The African Virtual Universities Consortium is one of the strategies that may assist African Universities to buy relatively cheaper bandwidth in future. Currently, Ugandan institutions benefit from sharing their meagre resources among themselves and from collaboration with international institutions.Mulib is one the oldest library in the region, as well as being a national legal deposit unit and thus it has a rich collection of local materials and research works, published and unpublished works available in different forms: theses and dissertations, research articles, government and non-government reports, conference and workshop reports/proceedings, periodicals, newspapers, the earliest books and other publications, photographs and other archival materials. These are important sources of information for research and teaching and have attracted the majority of international requests for DSS. At national level, the local materials and full text journal articles attract the highest demand for DSS. The local materials are either photocopied and sent by post, fax or they are scanned and sent as e-mail attachments.3.1 Documents from international sources through cross-border collaboration or partnerships with Mulib\n4. Conclusion: The paper has highlighted the various DS activities undertaken by Makerere University Library and a successful electronic DSS using PDAs by health workers in rural Uganda. A range of possibilities created by collaborative arrangements with universities in the developed world has also been presented. Although the universities in developing countries have less to exchange, it is hoped that other university librarians in the developed world who read this paper would be inspired to make similar arrangements with universities in developing countries in the spirit of \"libraries without borders\".Indeed DSS remains an important strategy to enhance access and use of information resources. In Uganda, DSS has steadily been growing. As scholars, researchers and practitioners obtain access to more full text online journals, the demand for full-text journal documents may gradually reduce in institutions with a reliable internet access. However, given the current high cost of bandwidth and other ICT infrastructural challenges in Uganda, many academic and research institutions may not easily access online resources. Document supply services will, therefore, remain a key strategy in ensuring access to information resources. Hence, cooperation and resource sharing are likely to remain on the global LIS agenda for sometime. In Uganda, the DSS will continue to be advertised to maximise its benefits.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to highlight the development of document supply services in Uganda, and Makerere University in particular, and the role they have played in increasing access to and use of information resources.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents DSS at different levels and in different formats. Two major levels are discussed: The first is from international sources through collaborations/partnerships with Makerere University to benefit the Makerere University community; while the second type is within Uganda - from Makerere University to benefit other universities, rural institutions and practitioners/extension workers.\nFindings: - Improved document delivery service has played an important role in resource sharing, which has led to increased access and usage of information resources in Uganda\nOriginality/value: - The paper is of value to librarians and other practising information professionals as well as library school students who may need to develop document supply services to under-resourced areas and particularly remote regions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Accessing opportunities in apparel retail sectors in India: Porter's diamond approach
|
[
"India",
"Retailing",
"Competitive advantage",
"Garment industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: India has undergone considerable social and economic change in recent years, creating a strong consumer market for foreign retailers. The Indian economy is booming, with an average GDP growth rate of 4.5 per cent between 1997 and 2007 (UNICEF, 2010), and is expected to be the world's third largest economy after the USA and China by 2050 (Dadush and Stancil, 2009). When market size, growth prospects, and consumer affluence and readiness are considered to determine the retail apparel index, India falls within the top five countries (Kearney, 2006).This spell of prosperity has resulted from trade liberalization (Nagaraj, 2003). Since 1991, the Indian Government has allowed foreign direct investment (FDI) in almost all sectors of the economy (Nagaraj, 2003). In 2006, relaxed versions of FDI policies were introduced in the retail sector, allowing 51 percent ownership in retail trade of single brand retailing and 100 percent ownership for wholesale trade of cash and carry products (DOC, 2006). Accordingly, it is estimated that the Indian retail industry will grow at a rate of 13 percent per year, from $322 billion in 2006-2007 to $590 billion in 2011-2012 (DOC, 2009). The apparel retail industry is forecasted to grow at a rate of 7.8 percent per year, reaching a value of $39.4 billion by 2013, an increase of 76.7 percent since 2006 (Datamonitor, 2009).With the government acting as a strategist, the Indian retail industry is in a highly dynamic state. Although previous researchers have investigated the Indian market, the information available is fragmented and little is known about the Indian apparel retailing sectors, which present a significant market potential for foreign retailers. The ongoing retail activities and changed trade/market environment with a more liberalized retail trade policy demands a continuous monitoring and a more systematic review. Therefore, the purpose of this study is:1. to assess the competitiveness of the Indian apparel retail industry by auditing the changing market conditions and retail activities since the 2006 trade liberalization; and2. to identify opportunities and challenges for operating in the Indian apparel retail markets.The theoretical framework of this study is Porter's competitive advantage of nations theory (also called the diamond model). Drawing upon published documents, including academic journals, books, newspapers, trade publications, and government and industry web sites, we assess the national competitive position of India by analyzing emerging markets and changing elements which might directly affect the future development of apparel retail sectors. This methodological approach is employed to analyze the most current industry phenomena and competitive status, and to identify emerging issues and opportunities for successful market development (Batra and Niehm, 2009). The findings of this study will provide a comprehensive view of the rapidly changing Indian apparel retailing industry by systematically analyzing multi-dimensions of competitive conditions in Porter's model.\nTheoretical framework: Porter's (1990) diamond model provides an excellent framework to analyze the competitiveness of a particular industry within a country (Jin and Moon, 2006). The model has been applied in a broad range of industries due to its implications for marketers, policy makers and the government for designing long-term development of a nation's competitive advantage (Jin and Moon, 2006), even for open and transitional economies (Chobanyan and Leigh, 2006).Porter (1990) proposes that the characteristics of the national environment influence the competitive advantages of a nation and identifies four primary determinants that affect competitive performance of firms: factor conditions; demand conditions; related and supporting industries; and firm strategy, structure, and rivalry. These determinants interact with each other to form the nation's diamond, and interrelations between the determinants establish national competitiveness (Grant, 1991). The government also interacts with the four determinants by fostering or deterring the development of a nation's competitive advantage. The following analyzes each determinant to identify factors that might directly affect the competitive position of the Indian apparel retail industry. The summary of each determinant of a national diamond for the Indian apparel retail industry is shown in Figure 1.Factor conditions\nDemand conditions: Demand conditions are defined as \"the nature of home demand for the industry's product or service\" (Porter, 1990, p. 71). Composition of home demand is critical as it regulates the response of firms towards consumer needs and wants. Nations can expand competitive advantage when home demand is large and constantly pushes companies to innovate and upgrade. While sophisticated home demand forces firms towards better products and services, varying levels of sophistication in consumer demands lead to market segmentation. We analyze the demand condition in India, which is characterized by a swelling middle class with rising disposable income, a youthful population, and demographic and geographic diversity in apparel demand.The swelling middle class market\nRelated and supporting industries: This dimension is defined as \"the presence or absence in the nation of supplier industries and related industries that are internationally competitive\" (Porter, 1990, p. 71). Porter relates this dimension to spillover benefits that go beyond the boundaries of an industry to explain the tendency of successful firms within a country to form clusters of related and supporting industries (Grant, 1991). Porter discusses the importance of forming clusters to deliver cost-effective inputs and highlights the importance of these supporting industries to innovate by working closely with the end-user. We discuss the textiles and IT sectors as the industries most closely related to and supportive of apparel retailing.Textile industry\nFirm strategy, structure, and rivalry: This dimension is defined as \"the conditions in the nation governing how companies are created, organized, and managed, as well as the nature of domestic rivalry\" (Porter, 1990, p. 71). Competitiveness is created by the convergence of favorable management practices and organizational models specific to that country (Porter, 1990). For example, the large number of family-owned companies in Italy has contributed to the success of fashion industries where responsiveness and flexibility are critical to gain competitive advantage (Grant, 1991). Porter also emphasizes that in addition to firm strategy and structure, rivalry plays a critical role in increasing competitive advantage by forcing firms to cut costs, improve quality and innovate (Grant, 1991).The Indian retail industry, with approximately 15 million outlets, is a distinctive mix of organized and unorganized retailing (Halepete and Iyer, 2008). Of these outlets, 12 million stores are located in the unorganized sectors, which consist of open-air markets, second-hand merchants, and independent mom-and-pop stores. Approximately, 95 percent of total retail sales in India are generated from unorganized retail sectors, despite their limited merchandise assortment and poor service and shopping environment (Goswami and Mishra, 2008). The large market share in this sector partly results from the taxation policy, which favored the unorganized retailing sector. Retailers in this sector have been excluded from the tax system, leading to the proliferation of gray markets due to the price differences between the organized and unorganized retailing sectors (Strenquist and Gupta, 2007). However, the current state of the market has created a lot of dead weight on these small retailers due to their low buying power, lack of economies of scale and limited customer base (Strenquist and Gupta, 2007). Furthermore, the government is phasing out the traditional taxation policy that has favored unorganized retailing (Dimri, 2009).By contrast, the organized retailers are characterized by larger size and greater buying power, revenues, and geographical spread than the unorganized retailers (Strenquist and Gupta, 2007). Footwear and clothing sectors have the highest penetration in the organized sector (CII and Kearney, 2006). Their major retail formats include department stores (e.g. Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Westside, Pantaloon and Globus), hypermarkets (e.g. Big Bazaar), malls, and specialty stores. While domestic retailers dominate department stores and hypermarkets, foreign retailers (e.g. Reebok, Nike, Lacoste, Benetton, Espirit, Nautica, Pepe Jeans, Levis, Lee, Wrangler, Tommy Hilfiger, and Mango) mainly operate in the specialty store format or in shopping malls.The competitive landscape has changed dramatically following the 2006 trade liberalization, as more foreign retailers enter the market, thereby changing the nature of domestic rivalry. Such circumstances have triggered defense mechanisms among the domestic retailers, who are improving their business strategies by carrying more stock-keeping units and embracing the self-service format (Sengupta, 2008). The number of shopping malls and retail chains has been increasing as large retailers, such as Pantaloon and Shopper's Stop, are improving their supply chains and increasing their geographical spread to make the most of an early presence. Smaller retailers are also trying to organize themselves by adding branded merchandise to their stock or acquiring franchises of popular foreign brands. Domestic retailers have a greater knowledge of the domestic market, giving them a competitive edge over the incoming foreign retailers.\nIndian Government as strategist: Porter (1990) describes how governments affect the above four determinants by playing the roles of consumer, policymaker, and commerce regulator. The government acts as \"a catalyst or challenger\" when it encourages or pushes companies to increase their performance in order to gain competitive advantage. Although the Indian Government is crippled by bureaucracy (Halepete and Iyer, 2008), it is making efforts to facilitate the emerging retail market trend and catalyze foreign investments. The Indian Government has been introducing more relaxed versions of trade policies, a simpler and more transparent taxation system, and a number of industry development schemes to improve the infrastructure, facilities and technology in apparel and textile arena. The following discussion focuses on these sectors.Government policy\nConclusion: India has traditionally been a suppressed market due to many trade restrictions. As a result, Indian consumers have had very few choices in apparel and almost all other categories of consumer goods. However, the Indian retailing industry has recently undergone dramatic changes, due to the 2006 trade liberalization in retail sectors along with rapid economic development and emerging consumer groups with market power. Apparel sectors are rapidly evolving and are estimated to reach a retail value of $39.4 billion by 2013 (Datamonitor, 2009). However, little is known about apparel retail sectors and the information available is fragmented and under-developed. India's unique cultural background and market structure require a deep understanding and a systematic market analysis. Applying Porter's diamond model, this study assessed the competitiveness of the Indian apparel retail industry and changing market conditions since 2006. In the following discussion, we outline key market opportunities and challenges for international apparel retailers wanting to successfully expand in India. The summary of the findings is presented in Table I.Opportunities\nLimitation and future research: Although Porter's model has been extensively recognized for its scope and relevancy, it has also received several criticisms. For example, Grant (1991) criticized the model due to the lack of clear definition and determinacy of the four determinants, reducing the predictive power of the model. Van den Bosch and Van Prooijen (1992) criticized Porter's lack of attention to the role of national culture. Future research should take such limitations into consideration when interpreting the findings or testing the model and incorporate national culture in understanding the sources of competitive advantages of India. Furthermore, Porter's model proposes that a nation's competitiveness is determined by the interrelations between the four determinants. Future studies may analyze how interactions between the determinants affect the competitive structure of the apparel retail industry and which interaction needs to be facilitated to form and upgrade the national diamond of India in order to provide more meaningful implications for firms, government, and policy makers. In addition, Porter's model suggests that chance events also play a role in altering the competitive advantage of a nation. Chance events could be national disasters, wars, shifts in exchange rates, surge in demand, foreign politics, new inventions, technological discontinuities, etc. (Porter, 1990). Although this study could not investigate the role of chance, future studies may examine what chance events have potential to affect the four determinants and the development of the Indian apparel retail industry. Ongoing political tension between India and Pakistan, the complete elimination of quotas in 2005, and Vietnam's entry into the WTO in 2007 could be some of the chance events that could change the competitive status of the Indian apparel industry. Future investigation may provide specific guidance as to how India can remain competitive over the course of such chance events and how to develop advanced and specialized factors to overcome unfavorable conditions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The Indian retailing industry has undergone dramatic changes because of the government's recent liberalization in retail sectors along with the country's rapid economic development and emerging consumer groups with market power. Despite the increasing importance of India in the global market, little is known about apparel retail sectors in India and the information available is fragmented and under-developed. The purpose of this paper is to assess the competitiveness of the Indian apparel retail industry and the changing market conditions since the 2006 retail trade liberalization to identify the opportunities and challenges of operating in the Indian market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study employs Porter's diamond model as the theoretical framework. This study conducts an extensive review of published documents including academic journals, trade publications, and government and industry web sites and discusses them within the framework of the diamond model.\nFindings: - By analyzing the multi-determinants of the diamond model (factor conditions, demand conditions, related and supporting industries, firm strategy and rivalry and the role of government), the authors identified key opportunities and challenges of entering the Indian apparel retail industry.\nOriginality/value: - This study provides a comprehensive view of the rapidly evolving Indian apparel retailing industry by evaluating multi-dimensions of competitive conditions in Porter's model.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Segmenting manufacturers' investment incentive preferences for international logistics zones
|
[
"Cluster analysis",
"Distribution management",
"Operations management",
"Incentives (psychology)",
"International investments"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recently, with the development of international business, multinational firms have been pursuing greater efficiency in logistics and transportation systems. In particular, transport demand requires efficient integrated moves, premium package services, and the best use of available transport modes and logistics zones (Coyle et al., 2003). Hence, the role of international logistics zones as home bases for merchandise transportation and distribution has become increasingly important (UNCTAD, 1995).An international logistics zone in the logistics system provides a place for firms to store or hold their raw materials, semi-finished goods, or finished goods for varying periods of time. A number of countries' governments have either constructed or plan to establish logistics zones to expand the capacity of existing air and maritime transport infrastructure. International logistics zones have been established at major Asian and European airports and seaports to provide many value-added activities, including manufacturing, warehousing, consolidation, packing, labeling, processing, and distribution. They include, but are not limited to, Kepple Distripark (Singapore), Alexandra Distripark (Singapore), Pasir Panjan Distripark (Singapore), Hong Kong International Distribution Center (Hong Kong), Foreign Access Zone (Yokohama), Maasvlakte Distripark (Rotterdam), Eemhaven Distripark (Rotterdam), Busan Logistics Park (Korea), and Kaohsiung Yes Logistics Zone (Taiwan). Manufacturers use international logistics zones to reduce their costs, provide more flexible linkages between the in-and out-flows of goods from country to country, and to expand their global markets.The sustained attractiveness of logistics zones for manufacturers has made investment considerations a critical issue for those concerned. Moreover, global economic and resource constraints make it even more important that manufacturers' investment decisions be made carefully and that chosen investment sites fully meet their needs. Furthermore, it has become crucial for government administrators and policymakers who seek to successfully attract and retain foreign investment to have a better understanding of investors' needs, managerial behavior, and how manufacturers can profit from using logistics zones, particularly in an increasingly competitive environment. In the long-term, it is also vital for both investors and administrators to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship. Conflict between investors and administrators has emerged in some cases, usually as a result of incentives, labor, and environmental issues (Ulgado, 1997). Accordingly, evaluating manufacturers' investment preferences for international logistics zones not only may help administrators to modify their current policies to more accurately meet investors' requirements, but also provide useful information for manufacturing firms when making investment decisions.Many previous foreign direct investment (FDI) studies have focused on specific zones, mainly from the manufacturer's perspective (Tansuhaj and Gentry, 1987; Mathur and Ajami, 1995; Oum and Park, 2004; Lu and Yang, 2006). These studies have concluded that investment attractiveness may be influenced by such factors as market orientation, labor force, tax incentives, and transport infrastructure. Manufacturing firms generally require different combinations of production factors to produce different products. Motivations for firms investing in logistics zones include the resource factor (Dunning, 1993), market factor (Dunning, 1993; Oum and Park, 2004), efficiency factor (Dunning, 1993; Tansuhaj and Gentry, 1987), and strategic assets or capability seeking (Dunning, 1993). Rolfe et al. (1993) indicated that labor-intensive industries are generally more interested in incentives related to wage subsidies, whereas heavy manufacturing industries - that invest more in fixed assets - place more emphasis on land and equipment availability. Lu and Yang (2006) showed that the chemical industry places the most emphasis on tax incentives, port charges, and agglomeration effects, thus indicating that industries' investment incentive preferences differ.Moreover, the different stakeholders or actors in logistics zones, which include port authorities, manufacturing firms, logistics companies, and carriers, view some incentives as more attractive than others, and therefore not all will assign the same importance to a particular investment incentive. According to Article 3 of the Act for the Establishment and Management of Free Ports for international logistics zones in Taiwan, major stakeholders are manufacturers, port authorities, logistics companies, carriers, haulers, freight forwarders, and international distribution center operators. Manufacturers are core stakeholders (customers) for logistics zones, whereas the other aforementioned stakeholders benefit from manufacturer-derived demand for transportation of their products. To contribute to a better understanding of the investment preferences of investors in international logistics zones, this study focuses on manufacturing firms in Taiwan. While few empirical studies have examined investment incentive preferences for international logistics zones from the manufacturer's perspective, this study will contribute to filling a gap identified in the logistics literature and provide useful policy information for developing logistics zones.There are five sections in this study. After this introduction to the study, the following section defines an international logistics zone and then reviews the literature about FDI incentives. Section 3 describes the research methodology, including questionnaire design, sampling technique, and data analysis procedures. Section 4 provides an analysis of survey data, while conclusions derived from the findings and their implications are presented and discussed in the final section.\nLiterature review: The topic of logistics zones is relatively new to operations management (OM), and there is a consequent lack of discussion in the mainstream OM literature. However, with the globalization of supply chains, logistics zones have become more and more important to practitioners, and consequently to academics. Empirical research conducted in new research areas might easily lead to uncertain results, as it is difficult to ensure the reliability and validity of associated measurements. By taking the somewhat unusual perspective of investment incentives, this research is able to investigate what is a new and interesting topic, in a rigorous way. The following sections discuss literature that is relevant to the research domain.Definition of an international logistics zone\nIncentives influencing firms' investment in international logistics zones: Several studies have examined incentives influencing firms' FDI in free trade zones or specific zones. Tansuhaj and Gentry (1987) investigated differences between users and non-users of foreign trade zones in terms of firm characteristics, awareness of zone benefits and their importance to respondents. Totally 14 variables were identified as particularly influential when evaluating zone benefits: facilitation of international sourcing and trans-shipments, economies of bulk shipping, no inventory tax, ability to manipulate products, ability to manufacture and assemble products, cash flow and interest savings on duty, lower insurance, simplified customs procedures, faster customer service to markets, inverted tariffs, quota avoidance, better discipline in inventory control, and better discipline in handling waste.According to Mathur and Ajami (1995) and Brenes et al. (1997a), firms seeking to locate their operations in free trade zones should take several investment incentives into account, i.e. the quality of available manufacturing and warehousing facilities, access to air and sea ports, available transportation modes, an on-site customs office to expedite and simplify imported raw material clearing, and infrastructure quality. Brenes et al. (1997b) found that key motivational factors considered important when making international location decisions for new manufacturing in free zones were labor cost, political stability, infrastructure, business climate, financial stability, social stability, and the parent company's degree of investment diversification. Other relevant considerations included public utility efficiency, on-site customs houses, labor recruitment, and training services. The International Labor Organization (ILO, 1998) suggested that to attract investors, an EPZ should provide:* financial incentives such as tax holidays, and duty-free imports and exports;* dedicated infrastructure; and* abundant and relatively cheap labor.According to Johansson and Nilsson (1997), the EPZ is a \"geographically or juridically bounded area in which free trade, including duty-free import of intermediate goods, is permitted, provided that all goods produced within the zone are exported.\"Oum and Park (2004) examined multinational firms' location preferences for regional distribution centers in the Northeast Asian region. A total of 16 determinants were used for evaluating location choice, i.e. geo-location, transport linkage and market accessibility; market size and growth potential of the region; port, airport, and inter-modal transport facilities; labor and other input costs; skilled labor force, labor quality, and labor peace; flexible immigration; land availability and price; corporate tax incentives; availability of free trade zones, info-com technology/e-bus infrastructure; modern logistics service providers and costs; competitive financial service sector; personal income taxes for foreign employees; pro-business government and officials; housing, schools, quality of life, environment amenity; and political stability. \"Geo-location, transport linkage and market accessibility\" and \"market size and growth potential of the region\" were ranked as the two most important factors multinational companies took into account when making distribution centre location decisions.Table I shows critical investment incentives found in previous studies. They are: political stability, government policy and administration, economic elements, market size, cost, taxes and tariff incentives, labor quality, geographic location, infrastructure quality, resources, and agglomeration. Based on findings presented in the literature with respect to incentives manufacturers consider important when making FDI decisions in international logistics zones, 29 items were developed for inclusion in the study's questionnaire survey, a copy of which can be found in the Appendix.Based on the preceding review of the literature, the empirical research presented in this paper addresses the following research question:RQ. What, from a manufacturer's perspective, are the crucial investment incentives of international logistics zones?\nMethodology: Questionnaire design\nData analysis results: Characteristics of respondents\nCluster analysis results: Cluster analysis with a dendogram using the Ward method was conducted to segment respondents on the basis of their factor scores for each of the eight factors. The clustering procedure began with all 92 respondents and continued until they had all been assigned to segments as follows: 38 in segment 1, 26 in segment 2, and 28 in segment 3. The segmentation discussion follows in the next section.\nEvaluation of one-way ANOVA results: One-way ANOVA was used to determine factor differences across the three segments. Results are shown in Table VI. Six factors were found to significantly differ across segments, namely, factor 1 (cost), factor 2 (agglomeration effect), factor 3 (resources), factor 4 (port-related issues), factor 5 (policy), and factor 6 (political stability). Only factor 7 (location and transport) and factor 8 (economic) did not significantly differ across the three segments.Table VI also shows Scheffe test results. A Scheffe test is a comparison test used to examine all groups' factor scores and determine which of the pairs shows significance (Hair et al., 1995). Differences in incentive preference across the three segments can thereby be identified. With the exception of factor 7 (location and transport) and factor 8 (economic), the remaining factors significantly differed between segments 2 and 3. In addition, factor 1 (cost) and factor 4 (port-related issues) were found to significantly differ between segments 1 and 2, while factor 1 (cost), factor 2 (agglomeration effect), factor 3 (resource), factor 5 (policy), and factor 6 (political stability) were found to significantly differ between segments 1 and 3.A comparison of factor score coefficients shows that segment 1 had its highest centroid scores on factor 6 (political stability) and factor 7 (location and transport), while segment 2 had the highest positive scores on factor 1 (cost) and factor 4 (port-related issues). Segment 3 had the highest scores on factor 2 (agglomeration effect) and factor 3 (resource). However, it had negative scores on factor 4 (port-related issues), factor 6 (political stability), and factor 7 (location and transport). Accordingly, firms' investment incentive preferences in the three segments were political stability and location factors, low cost and port-related factors, and agglomeration effect and resource factors, respectively.Table VII shows the characteristics of respondents' firms in the three segments in terms of industry type and size. More than 10 percent of respondents' firms in segment 1 were in the electronic and electrical (15.4 percent), auto and parts (15.1 percent), chemical (13.2 percent), metal industries (13.2 percent), and computer and information technology (10.5 percent), while those in segment 2 were in the chemical (11.5 percent), garments and textile (11.5 percent), plastics and rubber (11.5 percent), and communication and network (11.5 percent) industries. The electronic and electrical industry accounted for 25 percent of respondents' firms in segment 3, followed by 21.4 percent in the semiconductor industry, 14.3 percent in the computer and information industry, and 10.7 percent in both the chemical and auto and parts industry.As shown in Table VII, segment 1 consisted of small (42.1 percent), medium (30.8 percent), and large firms (21.1 percent), while segment 2 comprised small (30.8 percent), medium (34.6 percent), and large firms (34.6 percent). More than half (53.6 percent) of respondents' firms in segment 3 were of medium size, 25 percent were small and 21.4 percent were large. ANOVA analysis was conducted to ascertain if the three identified segments differed in their organizational characteristics. Results indicated that industry type (F=1.762, P=0.178) and firm size (F=0.905, P=0.408) did not significantly differ between segments at the p<0.05 significant level.To ascertain if investment incentive priorities differed by industry type, respondents' firms were divided into four groups: the information and electronics industry, chemical industry, metal and mechanical industry, and textile industry, based on industry categories according to the MOE, Taiwan. For the information and electronics industry, as shown in Table VIII, the most important investment incentive was cost, followed by political stability, agglomeration effects, resources, port-related issues, location and transport, and policy incentives (their mean scores were all over 4.0). For the chemical industry, the most important investment incentive was political stability, followed by cost, location and transport, port-related, agglomeration effect, resource, and policy incentives (their mean scores were also over 4.0).Political stability was perceived as the most important investment incentive to the metal and mechanical industry, followed by port-related, location and transport, and resource incentives (their mean scores were again over 4.0). For the textile industry, the most important investment incentive was political stability, followed by cost, port-related, and location and transport incentives (their mean scores were likewise over 4.0). In summary, political stability, port-related issues, and location and transport incentives were perceived as important investment incentives by all four industry categories. To determine if there were significant differences between industries, ANOVA analysis was conducted. Table VIII shows that only cost incentive significantly differed between the four industry categories at the 0.05 significance level.Conclusions and implications of the study findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to empirically identify investment incentive preference segments for international logistics zones from the manufacturer's perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Eight critical investment incentives were identified, based on the following factors: cost, agglomeration, resource, port, policy, political stability, location and transport, and economic. Cluster analysis was subsequently performed to group respondents on the basis of their factor scores. Three groups or segments were identified: firms that preferred political stability and location factors; those which preferred low-cost and port-related factors; and those which preferred agglomeration effect and resource factors. Six factors, i.e. cost, agglomeration effect, resource, port, policy, and political stability, differed significantly across the three segments.\nFindings: - Results suggest that political stability is the most important incentive, followed by corporate tax incentives, government administration efficiency, labor cost, and energy cost.\nOriginality/value: - This study is a first attempt to understand investment incentive preferences for an international logistics zone from the manufacturers' perspective and to segment investors into different groups.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Can less be more? Mentoring functions, learning goal orientation, and novice entrepreneurs' self-efficacy
|
[
"Mentoring",
"Networks",
"Psychology",
"Learning goal orientation",
"Entrepreneurial self-efficacy",
"Perceived similarity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent decades, countries all over the world have implemented support programs contributing to the development of entrepreneurial activity as part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (Spigel, 2015). Among these initiatives, the mentoring of novice entrepreneurs was emphasized as highly beneficial for enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and entrepreneurial skills (e.g. Crompton, 2012; Gravells, 2006; Radu Lefebvre and Redien-Collot, 2013; St-Jean and Audet, 2013). Extensive empirical research (Ozgen and Baron, 2007; Sullivan, 2000; Ucbasaran et al., 2008) confirmed the positive impact of mentoring relationships on both mentees' cognitions (improving opportunity identification, clarifying business vision) and emotions (reducing stress and feelings of being isolated, establishing more ambitious goals). However, there is limited knowledge of how mentoring relationships produce these outcomes. We thus know little about the individual and relational variables moderating the impact of mentoring relationships. This paper makes a theoretical and practical contribution to our understanding of how, and under what conditions, mentor input (mentor functions), along with a mentee variable (mentee's learning goal orientation (LGO)) and a mentoring relationship variable (perceived similarity with the mentor) combine to develop novice entrepreneurs' ESE. This, in turn, will enable entrepreneurial support programs to better match and support mentoring dyads.\nTheoretical background: This section first presents the notion of ESE and its relevance in the context of mentoring for entrepreneurs. We then focus on the issue of the mentor's input and show the importance of mentor functions and mentees' perceived similarity with the mentor for mentees' ESE development. Mentees' LGO is also introduced and we highlight its direct and moderating effects on mentees' ESE enhancement. Finally, the combined effect of mentees' LGO, mentor functions and perceived similarity with the mentor is examined to explore how these variables may influence the development of mentees' ESE as a result of involvement in mentoring relationships.\nMethodology: We conducted a study of mentoring relationships within Reseau M, a mentoring network launched in 2000 by the Fondation de l'entrepreneurship, an organization dedicated to Quebec's economic development. Reseau M provides mentoring support to novice entrepreneurs through a network of 70 mentoring cells implemented across the province of Quebec (Canada). These cells are generally supported by various economic development organizations such as local development centers (LDC's), Community Future Development Corporations, and local chambers of commerce. These organizations ensure the program's local and regional development, while subscribing to the mentoring model provided by the Fondation de l'entrepreneurship. Local organizations have cell coordinators in charge of recruiting mentors, organizing their training, promoting the program to novice entrepreneurs, and pairing and guiding mentor-mentee dyads. Before the first pairing, every mentor receives a mandatory three hour training session on the mission of mentoring and the main guidelines to follow. Novice entrepreneurs benefit from mentor support for a minimal cost: a few hundred dollars per year, and in some cases, for free. The program is available to every novice entrepreneur who wants to be supported by a mentor. Mentees are seeking career-related support (e.g. advice, a sounding board for decision-making, expertise, etc.), as well as psychological support (e.g. to ease loneliness, to be reassured or encouraged, etc.) from their mentors. Each mentor acts as a volunteer to help novice entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey. Most of them are experienced entrepreneurs that are retired and want to stay active by supporting those less experienced, and a few of them are still working in the business world (e.g. bankers, practitioners, etc.). To ensure the coordination of the mentoring cells, the Fondation organizes workshops dedicated to the development of mentor-mentee relationships. Reseau M provides a Code of Ethics and a standard mentoring contract signed by mentors and mentees at the beginning of their interaction.\nResults: Means, standard deviations and correlations between variables are shown in Table II.\nImplications: The present research results show the positive effects of mentor functions on mentees' ESE when perceived similarity with the mentor is high. This suggests that entrepreneurial role models may play a similar role in improving ESE as found with other types of support relationships, such as entrepreneur-in-residence programs and business incubators (Christina et al., 2015; George et al., 2010), peer learning networks (Kempster and Cope, 2010; Kutzhanova et al., 2009) and, more generally, in the context of public support for entrepreneurs (Delanoe, 2013; Robinson et al., 2010).\nDiscussion: The present study has three main theoretical contributions. First, we demonstrate that the impact of mentors on mentees' ESE is moderated by the perceived similarity with the mentor, as previously assessed in entrepreneurial education contexts (Laviolette et al., 2012; Lockwood and Kunda, 1997; Schunk, 1983). Prior research has stressed the positive effect of mentoring on mentees' ESE (Gravells, 2006; Kent et al., 2003; St-Jean and Audet, 2012; Sullivan, 2000) and the fact that mentors act as role models (BarNir et al., 2011). We introduce the notion of upward comparison with the mentor to explain the importance of mentees' perceived similarity with the mentor, based on social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954; Gibson, 2004).\nConclusion: For the past decades, many mentoring programs have been launched in developed countries and evidence exists that they may trigger many outcomes (Wanberg et al., 2003). Prior research has also emphasized mentoring's contribution to novice entrepreneurs' personal development (Edwards and Muir, 2005; Kent et al., 2003; St-Jean and Audet, 2012; Sullivan and Kolb, 1995) and business success in terms of startup launching, fundraising and business growth (McAdam and Marlow, 2007; Radu Lefebvre and Redien-Collot, 2013; Styles and Hegarty, 2008; Sullivan, 2000). These programs invest time and energy into identifying mentees and mentors potentially interested in developing mentoring relationships. However, little attention is being paid to the matching process of mentors and mentees in terms of perceived similarity and the training of mentors that could be offered.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: One of the main goals of entrepreneurial mentoring programs is to strengthen the mentees' self-efficacy. However, the conditions in which entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) is developed through mentoring are not yet fully explored. The purpose of this paper is to test the combined effects of mentee's learning goal orientation (LGO) and perceived similarity with the mentor and demonstrates the role of these two variables in mentoring relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The current study is based on a sample of 360 novice Canadian entrepreneurs who completed an online questionnaire. The authors used a cross-sectional analysis as research design.\nFindings: Findings indicate that the development of ESE is optimal when mentees present low levels of LGO and perceive high similarities between their mentor and themselves. Mentees with high LGO decreased their level of ESE with more in-depth mentoring received.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study investigated a formal mentoring program with volunteer (unpaid) mentors. Generalization to informal mentoring relationships needs to be tested.\nPractical implications: The study shows that, in order to effectively develop self-efficacy in a mentoring situation, LGO should be taken into account. Mentors can be trained to modify mentees' LGO to increase their impact on this mindset and mentees' ESE.\nOriginality/value: This is the first empirical study that demonstrates the effects of mentoring on ESE and reveals a triple moderating effect of LGO and perceived similarity in mentoring relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Internationalization in higher education: faculty tradeoffs under the social exchange theory
|
[
"Social exchange theory",
"International education",
"Internationalization of higher education",
"Faculty internationalization",
"Internationalization in higher education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent decades, characterized by the spread of globalization, have witnessed a massive increase in international activity. This broad phenomenon has also been experienced in the academic environment and has fostered a growing interest in internationalization in higher education (IHE).\nLiterature review: Internationalization in higher education (IHE)\nSocial exchange theory (SET): SET developed in the fields of sociology, social psychology and anthropology with Homans (1958) as its precursor; the theory held that social behavior is done through an exchange of goods, in a broad sense, that is, material and non-material goods. The latter could be interpreted as symbols of approval or prestige, for example. Building on this work, Blau (1968) found that with respect to relationships, there are two types of social exchange in the work environment: an economic one, which occurs in the short term and encompasses interactions between labor and respective financial rewards; and a social one, which takes place over a longer period of time and involves expected intangible rewards in terms of social approval or prestige among the peer group. In summary:[SET comprises] the voluntary actions of individuals that are motivated by the returns they are expected to bring and typically do in fact bring from others [...]. Social exchange theory is based on a central premise: that the exchange of social and material resources is a fundamental form of human interactionBlau (1968, p. 452).\nMethodology: Research design and data source\nTrustworthiness: We use several methods to ensure the trustworthiness of the study. First, we conducted an analysis of documents of the Brazilian government entity responsible for evaluating higher education programs (Capes, 2010, 2013) to find out the internationalization criteria used to evaluate the programs and, consequently, to justify the choice of the higher education institutions initially contacted. We again emphasize that Capes only attributes a level of 6 and 7 to institutions that are considered highly internationalized. Second, we spent several months checking the CVs of the professors of these institutions in the databases of Google Scholar and Lattes (a Brazilian government platform that includes an academic CV database) in order to confirm their high-level international insertion (because not all professors are active internationally and we needed to select professors knowledgeable about the subject). Third, we sought to obtain representatives from as many different higher education institutions as possible to get the broadest picture of the researched phenomenon, per the established selection criteria. Fourth, we also decided to conduct interviews with researchers who are not part of the initially investigated institutions (levels 6 and 7), but who have high international insertion; this was done using the snowball sampling technique. Fifth, we were careful about methodological rigor by triangulating the literature on IHE, the precepts of the SET and the interviews conducted (the latter done with the support of our participant observation as professors engaged in international activities).\nFindings and discussion: Cropanzano et al. (2017) argue that SET is one of the most prominent conceptual perspectives in the field of management and is also widely used in sociology, social psychology and anthropology. Because SET gained acceptance in these fields, it is to be expected that the theory deals with social phenomena related to the individual level of analysis; thus, researchers often use SET to understand the choices of individuals in negotiation processes or in other situations in which social interactions exist. The social interaction chosen for this paper refers to the internationalization activities of researchers, which involve, in a broad sense, negotiations (or exchanges) between the researcher and the other audiences with which the researcher must relate in order to succeed in these activities. Table II shows examples of the internationalization activities carried out by the researchers and the main audiences with which they should interact and, in a broad sense, negotiate.\nCosts perceived by faculty: According to the researchers, temporal costs are among the main disincentives in relation to involvement in international academic activities, especially research activities. In general, they believe that domestic activities, that is, those carried out within the home country, take less time than activities in foreign countries. Among other factors, this is because of the academic policies of the country of origin and the differences between the cultures. One factor that stands out is the fact that many professors, especially from Latin America, must devote much time to teaching, because of the requirements of the institutions in which they work. As a consequence, international research activities are curtailed, as illustrated in the following interviewee quotes:The important thing is to have an institutional environment within the school that favors this type of (international) work. A professor who teaches 240 hours of classes per year will have trouble finding time to research internationally.(Jeff)You have to spend a great deal of time to write an article, for example, for a top journal. A great deal of time and effort. And I do not think we researchers have to devote 100% of the time to it. Including because we make other contributions - contributions in terms of practice, with public policy, with other companies. These are also important things.(George)Time is very important! For many researchers, time is the scarcest resource of all! It I necessary to make exchanges. For example, in this period I will teach less in order to be able to carry out more studies internationally.(Michael)\nRewards perceived by faculty: The first group that stands out concerns the professional opportunities acquired. The interviewees emphasize the importance of publishing good international articles as a way to open up paths abroad, the strategic aspect building international research networks and the view that - in some higher education institutions - internationalization is no longer optional and is a mandatory part of the academic activities to be performed by the professor:Thanks to my (international) publications I had a proposal to go to the USA [...] I also had proposals from France. It's the publications that do this. They give you an option to travel abroad.(John)[...] for many people it's important to keep your job in a graduate program. You have the question of survival. If you can get into a good school, you can develop your career.(Bob)[...] when a researcher enters an international research network [...] they are participating in a certain international discussion space; they do research and studies; they have conversations [...] that becomes part of their patrimony. [...] this contributes to their career in a particular institution, and the more the institution values this international insertion, the more it will be rewarded for it.(Steve)When you promote a professor, you should try to value those who seek a higher level of internationalization.(Christie)\nExtension to social exchange theory: When we cross the interview data with the assumptions of SET, we note that researchers seem to make their pro-internationalization decisions when they have a long-term reward vision, despite the additional short-term costs inherent in this type of academic activity. As a result, researchers with a short-term career view would tend not to seek international insertion.\nConclusion: Our main contribution to explaining the phenomenon of IHE was to focus on the micro-level of analysis (the faculty) - which has been somewhat neglected in this literature - and apply the rewards-costs framework of the SET to understand their decision process as regards the internationalization of their own academic activities. We analyzed the tradeoffs between rewards and costs perceived by 16 Brazilian researchers in their international activities. We found that faculty may seek internationalization in search of rewards such as job opportunities, greater social approval on the part of their academic group, greater autonomy in teaching and research activities and greater professional security. On the other hand, temporal, monetary, psychological and physical costs are among the factors that may discourage faculty members from seeking international insertion in their academic activity.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: Although faculty members are regarded as one of the main agents of internationalization in higher education (IHE), research has focused on the upper levels of analysis (e.g. country or educational institution) rather than the individual. The purpose of this paper is to draw from social exchange theory (SET) to examine how the perceptions of costs and expected rewards affect faculty members' choices of international activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This qualitative study adopted as main methods a review of the literature on IHE and in-depth interviews based on a semi-structured script with an international sample. A sample of 16 researches was selected for interview using the snowball technique of sample selection.\nFindings: The authors verified that faculty may seek internationalization in search of job opportunities, greater social approval, greater autonomy and greater security. On the other hand, temporal, monetary, psychological and physical costs discourage faculty members from seeking international insertion. Based on these tradeoffs, our findings suggest that although the basic tenets of SET do apply, the theory does not explicitly address two issues: the fact that costs and rewards are intricately related, and the apparent mismatch between (short-term) costs and (long-term) expected rewards.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the IHE literature by highlighting the crucial role of faculty - that is, the level of analysis of the individual - which has been under-researched and by setting out the reasoning that supports the decision of faculty members to seek (higher) international insertion. Furthermore, this study extends SET as a plausible explanation for the self-internationalization decision by scholars.\n",
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] |
Building a customer base in the electronic marketplace: an empirical exploration of the e-tailing industry
|
[
"Customer service management",
"Electronic commerce",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer loyalty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: Determining the factors in customer relationship management is a research issue that has been frequently studied in traditional markets. What factors really matter in developing a large customer base in electronic marketplace?While economic theory may suggest that \"lowest price\" is a good predictor of highest market share, this does not seem to be that case so far in e-tailing. Consider an e-tailer such as Buy.com that specializes in offering \"the lowest price\" guarantee. While one might expect this retailer to generate larger store traffic than competitors, evidence shows that it does not. A possible explanation is that the quality of the customer service, timeliness of delivery, and other key retail performance characteristics are below other e-tailers. Most consumers have little history or physical contact with e-tailers, so they might be wary of outlets that compete on price alone, with no explicit performance guarantees (Brynjolfsson and Smith, 2000; Pan et al., 2002; Grewal et al., 2003). Thus e-tailers, just like bricks-and-mortar stores, need to attract traffic through store differentiation. This reality may explain why some e-tailers have higher share of customers than the other e-tailers do.A major purpose of this paper is to provide a managerially useful, end-to-end view of the customer base development process from a marketing perspective. What do managers need to know about their customers and how is that information used to develop a complete customer base management perspective? We focus on investigating the effect of e-tailer characteristics on customer satisfaction and consequently for attracting customers. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, research questions are conceptually derived. Second, the research method (Data Envelopment Analysis) and the data collection procedures are briefly described. Finally, the results and their implications are discussed.\nResearch questions: The overall goal of providing a good performance on store characteristics is to deliver a higher level of customer satisfaction than competing firms. Previous research has also shown that there is a strong, positive relationship between customer satisfaction and profits. Given the overwhelming evidence that e-tailers have very different customer bases (from less than 500 to more than 40 million monthly unique vistors), this research reasonably assumes heterogeneity of customer satisfaction on e-tailer features. Constant measurement of these satisfaction factors and levels can help to develop an online customer base.What factors lead to increase customer attraction in electronic marketplace? The marketing literature has done little on this issue. If one considers the relevant \"online store\" as a mix of e-service attributes, heterogeneity in the services offered by e-tailers may explain some of the observed customer share in e-tailing industry. For example, e-tailers that provide additional services may be able to attract more customers for the corresponding products they sell. This study investigates this proposition in some depth and especially addresses the following research questions:* How well do e-tailers build their customer bases through satisfying customers and implementing network externality strategy (establishing external links to company's website)?* How can e-tailers have visitors view more pages at their websites? Put differently, can generate higher number of page views through varying their store characteristics?* What are the relationships between market characteristics (for example, time* of online market entry) and the development of a customer base?* How likely are high performing e-tailers to increase their monthly unique visitors in the future and to move up in their future market positions?More specifically, the study examines performance at the store level. The analyses investigate \"customer base\" (defined here as reach per million over a three month average from Alexa.com) and differences across e-tailers as a function of customer satisfaction on store-specific features based on store ratings provided by bizrate.com. A comprehensive model of the set of relationships is shown in Figure 1.\nConceptual framework: Differentiation through e-tailer attributes\nResearch methodology: Rationale for efficiency analysis using the DEA approach\nAnalyses, results and discussions: Input-oriented DEA models were formulated and estimated for each store with a total 151 e-tailers using the data collected. As discussed earlier, the measures of store efficiency were obtained using the eight observed store characteristics posted at bizrate.com and number of external links from Alexa.com as input variables and the reach plus page view from Alexa.com as output measures. A summary of the DEA results is presented in Table II.In Table II, the Product Categories are those defined by bizrate.com. The number of stores is the number so classified into the categories by bizrate. Reach (per million) is the average reach over a three-month period. Page view is the average number of pages viewed per visit for that product category.The efficiency scores tell stores how successful they have been in transforming customer satisfaction and external links into acquiring customers (gaining a larger customer base).In Table II, the overall efficiency column provides an approximate measure of average efficiency in transforming customer satisfaction to \"reach more customers\" and \"to generate more page views\" (i.e. simultaneously using reach and page view as two output measures). A high score (closer to 1.000) means that the stores are good in transforming customer satisfaction and external links into a high customer base. For example, for Apparel stores, the overall efficiency is 0.7552. This means that Apparel stores are, on average, relatively good at transforming customer satisfaction and external links into a high customer base.Mean overall efficiency across all product categories is 0.5075, indicating that for stores to improve their efficiency, they would need to increase both number of customers and number of page views. For all stores to increase to the ideal level, both number of customers and page views would need to increase by 49.25 percent.The efficiency scores also interact to produce the overall efficiency score. These interactions vary by type of retailer. In Table II, if we use only reach efficiency (number of customers) as the measure (excluding page views), the Apparel product category efficiency falls to 0.3769. If we use only page views (number of page views) as the measure (excluding number of customers), the Apparel product category efficiency falls to 0.6174. These interactions can mean that stores that only put efforts into one part of the efficiency equation are unlikely to achieve optimal overall efficiency.Finally, the differences were further assessed through conducting t-tests. The results obtained when each output (reach and page view) was excluded showed that the greatest influence on overall efficiency was page view (t = 15.219, p = 0.000). When the output reach was excluded from assessment, significant influence was also found but the effect was smaller than page view (t = 10.357, p = 0.000).The standard deviations of the e-tailer efficiencies are quite high as shown in Table II (e.g. 0.2659, 0.2503, and 0.1969 for overall efficiency, reach efficiency and page view efficiency respectively). Performance of e-tailers is far from consistent.We can also categorize stores by their efficiency scores. As seen in Table III, 83 stores (55 percent of the sampled e-tailers) have efficiency scores less than 0.50. Among the sample e-tailers, 9.3 percent have overall efficiency scores of 1.00. We note that this percentage drops to 5.3 percent when using only \"reach\" as an output measure, and drops to 1.3 percent when only using page view as the output measure. These results indicate that in general e-tailers are highly inefficient in developing a customer base when all the eight Bizrate e-store characteristics are used and number of external links to the site are used in the analyses.Product category differences\nConclusions and managerial implications: The paper discusses how DEA can be used to measure the efficiencies of e-tailers. The inputs to the model are customers' ratings on stores' attributes as well as number of external links to the stores. The outputs are the reach per million and number of page views per visitor. This paper has focused on improving diagnosis of the performance of e-tailers by assessing reach efficiency and page view efficiency separately. Reach efficiency reflects the extent to which an e-tailer is exploiting the potential within online environment for attracting visitors. Page view efficiency measures the performance of an e-store in generating more page view per visitor. The degree of simultaneously getting more visitors and keeping them staying longer is reflected in the overall efficiency of the unit.Excelling in reach efficiency or page view efficiency will be dependent on the products that the e-tailers are selling. A negative association between reach efficiency and page view efficiency was found in the many cases of e-tailers (e.g. apparel, traveling and leisure). For example, e-tailers that excel in shipping and handling service will attract more customers but will have lower page views. Therefore, the case is strong for keeping visitors through good site design rather than through hard to follow shipping and handling procedures. Just having visitors stay long is not necessarily desirable. Some visitors may stay long because of poor site design, but may not return. This would be not conducive to an increase in overall efficiency.The findings of this study carry several managerial implications. First, good practices in the generation of customers and page view have been identified. Knowing the efficiency patterns of an e-tailer makes it possible to guide managerial action. This is because it gives a measure of the extent to which different management actions at the e-tailer can lead to higher future customer growth. Since this study measures only visitors (and not necessarily buyers), combining this information with information on the conversion rate of an e-tailer makes it possible to measure potential profitability of management decisions. In addition, since the number of pages viewed is believed to positively influence consumers' purchase intention, increasing page view efficiency should be a source for profit.Second, the significant correlations between time of online market entry and efficiency scores indicate that in a more competitive environment, late entrant stores may be less able to develop a customer base directly by satisfying customers. Given the results on the effect of market entry on store efficiency, we can explain the success of first movers in electronic marketplaces. There are salient advantages for first movers in e-tailing industries. This advantage has been developed mostly from establishing number of external links with the web site. While it is possible for pure-play stores like Amazon.com to develop a strong brand name through early entry, large-scale advertising, and excellent customer service, our results indicate that early entrant e-stores also can successfully leverage their capability of satisfying customers directly to a sound customer base in cyberspace. Managers today should realize that customers match realizations and expectations of product/service performance, and that it is critical for them to deliver such performance at higher levels as expectations increase due to competition, marketing communications, and changing customer needs.It is generally believed that e-tailer service quality provides a source of strategic advantage for e-tailers. However, based on our findings, high ratings on store characteristics do not necessarily lead to a large customer base. Thus, consumers may be attracted to shop at e-tailers about which they have ready access to quality measures as opposed to stores about which they have no such information. Stores with high ratings, but no disclosure of quality measures will have a lower customer base. There are several different ways e-tailers may be able to signal quality of service. One obvious way that e-tailers can signal quality by developing a reputation among customers is to get a third-party certification (e.g. certified by Bizrate.com).The need to better understand customer behavior and focus on increasing customer satisfaction has changed how marketers view the world. Traditionally, marketers have been trained to acquire customers, either new ones who have not bought the product category before or those who are currently competitors' customers. This has required heavy doses of mass advertising and price-oriented promotions to customers and channel members. However, the results from this study could change the tone of the conversation from purely mass promotion to satisfying customers in customer acquisition. This requires a different mindset and a different and new set of tools. A good thought experiment for an executive audience is to ask them how much they spend and/or focus on customer satisfaction in acquisition activities. The right answer has to be that satisfaction dominates customer acquisition. In other words, rather than having a focus on customer satisfaction for retention only, one should think of customer satisfaction as a customer acquisition approach.This study has identified satisfaction as the important driver of developing a customer base. It has extended generalizability of results by the use of both cross sectional data and longitudinal data. The DEA approach in this paper is illustrated using e-tailers but it has general applicability for other units operating in the online environment. In addition to satisfaction on service and number of external links, further study can examine other drivers of developing a customer base, for example, advertising, trust building, and strategic alliance, thereby producing more robust evidence for a customer base development in e-tailing industry.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Building a customer base as an outcome of customer satisfaction has not been investigated empirically in e-tailing industry. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Explores the relationship between satisfying customers and building a customer base using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Data from the e-retailing industry related to the input variables (e.g. customers' ratings on a set of e-store attributes) and output variables (e.g. a proxy measure of \"customer base\") are analyzed.\nFindings: - Performance scores for developing a customer base vary across product categories. Performance score is a good parameter for predicting future change on a unique number of visitors and on the competition pattern for a particular e-tailer.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Further study can examine other drivers of a developing customer base (e.g. advertising, trust building, and strategic alliance) - thereby producing more robust evidence for customer base development in e-tailing industry.\nPractical implications: - Good practices in the generation of customers and page view have been identified. Knowing the efficiency patterns of an e-tailer makes it possible to guide managerial action by providing a measure of the extent to which different management actions at the e-tailer can lead to higher future customer growth. Managers should realize that customers match realizations and expectations of product/service performance.\nOriginality/value: - This study has identified satisfaction as the important driver of developing a customer base. It focuses on improving diagnosis of the performance of e-tailers by assessing reach efficiency and page view efficiency separately.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Benchmark the best factory data collection system (FDC) using AHP-GRA method
|
[
"Information management",
"Decision support systems",
"Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)",
"Factory data collection (FDC) system",
"Grey relational analysis (GRA)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Various techniques are used to collect data from the factory floor. These techniques range from clerical methods that require workers to fill out paper forms that are later compiled, to fully automated methods that require no human participation. The factory data collection (FDC) system consists of the various paper documents, terminals, and automated devices located throughout the plant for collecting data on shop floor operations, plus the means for compiling, and processing the data. The FDC system serves as an input to the order progress module in shop floor control, as illustrated in Figure 1. It is also an input to priority control, which affects order scheduling. The FDC system collects various types of data on factory operations such as piece counts completed at each work center, direct labor time expended on each order, parts that are scrapped, parts requiring rework, and equipment downtime. The data collection system can also include the time clocks used by employees to punch in and out of work (Groover, 2009). The ultimate purpose of the FDC system (Figure 1) is to supply status and performance data to the shop floor control system and to provide current information to production foremen, plant management, and production control personnel.\n2. Literature review: Efforts have been made by few researchers related to factory data system in a shop floor and supply chain environment. Riddick and Loreau (1997) mentioned that increasing shop floor efficiency through scheduling has become one of the major concerns in manufacturing industries. The manufacturers have to overcome the problem mainly: difficulty in putting the information needed for scheduling; and reacting to changes in the shop floor environment that occurred after the schedule has been started. Methods to facilitate the transfer of data for the production of initial schedules must be devised along with methods to reschedule based on updated information from the shop floor. They described a model which shows shop floor status data and defined a simple message protocol for communicating shop floor status information for which an integrated system has been developed. The general architecture of the system, the components of the system, and the function of each of the components also described. Then, an information model which describes entities needed to maintain shop floor status has been presented.\n3. Methodology: This work makes an attempt to develop a systematic methodology (Figure 1) to select the best FDC system based on the various criteria (Figure 2).\n4. Example: The objective of this paper is to identify the best FDC system. The alternatives of this FDC systems are job traveler (A1), employee time sheets (A2), operation tear strips (A3), pre-punched cards (A4), barcoding (A5), RFID (A6), one centralized terminal (A7), satellite terminal (A8) and work-station terminal (A9). The decision matrix (Table) of nine alternatives and eight criteria is shown in Table VIII.\n5. Result and conclusion: The result of the proposed approach applied for the selection of the best factory data system is shown in Table XI. From the Table XI, it is understood that factory data system alternative; RFID is the most preferred choice among the nine alternatives. \"RFID\" is the best ideal solution whereas \"Operation tear strips\" the worst solution.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a multi-criteria decision making method to evaluate factory data collection (FDC) system alternatives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: \"Information\" in is fundamental resource to the success of any business which is as valuable as capital or people. The factory data (information) collection system (FDC system) consists of the various paper documents, terminals, and automated devices located throughout the plant for collecting data on shop floor operations for compiling and processing the data. In this paper, nine alternatives of FDC methods are evaluated on the basis of eight criteria. The weight of each criterion is determined using Analytic Hierarchy Process, and the same weights are used to evaluate alternatives of FDC system using Grey Relational Analysis - A multi-criterion decision making method.\nFindings: The methodology facilitates the selection of the best FDC system that will minimize the data entry time and chances of errors. The methodology suggests Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) system is the most preferred choice (ideal) among the nine alternatives whereas Operation tear strips is the worst solution.\nOriginality/value: The proposed methodology will provide a useful tool to the decision maker, which may help to eliminate the associated risks during data entry. The selected best FDC system, i.e. RFID is most suitable tool for ERP system to integrate internal (manufacturing) and external (sales and service) management information system.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The determinants of a culture of partying among managers in the hotel industry
|
[
"United States of America",
"Hotels",
"Organizational culture",
"Managers",
"Working patterns",
"Partying",
"Management",
"Work",
"Family"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One of the defining characteristics of the hotel industry may be a significant amount of time spent \"partying\" or socializing with professional colleagues outside of work. Cleveland et al. (2007) have quoted one hotelier as saying:We work hard and we play even harder. And when you're working until 11 o'clock at night and then you go out and have a couple of drinks and then you're back in again the next morning, you know. It tends to take a heavy toll on you.This quotation suggests that time spent socializing with hotel colleagues outside of work not only may be common, but may also have a deleterious effect on employee morale and health. At the same time, partying, or social gathering involves apparently voluntary behavior, and it provides benefits to those involved in addition to having potentially negative effects on employees.Gathering with work colleagues outside work is natural, and is a socio-dynamic behavior that is desirable to a certain extent by many workers, although the extent to which employees gather outside work may vary based on the organizational culture of the particular company (Dooley, 2003). In any case, it is a common ritual in a multitude of industries for work colleagues to consume alcohol together after work (Flores-Pereira et al., 2008). A problem with such partying is that recent research concludes it is likely to lead to alcohol misuse in general (Campbell and Oei, 2010), and particularly risky drinking behavior among 17 to 34 year olds (Lyvers et al., 2010). The problem of social drinking has resulted in alcohol abuse being on the rise, and concomitantly, an increase in related liver disease, heart disease, stroke, depression, memory loss, impaired judgment, and violence (Ainsworth, 2009). One recent report indicated that concerns regarding heavy alcohol consumption are at an all-time high, and that same report queried whether such alcohol abuse may in fact be caused or exacerbated by the organizational culture in certain organizations or fields (Hope, 2006). Further, such partying can have a negative effect on workers' families (Mulvaney et al., 2007).While partying is apparently widely discussed within the hotel industry, there is a lack of academic research regarding the topic. Thus, in the subject study, a definition of partying has been developed, including both its social gathering aspect and its element of involving alcohol consumption. Specifically, in this study, partying is defined as social gathering with work colleagues outside of work hours and outside of the work location, including drinking alcohol. The measurement section of this paper presents the survey scale for partying developed by the investigators of this study.Cooper (1998) identifies a related phenomenon known as \"presenteeism,\" which he describes as being seen by work colleagues beyond normal working hours. Presenteeism may be considered an expression of commitment to the job or to the company (Munck, 2001; Bailyn, 1993; Thompson et al., 1999) or as a way for employees to distinguish themselves from peers and signal to management that they are committed beyond normal work hours (Perlow, 1997). Thus, partying may be a way hotel employees demonstrate presenteeism.Partying occupies a place of significance in the hotel culture, particularly concerning the related construct of work-life balance (Cleveland et al., 2007). Along with irregular schedules and intense guest contact, partying may exert an effect on a number of negative outcome variables, including work-family conflict (Cleveland et al., 2007; Mulvaney et al., 2007). Despite recognition in the hotel industry that a culture of partying can have negative outcomes for both employees and the organization, partying continues to be a standardized norm across the hospitality industry (Mulvaney et al., 2007), and the focus of this study is on hotel managers. However, such partying has been an understudied academic topic. Therefore, to assist in understanding why the norm of partying persists in spite of evidence to suggest that it may negatively impact employees and organizations, this exploratory, empirical study investigates the related theories of organizational culture, and the macroculture of the hotel industry, in particular.\nLiterature review: organizational culture and macroculture: Organizational culture\nMethodology: Sample\nResults: The effects of work and family culture on partying\nDiscussion: Partying is a relatively new academic concept evolving from the same, ubiquitous term commonly used in the hospitality industry. The scale developed for partying displayed both acceptable reliability and positive correlation with organizational time expectations. Future academic research should explore the relationships between partying and other individual and organizational dependent variables of interest.Practitioners should take note, particularly during challenging economic times, employees (particularly managerial employees) are likely to feel induced to be visible for the sake of job security and to be perceived by upper management as being a part of the hotel social system. In other words, partying may not be entirely voluntary, but rather social pressures to participate in group activities may be strong, particularly in certain organizations, where partying is a part of the socialization process. At the same time, such visibility may have negative and costly implications for both individuals and organizations, such as symptoms of emotional exhaustion like depersonalization and detachment. Further, since emotional exhaustion and turnover have been previously correlated in the academic literature, practitioners should be concerned that employees who feel manipulated into partying with work colleagues outside of work, but do not display emotional exhaustion in the workplace, are still susceptible to leaving the organization as soon as the economy improves and alternative opportunities present themselves - and these employees may be exactly the ones hospitality industry executives do not want to lose. Hospitality industry executives could, for example, include queries regarding social pressures in the organization in their employee surveys regarding satisfaction, commitment and engagement.On the other hand, it is important to note that socialization processes such as partying may have positive, beneficial aspects to the participants involved, and it is entirely possible that there is self-selection involved, i.e. individuals who enjoy partying with work colleagues also have a propensity to become hotel managers.Partying of hotel managers appears to be a function of work-family culture, in general, and partying varies by the specific hotel organization, as well. Specifically, while relatively low career consequences for using work-family benefits and low organizational time expectations were associated with reduced partying levels as expected, higher levels of managerial support were associated with greater amounts of partying. While this finding was not in the hypothesized direction, it is interesting because it infers the possible presence of the positive aspect of social gathering of being desirable and beneficial to hotel employees, and managerial support may in fact be demonstrated to employees through partying. Since organizational culture in the hospitality industry is often nurtured by high level organizational leaders (O'Gorman and Gillespie, 2010), hotel executives wishing to increase organizational health by reducing employee partying outside work may consider proactively reducing career consequences for using work-family benefits and organizational time expectations through not only changing organizational policies, but also through changing culture, such as through storytelling. Such a program could also form an interesting future research study designed to evaluate the effects of such changes on employee physical health symptoms before and after the implementation of such a program.\nConclusions and limitations: The primary purpose of this study has been to explore the apparent norm of partying that persists in the hotel industry despite evidence suggesting it can negatively affect both employees and organizations. This study revealed that in hotels with organizational culture oriented towards work and family balance, managers displayed less partying behavior. It also found that such work and family culture may vary based on certain hotel corporate organizations, hotel location classifications, and hotel sizes, because partying behavior significantly varied based on such corporate, locational and size differences. The study also indicated that relatively older employees spend less time than younger employees partying with work colleagues outside work. This study suggests that a hotel workplace culture oriented towards work and family balance may yield less partying behavior, which based on the results of previous research, may have positive implications for reducing hotel organization turnover and health care costs.As with any research, the results of this study should be interpreted with limitations. First, this study only includes employee self-reports regarding partying. Direct observation was not feasible, and furthermore, direct observation is prone to researcher bias. In addition, to recruit a sufficient number of employees from each hotel, employees of limited-service hotels were not included in this study. As limited-service hotels may have different demands, pressures, and climate than full-service hotels, the results of this study may not be generalizable to the limited service segment. Also, this study focused on managers because those employees are more expensive to recruit, orient, and train than hourly employees. This study does not assume that hourly employees do not gather socially with work colleagues, and of course, they may do so with managerial employees as well as other hourly employees, and this study may not be generalizable to hourly employees. In addition, the scale used for partying in this exploratory study contained only three items. Although more items would have been ideal, these three items included the prominent themes that emerged from the previously discussed preliminary, qualitative, pilot study of hotel managers, and given space limitations in this survey of busy hotel managers working long hours, the three items were all that could be included in the subject survey. Although the scale used in this study had an acceptable level of reliability, future studies regarding the new academic topic of partying could benefit from the development and validation of a more comprehensive measure of partying. Lastly, the subject study is limited to the USA. While it is beyond the scope of this study, future research regarding partying should include non-American culture and could compare the results in different cultural settings.In conclusion, the variable of the hotel company appeared to have had a significant effect on partying levels. In short, some hotel companies had significantly different levels of partying. In other words, while all hotel companies exhibited some level of partying, i.e. macroculture, different hotel companies may have different organizational cultures, and those variances in culture may have positive, as well as deleterious effects on their employees. Potential deleterious effects may be of particular concern not only in certain hotel companies, but in larger hotels, as well.Older hotel managers reported engaging in significantly less partying, compared to their younger counterparts. Manager age may indicate more tenure and experience, and not only industry experience, but life experience, as well. Thus, older managers may understand that the quality of work is more important than the hours they spend at work or with work colleagues, feeling less pressure to gather with work colleagues outside work, perhaps because older and more tenured managers have established certain credibility to a greater extent than relatively younger and less experienced managers. Also, when managers get older, they may tend to settle down and have a family; thus, they might spend more time with their family members instead of gathering with their work peers after work. Furthermore, they may have more family-related responsibilities; thus, they may spend more time on family-related events than on socializing with their work peers. Hospitality organization leaders wishing to reduce levels of partying for the reasons stated herein could use relatively older employees for training exercise and as role models in such endeavors.As O'Neill et al. (2004) pointed out, norms in a macroculture can persist despite the fact that they may not function well for individual organizational units. Such may be the situation with partying. Excessive partying can have a number of adverse consequences for employees. As Munck (2001) found, excessive time spent with work colleagues can lead to higher than desired levels of managerial turnover, as managers are forced to make decisions between family and work time. Furthermore, because partying has been linked with alcohol misuse in general (Campbell and Oei, 2010), and specifically with risky drinking behavior among 17-34 year olds (Lyvers et al., 2010), hotel managers should be aware that a workplace culture that promotes and induces social gathering with work colleagues outside of work may be creating a situation that is likely to become costly for both the organization and the individual, particularly when such social gathering also promotes alcohol consumption. Some good news in this regard is that attention to this issue through intervention can have the effect of reducing the number of social binge drinkers (Jethwa, 2009) and that the outlook for people who abuse alcohol is moderately good (Ainsworth, 2009). Hospitality researchers should continue to study this important and evolving issue, and hospitality managers may wish to consider serving employee needs for social gathering by sponsoring voluntary, alcohol-free, recreational events.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the apparent norm of partying that persists in the hotel industry despite evidence suggesting it can negatively affect both employees and organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Telephone surveys of 544 managers from 65 hotels were conducted. Multiple regression analyses and analyses of variance were performed to examine the extent to which differences in hotel organizational culture, hotel classification, hotel corporate organization, hotel size and manager age affect the extent to which employees spend time gathering and partying with their work colleagues outside work.\nFindings: - The paper finds that in hotels with organizational culture oriented towards work and family balance, managers displayed less partying behavior. It also finds that such work and family culture may vary based on certain hotel corporate organizations, hotel location classifications, and hotel sizes, because partying behavior significantly varies based on such corporate, locational and size differences. Findings also indicate that relatively older employees spend less time than younger employees partying with work colleagues outside work.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Limitations include the use of self reports of hotel managers from full-service hotels in the USA.\nPractical implications: - A workplace culture oriented towards work and family balance may yield less partying behavior, which may be particularly relevant in certain hotel types and sizes, and may have positive implications for reducing turnover and health care costs.\nOriginality/value: - This study explores the common practice, but understudied topic of hotel employees partying with colleagues outside work. In so doing, it provides greater understanding of the phenomenon to researchers and practitioners.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of information systems on the performance of the core competence and supporting activities of a firm
|
[
"France",
"Organizations",
"Managers",
"Employees attitudes",
"Information systems",
"Core competences",
"Supporting activities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Several studies were conducted to examine the impact of information systems (IS) on the performance of firms (Sircar et al., 2000; Dos Santos et al., 1993; Mahmood and Mann, 1993; Brynjolfsson and Hitt, 1996). These studies indicated some positive and significant results as well as some negative results. The purpose of this present study is to determine whether the performance of the supporting activities is more influenced by IS than the performance of the core competence, a subject not yet explored. Our study has been conducted on a large sample (N=100) of French private and public firms and informants were employees working in the IS department.\nLiterature review: Core competence\nMethods: Sample characteristics and questionnaire administration\nDiscussion: Theoretical and practical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the performance of the supporting activities is more influenced by information systems (IS) than the performance of the core competence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A mail questionnaire survey was sent to alumni of a French business school working in the IS departments of firms. A sample of 100 French firms was collected.\nFindings: - The results of the study show that IS have relatively more influence on the performance of the core competence than on the performance of supporting activities, especially on the exclusivity and value creation components of the core competence.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The majority of the firms are in the industry sector. It would be useful to replicate the findings across a sample of firms distributed equally among the service and industrial sectors for comparison purposes. Also, it would be interesting to study the performance of the core competence and supporting activities by using objective measures.\nPractical implications: - The paper reveals that the attitudes of top management and employees towards IS must be taken into account when integrating IS in firms.\nOriginality/value: - Several studies were conducted to examine the impact of IS on the performance of firms. The paper examines the impact of IS on the performance of the core competence and supporting activities, a subject not yet explored.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An empirical examination of the services triangle
|
[
"Service experience",
"Balance theory",
"Services triangle"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today's competitive business environment underscores the critical role of the service experience. For example, an Accenture (2015) study reports that two-thirds of consumers began doing business with a competitor because of a poor customer experience, and also states, \"customer expectations continue to rise and companies are not keeping pace\". A report by Parature (2014) states that by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. These reports are reinforced by academic research that posits the service experience to be a critical business performance driver (Klaus and Maklan, 2013). Moreover, scholars and practitioners alike agree that the service experience is a (if not the) key strategic objective (Palmer, 2010; Verhoef et al., 2009) in their efforts to build customer loyalty (Badgett et al., 2007; Wieseke et al., 2012).\nConceptual development: An overview of the balance theory\nDyads within the services triangle: Broadly speaking, fit is viewed as the congruence between entities that results when their characteristics are well matched. In a service setting, it is typical that three actors - firm, employee and customer - are necessary to deliver services. As a result, we use the services triangle because it facilitates our conceptualization of the triadic relationship that exists in many service contexts (Fitzsimmons et al., 2013; Zeithaml et al., 2010). The services triangle motivates us to focus on three specific types of dyadic fit: EF, CE and CF. The services triangle provides a visual representation that a service is an interactive process between and among actors. Since its introduction, the service-dominant logic (SDL) has proposed that value is co-created through the combined efforts of actors (Ballantyne and Varey, 2008; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). While recognizing the contributions SDL has made and continues to make to service research, our study does not focus on the value that the actors co-create, but rather focuses on the impact of fit between and among the actors. Each dyad and its respective hypothesis will be discussed in the following sections.\nResearch methodology: Survey measures and common method variance\nDiscussion: A key objective of the service marketing theory is to identify and understand how customers' perceptions influence important marketing outcomes. Although the existing literature frequently adopts isolated dyadic relationships as the basic unit of analysis when examining the service experience (Gremler et al., 2001; Harris and Fleming, 2005; Jamal and Adelowore, 2008; Wieseke et al., 2012; Yagil, 2014; Yim et al., 2012), less attention is focused on customers' perceptions of fit among the three parties that make up the services triangle. By investigating fit within the FODs, and then combining them to create second-order dyads, our study provides evidence that fit within some dyads is more instrumental in determining the service experience than fit within others.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The \"services triangle\" is a dynamic model in which three interlinked entities (customer, employee and firm) combine to create three dyads [employee-firm (EF), customer-firm (CF) and customer-employee (CE)] that work together to deliver services. This study aims to determine whether significant differences exist vis-a-vis the impact of EF, CF and CE dyads on the service experience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical evidence from data garnered from 398 surveys was used to test a conceptual model. To test the hypotheses, like-signed first-order dyads were constructed and combined to create second-order dyads, and analysis of variance and post-hoc tests (least significant differences) were used to investigate whether differences among the second-order dyads exist.\nFindings: The analysis reveals the differential impact of the three services triangle dyads on the service experience. Specifically, customers' perception of EF fit appears to have the greatest impact on customers' evaluation of the service experience, followed by CF and CE fit.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main implication is that this paper extends conceptual research by providing empirical evidence that the EF dyad is the foundation of the services triangle. The limitations are based primarily on methodology, where the use of a survey to collect data rules out the potential generalizations of true cause and effect while also potentially being subject to common method bias.\nPractical implications: Managers should realize that fit within some dyads is more instrumental in determining the service experience than fit within others. A number of managerial implications are proposed and discussed.\nOriginality/value: Prior research has neither empirically examined the services triangle nor whether significant differences exists among the impact of its dyads on the service experience. Insights from various literatures, the application of the balance theory and the construction of first- and second-order dyads enables an investigation of the various relational patterns contained in the services triangle.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The mental footprint of marketing in the boardroom
|
[
"Boardroom",
"Managerial decision making",
"Marketing mindset",
"Marketing's managerial relevance",
"Mental model",
"Ubiquitous marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although marketing has undergone many transformations in practice and in academic research, there seems to be continuous concern about its relevance (Day, 1992; Brown, 2005; Sheth and Sisodia, 2006; Reibstein et al., 2009; Jaworski, 2011). Several academic researchers have proposed that there is a need for a new mental model of marketing, in industrial marketing (Wind, 2006a, b; Ford, 2011), relationship marketing (Gronroos, 2006), service marketing (Vargo and Lusch, 2011), and sustainability research (Kotler, 2011), because the business environment has changed, making the established mental models obsolete. As the business environment continues to quickly evolve, the concern for marketing's position escalates. Besides a possible misalignment of academic research in marketing within current needs, there also claims to be a gap in practical relevance. Many marketing researchers have noticed the limited relevance of marketing in boardrooms and the need to revitalize this (e.g. McDonald, 2006; Wind, 2006b; Klaus et al., 2014; Wirtz et al., 2014).\nMental models as the perspective: Normann (2001) considers the fundamental process of leadership to be \"interpreting a continuously evolving context, formulating our notions of our own identity and the emerging new contextual logic into a set of 'dominating ideas', which are both descriptive and normative, and then translate these dominating ideas into various realms of action\" (p. 3). Teece (2010) reflecting on business model development stresses the importance of managers' mental models (hypotheses) about fundamental issues: \"It (the business model) thus reflects management's hypothesis about what customers want, how they want it, and how the enterprise can organize to best meet those needs, get paid for doing so, and make a profit\" (Teece, 2010, p. 172). Jaworski's (2011) similar view on the relevance of mental models is \"[...] the majority of senior marketing executives have deeply rooted, strongly held 'theories-in-use' about how their world works [...]. Furthermore, these belief systems are based on years of work experience, failures and successes, interactions with other executives, and observations of innovations in the industry\" (p. 220). We extend this and similarly to Prahalad and Bettis' (1986) notion of dominant general management logic claim that it is not only senior marketing executives' views about marketing that are important, but more so, the non-marketing executives' and board members' mental models of marketing. Welch and Wilkinson (2002) have called for more research to identify and measure key dimensions of the mental models used by firms to understand their relations and networks in a business-marketing context. One such study by Storbacka and Nenonen (2011) explores implications of considering markets as socially constructed. There are only a few studies on marketing managers' mental models (Day, 1992; Tollin, 2008; Tollin and Jones, 2009), but to the best of our knowledge none about non-marketers' marketing logics.\nConcerns about marketing's position in companies: Many studies about marketing's position and role look at marketing as a function (department) alongside other functions within the company. Next, we identify some of the major concerns related to this view, but also some suggestions for alternative views.\nAnalysis of mental models: Underlying the discussion in the literature is an explicit or implicit mental model of what marketing is considered to be. This understanding has changed over the years among academic researchers, observed in the debate about paradigm shifts and changing suggested definitions of marketing. Mental models of marketing can be structured around two chief dimensions, reflecting the two most salient elements in the models - managerial scope and managerial focus, as depicted in Figure 1. First, the managerial scope on how marketing is seen can be either a strategic or a functional issue, indicating a broad or narrow view, respectively. Second, as the other fundamental dimension, the focus can be on issues related to the company itself or the customers. Using these dimensions, the figure distinguishes and illustrates four subsequent different prototypical mental models with key questions that dominate each boardroom in which they are found. One mental model of marketing typically leads to questions of how well offerings have been sold and how sales can be increased (A). Another model is to have a broader but still internal view, and discuss marketing in terms of how making and selling the company's offerings can increase its profitability and profit possibilities (B). This view gives marketing a more strategic view, including concerns for innovations, customer relationships, and partners. A third model is to emphasize marketing as adjustments and customization of offerings (C). A fourth model places marketing at the strategic customer-focussed level with the question \"How can we offer something customers will buy?\" (D). The footprint of marketing is different in each situation.\nImplications: A mental model of marketing in this paper is defined as a cognitive belief structure that influences how different issues are understood and acted upon. It should also be noted that marketing in practice is based on mental models, irrespective of whether it is recognized or studied as such. This paper suggests that changing the mental model of what marketing is, from a management point of view, gives new perspectives on the challenges presented in the literature and on how the mental footprint of marketing can be influenced. We propose three \"what-if\" questions that challenge current thinking, asking what if marketing is seen as a mental model, is ubiquitous, and is considered in terms of revenue management. These questions represent key aspects that act as the foundation for considering marketing as the core of corporate strategy. When accepted, they represent characteristics of the mental model D, captured in Figure 1 as \"What can we offer that customers will buy?\"\nConclusion: The paper argues that if a wider (modern) customer-driven understanding of marketing is embraced in a firm, marketing's role in the strategy process and in the boardroom would be easily recognized. The reasons for highlighting mental models in companies and the boardroom setting are numerous. First, ethical issues and customer views matter and there are many examples of how companies recently ran into major trouble when customer concerns and reactions were not considered at the highest company level. Second, the development of business happens through the development of business models and logics, which is the task of the board and not the company's. Thus, marketing needs to permeate the whole company and not be isolated inside departments. Third, the mental model of the business logic of the company held by the board will impact most strategic choices and priorities, as well as the tactical activities of the firm. Fourth, mental models in the mental footprint are difficult to change. They are manifested in systems, organizations, and measurement operations. In order to change and innovate, ways to diagnose mental models are needed.\nFurther research: As this paper is conceptual and presents the new notion of the mental footprint of marketing, an obvious avenue for further research involves empirical examination. It would first of all be interesting to explore how board members and top management define and view marketing and its roles in reality. What individual and group marketing mental models exist? Could the situations outlined in Figure 1 be found in reality and how would they manifest themselves in boardroom discussions? What additional core issues would be relevant in the D-situation when marketing is seen as ubiquitous? How are the marketing mental models concretized, in terms of being revealed in fundamental business tasks such as strategic decision making and business development? Moreover, what opportunities for developing new business would be apparent to a company that regards marketing as revenue management? Selecting situations that contain challenges for coping in changing contexts or comparing recession and boom times would be especially revealing, with regard to mental marketing models. Comparing the mental footprints of marketing among companies in the same line of business could be another approach, as this would reveal potentially parallel mental models.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Marketing researchers continue to debate the significance of the managerial relevance of marketing, especially in the boardrooms. Despite a growing number of published papers on the topic, it is surprising that there are virtually none on mental models. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper presents mental models as a perspective to discuss marketing's position in companies, and reflects on the marketing mental models of boardroom members and top management.\nFindings: The paper addresses marketing's relevant issues and offers new insights into the role of marketing in companies by highlighting mental models, which drive the boardrooms' and managers' attentions, decisions, actions, and evaluations. The paper demonstrates the importance of mental models by introducing and discussing the notion of the mental footprint of marketing, or the impact marketing has on mental models.\nResearch limitations/implications: The rapidly changing business environment, in addition to current marketing research trends, strengthens the need to understand the scope of issues included under the notion of marketing, as well as the overall significance of marketing within the company. The paper advocates that understanding and investigating mental models is useful in these endeavors.\nPractical implications: The paper presents a set of different implications from recognized mental models in companies.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to discussions on the relevance of marketing in modern companies by introducing a new perspective, involving the mental footprint of marketing, which challenges functional points of view. If the mental model of marketing takes a broader approach, considering marketing to be ubiquitous, then marketing can be seen as being present in the boardroom.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Improving training transfer
|
[
"Training",
"Training methods",
"Learning",
"Human resource strategies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: You do not need an expert to tell you that with both classroom and online training, transfer to the real-world does not always happen. Working with a diverse base of clients over the past 15 years, my clients have estimated that only about 20 percent of their past training was ever applied in the real world. From there the news gets worse: the amount of training that has a measurable impact on productivity or other business outcomes is even smaller. There are a myriad reasons why classroom or online training is not transferred into the real world: an unsupportive culture, pressure from peers to resist, supervisors who model bad behaviors, and many, many more. Bad news for business? A death knoll for training departments? Could be...or with a few changes, could indicate a real opportunity to improve processes and gain a competitive advantage.\n1. Get real with retention: Can you remember what you ate for lunch yesterday? How about the name of your high school counselor? The main learning points of the last training session you attended? One of the downsides of the information age is information overload! As a consultant, I am often presented with a laundry list of desired outcomes for a training intervention, with no thought to priority or degree of mastery desired. It is tempting to design an intervention that will do a cursory overview of the topics and satisfy the client or manager. This course of action may provide short-term satisfaction, but rarely creates any type of long-lasting behavioral change or increase in skill level.Without the aid of a magic wand, can any of us really learn, retain and apply 10-15 new concepts after a morning of training? Instead, I now work with clients to create programs where the retention objectives are defined, prioritized and realistic. I have found a more realistic approach is 1 training objective for each \"contact hour\". In our planning meetings, we focus on questions such as, \"what 2-3 main learning points must participants retain from this experience?\" \"What additional points would we hope our employees retain beyond these main points.\" From there training activities, evaluations, and management follow-up occurs around these more realistic outcomes. Here is one real-world example of redefined objectives for a 2.5 hour harassment prevention session:Before\n2. Set the stage for success: View your contact time with participants as a precious commodity. There are many ways to create learning before and after the training session. In many instances, the employees I was working with had no idea why they were receiving training, what they were expected to do with the new information, or how this intervention was tied to the strategic objectives of the client company. By viewing training announcements as \"internal sales campaigns\", a previously bland announcement now begins to set the stage for an important company intervention.Before\n3. Learning is a contact sport: Getting learners actively involved is the key to retention and application. Active involvement can take many forms; case studies, demonstrations, experiential activities, group quizzes, small group discussions - the list is endless. Look to vary your activities to fit a variety of learning styles and energy levels - and again spend time on activities that will maximize retention and application of the most important learning outcomes. Many times trainers will forget that the activity itself is not as important as the discussion and application in the real world. A good rule of thumb is to spend double the time on discussion and application as you do on the activity itself.Some work cultures may be resistant to \"having fun\" and see games as time wasters and frivolous situations that are outside of their comfort zone. This may stem for a history of \"training fun\" that was not tied to the content of the session or the tie to content was not readily apparent. Instead, ensure that all activities including ice-breakers, energizers, group work, team-building games, closing exercises have a direct tie to the content at hand. Do not assume that your learners will see the connection, explain it before you begin the exercise and spend adequate time discussing the real-world application of what the group experienced.Another pitfall of \"active learning\" is failing to appeal to those who learn best with adequate time for thinking and reflecting. Pushed outside our comfort zone, most of us will not fully engage in the learning and instead looking for ways to escape or minimize the discomfort or potential for embarrassment. Many leaders and facilitator are quick thinkers who enjoy spontaneous verbal exchanges. Building in room for those with a different style remains essential in creating learning and transfer. Along with the earlier suggestion of pre-session reflection exercises, additional ways to appeal to less verbal learners in an active setting include:*posting flip charts with key questions around the room and ask learners to visit each chart and add their thoughts or examples;*asking these learners to serve as observers or consultants during group exercises and share their observations about behaviors and group processes; and*preview the topic to be discussed before taking a short-break to allow for thinking time prior to group discussion.As you are designing your active training experience, step back and review your realistic outcomes. Is the majority of your time spent on achieving these main outcomes? Resist the temptation to get sidetracked and remember that the average learner needs to hear something seven times before they are likely to retain it. Are you hitting your main objectives in a way that will aid retention and increase the likelihood for retention?\n4. Follow-up for follow-through: Behavior change does not come naturally. Without real-world accountability, most of us will continue to do things the way we always have. Follow-up activities - especially when they are done with the direct supervisor greatly enhance real-world application. Provide managers or supervisors with easy-to-use activities or discussion starters for their next staff meetings, create one-on-one follow-up activities for participants and their manager, pilot training with the leaders of the organization and ask them to share their learning points in a company newsletter or at an upcoming organizational gathering. Finding ways to create accountability to put the learning into practice can yield big results!With several clients, successful application of new concepts occurred with the following sequence of steps:1. Participants knew before the training how they would be expected to use the presented information. In some cases, they would be responsible for leading a staff meeting or training session covering the topics from our training. In other situations, a follow-up session with the participant's supervisor was already scheduled.2. During the training, specific assignments were given and ample opportunity to practice the new skills.3. Follow-up activities occurred uniformly throughout the organization with the participant and his/her direct manager or supervisor.4. Supervisors or managers than reported in to the executive team on the results of these follow-up meeting.In each case, the previous estimate of 20 percent application rose dramatically. Continued efforts using this same follow-up plan created a culture where participants naturally expected to be held accountable for applying new skills, strategies and information in the real world.Not every organization is ready to jump into this sort of integrated model and it is not applicable to every training topic or intervention. However, some sort of follow-up, even a discussion with a peer 30-days later on pre-determined topics, greatly enhances on-the job application and retention of the key points.When it comes to transfer of training, there are no silver bullets or fool-proof solutions that will work in every situation and in every industry. However, you can bet that doing nothing is certain to create the same results you currently have. With planning, prioritization, creativity and follow-through, small changes in your current practices can yield big results in your organization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to provide easy-to-use strategies to improve the transfer of training knowledge to the real-world job setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach is to summarize successful techniques used in a variety of industries over the past 15 years.\nFindings: - For most training professionals, learning in the classroom does not have a direct correlation to new workplace behaviors. However, with planning, diligent attention, and small changes to the process, training professionals can buck this trend. Keys to transferring training from the classroom to the workplace include a reasonable number of objectives, pre-learning and post-learning activities, active training experiences, and follow-up to create follow-through. While the current statistics may be dire, when it comes to transfer of learning, simple changes can yield big results for organizations.\nPractical implications: - Training professionals must make changes to create meaningful learning transfer.\nOriginality/value: - The paper includes successful strategies for improving transfer in a variety of industries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring shared and distinctive aspects of coaching and mentoring approaches through six disciplines
|
[
"Mentoring",
"Coaching",
"Deficit/developmental mind-sets",
"Directive/non-directive approaches"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Observing the coaching and mentoring landscape, confusion surrounds this \"dynamic duo\" within the literature and in practice-based settings, as universal definitions remain elusive (CIPD, 2010; Clutterbuck, 2008). There are also conflicting arguments regarding the value of attempting to define each role (D'Abate et al., 2003; Rock and Garavan, 2006). Some discuss clear overlaps (Passmore and Gibbes, 2007) or the impracticalities of such a task of separation (Ferrar, 2004), whilst others see benefit in understanding where differences might lie (Garvey et al., 2014). Further confusion is caused by professions or organisations who have historically implemented mentoring over coaching or vice versa. For example, it is considered the \"norm\" for newly qualified teachers (NQTs) to be mentored rather than be coached; and athletes to be coached rather than be mentored. Yet, there is limited evidence of the reasons behind these decisions (Garvey, 2014; Downey, 2003). This situation means that those who commission such interventions, human resource managers and potential clients require a greater clarification of differences in approach between coaches and mentors, so that contracts or arrangements can be based on clear client need and practitioner approach (CIPD, 2008).\nCoaching and mentoring as developmental helping relationships: Key texts have sought to articulate problems associated with defining mentoring and coaching, or have attempted to list both common and separate attributes (Ferrar, 2004; Garvey et al., 2014). The pursuit for clarity seems inevitable given the apparent need for stakeholders and customers keen to ensure that they are getting appropriate support and value for money (Jackson, 2005). An academic literature review carried out by D'Abate et al. (2003) identified features such as long term, role modelling, counselling, support and advocacy to be found within mentoring; compared with shorter, more targeted developmental work including goal setting to be found more in coaching. One of the difficulties in clearly defining mentoring and coaching links to the way in which both traditions have evolved over time, having roots that stem from a range of professional settings (Bachirova et al., 2014; Cavanagh and Grant, 2005; Garvey et al., 2014). On one hand, this allows for richness, diversity and creativity; but on the other hand, there are no single chronological pathways clearly marked out within different professional contexts or sectors that can help clearly explain the real origins of mentoring and coaching (Lane et al., 2014).\nMethodology: The research was designed using a qualitative social constructivist framework to facilitate an exploration of practitioner views, opinions and experiences (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). As such, this was a comparative qualitative research design which aimed to \"seek explanations for similarities and differences or to gain a greater awareness and deeper understanding of social reality\" (Bryman and Bell, 2007, p. 66). First, the six coaching and mentoring disciplines were selected on the basis that they each represented established areas of work where existing literature and research could be found. With this in mind, the six areas were chosen for the focus of this study. Three participants from each of these disciplines were recruited and engaged in an in-depth interview so that they could share their beliefs about the purpose behind their work and the ways in which they went about either coaching or mentoring. Whilst only three participants were selected from each of the six disciplines, it was felt more important to involve experienced practitioners through in-depth interviews rather than adopt approaches which access greater numbers of participants (Tongco, 2007). Due to the different starting points for the six coaching and mentoring disciplines, it was not appropriate to use definitive criteria for length of engagement across all disciplines (Walker, 2004). Instead, the researchers reflected the evolving state of the coaching and mentoring disciplines to select participants based on their primary area of expertise and reputation. The team worked through their existing networks to identify known mentors or coaches other contacts that they would be willing to pass on. For example, through existing youth work networks, a recommendation was provided for a professional sports coach who agreed to participate in the research. In other instances, LinkedIn was used to contact executive coaches and one interviewee was found via this route.\nUnderstanding approaches used within six coaching and mentoring disciplines: To capture the essence of the six coaching and mentoring disciplines, as described by the practitioners. Table I was created to identify shared and distinctive aspects of the helping interventions. This table identifies some of the key themes which emerged across the six disciplines and identifies shared areas of approach as well as distinctive aspects particular to the disciplines.\nShared dimensions of coaching and mentoring approaches: The responses offered by participants provided insights into their belief systems: some mentors and coaches believed that their role was to help the mentee or coachee gain something from the mentor or coaches' knowledge or experiences, which could be described as a \"deficit\" model (Philip, 2008). Garvey et al. (2009, p. 128) describe this as \"compliance mind-set\" where the mentee or coachee is expected to work towards a pre-determined set of goals. This contrasted with other practitioners who believed that the mentee or coachee might better respond to an approach that was much more mutual (Garvey et al., 2009, 2014); benefitting from the practitioner being skilled in helping them find effective ways of developing themselves further. The same underlying beliefs fuelled the approaches taken by the practitioners and as such provide the first dimension for trying to clarify coaching and mentoring in different disciplines (Figure 1).\nImplications for practice: This study has helped shed light on patterns of approach and requirements evident within six selected coaching and mentoring disciplines. Findings reveal how coaches and mentors operating within a specific discipline require elements of specialist knowledge and understanding, such as child protection and safeguarding for young people (Alexander, 2000), or the kinds of demands and pressures placed upon executives (Passmore and Gibbes, 2007) and leaders (Zachary and Fischler, 2009). This raises implications for the ways in which knowledge and skills are developed in practitioners, and the extent to which training providers and professional bodies are able to equip coaches and mentors to work effectively in their chosen area of work and purposively across other disciplines' approaches. Coaches and mentors participating in supervision may also be able to explore where their skills could be developed or knowledge increased, given the type of work they are engaged in. However, this also depends on the supervisor understanding and appreciating the practitioners' specialist area of work. Much more thought needs to be given to training and support fora available so that contextual elements are factored in rather than assumed. This will help support coaches and mentors to be clearer about the nature of their work - what is specific to their type or discipline, and how aspects of their approach overlaps with other coaching and mentoring disciplines.\nImplications for theory and further research: This study has highlighted the need for coaching and mentoring scholars and researchers to be more mindful of difficulties associated with attempting to draft universal definitions (Garvey et al., 2014). This requires greater understanding of the relationship between the needs associated with helping disciplines and how these impact on coach or mentor approaches. Therefore, assumptions cannot be made about the way in which a practitioner operates if other disciplines have not been factored in. Authors (Boyce et al., 2010; Lemyre et al., 2007) acknowledge where and how the background of the practitioner relates to their practice which implies that certain limitations are placed on their approach due to the discipline in which the coach or mentor is located. Again, recognition of this and other factors needs to be much more explicit and not ignored or overlooked.\nConclusion: By exploring approaches found within six coaching and mentoring disciplines, this study has highlighted the complexities associated with the challenging task of clearly capturing the shared and distinctive aspects of this dynamic duo in the field of developmental helping relationships. However, in so doing, further clarity has been achieved on the shared and unique elements of each discipline's practitioners' approach. Furthermore there are many overlaps which are not always separated as the terms coaching vs mentoring suggest. Rather than look for further degrees of separation, those engaged with coaching, mentoring or both, are encouraged to find ways of sharing good practice with those at work in other disciplines.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine where and how coaching and mentoring disciplines overlap or differ in approach. Coaching and mentoring have emerged as important interventions as the role of helping relationships have gained prominence in human resource development. However, there appear to be contexts where one or other is preeminent, without consistent explanation of their suitability. Such inconsistency arguably creates confusion and doubt about these interventions and their efficacy notably amongst those who commission such interventions and their potential beneficiaries. This study focuses on this inconsistency of coaching or mentoring by exploring practitioners' approaches within six disciplines: executive coaches, coaching psychologists, sports coaches, mentors of leaders, mentors of newly qualified teachers and mentors of young people, with the aim of assisting those seeking support with development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This exploratory study was undertaken using a qualitative methodology, where in-depth interviews were completed with experienced practitioners to elucidate their approaches and practice.\nFindings: The findings show that approaches may be discipline-specific, where practitioners specialise in a particular type of coaching or mentoring requiring distinctive knowledge and/or skills. However, the sharing of good practice across disciplines and the value of understanding the common dimensions which emerged is also evident, providing clients and those who commission coaching and mentoring with reassurances regarding the nature of these helping relationships.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the research focused only on the practitioners' experiences of their work in these disciplines, it is vital that the mentees' and coachees' experiences are captured in future research. There is also value in further exploration of the model developed.\nPractical implications: By deploying the model concerned with the future development of these interventions suggests practitioners can expand their capacity and scope by adopting interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches.\nOriginality/value: By directly exploring the shared and distinctive approaches of coaching and mentoring practitioners in six contexts, this study provides opportunities to understand where practitioners can benefit from imparting best practice across these interventions and highlighting specific aspects for their context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer segmentation based on usage of sales channels in the German wine market
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Germany",
"Segmentation",
"Survey research",
"Sales channels"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Germany has a tradition of more than 1,000 years in making and consuming wine. Recently, Germany has about 100,000 ha of vineyards and imports wine from all over the world. With its total wine production of approximately 9.5 million hl and its import of another 15 million hl, Germany is one of the most liberal wine markets of the world (DWI, 2011). The positive economic atmosphere caused by decreasing unemployment figures and increasing economic growth rates also stimulates the German wine and sparkling wine market. Germany becomes increasingly the marketplace of the European wine business. Trade structures with very effective discount stores contribute to this development as they turn more and more towards the product range \"wine\" thus contributing to a rapid change in the demand volume (Hoffmann, 2012).\n2 Literature overview: Although one decade ago Thomas and Pickering (2003) asserted that market segmentation of wine consumers was in its infancy and needed careful assessment, and Hughson et al. (2004) wrote \"there is little publication research on market segmentation for wine consumption\", nowadays one can find in the international wine literature lots of studies written on the segmentation of wine consumers by diverse criteria in different countries.\n3 Materials and methods: 3.1 Consumer sample\n4 Results and discussion: 4.1 Sample characteristics\n5 Managerial/practical implications: With the help of these results the different sales channels are able to identify their regular customers and get more information about their behaviour. As the results show, each sales channel has its loyal customers and has at the same time the potential to win customers of other segments. This knowledge may lead to a better positioning in the market and give the possibility for new promotion or campaigns as well as a better structured product range. In addition also wine producers can use this study to find their target group and to position their product on the market.\n6 Conclusion and further research: The German wine market and its retail system are quite segmented. This study shows, however, that all kinds of sales channels have their right to exist. Through the differentiated offer, consumers have numerous possibilities to purchase wines for all kinds of occasion in every price segment. In spite of the heterogeneity of the German retail market, a clear segmentation structure appears.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to test the segmentation based on the usage of sales channels and to compare the segments with each other in terms of socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study was conducted using representative data collected in Germany through a face-to-face interview. 2,000 German consumers answered questions towards the usage of different sales channels when purchasing wine as well as socio-demographic and other behavioural questions. A hierarchical cluster analysis was run, to classify the respondents into segments.\nFindings: The results illustrate the usefulness of this kind of segmentation and show significant differences between the six consumer groups: discount-customers, food-retail-customers, supermarket-customers, cellar-door-customers, wine-store-customers and multichannel-customers. These segments differ in their socio-demographic as well as in their behavioural structure. Furthermore, the six segments could be split into two groups depending on their average purchase value: a basic group and a premium group.\nPractical implications: This segmentation provides an analysing tool for the German retailers, which is able to identify the loyal and potential consumers of the different sales channels.\nOriginality/value: This segmentation was conducted using the purchase activity of German consumers in different sales channels. This segmentation approach has been never used to identify, describe and classify wine consumers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Public-private partnerships: implications from policy changes for practice in managing risks
|
[
"PPPs",
"Infrastructure projects",
"Policy risk",
"Institutional arrangements"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclatures\nIntroduction: Infrastructure is pivotal for economic development and social growth in an economy. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been a vital vehicle worldwide for delivering infrastructure projects. For example, in Australia, a number of social infrastructure assets (e.g. public schools, car parks, stadiums, hospitals and prisons) is being or will be delivered by using PPPs in the states of Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia (WA) (Department of Treasury WA, 2017; Department of Treasury and Finance Victoria, 2017; Queensland Treasury, 2017). Similarly, there has been a total of 24 infrastructure assets procured via PPPs in the United Kingdom (UK) since 2012 (HM Treasury, 2018). The Chinese central government, additionally, has attempted to enable PPPs to be an integral part of its procurement strategy; thus, infrastructure projects with a total of CNY=11.8tn ([?]US$1.72tn) contract values have been finalized to be delivered by using PPPs (The Ministry of Finance, 2018).PPPs, however, are currently plagued with controversy, owing to unsatisfactory performance during the initiation and implementation stages, e.g. under-estimation or over-estimation for local demand for public services, inefficient contract negotiation process and poor service quality (Love et al., 2015). Consequently, many governments have implemented new policies to regulate and govern PPPs in order to enhance their output and outcome quality (Wu et al., 2016). Nonetheless, policy is considered to be a double-edged sword, which can not only bring benefits but also generate risks (Ferris, 1993). It has been acknowledged that policy risk is one of major risk categories associated with PPP projects, which comprise a sequence of risk factors (RF) as a consequence of local policy changes (European Investment Bank - EIB, 2015). Despite this importance, the management of the policy risks of PPPs has received limited attention (Wang et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2018b).Identifying and assessing RF act as the critical stages of ex-ante evaluation of PPPs (Grimsey and Lewis, 2002). Moreover, an investigation into the institutional arrangements is an effective way to understand the policy risks of PPPs (Trebilock and Rosenstock, 2015). Against this contextual backdrop, the study presented in this paper is undertaken with an aim of empirically identifying and assessing the RF of PPPs that are originated from a local political system through a comprehensive interpretation of relevant institutional arrangements.\nLiterature review: PPPs and risk management: Scope of PPP research\nMethodology: Research approach\nCase study: institutional arrangements for PPPs in China: Pilot and development phases\nResults and findings: policy risk factors: The institutional arrangements for PPPs have contributed to the development of China's PPP industry since the 1980s. Accordingly, a total of eight policy RF of delivering PPPs in China can be identified (e.g. RF1 to RF8) from an interpretation of the Chinese institutional arrangements demonstrated above. Figure 1 illustrates the identified risks such as irrational abatement regime, administrative interventions, inflexible risk allocation and involvement of market-oriented state-owned contractors (i.e. social capital).\nDiscussion: Impacts of RF1, RF2, RF3 and RF4 on PPPs\nConclusions: PPPs have been widely used for delivering infrastructure projects. However, many unsuccessful deliveries were reported and a plethora of studies has been conducted to investigate the risks of the projects. Despite this, the research on policy risk and their impacts on PPPs is limited in extant literature, especially within the context of developing countries. Bearing this perspective in mind, a case study of China's institutional arrangements has been undertaken with an aim of: (1) identifying the risks resulting from local changes of policies and regulations and (2) exploring how they can affect the delivery of PPP projects.Based on the documentary sources of the departments of China's central government, a number of policy-risk factors (e.g. irrational abatement regime, administrative interventions, unforeseeable contract breach, inflexible risk allocation, inflexible selection of payment mechanism, decreasing financial support from local governments and involvement of social capital) have been identified. Accordingly, the CLDs were applied to interpret the impacts of the identified risks on PPPs. The developed CLDs indicate that policy risks, e.g. administrative intervention, irrational abatement regime, inflexible risk allocation and decreasing financial subsidy, will be able to significantly impact the output and outcome quality of PPPs.The empirical study presented in this paper is theoretically significant, as it contributes to the literature by identifying the policy risks relating to PPPs as well as their potential impacts. Apart from this, the research outputs of this paper were derived from practice and thus are practical. The CLDs developed provide the private-sector entities of PPPs with valuable implications that are useful for effective management and control of policy risks, particularly those relating to the contract management and risk allocation of the projects. They can act as a solid base to design appropriate strategies or a sound mechanism to prevent future risks in regard to contract negotiation/management and then to identify risk appetite for the projects, ensuring a successful participation to infrastructure public services.In addition, this research is significant for public authorities that are embarking on or will embark on PPPs. For example, the developed CLDs can serve to visualize the negative impacts of the implemented policies on future PPPs. This can lead to an improved policy development in the future through a better understanding of current policies, enabling a more effective policy decision-making of government that aims to ensure an efficient governance for urban and regional infrastructure development via PPPs. However, an emphasis will be needed in future research, concentrating on a further quantitative testing that validates the implications produced by the developed CLDs by examining the identified risks and their impacts using nationwide data.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper investigates the policy changes made towards infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs). The purpose of this study is to empirically identify the policy risks associated with the development of PPPs and to assess their impacts on the projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study of the policy changes that have been implemented for PPPs in China over the past seven years has been undertaken and is presented in this study. The causal loop diagrams are applied to assess and illustrate the potential impacts of the risks as a result of such changes on PPPs.\nFindings: A sequence of the policy risks, which relate to PPP risk allocation, contract management and implementation, payment and abatement mechanisms and financing, has been identified. It is also found that the identified risks will generate significant but negative impacts on PPPs, leading to an ineffective project delivery, low revenue, poor service quality and even contract breach.\nPractical implications: This research provides the private-sector entities that will embark on PPPs with an insight into managing and controlling policy risks over the project's lifecycle.\nOriginality/value: PPPs have been critical for infrastructure development worldwide. Nevertheless, they have been a controversy, as many of them were subjected to poor outputs. Consequently, a variety of political mechanisms has been implemented to enhance the governance for PPPs. Policy can bring not only benefits but also risks and, however, policy risks of PPPs with a particular assessment for their potential impacts have received limited attention. Therefore, the study presented in this paper will contribute to the identification and assessment of policy risks within the context of PPPs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Preliminary evidence on the relationship between corporate governance attributes and audit committee functionality in Egypt: beyond checking the box
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Emerging markets",
"Audit committees",
"Board of directors",
"Corporate ownership",
"Chairman"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The separation between ownership and control in publicly listed companies generates various agency problems such as information asymmetry and moral hazard (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Fama and Jensen, 1983). A classical treatment of such problems is aligning the interests of agents (i.e. managers) with those of principals (i.e. providers of capital) (see for example, Mirlees, 1976 and Holmstrom, 1979). However such alignment has its own adverse side effects. For example several empirical studies have shown that equity incentives may actually drive managers to behave myopically and boost stock prices in the short-run by manipulating accounting performance (Bar-Gill and Bebchuk, 2003; Cheng and Warfield, 2005). This supports the argument made by Goldman and Slezak (2006) who describe stock-based compensation as a \"double-edged sword\" that not only motivates managers to exert more effort but also motivates them to overstate performance. Thus interest alignment is not sufficient by itself to mitigate agency problems. Monitoring mechanisms which scrutinize managerial actions are also needed. These mechanisms are collectively known as corporate governance.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 The role of the audit committee as an element of corporate governance\n3. Research design: Our sample consists of the top 100 companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX100). Company data was obtained from Egyptian Company for Information Dissemination (EGID) and from annual reports. Data for the variables of interest and control variables are were collected as of December 31, 2009.\n4. Empirical evidence: Table I presents the descriptive statistics. The mean of ACOM is 0.32, in other words out of the 100 companies in the sample 32 had functioning ACs while 68 had non-functioning ACs. The average board members number (BSIZE) is 11. On average, 62 percent of the sampled companies have CEOs who also act as a board chairman (DUAL) while almost one-fifth of the board of directors (19 percent) is outside directors (BINDEP). Only 37 percent of the sample companies engage a Big-4 auditor (AFIRM). The average blockholder ownership (BLOCK) is 54 percent while that of managers (MANAG) is 11 percent. The average firm size in terms of total assets (SIZE) is 2.349 billion Egyptian pounds with the maximum (minimum) of total assets being 30.1 (0.011) billion Egyptian pounds[8]. Sampled companies are relatively highly leveraged with a mean leverage (LEVER) of 1.3. In terms of industry type (INDUS) around 16 percent of the sample companies are financial companies. Finally, on average around one-third of total company assets is comprised on accounts receivable and inventories (FINRISK).\n5. Summary and conclusion: The AC plays an important role in corporate governance as it directly oversees the financial reporting process and regulates the client-auditor relation. Given the mandatory nature of AC formation in Egypt and the concerns of the ROSC report (2009) of the World Bank we empirically examine whether certain non-AC governance factors affect the actual functionality of the AC beyond the mere regulatory compliance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This exploratory study aims to provide preliminary evidence regarding the non-audit committee corporate governance determinants of audit committee functionality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on archival accounting, corporate governance data, and interviews of subjects of the top 100 companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX100). A logistic regression is used to identify the non-audit committee governance attributes that affect the likelihood of of having a functional audit committee.\nFindings: Board size and board independence, (CEO-chairman duality) are positively (negatively) related to audit committee functionality, suggesting complementary governance relations. On the other hand, the authors document a negative relation between auditor type (Big4) and audit committee functionality indicating a substitutive governance effect.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that explores the actual functioning of audit committees in Egypt beyond mere regulatory requirements. The study highlights the importance of assuring that the \"spirit\" of corporate governance laws and regulations is adhered to rather than the mere compliance with their \"letter\".\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Establishing ethical Guanxi (interpersonal relationships) through confucian virtues of Xinyong (trust), Lijie (empathy) and Ren (humanity)
|
[
"Confucianism",
"Ethical guanxi (interpersonal relationships)",
"Lijie (empathy)",
"Ren (humanity)",
"Renqing (reciprocity)",
"Xinyong (trust)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Guanxi (interpersonal relationships) is an indigenous Chinese concept that is broadly depicted as interpersonal relationships with people, and it deeply influences the behaviour of Chinese business people (Nie and Lamsa, 2015). Although guanxi is not a must for all business transactions in China, it is seen as a foundation to build business relationships, and is often used as an efficient social tool to facilitate business operations (Huang et al., 2013).\nResearch context and selection of participants: We adopted purposeful sampling and snowballing techniques for company selection and potential participants (Miles and Huberman, 1994) with the following inclusionary criteria: 10 senior managers from five urban organisations in NZ which have business activities in China were chosen as informants. New Zealand was chosen as the home country of foreign informants in Chinese markets for the convenience of data collection. The interviewees were citizens of China and New Zealand, and were initially identified through a combination of the researchers' personal networks within the business community in New Zealand. To further ensure the sample included the most knowledgeable informants, a snowballing technique was applied by asking the initial informants to recommend other managers within their firms who could offer further insight (Patton, 1990). All respondents are very knowledgeable about guanxi and Confucian virtues, and had rich experience in connecting and facilitating business exchanges between Chinese and Western companies (Table I). In addition, they also had work experience both in China and Western countries thus knowing Chinese culture and Confucianism well. The decision to interview people in management positions was also guided by the practice of the research area: there are a large number of empirical studies exploring guanxi in Chinese and Western business interactions through interviewing managers and senior managers as suggested by Guo et al. (2018). In particular, two participants from each company were selected to provide opportunities for exploring data similarities and differences among the managers, thus gaining a broader picture on the perception of guanxi practices.\nConclusion, limitations and future directions: Despite its contributions and implications, the current study has some limitations that call for further investigation. First, data were collected from a small sample of ten senior managers from five urban NZ organisations. Thus, the results of this study might not be generalised to larger organisations in different countries, and it thus encourages future studies to extend this work to other empirical contexts. In addition, the findings of this study connect studies of Confucian virtues to establishing ethical guanxi. However, this still begs for more targeted, empirical studies delving into their dynamic interactions or relationships with each other.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically how managers establish ethical guanxi (interpersonal relationships) with their business partners to prevent potential ethical incidences in Chinese and Western business contexts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study is guided by a qualitative, abductive approach and draws on in-depth interviews with ten senior managers in five urban New Zealand organisations.\nFindings: The results point out that guanxi (interpersonal relationships) purely working through renqing (reciprocity) is not sustainable, because it perpetuates a never-ending cycle of favours, once exchanging favours stopped or disappeared, then business relationships dwindled. To establish an ethical guanxi model, the authors found that xinyong (trust) is the foundation, and its enlargement stimulates lijie (empathy) that transfers pure business relationships to a genuine friendship which enhances ethical decision-making. They also posit that once managers are embodied with lijie, then they will have the virtue of ren to behave like junzi (ideal Confucian ethical person) whose business actions tend to be intrinsically guided by a sense of obligation to do something right that will work for diverse stakeholders' interests, for the prosperity of organisations and society.\nPractical implications: This study suggests that managers should take Confucian virtues of xinyong (trust) and lijie (empathy), because they will trigger ren (humanity) as an intrinsic value. In this way, it is more likely for them to become junzi (ideal Confucian ethical person) whose business actions are intrinsically guided by a sense of obligation to do something right that benefits various stakeholders, organisations and society.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the extant literature on preventing ethical incidents of guanxi (interpersonal relationships) by drawing a framework of ethical guanxi, which is built on Confucian virtues of xinyong (trust), lijie (empathy) and ren (humanity). Further, this paper strongly suggests that companies should educate their staff to become more humane to make moral decisions in daily management practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Ant colonies for structure optimisation in a failure prone series-parallel production system
|
[
"Modelling",
"Programming and algorithm theory",
"Performance measurement (quality)",
"Manufacturing systems",
"Production planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper extends our previous work on the optimal design of series production lines with unreliable machines and finite buffers (Nourelfath et al., 2005). It deals with the optimal design of series-parallel production lines which may consist of buffers and of machines with different performances. We consider the practical problem where several versions for each machine are available on the market. Its own nominal production rate, reliability and price characterize each version offered by the supplier. Buffers are also chosen from a list of possible buffers which differ by their capacity and cost. In order to find the optimal design structure, the appropriate versions should be chosen from the list of available versions for each buffer and type of machine, as well as the number of redundant machines. The objective is to maximize the performance of the production line given restrictions on the total system cost.Production systems are often organized in manufacturing industry with machines or works centres connected in series and separated by buffers (Dallery and Gershwin, 1992; Gershwin and Schor, 2000). This arrangement is called in the literature a production line, or transfer line, or flow line. In this paper, we mainly use the term manufacturing production line or simply production line. To achieve a greater production rate or to achieve a greater reliability, systems are built with machines in parallel (Dallery and Gershwin, 1992; Burman, 1995).A lot of already published papers deal with the analysis of production lines with buffers (Dallery and Gershwin, 1992). This existing literature is mainly concerned with the prediction of performance. Much of it is aimed at evaluating the average production rate (throughput) of a system with specified machines and buffers. In Gershwin and Schor (2000), the authors present a set of algorithms that select the minimal buffer space in a flow line to achieve a specified production rate. The algorithms are based on analytical approximations of the Buzacott model of a production line (Buzacott, 1967, 1968). For a recent review of the literature on production line optimisation, the reader is referred to Gershwin and Schor (2000). The goal of the existing works is to choose buffers sizes for a production line. They all assume that the number of machines is specified, and the only parameters to find are buffers sizes. The proposed approach to optimal design aims at selecting both buffers and machines; it gives also the number of redundant machines used in parallel.To deal with the optimal design problem considered in this work, it is mandatory to develop a method for performance evaluation of series-parallel manufacturing production lines. This method has to take into account two characteristics:1. Components may consist of banks of parallel machines. Concerning this first characteristic, we attempt to represent each stage by an equivalent single component.2. The processing rate may differ from component to component. To deal with this second characteristic, we use a continuous (or fluid) material model type which produces very good results as shown in Dallery and Le Bihan (1997). This consists of two main steps. First, the non homogeneous line is transformed into an approximately equivalent homogeneous one. In a second step, the resulting homogeneous line is analysed by using the well-known decomposition method for homogeneous lines (Gershwin, 1987).The effect of the used simplifications for estimating throughput is examined by comparing the results provided by our approximate technique to simulation results on many examples. This comparison shows that the proposed approximate technique is very accurate.As the problem formulated in this paper is a complicated combinatorial optimisation one, an exhaustive examination of all possible solutions is not realistic, considering reasonable time limitations. Because of this, we develop an efficient heuristic to solve the problem. This heuristic is inspired from the ant colony system meta-heuristic: a recent kind of biologically inspired algorithms (Dorigo et al., 1996; Dorigo and Gambardella, 1997).The organisation of the paper is as follows. In the next section, the optimal design problem is formulated as a combinatorial optimisation one. In the following section, the method for evaluating the throughput of series-parallel production lines is presented and validated through simulation results. In the next section, the proposed ant system approach is presented. Numerical results are given in the penultimate section, while conclusions are in the final section.\nOptimal design problem: Consider the series-parallel production line represented in Figure 1. The squares represent machines and the circles represent buffers.Buffers are inserted to limit the propagation of disruptions, and this increases the average production rate of the line. This line consists of n components and n-1 buffers. Each component of type i (i=1, 2, ... , n) can contain several identical machines connected in parallel. For each component i, there are a number of machine versions available in the market.In order to formulate the problem in mathematical expression, the following notations are introduced first:hi version number of machine i.Hi maximum hi available.h {hi}, hi [?]{1,2, ... , Hi}.ri number of elements connected in parallel in i.Ri maximum ri allowed.r {ri}, ri [?]{1,2, ... , Ri}.C(hi) cost of each machine of version hi.P(hi) isolated production rate of machine with version hi.T(hi) processing time of machine with version hi.l(hi) failure rate of each machine with version hi.m(hi) repair rate of each machine with version hi.We assume that a buffer is also chosen from a list of available buffers. The buffers of different versions f differ by their size Nbf and cost Cbf. The total number of different buffer versions available for mth component is denoted byFm. The vector f={fm}, where 0<=fm<=Fm, defines versions of buffers chosen for each component. The entire production line structure is defined by the vectors h, r and f={fm}.For the given h, r and f, the total cost of the production line can be calculated as: Equation 1 The optimal design problem of production system can be formulated as follows: find the system configuration f, h and r that maximizes the total production rate PT such that the total cost CT is less or equal to a specified value C*. That is: Equation 2 Equation 3 The input of this problem is C* and the outputs are the optimal production rate PTMax and the corresponding configuration determined by the vectors f, h, r. The resulting maximum value of PT is written PTMax(C*).To deal with this combinatorial optimisation problem, a method is presented in the next section to estimate the value of PT(f, h, r).\nPerformance evaluation of series-parallel production lines: Summary of the method\nThe ant colony optimisation (ACO) approach: Motivation\nTest problems and results: Illustrative example\nConclusion: A new optimal design problem was formulated in this paper for production lines with unreliable machines and finite buffers. In the existing approaches, the only decision variable is the buffer size. The proposed approach extends these classical buffer space allocation problems by formulating a more complicated problem where the decision variables are buffer and type of machine, as well as the number of redundant machines. To estimate series-parallel production line performance, we propose to approximate each set of parallel machines as a single unreliable machine. An analytical decomposition approximation based on a fluid modelling can then be used to estimate the production rate of each possible configuration when running the optimisation algorithm. However, as the formulated problem is a complicated combinatorial optimisation one, an exhaustive examination of all possible solutions is not realistic, considering reasonable time limitations. Because of this, we developed an efficient heuristic to solve the formulated problem. This heuristic was inspired by the ant system meta-heuristic. The experimental results showed that the optimal or nearly optimal solutions are obtained very quickly. The comparison to others meta-heuristics (such as Tabu search, GRASP, Iterated Local Search, Variable Neighbourhood Search, Simulated Annealing and Genetic Algorithms) remains a perspective to investigate in the future. Finally, it should be also interesting to deal with the following additional points:* to discuss how their approach could be adapted to the case of small buffers;* to study separately the problems of selecting the buffers and the number of parallel machines; and* to perform a sensitivity analysis to show the robustness of the approach.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to extend the optimal design problem of series manufacturing production lines to series-parallel lines, where redundant machines and in-process buffers are both included to achieve a greater production rate. The objective is to maximize production rate subject to a total cost constraint.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An analytical method is proposed to evaluate the production rate, and an ant colony approach is developed to solve the problem. To estimate series-parallel production line performance, each component (i.e. each set of parallel machines) of the original production line is approximated as a single unreliable machine. To determine the steady state behaviour of the resulting non-homogeneous production line, it is first transformed into an approximately equivalent homogeneous line. Then, the well-known Dallery-David-Xie algorithm (DDX) is used to solve the decomposition equations of the resulting (homogenous) line. The optimal design problem is formulated as a combinatorial optimisation one where the decision variables are buffers and types of machines, as well as the number of redundant machines. The effectiveness of the ant colony system approach is illustrated through numerical examples.\nFindings: - Simulation results show that the analytical approximation used to estimate series-parallel production lines is very accurate. It has been found also that ant colonies can be extended to deal with the series-parallel extension to determine near-optimal or optimal solutions in a reasonable amount of time.\nPractical implications: - The model and the solution approach developed can be applied for optimal design of several industrial systems such as manufacturing lines and power production systems.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents an approach for the optimal design problem of series-parallel manufacturing production lines.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Reflexivity in managing diversity: a pracademic perspective
|
[
"Sense-making",
"Reflexivity",
"Australia",
"Storytelling",
"Action learning",
"Managing diversity",
"Practitioner research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Much has been written about managing diversity, its benefits, opportunities and challenges as illustrated by Healy et al. (2011), and by Strachan et al. (2009) from an Australian perspective. The research project underpinning this paper aims to make a contribution to the managing diversity field from a practitioner's perspective. By using my experience as an external consultant designing and operationalizing a managing diversity strategy, I was able, to engage in a post hoc qualitative, reflexive analysis of my own work. I was curious to explore how, as a practitioner, I was able to navigate the complexities embedded in managing diversity organizational change processes and contribute in meaningful ways to people's experiences with diversity. The research question:\nReflexivity in research and in managing diversity practice: The notion of reflexivity in qualitative research is gaining acceptance as a legitimate process (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2011), and in order to establish the connection to managing diversity practice, I will begin by unpacking this notion within the context of qualitative research first. Following this, I will endeavor to establish its relevance as a practice to managing diversity by introducing some pertinent narratives and insights gained from my practice as illustrations.\nManaging diversity: For the last few decades, the notion of \"managing diversity\" has been a key management approach claimed to be capable of harnessing the skills, knowledge and abilities of diverse employees within organizations to create competitive advantage (Harris and Moran, 1991; Hayles and Mendez-Russel, 1997). Representing an instrumental-based managerialist approach, diversity, from this perspective, is portrayed as comprised of characteristics of individuals and, in relation to the workforce, as needing to be discovered, identified, categorized, controlled and managed (Holvino and Kamp, 2009; Kelly and Dobbin, 1998) Managing diversity initiatives therefore have largely assumed it is possible to do just that (Benschop, 2001; Bissett, 2004). In addition, the \"doing\" of managing diversity has often been relegated to the domain of middle managers operating on specific organizational directives issued by senior management.\nMethodology and method: As introduced earlier, reflexivity is a strand of qualitative research methodology that focusses on the relationship between the researcher and that which is studied (Brannick and Coghlan, 2006). In particular, it aims to expose how relationships and interpretations of meaning and the actions that follow are formed in relation to the conduct of research. These factors are interrogated through the researcher engaging in a systematic process of reflection. As a component of an \"Action Research\" methodology such reflections are particularly pertinent to this after the fact study.\nThe organization: The organization in the study is a regional division of an Australia wide company concerned with the distribution of goods and the provision of retail services, whom I shall refer to as MAC. Historically, MAC was until the latter part of the twentieth century an employer of men, where at the time of the study gender ratios represented a 70/30 male/female split in the organization. These ratios were mirrored in the regional division in which the consultancy project took place. Most female employees occupied positions in retail, administration and support. Anecdotal information, my experience of its bureaucratic approval processes and systems and strict delineation between business units, led me to perceive MAC as hierarchical, bureaucratic, male dominated and representative of its industry. However, MAC was aware of this and it had recognized that in order for it to remain a player in what it perceived to be an increasingly competitive and demanding market, it needed to adopt a much more enterprise focussed approach to enable a broader demographic representation and a flatter, more responsive management structure (Little and Little, 2006; Cattermole et al., 2013). MAC's awareness and desire for change was reflected in its \"People Management Strategy\" which was an integral components of its corporate and business plans. However, this was not necessarily reflected in its practices.\nThe consultancy project: The Consultancy project was initially conceived in response to the need for regional human resources staff to be able to deliver on the above corporate diversity objectives and targets. After I had initial discussions and engagements with these staffs, it became clear that in addition to issues regarding meeting objectives, there was a disconnect with the way MAC's discourse on diversity was understood by the regional human resources staff, and the way in which they were to deliver on specific objectives within their region. As such, the consultancy project evolved into meeting three specific needs: the need for regional human resources staff to be able to interpret, understand and effectively communicate organizational diversity directives to all staff; rollout diversity initiatives that would engage employees around these objectives within their own regional context; and enable human resources staff to be able to meet the corporate diversity targets.\nReflexively engaging with my own work: Following from the consultancy project, and informed by the combined work of Cunliffe (2003), Czarniawska (1999), Holliday (2007) and Alvesson and Skoldberg (2005), in the study, I was able to critically interrogate my own constructs of information that had thus far underpinned the consultancy project. I recounted the stories of the consultancy project through a secondary review of the materials that were created. In addition, I also engaged with discourse analysis, organizational change, managing diversity, sense-making and intercultural literature and critically reflected on these accounts. This enabled me to develop the further understandings and insights into the relationships I encountered and explore the possibilities for mutually beneficial organizational change. It is through this process that I began to recognize and understand the potential of reflexive practice for managing diversity practice.\nConclusion: Based on the study, I was able to draw the following conclusions. First, a key ingredient in managing diversity organizational change initiatives is the development of mutually beneficial relationships between managers and employees. Second, that reflexivity in managing diversity practice enables taken for granted assumptions about identities, roles, perspectives, language, meanings and understandings between all people in an organization to be explored and redefined in ways that matter to the people in their particular workplace context. Third, that more relational approaches to managing diversity potentially raises questions for leadership and ethics in organizations that require further investigation. Also, that by reframing existing workplace practices it is possible to engage in action-learning reflexive processes. Lastly, that providing for time and commitment upfront, tangible organizational benefits can be achieved and perceived time losses can be ameliorated.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose reflexivity as a means to managing diversity practice in organizations. Reflexivity enables taken for granted assumptions about identities, roles, perspectives, language, meanings and understandings between managers and employees to be explored and redefined in ways that matter to the people in the workplace. It provides insights and examples from a practitioner perspective while engaged in designing and implementing a managing diversity initiative. In addition, it positions the development of relationships between managers and employees as a key ingredient in managing diversity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a post hoc qualitative reflexive study of a managing diversity project undertaken by the author as a diversity practitioner.\nFindings: The study suggested that reflexivity can allow both managers and employees to critically examine the conventional ways in which diversity and differences are understood, as this awareness can enable more relational approaches to diversity to be developed.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the chosen qualitative research approach, the specific findings cannot be generalized; rather, an example of the potential of reflexivity as practice in organizations is proffered and insights are offered to enable further academic enquiry and practical considerations.\nPractical implications: Reflexivity stimulates both independent and shared action-learning sense-making processes which support equal participation. This challenges and expands the diversity agendas prevalent in the applied field of managing diversity. For example, by positioning organizational diversity as an inter-subjective and contextual process, meaningful dialogue between employees and managers becomes possible. Moreover, as reflexivity allows for a range of narrative accounts to emerge from such embedded activities, this approach can serve as a model for similar dialogical processes to occur within the wider organization. In addition, this paper provides insight into how reflexivity as practice for both practitioners and researchers can offer a means for more collaborative relationships to develop at the practitioner/researcher nexus.\nOriginality/value: The paper endeavors to make a contribution to both the academic and the practitioner managing diversity fields by demonstrating that reflexive practice can add significant value to managing diversity processes in organizations and research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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An empirical examination of the impact of tri-dyadic fit on the service experience
|
[
"Structural equation modelling",
"Service experience",
"Customer-employee interface",
"Dyadic fit",
"Triadic fit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to maturing markets and increasing competition in most service industries, firms face rising pressure to find innovative ways to compete. One specific way is to enhance the service experience (Klaus and Maklan, 2012), which is defined as the customer's subjective response to the holistic encounter with the firm (Lemke et al., 2011). The ability of service firms to provide customers with a superior service experience represents a key capability according to both the services literature and practicing managers (Meyer and Schwager, 2007; Patricio et al., 2011). In the services field, considerable effort has been devoted to identifying and examining the antecedents of the service experience, where most research proposes that service design and clues are its key drivers (e.g. Berry et al., 2002; Bitner, 1992; Goldstein et al., 2002; Pullman and Gross, 2004; Shostack, 1984; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2009). However, there is research that has spotlighted the importance of fit among the parties that co-create the service experience (Jaakkola et al., 2015; McColl-Kennedy et al., 2012; Verleye, 2015), with the recognition that higher levels of fit may positively impact firm financial performance (Lichtenstein et al., 2010).\nHypotheses development: Dyadic fit and the service experience\nMethod: Survey measures and common method variance\nDiscussion: A key goal of service marketing theory is to identify and understand how managerially controllable antecedent variables influence important service marketing outcomes. While existing literature frequently uses service design and clues as key drivers of the service experience (Berry et al., 2002; Bitner, 1992; Goldstein et al., 2002; Pullman and Gross, 2004; Shostack, 1984; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2009), less attention focusses on the role of fit on the service experience. Based on the conclusions from the extant literature, our conceptual model enhances the current thinking about the antecedents of the service experience by introducing fit as an important direct and indirect antecedent. As customer-firm fit reflects \"the primary psychological substrate for the kind of deep, committed, and meaningful relationships that marketers are increasingly seeking to build with their customers\" (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003, p. 76), the importance of identifying influences on customer-firm fit cannot be overstated. By investigating fit within the dyads, and relating them to each other, our study provides evidence that antecedents of customer-firm fit, and the service experience, may depend largely on the employees with whom customers interact.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the customer's perception of customer-firm, customer-employee, and employee-firm fit and to assess how these fits impact the service experience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper looks at the impact of fit on the service experience and focusses on three specific types of dyadic fit: customer-employee; customer-firm; and employee-firm. A conceptual model is presented, accompanied by a detailed development of the hypotheses. A sample of 447 consumers is used to empirically test the proposed model.\nFindings: The analysis reveals the importance of fit and suggest a triadic relationship perspective is essential when designing for the service experience. Specifically, employee-firm fit is key to enhancing fit within the other dyads and providing a superior service experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main implication is that this paper expands the investigation of fit by examining the interplay of multiple fits while also exploring how they affect the customer experience. The limitations are based primarily on methodology where the use of a survey to collect data rules out potential generalizations of true cause and effect while also potentially being subject to a common method effect.\nPractical implications: Managers should consider adopting a triadic relationship perspective when designing for the service experience. A number of managerial implications are proposed and discussed.\nOriginality/value: Prior research has not explored the impact of fit among the customer-employee, customer-firm, and employee-firm dyads in one model on an important outcome such as the service experience. In addition, to show that customer-employee, customer-firm, and employee-firm dyadic fits are predictors of the service experience is novel.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The growth of iRadio OUM as a quality audio learning material provider
|
[
"Mobile learning",
"Audio learning materials",
"Internet radio",
"Learning podcast"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: iRadio OUM began its initial broadcast in April 2007 and was established with the idea of addressing different learning styles. Focusing on audio learning materials, segments, capsules and audio books based on the modules the Centre for Instructional Design and Technology (CiDT) develops are produced and broadcasted daily, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. These audio files are later edited into podcast format and uploaded for audience to listen and download any time, at any place.\nThe development of iRadio OUM: The demand for open and distance learning is something that is growing steadily. The launch of the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 highlights lifelong learning as one of the pillars in education, recognising the significance of lifelong learning as a pivotal component in nation building. One of the challenges faced by many open and distance education is learning materials development and delivery. iRadio OUM meets this core need.\nTypes of segments: As more e-learning materials are made available in OUM, iRadio OUM explored the possibility of functioning more as a campus radio rather than a full education-based radio station. Segments developed are now inclusive of edutainment segments and most of these segments aim to enrich the audience's knowledge and day to day life. Segment such as Eco Hour aims to foster awareness on environmental issues. This segment features interviews with OUM's Chancellor, Tun Jeanne Abdullah, who is very passionate about the environment and is the chairperson of Landskap Malaysia as well interview with Hajah Zainab Mohd Ghazali, Director of the Physical Planning Department, DBKL on their River of Life initiative.\nAdapting to the challenges in the twenty-first century: the way forward: iRadio OUM itself started as just a web broadcast. It later evolved into a podcasting service when content is edited and uploaded onto the then iRadio OUM website. These podcast were uploaded based on the schedule and the podcasts were not categorised according to subject or faculty alike. Even the quality of the audio was not a priority due to bandwidth restraints.\nTrends in iRadio OUM: To observe the trends of iRadio OUM audience, an analysis was made of the number of visits to the website in January 2014 and January 2015. The aim of this observation is to determine whether the flow of visits has decreased or increased over the years. To track the usage of the audio learning materials produced, iRadio OUM deploys web analysis programmes, namely, Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/), Webalizer (www.webalizer.org/) and Get Clicky (http://clicky.com/). These analysis programmes track the number of listeners, where they are from, the number of files downloaded and other useful information that can help iRadio OUM to strategise and improve on its product.\nImplications and the way forward: Data from this research study suggests iRadio OUM the improvement that can be implemented. Some of the strategies incorporated are:\nConclusion: iRadio OUM plays an important role in developing e-learning materials for OUM. It adds value to the printed modules and addresses the different learning styles or preferences of the learners. Auditory learners may benefit greatly from the audio files provided and visual learners can truly take advantage of the videos uploaded via OUMportal.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the progress of iRadio OUM over the years, the evolution of technology used and its overall significance to OUM's continual growth and development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Reports the results from web analytic data from previous years in terms of listening and downloading habits and trends. Reviews of how other institutions and/or organisations use podcasting or audio learning material in the teaching and learning process are also included.\nFindings: Outlines the progress of iRadio OUM through the years in terms of content development, listening and downloading trends as well as research and development carried out. This paper summarises the changes in how segments are structured, produced and delivered. It also outlines the evolution of the technology used, mainly in terms of how content is delivered to the audience.\nResearch limitations/implications: The scope of the paper is such that it only highlights the experiences of iRadio OUM alone.\nPractical implications: Offers practical advice in terms of the planning, development and implementation of an educational internet radio for higher learning institutions.\nOriginality/value: This paper is written by key team members of iRadio OUM itself and highlights the experiences and ultimately the best practices discovered by actual web-broadcast practitioners and audio learning materials instructional designers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Replacing a delisted brand with premium and standard private labels: The role of brand preference and shopping trip
|
[
"Delisting",
"Premium",
"Private label",
"Brand switching",
"Replacement",
"Standard"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The question of whether to replenish a delisted national brand's (NB's) shelf space with private labels (PLs) has become a significant issue for retailers (Euromonitor International, 2016) for several reasons. First, PLs have experienced considerable growth in most countries. Second, delisting a NB, such that the brand is deleted from a retailer's assortment, has become commonplace over the past decade. Major retailers such as Tesco, Walmart, Carrefour and Leclerc (Gazquez-Abad et al., 2015) have done so following either a conflict (e.g. short-term unavailability to leverage negotiations with manufacturers) or a strategic decision (e.g. permanent item deletions to streamline the assortment) (Sloot et al., 2006).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Brand switching effect on assortment reduction\n3. Research framework and hypotheses: 3.1 Brand preference as moderating factor\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data collection and sample\n5. Results: 5.1 Analysis\n6. Discussion: Our study focuses on two key questions. Do the NB buyers who discover the premium and the standard PLs replacements behave differently? If so, what do these differences depend on?\n7. Limitations and future research: Our research has some limitations that may provide worthwhile opportunities for further research. Respondents reported their purchases instead of actually buying. Further research should focus on actual purchases (e.g. choice probabilities of the suggested products, market share/sales gleaned from scanner panel data across stores, purchase incidence in the affected category, category sales to assess the extent to which consumers switched stores). Another limitation of this work is the choice of a single retail chain; while it strengthened the internal validity of the study, this came at the expense of the external validity of the results. This limitation underscores the need for additional research that includes data from more retail chains. Such studies also might consider a wider range of product categories.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of brand preference and type of shopping trip on the relationship between replacing a delisted national brand (NB) with a retailer's private label (PL) brand (premium vs standard) and private label switching (PLS), that is switching from NB to PL.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Inside a major French retail chain store, an experiment with 1,392 NB buyers tested the impact of replacing NB with PL on PLS.\nFindings: Results stress the positive contribution of PL replacements after NB delisting on buyers' switching behaviour at different brand preference levels and shopping trip types. A main-choice NB for a major trip shopping benefits a PLS to premium PL. However, when a fill-in shopper looks for a secondary brand, competition between PL standard and NB may not be as weak as suggested in earlier studies.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitation of this study is that respondents reported their purchases instead of actually buying.\nPractical implications: This study highlights that the retailers that delist some NB brands in the category should adopt a strategy either to develop premium or standard PLs, depending on consumers' brand preference and shopping trip type.\nSocial implications: Delisting is an opportunity to question the NB product competitiveness towards PL.\nOriginality/value: The study is based on actual delisting and replacement, combined with a large sample, unlike previous studies. Moreover, it bridges two important areas of research: conflict in marketing channels and PL introduction in retailers' assortment decisions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Analysis of BALIS interlibrary loan service management
|
[
"Operations management",
"China",
"Interlibrary loan",
"BALIS",
"Regional library consortium"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. BALIS interlibrary loan service: BALIS was founded in November 2007 under the leadership of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission and Library Work Committee, marking a major advance in the integration of resource sharing among all university libraries in Beijing. Its interlibrary loan center is housed in the library of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Under the leadership of Beijing Higher Education Library Work Committee, the aim of this center is to combine a centralized portal platform with a distributed service model in order to make full use of the rich collection resources and convenient network environment in Beijing university libraries and to provide readers with high quality interlibrary loan services.\n2. Analysis of BALIS ILL service management: According to Zhang (2006), the role of service management is to form the service quality experienced by customers. BALIS service management can be understood as the method of planning, organizing, implementing, and controlling the interlibrary loan service. It involves mainly aspects of system structure, process control, and assessment. This section will analyze the service management of BALIS interlibrary loan.\n3. Problems and suggestions for improvement: BALIS interlibrary loan takes full advantage of each individual library's local resources even as it compensates for the gaps and weaknesses in those collections. It greatly expands the scope of books available for use, creates opportunities for users to take full advantage of library resources in Beijing, remedies defects of the library, and contributes to the library's purchasing power by allowing each library to focus its collection funds in core areas. In spite of all the advantages afforded by BALIS, the launching of interlibrary loan service along with the author's practical work and analysis, problems in the following aspects are found in BALIS interlibrary loan service system.\n4. Conclusion: BALIS, as a major library consortium in the Beijing area, should not be limited to university readers but should also be willing to provide services for the whole society. As a regional library consortium, it should strive to change the perception that cultural, educational, scientific and technological resources are difficult to share with one other and the BALIS system should aim to serve as a cross-regional resource sharing platform. It should enter into agreements with public libraries and research libraries to realize a true culture of resource sharing. Just like Deputy Minister of Culture Zhou Heping said, \"We want to break down departmental boundaries and promote cultural, educational, and scientific library development through reading, interlibrary loan, document delivery and other cooperation, improve service for the cultural needs of the general public, and protect the civic cultural interests\" (Zhang Heping, 2009). The goal of resource sharing is to ensure that anyone can get information at any time and any place.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review and assess the first five years of BALIS interlibrary loan service and propose directions for future service development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use a case study approach to review the consortium's service offerings and clientele, assess challenges encountered in the first few years of service, propose service improvements, and make recommendations for the development of future strategic alliances.\nFindings: There are some shortcomings of the system that limit the expansion of interlibrary loan services such as the low satisfaction rate and the high shipping costs.\nOriginality/value: This paper updates an earlier study of BALIS ILL services published in 2011.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The multiple impacts of teacher misbehaviour
|
[
"Workplace deviance",
"Organizational misbehaviour",
"Teacher misbehaviour",
"Teacher misconduct"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In April 2012, after over a decade of operation, the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE), the independent regulator of the teaching profession, was abolished. Seen as too soft by some elements of the press (\nTMB: Previous studies of TMB have focused almost exclusively on the classroom as the site of deviancy. Kearney et al. (1991, p. 310) defined TMB as \"those teacher behaviours that interfere with instruction and thus, learning\" and investigated the phenomenon by asking students to identify those actions of their teachers that detrimentally affected their learning: there was incompetence, poor teaching practices; offensiveness that concerned being rude or sarcastic; finally was indolence that involved lateness to class or tardiness of returning work. The centrality of pedagogy to conceptions of TMB has continued in subsequent studies: a lack of teacher credibility (Banfield et al., 2006) and clarity (Toale, 2001), student attributions of TMB (Kelsey et al., 2004) and teacher non-immediacy (Thweatt and McCroskey, 1998), all of which result in the demotivation of learners (Zhang, 2007). Such behaviours form one half of Lewis and Riley's (2009, p. 399) dichotomy of TMB between pedagogical misbehaviour and those behaviours defined by legality that concern \"physical and sexual misconduct, abuse and harassment, and theft or related financial law-breaking\".\nMethodology: The documents concerning TMB published by the Teaching Agency usually include the name of the teacher involved and the former employing school so it was relatively easy to identify suitable cases. However, there were a number of complications. First, many of the cases concerned incidents that had occurred several years before the date of the disciplinary hearing and so, with issues of recall error (Eisenhower et al., 1991) and headteachers moving schools, these were eliminated - only cases that occurred within the past three years were included in the sample. Second, researching misbehaviour in organisations is not an easy task, especially when the organisations in question are schools. Cases of TMB often attract attention from the national and local press and so many headteachers declined to be involved in the research: of the potential 28 cases, only five headteachers agreed to be involved. Third, there is the issue of anonymity. Even though the names of the teachers and schools involved were published on the Teaching Agency website for three months, those involved are probably keen to move on and so pseudonyms are used throughout this paper.\nThe cases of serious TMB: Before examining the impacts of serious TMB from the perspective of the headteachers, there follows an overview of each of the five cases. Each one arises from the documentary analysis of the findings from the Teaching Agency's disciplinary hearing which includes evidence from witnesses, documentary accounts and sometimes submissions from the teachers themselves, whether in person or, more usually, in the form of written statements.\nThe multiple impacts of TMB: That TMB has an impact is indisputable. Those pedagogical misbehaviours that are presented in much of the literature (Banfield et al., 2006; Toale, 2001; Kelsey et al., 2004) impact upon the learning of pupils - educational development is diminished because of poor pedagogical practices. Yet the findings from this research suggest that the wider impacts of TMB must also be considered - classroom misbehaviours may negatively impact upon pupils but the consequences spread and threaten to damage the effectiveness and improvement gains that the heads in this research had achieved, some moving from special measures to outstanding in Ofsted's (the schools inspectorate in England) gradings. With almost no notice being given for inspections from September 2012, the disruptive and damaging impact of TMB was never far from the minds of headteachers. Yet to manage TMB, headteachers had to be aware of it and what was apparent from the cases considered here is that TMB is rarely public; usually, while being performed, it is covert, duplicitous and secretive:\nThe impact upon teachers: The first impact was upon the colleagues of the misbehaving teachers yet there was a difference between sectors - in secondary schools there was less impact upon other teachers except the immediate colleagues of the misbehaving teacher. The secondary heads interviewed were generally unaware of extensive impact yet the interactional distance between secondary heads and staff was greater than their primary counterparts which may explain this. In addition, with a larger staff, secondary heads were more able to cover classes when the misbehaving teachers were suspended. In the primary schools, with a smaller and more tightly connected staff, the impact appeared greater:\nThe impact upon pupils: The second impact of TMB was on pupils and was manifested at two levels. First there were those pupils who were the targets of misbehaviour: the two cases of inappropriate relationships and Keith, accused of pedagogical misbehaviour. In the former cases, only one of the pupils involved was felt to have been \"damaged\" by the head. The first of Richards' inappropriate relationships was not of a sexual nature. There had been contact by e-mail and text message and a meeting in a pub on the night of what was thought to be her last day, but it was judged to be social. The second case that had resulted in physical contact was considered far more serious:\nThe impact upon the school: The next level of impact was on the school in terms of its reputation and relationship with the community. In a competitive environment (Adnett and Davies, 2005; Bradley and Taylor, 2010), schools have to constantly be aware of their reputation and \"brand\" which is perhaps as important as pass rates in determining parental choice; here, then, is the performative element of Page's (2013a) TMB model. TMB has the potential to severely tarnish the good name of a school that headteachers and their staff work hard to build. Three of the cases of TMB attracted press attention; in the case of Miller and Wilson, it was both at national and local level whereas the case of Richards was only in the local press. Although the stories were reported to be either factually incorrect or vague, the heads feared for their impact upon the good name of their schools:\nThe impact upon the headteachers: The final impact of TMB was on the headteachers themselves. What was immediately evident in the accounts was the sense of shock at the misbehaviours of their teachers. While much of the generic organisational literature presents misbehaviour as largely preventable (Trevino and Brown, 2005; Tomlinson and Greenberg, 2005), the heads in this study suggested that there had been no prior incidents or behaviours to suggest what was coming. There were also no serious competence issues involved prior to the misbehaviours, with three teachers being good or better and two satisfactory. But more than shock was the sense of betrayal:\nDiscussion: This paper provides a framework for the management of serious TMB, a map of the multiple impacts that can aid senior school leaders in minimising the damage upon pupils, staff, the school and the headteachers themselves. While HR departments may be able to provide advice concerning disciplinary and safeguarding processes, this research highlights the impacts that fall outside of the formal procedures, the wider impacts that concern the pragmatic such as covering classes to the less defined such as organisational reputation. As such, this section will focus on four key themes: the extent to which TMB can be prevented; the problem of mitigation; two additional impacts; finally, \"preventative leadership\".\nConclusion: With multiple impacts upon pupils, teachers, the school and heads themselves, TMB, although rare, is an issue for all heads to be aware of. While much of the literature presents OMB as predictable and preventable, the most serious forms (such as those discussed in this paper) are unpredictable and largely unpreventable, occurring in secret and evading the official policies, systems and scrutiny of the school. When TMB does occur, it has the potential to derail the improvement strategies that heads enact, damaging the effectiveness of the organisation. As a result, headteachers must ensure that their schools are as \"secure\" as possible in terms of preventative action. In addition, should serious misbehaviour occur, this paper provides a framework to contextualise the procedures that are determined by Human Resources policies. Thus, while serious TMB may be highly disruptive, this map of the multiple impacts may allow headteachers to plan for its management from the outset, to take back control in contexts that often leave them powerless. This paper has also highlighted the potential wider damage to the teaching profession that may occur - publication of disciplinary hearings may be intended to prove the robustness of teacher regulation but the side-effect is that the popular press have a source of sensationalised stories of TMB at their fingertips, potentially eroding the public trust that teachers, arguably, enjoy.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of serious teacher misbehaviour (TMB) in schools from the perspective of headteachers, a largely un-researched area.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected via the documentary analysis of misconduct cases from the Teaching Agency and semi-structured interviews with five headteachers who had managed serious cases.\nFindings: The research suggests four primary impacts of serious TMB, affecting other teachers, students, the reputation of the school and headteachers themselves. The paper concludes by suggesting a fifth impact affecting public trust in the teaching profession.\nPractical implications: Although rare, serious TMB can be highly damaging. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is almost impossible to predict and so this paper suggests a \"map\" of the impacts helping headteachers to manage and contain it when/if the worst does happen.\nOriginality/value: Empirical studies of the impacts of serious organisational behaviour are scarce; empirical studies of serious organisational behaviour in schools are non-existent and so this paper addresses that gap.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Interaction despite of diversity: is it possible?
|
[
"Management",
"Strategy",
"Cross-cultural Management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nGeneral framework: With a population of over 85 million and a GDP of ;219 billion the Egyptian economy is one of the largest in the Arab World, and the second largest in the Middle East and north Africa. Egypt possesses the fundamentals to become a business hub in north Africa and the Middle East and is the geographic centre between two continents. Egypt is a major trading partner for the EU in the southern Mediterranean region. EU and Egypt are realizing an exploratory dialogue for improving trade and investment relations through the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA). The DCFTA would aim at improving market access opportunities and the investment climate and at supporting economic reforms undertaken by Egypt. It will extend significantly beyond the scope of the existing Association Agreement to include trade in services, government procurement, competition, intellectual property rights and investment protection.\nMethodology: The qualitative analysis has been conducted through face to face interview to Italian firms operating in Egypt. These interviews are aimed to evidence the impact of cultural differences on interactions between Italian and Egyptian culture. Our survey targeted directors of local subsidiaries of Italian firms in Egypt. They are aware on the crucial aspects of the local context and the local operations. The base population for our survey was defined as Italian firms that operate in Egypt. Firms' subsidiaries were selected using stratified random sampling. The stratification was used to ensure that the inter-industry distribution of firms in the sample closely resembled that of the population at the two-digit level. Once a firm was selected, teams that were specially trained for the administration of the questionnaire interviewed a top-level manager, usually the director. Most firms of our sample (78 per cent) are small and medium enterprises (SME) with a number of employees less than 250 and with local revenues less than ;10 million. These firms operates in agriculture, food, chemical industry, electromechanical industry, marina and automotive, transportation, tourism and banking. Most of these firms have operated in Egypt for more than ten years (89 per cent) through industrial productive centres and representative offices. During these years, local units have not changed their activities neither operated in other south Mediterranean countries concentrating their main activity in the local market.\nResults: According to our results religion is the main factor affecting socio-cultural values and practices in Egypt. Specifically, about 90 per cent of the population is Sunni Muslims. Islam influences personal choices, political, economic, legal and cultural aspects. Muslim faith has a common effect on both Hofstede and GLOBE's cultural dimensions.\nConclusions and discussions: Political agreements and economic opportunities make Egypt an interesting destination for Italian goods. Italy is one of the most important commercial partners of Egypt. Main Italian investors are supported from local government that aim to increase employment and develop industry. However, cultural diversity exposes Italian SME to face several risks. Egyptian firms seem to present many characteristics of pluricultural organizations for their tendency to find a compromise with people coming from other cultural context and their difficulties in realizing it. Thus, our study evidences that a cultural compatibility among Italy and Egypt should exist because of similar scores in many cultural dimensions. However, firms of both countries have to work on their diversity to achieve a successful integration. Strong interactions of Italian firms with Egyptian ones are necessary to overcome the closure towards diversity and the difficulties to interact with local institutions. However, co-operation between Italian and Egyptian firms requires a reciprocal understanding based on respect of diversity. On one side, Italian investors have to know Egyptian culture and traditions in order to avoid that local value and norm can influence international relationships. On the other side Egyptian policy-makers have to address several competitive challenges, starting with a reform of the educational system that create a more opened culture. Going forward, providing Egypt's population with opportunities and prosperity in the future will require putting the country on a higher and more sustainable growth path. This can be achieved only by realizing a cultural change more open to interaction with foreign operators for competing in the global scenario.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Italy is traditionally one of Egypt's main trading partners, ranking first both as import and export partner. However, Italian firms face several cultural problems in Egypt. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of cross-cultural differences faced by Italian firms' operating in Egypt. The investigation of cross-cultural differences is facilitated by the examination of interaction between Italian and Egyptian culture using Hofstede and GLOBE's cultural attributes and dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The qualitative analysis has been conducted through face to face interviews of individuals working for Italian firms operating in Egypt. These interviews were structured to specifically identify the impact of cultural differences on the interaction between Italian and Egyptian firms.\nFindings: The results show that Italy is one of the most important commercial partners of Egypt. However, cultural diversity results in Italian small and medium enterprises facing risks when operating in Egypt. Cultural distance is a problem for Italian firms investing in Egypt. Thus, interaction between Italian and Egyptian firms requires a common understanding of cultural diversity. Italian firms must develop an understanding of Egyptian culture if they are to avoid cultural clash. Egyptian policy-makers must adopt policies that open national culture to international interactions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper is based on a sub-set of the cultural attributes identified in Hofstede and GLOBE's study. The results presented in this paper may be complimented through a future quantitative analysis, evaluating the relationship between religious values and other cultural dimensions.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an insight into the interaction between Italian and Egyptian culture. It contributes to the extant literature by filling a gap in the existing literature on cross-cultural diversity and interaction between Europe and Middle East.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Why do satisfied customers defect? A closer look at the simultaneous effects of switching barriers and inducements on customer loyalty
|
[
"Generation Y",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer loyalty",
"Switching barriers",
"Mobile internet",
"Switching inducements"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Customer satisfaction has long been regarded as a key determinant of customer loyalty and repurchase intentions (Buoye, 2016; Hallowell, 1996; Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2000). However, this conventional belief has increasingly been challenged as recent empirical studies have shown that satisfaction does not always translate into loyalty and dissatisfaction does not result in switching (Li, 2015; Sanchez-Garcia et al., 2012; Wu, 2011). For example, Reichheld et al. (2000) found that 60-80 percent of customers who defect stated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their former suppliers. Bennett and Rundle-Thiele (2004) reported that among the customers of Australia's four largest banks an estimated 70 percent intended to repurchase from their current bank, despite being dissatisfied. Furthermore, meta-analysis of customer satisfaction research revealed that satisfaction explains less than 25 percent of the variance in repurchase behavior (Szymanski and Henard, 2001). Recent research (e.g. Haumann et al., 2014; Kumar et al., 2013), however, showed that merely satisfying customers is not adequate to ensure both sustainable and profitable customer relationships in today's turbulent and competitive global marketplace.\n2. Literature review, conceptual background, and research hypotheses: 2.1 Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Setting and sample\n4. Data analysis and results: To analyze the research model, we employed partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.0 software (Ringle et al., 2015). PLS is preferred to the covariance-based SEM (CB-SEM) approach for this study because PLS can handle both reflective and formative constructs, compared with CB-SEM, which requires indicators and constructs to be modeled reflectively (Urbach and Ahlemann, 2010). Furthermore, compared with CB-SEM, which is more confirmed-oriented, PLS is a prediction-oriented variance-based approach that focuses on endogenous targets in the model and aims to maximize their explained variance (i.e. their R2 value) (Hair et al., 2012). Given the prediction-oriented nature of this study, that is, to assess how well the endogenous variable (customer loyalty) can be predicted by those exogenous variables (customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and switching inducements), PLS was chosen. We tested our proposed research model using a two-step approach in which the measurement model was examined first, followed by the structural model (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).\n5. Discussion: The results of our study are congruent with some previous studies, which found a positive association between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (e.g. Kim et al., 2015; Martinez and Del Bosque, 2013), particularly in the context of mobile services (e.g. Calvo-Porral and Levy-Mangin, 2015; Morgeson et al., 2015). While customer satisfaction remains as a significant predictor of loyalty, we found that switching barriers exerted an even stronger influence on customer loyalty. This finding is in line with prior studies (e.g. Burnham et al., 2003; Ghazali et al., 2016, Yang, 2015) but is in conflict with Kim et al. (2004). Their study of Korean mobile telecommunications services reported that customer loyalty is less influenced by switching barriers compared with satisfaction. A possible explanation for this variation is that as intense competition creates more alternatives for consumers to choose from, consumers tend to be more demanding, more difficult to satisfy, and less loyal than ever before. Without the glue of switching barriers, even a well-designed customer satisfaction program will fail to achieve its retention goals. Since satisfaction appears to be a necessary but insufficient condition for retaining customers, it is deemed as a \"competitive necessity\" rather than a \"competitive weapon\" for business success and survival. As Zhang et al. (2014) noted, when the level of customer satisfaction is analogous, customer loyalty is significantly dependent on the magnitude of the switching barriers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to go beyond satisfaction as an indicator of customer loyalty and propose a holistic model of service switching in a mobile internet setting. The model, which reflects both barriers and inducements of switching, is developed based on the \"mooring\" and \"pull\" concepts in the migration literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Focusing on Generation Y mobile internet subscribers, the study analyzed a total of 417 usable questionnaire responses. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the research model.\nFindings: The results show that first, satisfaction and switching barriers (i.e. a focal firm's marketing innovation initiatives, switching costs, inertia, and local network effects) are positively related to customer loyalty; second, switching barriers have a stronger influence on customer loyalty compared with satisfaction; third, switching inducements (i.e. competitors' marketing innovation initiatives, alternative attractiveness, variety-seeking tendencies, and consumers' susceptibility to social reference group influence) is negatively related to customer loyalty and the relationship is weaker when perceived switching barriers are high.\nOriginality/value: This study empirically validates multidimensional scales of switching barriers and inducements from a more nuanced perspective, and specifies them as reflective-formative type II models. This study is among the first to use opposing dimensions to measure switching barriers and its counterpart. Hence, it illustrates how the two contrasting mechanisms can coexist in the minds of mobile internet subscribers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Diagnosing the translation gap: The politics of translation and the hidden contradiction in interdisciplinary accounting research
|
[
"Language",
"Academic elites",
"Cross-language",
"Cross-culture interviews",
"Politics of translation",
"Translation gaps"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The solutions to many of the translator's dilemmas are not to be found in dictionaries, but rather in an understanding of the way language is tied to local realities, to literary forms and to changing identities. Translators must constantly make decisions about the cultural meanings which language carries, and evaluate the degree to which the two different worlds they inhibit are \"the same\". These are not technical difficulties; they are not the domain of specialists in obscure or quaint vocabularies [...] In fact, the process of meaning transfer has less to do with finding the cultural inscription of a term than in reconstructing its value(Simon, 1996, pp. 137-138).The above quote is indicative of the cultural turn in translation studies. Translation of texts or narratives are no longer perceived as a mechanical transaction involving linguistic substitution between two languages. In this field, there is a growing awareness of translation as a more complex negotiation between two cultures, and therefore, political in nature (Spivak, 1993; Trivedi, 2007). It involves decisions around what to reveal about one culture to another and what to suppress, what is to be translated and what not, who will be visible and who will be marginalised. Representing \"Others\" through translated texts is invariably a political issue that encompasses the use of language to construct the self and the \"Other\".\n2. Manufacturing translation gaps? IAR and cross-culture/language translation: Language is not only \"the medium\" people use to express what they want to say. Language is used to construct, as well as describe, people's identities and the differences between us and those we define as \"Other\" (Temple, 2008, p. 358). Therefore, it makes a difference to the findings of the research as to \"which languages are used, in what contexts and for what purposes\" (Temple, 2008, p. 362). Language also evokes \"pre-existing body experiences\" posing difficulties for bilingual researchers as, \"while a text can evoke a personal experience with a single word, this word does not have the same evocative impact every time, in every culture or country\" (Eco, 2003, p. 107). Thus, translation issues within the analysis of interview narratives are far more complicated than may be suggested when scholars promote \"back translation\"[2] as the solution. In other words, researchers need to become aware of their responsibility in representing others and their languages, in addition to their active role implicated within the research process (Temple and Young, 2004). Researchers, therefore, through their translations, build images and represent people within the narratives they construct. They are not merely a neutral and objective agent in the process, but active players who mould the production of meaning.\n3. Research method: Interviews are assumed to be of prime significance for qualitative research in social science[6]. In cross-culture/language research, the interview method gives opportunities to the researcher to encounter \"difference\" through direct contact with the local people. In order to disentangle the hidden political and complex processes associated with translating interviews in cross-language/cultural research and highlight translation gaps, we employ two research methods. First, we reflect on our own experiences of translating interview narratives as bilingual researchers from non-western backgrounds. Our concern with translation \"arises from the personal, everyday involvement in translation between different languages both as a product and as a producer\" (Muller, 2007, p. 207). Much of our own previous qualitative research is influenced by feminist perspectives on oral histories, where reflexivity accounts for \"the messiness inherent throughout the process of conducting qualitative research\" (Rubinstein-Avila, 2013, p. 1043). The reflections of both researchers in crossing national and socio-cultural boundaries highlight the challenges and dilemmas that have been mostly absent from IAR to date and will bring to the fore the interlinks between the politics of translating interview narratives and the politics of publishing in English language accounting research journals.\n4. Unveiling the backstage of translation: self-reflection on the real life experiences of translation in IAR: In this section, we elaborate on our own experiences in the translation process in cross-cultural accounting research in Syria and in Japan. Our research experiences are inexorably shaped by our own positions as bilingual female accounting academics in the UK, where we have resided and socialised for the most part of our post-graduate academic life. Our reflections not only contribute to addressing silences in accounting research vis-a-vis translation, but also demonstrate how the researcher's identity is shaped by cross-culture/language research in accounting, which helps define our insights \"regarding who [we] are and the nature of [our] work\" (Malsch et al., 2011, p. 221).\n5. Neutralising and standardising: practices of translating cross-culture/language interviews in IAR: Our personal reflections have illuminated the political nature of the decision-making process in translation and the hidden negotiations between local participants and the researcher to \"enrol\" them as \"allies\" in their English-language-led research (Latour, 1987). In this process, the life of the researcher and those of the participants intersect in the field, leading to the amalgamation of two distinct narratives. As a cultural broker, the researcher applies concepts developed in \"international\" literature into the local context, while communicating their own subjectivities and those of the participants, co-creating new language and meaning appropriate to their own cultural context (Gadamer, 2004). This process highlights the mismatches between the \"universally\" accepted epistemological \"language\" often dominant in the literature, and the diverse meanings that emerge from its own local history, norms and socio-cultural values. However, operating within the English speaking accounting research community, cross-culture/language researchers are pressured to comply and \"fit in\" with \"universal\" language and practices. They consequently attempt to \"sanitise\" the messy translation processes and \"domesticate\" the subtle differences in narratives to suit the target audience. Here, much could be lost when \"language\" travels to an English-speaking academic community. When language and culture are too incommensurable to be shared with English-speaking contexts, meaning sometimes cannot be \"mobilised\" at all, as illustrated in the Japanese experience. Local traditions and subtle expression of socio-cultural identity remain untranslated or not fully understood, resulting in lost opportunities to discover and rediscover the mode in which accounting operates in society (Hopwood, 1983). As we highlight such challenges embedded in the translation process in our reflections, it would be of interest to examine how the \"politics of translation\" manifest in the wider cross-culture/language qualitative research. Our experiences and literature review highlighted three qualities that are arguably equally important for addressing the translation gap: sensitivity to differences in socio-cultural context; reflexivity about their cultural brokerage role; and awareness of the political nature of translation. The content analysis in this section critically examines IAR wider practices in relation to these cross-culture/language translation agendas.\n6. Closing the \"translation gap\" in IAR: discussion and conclusion: IAR emphasises reflexive and subjective perspectives as key methodological issues. These epistemological and methodological perspectives are indispensable for cross-cultural accounting research where issues of language and translation assume significance in the context of globalisation. Against this background, the silence (with some exceptions) on methodological and political issues in translation is striking. It demonstrates a taken-for granted notion that accounting knowledge detached from translation issues and processes. By mobilising debates on the politics of translation and exploring the experience of the researcher/translator as a cultural broker, we have elaborated on the urgency for considering and reflecting upon translation processes and decisions. The content analysis combined with our reflections on our own thoughts and experiences, were aimed at opening the translation \"black box\" in cross-language/cultural accounting research, thus showing that translation gaps are \"in the making\" as opposed to being \"ready-made\" (Latour, 1987).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to break the silence surrounding the politics of translation that influence cross-language/cultural accounting research. It gives due consideration to the ways in which translation gaps are produced and re-produced in qualitative interdisciplinary accounting research (IAR).\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, the authors discuss backstage insights and the authors' own life experiences vis-a-vis translating cross-cultural/language research. The authors provide a critical self-reflection on the process as non-Western female researchers publishing in English-language accounting journals. Second, the authors carry out a content analysis to examine reported translation practices in three long-established interdisciplinary accounting journals from 2015 to 2017. The conclusion integrates these analyses to discuss the reproduction process of the translation gap in accounting research and its outcomes.\nFindings: The study identifies inherent contradictions in IAR and its emancipatory agenda, where translation gaps are structural outcomes of overlaps between the politics of translation and the politics of publishing IAR. The study highlights the IAR community's lack of awareness regarding political and methodological sensitivities in dealing with particularities in cultural contexts. The authors argue that this reflects the institutional norms for publishing in IAR, which contributes to neutralising cultural diversity and complex translation processes in the name of objectivity. This could ultimately lead to further marginalisation of non-Western cultural knowledge and values, while producing academic \"elites\" within the IAR community, meanwhile missing opportunities for innovation.\nOriginality/value: By opening the \"black box\" pertaining to translation gaps in the context of cross-language/cultural accounting research, the study calls for IAR scholars to help raise awareness of their role and identity as \"cultural brokers\".\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Human factors in maintenance: a review
|
[
"Maintenance",
"Human factors",
"Ergonomics",
"Human error",
"Review paper"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nNomenclature: List of abbreviations\n1. Introduction: Human role in different phases of a product life cycle including design, installation, production and maintenance is considerable and it cannot completely be replaced with latest technologies, technological systems. According to the International Ergonomics Association definition \"Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance\" (International Ergonomics Association, 2014). The significant role of human factors in maintenance is studied from different points of view. In this paper recent approaches to considering human factors in maintenance are reviewed. Reason and Hobbs (2003) reviewed the types of error and violation and the conditions that provoke them, and then set out the broader picture, illustrated by examples of three system failures. Central to the book is a comprehensive review of error management, followed by chapters on: managing person, the task and the team; the workplace and the organization; and creating a safe culture. It is then rounded off and brought together, in such a way as to be readily applicable for those who can make it work, to achieve a greater and more consistent level of safety in maintenance activities.\n2. Methodology: There are different classification schemes to categorize human error and human factors. Two well-known approaches for human factors and human error classifications are presented. The first one is human factors fields or domains, which is proposed by International Ergonomics Association (2014). In this way all the human factors could be categorized to physical, cognitive and organizational. Table II presents these domains with more details.\n3. Literature review: Before categorizing related publications according to the proposed framework, it is noteworthy to mention some of the comprehensive studies in this area. Krulak (2004) examined 1,016 aircraft mishaps caused by human factors in maintenance using frequency analysis. Inadequate supervision, attention/memory errors and judgment/decision errors were among the most important factors. Dhillon (2007) identified several aspects of human factors and human error in aircraft maintenance. Reasons for the occurrence of human error in maintenance are discussed and different categorizations for human error and human error analysis methods are presented. Hackworth et al. (2007) assessed the status of human factors programs in different maintenance and repair organizations. Use of event-data reporting, creation of a fatigue management program, and increased use of data for error tracking purpose are identified as the best targets of opportunity for improvement. Hobbs (2004) investigated different functions of people as elements of maintenance systems in aviation. It is mentioned that in comparison to other threats to the safety, the mistakes of maintenance personnel have the potential to remain latent. Johnson and Hackworth (2008) showed that there are general agreement between two surveys which have been done by the US Federal Aviation Administration in 2006 and 2007, in which the number one challenge is fatigue in maintenance. Dhillon (2009) focussed on human reliability, human error and human factors in engineering maintenance. Aviation and power generation industries are taken into account and different models are presented. Chang and Wang (2010) categorized and examined 77 preliminary and 46 primary risk factors using a modified human factors software, hardware, environment and liveware model and a quantifiable evaluation approach. Labor contracts-related factors and general work culture are known as the most important ones. In a similar study, significant human risk factors are related to the hardware, liveware and environment (Said and Mokhtar, 2014). Also aviation maintenance companies have to consider other significant human risk factors under organizational such as financial strategy, policies, manpower and safety culture. Antonovsky (2010) determined the influence of human factors on maintenance reliability in petroleum operations. Violations, design and maintenance, detection, and decision making are introduced as the most-frequent factors in the incidents (n=194). In another study within a petroleum industry organization, problem-solving behaviors (assumptions), plant design and organizational communication were identified as the human factors contributing most frequently to the failures (Antonovsky et al., 2014). Okoh and Haugen (2014) reviewed 183 detailed, major accident investigation and analysis reports related to the handling, processing and storage of hydrocarbons and hazardous chemicals. It is found maintenance was linked to 80 (44 percent) of major accidents and that the accident trend is decreasing. The results also show that \"lack of barrier maintenance\" (50 percent), \"deficient design, organization and resource management\" (85 percent) and \"deficient planning/scheduling/fault diagnosis\" (69 percent) are the most frequent causes in terms of the active accident, latent accident and work processes, respectively.\n4. Human factor domains-Swiss Cheese model: In this section, two aforementioned approaches, which are human factor domains and Swiss Cheese model, are applied to categorize reviewed literature. Table IV shows the result of the classification.\n5. Conclusions, limitations and future research: In this paper, 78 publications on human factors in maintenance are analyzed to identify the criteria and aspects most addressed in this area. A novel framework is proposed to systematically categorize the published literature and also to gap analysis. In the proposed framework three major categories are considered including human error/reliability calculation, workplace design/macro-ergonomics, human resource management. The framework further incorporates two well-known human factor categorization approaches, i.e., the Swiss Cheese model and the ergonomic domain framework. The classification of the existing literature according to the proposed framework of joint maintenance and human factors makes it possible to draw some major conclusions and suggest possible future work in this area. Research on human factors in maintenance has mainly focussed on human errors calculation models and methods, even though social and organizational factors have received increasing attention in recent years, still studies of physical and mental stress, normal work, cultures of maintenance have been scarce. Also, most of the studies are focussed on reliability-centered industries including aviation, nuclear power plant and chemical processing (73 percent). According to the nature of this type of industries, reliability and specifically human error is the main concern. Future direction in this area would be investigating human factors from long-term cost, availability and ergonomics points of view in a wide range of industries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review current literature analyzing human factors in maintenance, and areas in need of further research are suggested.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The review applies a novel framework for systematically categorizing human factors in maintenance into three major categories: human error/reliability calculation, workplace design/macro-ergonomics and human resource management. The framework further incorporates two well-known human factor frameworks, i.e., the Swiss Cheese model and the ergonomic domains framework.\nFindings: Human factors in maintenance is a pressing problem. The framework yields important insights regarding the influence of human factors in maintenance decision making. By incorporating various approaches, a robust framework for analyzing human factors in maintenance is derived.\nOriginality/value: The framework assists decision makers and maintenance practitioners to evaluate the influence of human factors from different perspectives, e.g. human error, macro-ergonomics, work planning and human performance. Moreover, the review addresses an important subject in maintenance decision making more so in view of few human error reviews in maintenance literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sponsorship and social identity in advancement of women leaders in South Africa
|
[
"Organizational behaviour",
"Leadership",
"Women executives",
"Human resource management",
"Gender stereotypes",
"Management development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The majority of previously disadvantaged women, namely, African, coloured and Indian (ACI) women, experience challenges in migrating economically as managerial positions in South Africa continue to be retained mainly by white men, who comprise two-thirds of employees (67.6 per cent) (Department of Labour, 2016). The main objective of this study was to deepen the understanding of the advancement of ACI women to top managerial positions by exploring the lived experience of a sample of ACI female executives in the South African context. The enablers to their advancement were studied, and of special interest was the intersectionality of race and gender in their experience, both in being developed and, in turn, in developing others.\nConceptual background: Talent management interventions\nLiterature review: Gender and sponsorship or mentoring\nMethodology: The study was exploratory and qualitative in nature. Exploratory research is conducted to clarify unclear situations; it is not expected to give definitive confirmation from which to decide a specific strategy (Zikmund et al., 2010). Saunders and Lewis (2012) state that exploratory studies seek to find new data around a theme that is not clearly understood by the researcher.\nConclusion and future studies: The research questions revolved around enablers of career advancement for ACI women to the C-suite and changes in their social identity, as well as whether these women would support the advancement of aspiring ACI women. The research revealed interesting nuances and complexities around the women's hardworking resilience and mentoring relationships. ACI women showed a change in their social identity around race and identified more with women and men at senior levels from other racial groups than their own. The women 50 years and older were more inclined to mentor others, showing the importance of age in relation to developing the next generation of ACI C-suite women. With regard to sponsorship, the ACI women sample had limited exposure to public advocacy or sponsorship and reported more on mentoring relationships. The two-study research design highlighted important differences between mentoring and sponsorship.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In South Africa, women in senior management positions experience social identity dilemmas, necessitating more research into this domain. While research has been conducted into coaching and mentoring of these women, limited scholarly attention has been paid to sponsorship. This paper aims to explore the social identity of women at senior management levels and sponsorship as a proposed mechanism to develop talented women.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This qualitative research included two studies using two sample groups, both of which included executive-level respondents in corporate organisations. One study focussed on sponsorship; here, the 29-strong sample included 14 male and 15 female executives, of whom 15 were White; 9 were African and 5 were Indian. The second study, consisting of only African, coloured and Indian (ACI) female executives (23 interviewees), focussed more broadly on their development path to the C-suite.\nFindings: A common theme across the two studies was the inclination to give developmental support, in turn, once supported. There were prerequisites in this support-giving, however. For example, sponsors identified criteria that proteges had to meet. Despite evident gender inequality at senior management levels in South Africa, this paper reveals that in the Study 1 sample, gender and race were ostensibly irrelevant when choosing a sponsor or who to sponsor. A closer examination revealed a gender-based expectation, embedded in the South African context. Study 2 showed that ACI women above 50 years of age were more inclined to mentor others; even when they themselves were not mentored, some purposefully developed other ACI women. This paper thus suggests age as an important additional diversity dimension in relation to the career development of ACI women towards the C-suite. The findings have implications for the career development of individual ACI women and for organisations in reaching equality.\nResearch limitations/implications: Gender differences with regard to perceptions also revealed that male respondents perceived sponsorship more as task-based actions, whereas female respondents focussed on relational elements. The paper concludes with recommendations on how individual ACI women and organisations can proactively develop talented women.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers insight into the gendered expectations of sponsors and gendered perceptions around merit in identifying proteges worthy of sponsorship. ACI women's social identity changed when they joined the C-suite to identify more with their roles as executives and became less associated with their original ACI women group.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Digital publishing readiness in Nigeria's print book market
|
[
"Africa",
"Developing countries",
"Innovation adoption",
"Author readiness",
"Digital publishing",
"Market readiness",
"Developing economies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: Market readiness in the context of book publishing refers to the preparedness of schools, libraries, bookshops and readers and by associations and authors. The degree of their digital readiness can determine whether publishers would adopt digital publishing innovations, but publishing research in Nigeria and Africa currently pays inadequate attention to digital book innovation adoption research, especially as regards the correlates of e-book adoption (Okojie, 2014). This study, taking cognizance of the predominantly analogue status of bookshops, schools, libraries and many authors, focuses on these aspects of the market because of their importance in the book chain (Eke, 2011).\n2. Literature review: Publishers' perception of how ready their consumers, authors, bookshops, schools and libraries are for digital innovations could influence their decisions to adopt digital publishing innovations. Where these are ready, the tendency to adopt is higher, whereas a lack of adequate degree of market readiness tends to discourage adoption, and studies show that market readiness in the era of globalization goes beyond the readiness of the local market but might depend more on overseas markets. This is because it is possible to embark on digital publishing for the international market when the level of consumer readiness is low in the local environment (Ozioko et al., 2011). Other studies argue that the near-absence, from certain regions, of local content on the World Wide Web could be attributed to market forces that do not encourage the adoption of innovations. Among these market forces are reading habits, adequacy of internet access, ownership of mobile devices through which book content could be accessed and readiness to use the devices for reading and related exercises (Arpaci et al., 2012; Balascau, 2014).\n3. Methods: The primary method used is the survey method, which was triangulated with website observation and in-depth interviews (Anderson, 2010). Survey data were collected offline with a printed questionnaire and online with an electronic version, whereas website data were collected only online with a website observation guide. A list of 131 active publishers was generated from the Nigerian Publishers Association and two online directories. Within each organization, which is the primary unit of innovation adoption in this study, only directors, managers or editors involved in core publishing assignments were purposively selected to fill the questionnaire (Sauro, 2011).\n4. Data presentation and analysis: 4.1 To what extent are digital book formats issued by the selected publishers?\n5. Discussion of findings: The number and variety of titles produced in the textbook and scholarly product lines suggest that more titles should be expected in these categories in the near future, especially if other states would introduce free pre-loaded tablets in schools as was the case in Osun State. Already, there is evidence indicating that the number of journal titles published in Nigeria and indexed in African Journals Online alone had risen to 219 as of June 2016 (Aina, 2004), and to 222 as of November 2019. This is an improvement from less than a hundred titles in 2006.\n6. Conclusion and recommendation: The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of the introduction of digital books and deployment of e-promotion and to ascertain the correlates of adoption of these digital publishing innovations. The study accomplished this objective by showing that 2014 digital titles, mainly in the textbook and scholarly categories, had been produced in four formats by about 30 per cent of respondents. However, the majority of the bigger and older publishers chose to market digital content to schools and governments offline, partly because they are predominantly educational publishers relying on government recommendation, in the absence of a standing policy on e-publishing. This pattern portrays them as toing the line of least resistance as is the case in Malaysia. Just as in South Africa, where publishers promoted mainly through websites, Facebook and Twitter (Le Roux and Bothma, 2014), e-promotion adoption pattern favours online promotion of print titles, with younger, smaller publishers doing more to upload and display e-books.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of production of digital book titles and deployment of e-promotion and how they correlate with school, library, bookshop, consumer and author readiness, with a view to enhancing publishers' understanding of and participation in e-publishing, which is now crucial for growth and sustainability\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was completed by 109 publishing firms, 79 publishing websites were observed in search of digital titles and e-promotion, and data were analysed using the SPSS to compute frequencies, percentages and correlates of digital publishing innovation adoption\nFindings: It is found that 2014 digital titles (mainly textbooks and scholarly content) were issued in four formats by 33 out of 109 firms. Authors and consumers were perceived to be more digital-ready than libraries, schools and bookshops. There was a significant relationship between the issuance of digital titles and author readiness (r = 0. 372), consumer readiness (r = 0.338) and library readiness (r = 0.255). There was also a significant relationship between the adoption of e-promotion and consumer readiness (r = 0.381) and author readiness (r = 0.265).\nOriginality/value: Book publishing innovation research, especially in Africa, focuses mainly on the adoption of mobile devices, infrastructural challenges and reading habits, paying inadequate attention to the correlates of digital publishing adoption. The results of this study, therefore, shed light on the correlates of digital publishing adoption and should help interested publishers and scholars to understand that author, consumer and library readiness are important determinants of digital publishing adoption, especially in developing economies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Influence of board characteristics on TBL reporting
|
[
"New Zealand",
"Environmental",
"Integrated reporting",
"Corporate governance",
"Determinants",
"Board characteristics",
"Social",
"Economic",
"Triple bottom line",
"Reporting practices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the dynamic business environment of today, the incorporation of sustainability in corporate values and objectives has become mainstream. As such, there has been a momentous shift in thinking with regard to improving the sustainability performance of organisations. The concept of triple bottom line (TBL) stresses on measuring both financial and non-financial performance of organisations. TBL emphasises on the interconnected dimensions of profit, people and the planet. A bar stool can be used as an analogy for TBL reporting. Each of its legs represents a bottom line, that is, profit, people and planet which carry equal weight and receive equal benefit. When one of the legs or dimensions is removed, the stool or business model will fall apart. It is thus essential to recognise that all three bottom lines play a crucial role in business and should always be kept in equilibrium.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theoretical framework\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results: Table 1 shows the sample descriptive statistics. The TBL index has a mean of 0.614, which indicates that more than half the sampled companies listed on the NZX disclosed their information using the three dimensions of the TBL approach. Women are clearly underrepresented on boards as, on average, only 27% of board members are women, with the minimum reaching 9%. On average, the companies under study have 9 board members with a maximum of 15 members and a standard deviation of only 0.150. A mean return on assets of 81.3% provides evidence that the companies under study are doing very well in terms of profitability with the least profitable company still boasting a return on assets of 55.6%.\n5. Discussion of results: The hypotheses are now individually discussed both at an aggregate level and component level based on the results shown in Table 3. Interestingly enough, it can be seen that all the hypotheses hold for at least one of the components of TBL or the aggregate TBL index except for board gender diversity (P_WOM). Had this research not investigated the individual components of TBL reporting, only two of the determinants would have been significantly associated with reporting practices. It shows the importance of not considering only the TBL index as a whole.\n6. Conclusions: The first objective of this study was to investigate the link between board characteristics and TBL reporting. The variables of interest were board size, profitability, board gender diversity, firm size and leverage. The second objective was to assess to what extent the top 50 companies listed on the NZX follow the TBL approach while disclosing information. Findings showed that in general, companies disclose information regarding the three dimensions of the TBL approach. For there to be a supply of such information, there should be corresponding demand by stakeholders and we can, therefore, conclude that stakeholders of companies listed on the NZX indeed require information provided by TBL reporting, hence stressing the importance of TBL conceptualisations in board reports. Results also reveal that even though companies disclose information voluntarily, they choose what they want to disclose. This means that they want to project a good image of the company and assure stakeholders that the company is creating value for them.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the influence of board characteristics on triple bottom line (TBL) reporting, both at aggregate and component level (environment, social and economic) for the top 50 companies in New Zealand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Content analysis is used to create reporting indexes for 2016 and 2017, which serve as proxy for TBL reporting. Regression analysis is then used to investigate the association between board characteristics and TBL reporting, along with its separate components.\nFindings: This paper finds significant positive associations of TBL with profitability and firm size; environmental bottom line with board size and profitability; social bottom line with board size, profitability and firm size; and economic bottom line (ECO) with firm size. A significant negative association is found between ECO and leverage.\nPractical implications: This study provides incentives for companies to adopt TBL reporting as the findings show a positive association between the extent of reporting and profitability. This implies that companies should improve their level of reporting while ensuring that voluntary disclosures show a true and fair view to maintain a healthy relationship with their stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first attempt to investigate TBL reporting along with its separate dimensions in the NZ context. It takes into account recent changes that occurred in the corporate environment in New Zealand as well as new practices that emerged in the world, especially the diffusion of the Global Reporting Initiative and the International Integrating Reporting Council Framework.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Reviewing cognitive distortions in managerial decision making: Toward an integrative co-evolutionary framework
|
[
"Decision making",
"Cognition",
"Literature",
"Heuristics",
"Management development",
"Co-evolution"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Why and how do cognitive distortions in managerial decision making occur? Addressing these important questions continues to merit pivotal attention in both the literature on and practice of management development, particularly for its potential contribution to de-biasing techniques, which are constantly growing thanks to the continuous scientific dialogue between business experts and psychologists globally.\n2. Motivation and framework of the review: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the term heuristics as \"involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods.\" The term derives from the Greek heuretikos, which means \"serving to discover or find out.\" Newell and Simon (1972) seminally conceive heuristics as those cognitive shortcuts which our brain tends to use when its decision-making process is limited, in terms of time and data availability. Thus, heuristics are self-learning strategies used to solve problems by searching and evaluating alternatives which we cannot handle through logic and probability theory. In fact, exhaustive searching is often impractical and we use heuristic methods to speed up the process of finding satisfactory solutions. In sum, we tend to make what is commonly referred to as an educated guess.\n3. Affect: Judgments are usually evoked by an affective evaluation happening even before any higher-level reasoning occurs. This conceptualization is seminally studied by Zajonc (1980), who provides evidence that individuals' affective states may: separately (from cognition) act on the information processing mechanism; influence and be influenced by cognition; and be the first response when the situation calls for rapidity in making decisions. Stemming from this last point, Finucane et al. (2000) interpret this mechanism as a heuristic; in practice, emotions substitute logical reasoning when decision makers have to rapidly assess the risks and benefits of a choice situation to improve the judgmental efficiency. The importance of this heuristic is subsequently highlighted by Dreman (2004), who retrospectively interprets the \"dotcom bubble\" in the early 2000s as being the outcome of investors' affect heuristic. Indeed, according to him, the low level of scrutiny of highly risky stocks in bubbles is determined by the emotional link of investors with new start-ups' dreams, which, however, have offered much lower returns than S&P 500 companies in the last two decades (81 vs 751 percent, respectively).\n4. Availability and representativeness: The availability heuristic exists when people assess the probability of a future event on the basis of what past occurrences of that event are readily available in memory, which is not always correct (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973). Availability also applies to recent events. Indeed, this time effect appears because we tend to recall recent events more easily and therefore assume that they are more likely to happen. Relatedly, the representativeness heuristic exists when, in making a judgment about an individual, object, or event, people tend to look for traits corresponding to previously formed stereotypes (Kahneman and Tversky, 1972). Thus, we judge a few elements and automatically classify them into that category and, although this heuristic can be helpful in saving energy and time, stereotypes are just round the corner.\n5. Confirmation: The confirmation heuristic appears when people use selective data for testing hypotheses, such as instances in which the variable of interest is present; decision makers, in practice, tend to selectively search for supportive information, discarding the opposite. The most relevant consequence of the confirmation heuristic is overconfidence, defined by Bazerman and Moore (2013) as the \"mother of all biases,\" because it has some of the most pervasive effects and facilitates many other biases. Overconfidence is the situation in which individuals tend to be overconfident about the infallibility of their judgments and it has been found in many settings.\n6. Risk aversion: Prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), disruptively challenges the expected utility axioms of decisions under risk, affirming that people who must make a decision among risky options primarily assess the potential value of the alternatives' losses and gains, rather than the final outcome, through the use of heuristics. One of these shortcuts is risk aversion. According to Kahneman and Tversky, risk averse people tend to search for options with moderate probabilities of gains and small probabilities of losses; while, risk-seeking decision makers look for options featuring moderate chances of losses or small chances of gains. Moreover, decision makers' preferences are driven by the formulation of the decision problem. In particular, people choose different options (generating inconsistencies) according to the positive or negative way in which the problem is posed, mainly because the different framing produces different perceptions of risks that, as a consequence, influence the decision makers' affective states and their search strategies.\n7. Discussion: Our study has been aimed at addressing the classical, but still lively, questions of why and how cognitive distortions in managerial decision making occur. In this regard, we have started from Simon's (1947) bounded rationality and its associated assumptions about the cognitive aspects of the decision makers' mistakes. Over time, scholars have also contributed to bounded rationality with studies of a psychological nature, because \"judgement refers to the cognitive aspects of the decision making process\" (Bazerman and Moore, 2013, p. 1). In this vein, stemming from the fact that the individual's representation of objects, goals, and actions, in a problem situation (i.e. the problem space (Newell and Simon, 1972)) has, at its basis, the cognitive representation of the overall problem (Greeno and Simon, 1984), the distortions - heuristics and biases - that may occur in problem solving are certainly related to the cognitive functioning of the involved decision makers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Why and how do cognitive distortions in managerial decision making occur? All organizations are imperfect systems (Katz and Kahn, 1966), with wrong decisions often just round the corner. As a consequence, addressing these important questions continues to be particularly lively in the management development area, especially in terms of its intended contribution to the de-biasing activity. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide the current scientific dialogue on the topic with updated lenses, which can also be innovative from some aspects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The review framework is based on the recent, impactful article on biases in managerial decision making by Kahneman et al. (2011), and on Bazerman and Moore's (2013) perspective on emanating heuristics, considered as the causes of biases. Accordingly, the authors derive four intertwined thematic clusters of heuristics, through which the authors systematically group and critically analyze the management literature mostly published on the topic since 2011.\nFindings: From the analyzed clusters the authors propose an integrative framework of emanating heuristics, which focuses on the co-evolving relationships and potentially self-reinforcing processes in and between them.\nOriginality/value: The value of the contribution is threefold: from a methodological perspective, to the authors' knowledge, the studies adopted as the basis of the analysis have not yet been simultaneously used as a comprehensive ground for updated reviews on this topic; from a conceptual perspective, the emerging integrative co-evolutionary framework can help explain the dangerous connections among cognitive traps and emanating heuristics; and from a practical perspective, the resulting framework can also be helpful for future de-biasing attempts in the business arena.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The organisational response to patient complaints: a case study in Taiwan
|
[
"Patients",
"Complaints",
"Health care",
"Quality",
"Organizational behaviour",
"Taiwan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Patient complaints fall into two major categories. The first category, comprising complaints against private practitioners, generally constitutes the largest segment. The second category comprises complaints made against health institutions, particularly hospitals. This paper focuses on the second category. Although in absolute terms complaints about hospitals are fewer, they nonetheless not only form a substantial component (up to 30 per cent) of all health care complaints, but are also significant in that, as several authors have pointed out, they lend themselves directly to being used as instruments to improve quality of care within institutions (Thomas, 2002). Lim et al. (1998) assert that patient complaints can do much more than merely reflect dissatisfaction with the service provided. For more than a decade they have been seen as having the potential to form an essential component of a health care delivery system that seeks to assure quality of care and maintain standards of care (Winkler, 1993). Zeigenfuss and O'Rourke (1995) argued that patients, as customers of health services, help provide a perspective on the quality of services and support staff and management capacity to identify and address issues and deficiencies associated with health services.These important ideas remained to a large extent in the realm of theory. Little seems to have changed since Gilly et al. (1991) argued that most literature on complaints management was focused on individual consumer issues rather than organisational responses to consumer complaints. In a similar vein, Allsop and Mulcahy (1996) pointed out that there is insufficient evidence about the way patient complaints influence organisational performance. A literature search indicated that out of 39 studies conducted in health care and published between 1983 and 2003, only four related to organisational behaviour and strategy in relation to the use of patient complaints for quality control purposes. These studies were conducted in Israel (Carmel, 1990), in the USA (Gilly et al., 1991), in The Netherlands (Van der Wal and Lens, 1995), and in Australia (Douglas and Harrison, 1996). The Australian study outlined the underlying philosophy and experiences of introducing a complaints handling system in a regional general hospital, and concluded that complaints handling can be a useful part of a continuous quality improvement programme.While all of these studies are useful, they do not address directly the response of hospital staff, as an organization, to patient complaints. Moreover, in the project being conducted under the auspices of the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care, entitled Turning Wrongs into Rights, Romios et al. (2003) reviewed the literature published during the previous five years. They found that the 96 articles reviewed contained little evidence concerning the use of complaints to improve quality of care. Consequently, the current knowledge about how hospital organisations respond to patient complaints remains vague.\nResearch design and methods: The case study approach is most common in organisational studies and health service management research (Checkland, 1997). Case studies enable flexibility and responsiveness to the situation under study (Stake, 1995). They are particularly useful in situations where the pertinent variables are not well known. However, the case study approach has frequently been criticised for not offering findings that can be generalised to different contexts (Punch, 1998), as well as for lacking representativeness and methodological rigor (Hamel, 1993).Notwithstanding this criticism, the case study is a research strategy that comprises an all-encompassing, comprehensive method and set of strategies and involves the widest array of data collection (Burns and Grove, 1997; Creswell, 1998) that allow people, practices, and phenomena to be described over time according to their contextual features (Stake, 1994; Fitzgerald, 1999). The case study uses a variety of data sources. It is therefore probably the most responsive and flexible of all research designs (Hakim, 1987; de Vaus, 2001; Gomm et al., 2000). The value of the case study method in the study of the \"real\" ready-made policy and management world is well documented (Campbell, 1975; White and Adams, 1994; Ruckdeschel et al., 1994). Following this strong tradition, our investigation uses a case study strategy to explore and evaluate how Taiwan hospital staff respond to patient complaints.A variety of quality management models have been compared, including those of Donabedian (1980), Gronroos (1990), Ovretveit (1992), Develin and Hand (1993), Bell et al. (1994), and O'Brien et al. (1995). Organisational performance models such as the McKinsey 7-S model (Waterman et al., 1980) and the model of Burke and Litwin (1992) further contributed to the development of the managerial-technical-operational model as a conceptual framework used to explore and evaluate the hospital in response to patient complaints. With reference to the managerial, operational and technical level of the hospital, data were drawn from a variety of data sources as follows. First, face-to-face interviews with one manager and one social worker within the Social Work Department and one manager at the Management Department of the hospital were conducted to investigate and identify key issues of the complaints-handling system within the hospital (September-October 2001). Second, a survey with managers involved in handling patient complaints (n=53, 74 per cent response rate) was conducted to gain an insight into managerial attitudes towards complaint handling (March-April 2002). Third, face-to-face interviews with representatives of governmental organizations (GOs) (n=4) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (n=3) was undertaken to explore factors in the hospital's external environment (i.e. the overall hospital system in Taiwan) (November-December 2001). Finally, secondary data, such as project reports, minutes of meetings, and training materials were collected to supplement and enhance the understanding of complaints-handling system within the organisation. The data was managed and analysed using Microsoft Excel 2000 and SPSS 12.0. The thematic analysis (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) technique was used for data analysis.\nHospital services in Taiwan: In the year 2000, the total population of Taiwan was 22.28 million, 8.6 per cent of which was over 65 years of age. Total health expenditure comprised 5.4 per cent of GDP (Department of Health, 2001) and the delivery of health curative services was dominated by the private sector. Thus, of the 610 hospitals in Taiwan, only 93 were public institutions while 517 (85 per cent) were privately owned and operated (Department of Health, 2003a). In comparison, only 42 per cent of the 1,297 hospitals in Australia are privately owned (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2004).Health services in Taiwan are provided by a market-oriented system that relies on the laws of supply and demand, rather than centralised planning, to deliver curative health care (Hsiao and Lu, 1989). However, the system is currently moving toward centralizing financing methods, for example a Global Budget Payment scheme to control costs of health care services. Moreover, most physicians work for private hospitals and clinics. Under the National Health Insurance scheme (which began in 1995), patients are free to choose their own doctor, clinic, or hospital. In turn, doctors are free to set up practice wherever they choose.\nResults: The study's findings are discussed in the context of each component of the managerial-operational-technical frameworkThe managerial level\nProblems: Generally, the case hospital exhibited several handling patient complaints problems, as detailed below.Complaint handlers were not sufficiently empowered\nDiscussion: As noted earlier, since patient complaints reflect certain deficiencies, failures, and dissatisfaction with health services provided (Barlow and Moller, 1996; Lewis and Birkinshaw, 1993) they can help managers to improve their organisations. However, this will only happen if managers and practitioners use complaints to improve quality of care and in that process the flows of information within an organisation are crucial. On this issue, Westrum (1991, p. 402) identified the main criterion for good information flow as being that \"the organisation is able to make use of information, observations or ideas wherever they exist [...] without regard for the location or status of the person or group having such information, observations or ideas\". We note that our study there was no attempt to improve liaison or communication on complaints handling between the Public Relations Unit and the SWD. In fact, any attempt to improve co-ordination between, for example, clinical and administrative units, was discouraged. On these grounds the response to patient complaints can be concluded as pathological-bureaucratic according to Westrum's (1991) definition.Thus, as noted above, staff in our study hospital reacted to patient complaints in a generally passive and defensive way. This meant that even if they wanted to, staff were unable to use the patient complaint information to make significant changes in clinical settings, although action was taken to punish personnel who were seen to have been guilty of substandard practice, and also to improve administrative procedures.\nConclusions and recommendations: Although this study has been conducted in Taiwan, it has implications that can be applied internationally. For one thing, while the case-study hospital indicates that using complaints to produce higher standards is lacking, the situation seems not to be unique. In Australia, for example, the Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Campbelltown and Camden Hospitals (the Walker Report) published at the end of July 2004 (Walker, 2004) argues there is an urgent need to improve quality of care by using the information provided by patient complaints. How this can be achieved is not yet clear. The Walker Report indicates that issues to be addressed in Australia, particularly in the light of allegations that the situation in Campbelltown and Camden Hospitals was not unique, applies across a range of hospital services (Robotham, 2003).What we hope will emerge from this research is that it will underline the importance of projects such as Turning Wrongs into Rights and also encourage further research into how the idea of using patient complaints to improve quality of care can be turned into a reality. The study shows that hospitals need to establish clear policies and mechanism to improve their performance in complaints handling. It is important for hospital managers to have designated personnel to be fully in charge of hospital-wide patient complaints. This will improve the communication and coordination between departments. Second, complaint handlers have to be sufficiently empowered to be able to deal with a variety of patient complaints.Third, an effective communication network between departments is essential to follow up the procedure of complaints handling and further to enhance monitoring any improvement activities occurred within the department. Fourth, improvement should be embedded in practice. Hospital staff need to be strategic, for example creating incentive plans to encourage managers and practitioners to make sustained improvements in terms of either personal behavior or work activities. Fifth, information sharing is vital. Experiences of complaints handling are valuable and imperative for a learning organization. It is worth sharing any information related to complaints handling (e.g. know-how) within the organization through training programmes or departmental activities.Finally, a systemic approach is needed in the hospital. There are various activities occurring in the hospital on a daily basis as patients are cared for. Patient complaints are expressions of dissatisfaction with the care and service provided by hospital staff, which may reflect hospital deficiencies. If a systemic approach is evolved to deal with patient complaints in the hospital-wide setting then it will not only enhance the performance of the organization but also improve its quality of care.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To explore and evaluate how hospital staff respond to patient complaints.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A teaching hospital with 1,500 beds in Taiwan was purposefully chosen as a case study of hospital response to patients' complaints. Data was obtained through interviews with quality surveying managers (n=53), government managers (n=4), staff of non-government organizations (n=3) and a senior social worker, as well as analysis of documents (September 2001-April 2002).\nFindings: - Using the managerial-operational-technical framework developed by the researchers, the study demonstrated problematic aspects of handling complaints at the case hospital. It was revealed that: complaint handlers were not sufficiently empowered, information sharing was limited within the organization, communication among professional staff and with management was inadequate, the physical safety of workers had been threatened, and improvements could not be sustained. Moreover, it became apparent that the case study hospital generally responded to patient complaints in a reactive and defensive manner.\nOriginality/value: - It is evident that the hospital did not use patient complaints as a source of learning that could have promoted higher standards of care. The case study reveals some of the constraints and identifies requirements for appropriate use of information and feedback from patients. The study raises some issues requiring further research to ensure more appropriate use of patient complaints to improve quality of care.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Saudi Arabian ICU safety culture and nurses' attitudes
|
[
"Assessment",
"Nurses",
"Safety culture",
"Patient safety",
"Saudi Arabia",
"Intensive care unit",
"Safety attitudes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Culture is an organisational variable that refers to shared values, attitudes, beliefs, goals assumptions, artefacts and behavioural norms that characterise an institution or organisation. Organisations are similar to societies; i.e. they comprise people who distinguish themselves from other groups by clear boundaries. People learn to adapt to particular roles and to other people within the organisation (Davies et al., 2000; Pronovost and Sexton, 2005). Organisational culture understanding began in the USA immediately after the Second World War but was not fully appreciated until the 1980s. Over the past two decades, organisational culture awareness has grown rapidly, receiving considerable attention in many settings. Therefore, organisational culture is reflected by the common ways that allow people to deal with situations and events (Davies et al., 2000). Healthcare culture is a vital factor in developing a patient safety climate and in successful quality improvement initiatives. Hospital cultures relate to the hospital's safety climate (Speroff et al., 2010).\nMethod: Design\nResults: In all, 340 questionnaires were distributed in the participating ICUs and 237 questionnaires (69.7 per cent) were completed and returned. However, only 216 (64 per cent) were eligible for the study. The participants' mean age was 31 years (range 23-56 years). In all, 14 nurses (6 per cent) did not specify their age. The 216 participants comprised nine nationalities but most were: Philippines, 87 (40 per cent); India=77 (36 per cent); Saudi Arabia, 26 (12 per cent); and Indonesia, 15 (7 per cent). Totally, 190 worked in mixed ICUs, five in surgical and 21 in medical ICUs. Most participants (n=176) were bedside nurses, followed by charge nurses (n=37) and head nurses (n=3) (Table II). Participants' experience in primary specialty nursing ranged from one to 26 years. Work experience in an ICU ranged from one to 16 years. A standard work shift was specified by 206 nurses, whereas ten nurses did not mention their work shift. Most nurses worked variable shifts (n=186, 86 per cent).\nDiscussion: Saudi Arabian ICUs are complex environments with specialist equipment and medications, a multidisciplinary team with a multicultural background, a heavy workload, time pressure and, not least, patients with the most severe and life-threatening illnesses and injuries. These factors often interact to cause errors that could have serious consequences for ICU patient safety. The SAQ has been used extensively to measure USA and other country's ICU safety climate since the questionnaire was first introduced in 2000 (Sexton et al., 2006). To our knowledge, however, this is the first study to use the SAQ to examine Saudi Arabian ICU nurses' attitudes towards safety culture. We examined 216 nurses' attitudes towards safety culture in six Saudi Arabian ICUs. We showed that the SAQ-ICU instrument was successfully adapted for use with diverse Saudi Arabian ICU nurse groups. It appears that the instrument can be used to meet the increasing demands for safety culture assessment. Cronbach's a for the SAQ-ICU, 0.82, indicating good reliability (Polit and Beck, 2008) was congruent with Huang et al. (2007) and Raftopoulos and Pavlakis (2013).\nLimitations: This survey was cross-sectional and participating staff were not randomly selected. Thus, the results do not represent the entire Saudi Arabian ICU pool. Another limitation concerns the generalisability; i.e. results are based on self-reported questionnaires (in the English language) and that the study was conducted in only a few Saudi Arabian hospitals.\nConclusions and recommendations: In conclusion, SAQ-ICU could be used to measure safety climate in Saudi Arabian ICUs by identifying strengths and areas for improvement according to nurse attitudes and perceptions. These findings indicate that ICU safety culture is an important issue that hospital managers should prioritise.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine nurses' attitudes towards safety culture in six Saudi Arabian intensive care units (ICUs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is descriptive with a cross-sectional design. The Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ)-ICU version was distributed and 216 completed questionnaires were returned.\nFindings: The findings provide a basis for further research on Saudi Arabian ICU safety culture. This study showed that the SAQ-ICU can be used to measure safety climate to identify areas for improvement according to nurse attitudes and perceptions. Findings indicate that ICU safety culture is an important issue that hospital managers should prioritise.\nPractical implications: The SAQ-ICU questionnaire, used to measure safety climate in Saudi Arabian ICUs, identifies service strengths and improvement areas according to attitudes and perceptions.\nOriginality/value: To the knowledge, this is the first study to use SAQ to examine nurses' safety culture attitudes in Saudi Arabian ICUs. The present findings provide a baseline and further details about Saudi Arabian ICU safety. Study participants represented nine nationalities, indicating the nursing workforce's diversity, which is expected to continue in the future. Such a nursing cultural heterogeneity calls for further studies to examine and evaluate attitudes and values to improve ICU safety culture.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Don't rock the boat: The moderating role of gender in the relationship between workplace incivility and work withdrawal
|
[
"Gender",
"Work withdrawal",
"Workplace incivility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Widespread attention in recent years has focused on interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace as a cause for concern. Extensive research has examined those violent and aggressive experiences which appear to have the greatest likelihood of negative impact: workplace violence, bullying, and sexual harassment (Baillien and De Witte, 2009; Lutgen-Sandvik et al., 2007; Parker and Griffin, 2002; Saunders et al., 2007). Despite research evidence which suggests that workplace incivility may be a precursor to workplace violence (Baron and Neuman, 1996; Kinney, 1995), less research has focused on this milder form of workplace mistreatment (Cortina et al., 2001).\n2. What is workplace incivility?: Workplace incivility is defined as \"low-intensity, disrespectful or rude deviant workplace behaviour with ambiguous intent to harm the target and is in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect\" (Andersson and Pearson, 1999, p. 457). In other words, workplace incivility is the \"exchange of seemingly inconsequential words and deeds that violate conventional norms of workplace conduct\" (Pearson and Porath, 2009, p. 21). Incivility has been defined in the literature in terms of a \"target\" (e.g. Andersson and Pearson, 1999) or as a lack of regard for those at whom the behaviour is directed. It is this lack of regard (Andersson and Pearson, 1999) for those at whom the behaviour is directed that is important. Incivility is also described as \"treatment that is discourteous, rude, impatient, or otherwise showing a lack of respect or consideration for another's dignity\" (Kane and Montgomery, 1998, p. 266). As a result, the affronted employee's commitment to his or her job deteriorates over time (Montgomery et al., 2004). Examples of some of these rude behaviours include not saying please or thank you, general gossip, rolling one's eyes at co-workers' suggestions, texting or emailing during meetings, making derogatory comments, and ignoring or insulting colleagues (Johnson and Indvik, 2001; Pearson et al., 2001; Pearson and Porath, 2009).\n3. Why should we be concerned about workplace incivility?: Research indicates that incivility is a common occurrence in work settings. In other words, there is no one industry that encourages incivility. For example, a survey of more than 1,000 US civil service workers found that more than 70 per cent of the respondents had experienced workplace incivility in the past five years (Cortina et al., 2001). A poll of 125 white-collar employees in Canada found that half of the respondents had suffered incivility from their co-workers at least once per week and 99 per cent of these respondents reported that they had witnessed incivility at work. Pearson and Porath's (2009) survey of about 800 employees found that 96 per cent of the respondents reported experiencing incivility at work and 94 per cent of workers who were treated with incivility said they would \"get even\" with their perpetrators. In the most recent Civility in America, 2011 study, 43 per cent of respondents reported that they experienced incivility at work, 38 per cent said the workplace is becoming more uncivil compared to a few years ago, 86 per cent of Americans said they have been victims of incivility, and at the same time, 59 per cent admitted that they have also been uncivil themselves. These studies provide important evidence to suggest that incivility is a prevalent and growing problem for many organisations (Trudel, 2009). Research also indicates that work environments which focus on individual, short-term contributions and gains may foster workplace incivility (Pearson and Porath, 2004). Specifically, part-timers, subcontractors, temporary workers, minorities, women, and disenfranchised employees are particularly vulnerable to workplace incivility (Pearson and Porath, 2004).\n4. Consequences of workplace incivility: Despite its seemingly low intensity, workplace incivility can adversely affect organisations' and employees' psychological as well as physical well-being. Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 19) defined psychological stress as a \"relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being.\" This definition implies that any event judged by the individual to be stressful can have a negative impact. Regardless of how minor workplace incivility may seem, in the long run, workplace incivility is a form of daily hassle which wears down individuals both psychologically and physically (Lazarus, 1999; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). This can have a greater negative effect on individuals' well-being than any major, time-confined events (Fisher, 2000). Moreover, the ambiguous nature of workplace incivility makes it difficult to be identified or dealt with effectively. Therefore, workplace incivility may be just as damaging psychologically as harassment or any other form of workplace mistreatment.\n5. Power, gender stereotyping and selective incivility: Research on whether workplace incivility is an equal opportunity offence (i.e. whether men are as likely as women to be targets) has been mixed (Pearson et al., 2000, 2005; Pearson and Porath, 2009). For instance, Pearson and Porath (2005) found that men and women were both equally likely to be exposed to workplace incivility. In contrast, Cortina et al. (2001) and Pearson and Porath (2009) found that women were more likely than men to be exposed to incivility and to be the targets of mistreatment. For example, Cortina et al. (2002) found 65 per cent of women compared to 47 per cent of men experienced \"general incivility\" in their workplace. This recalls research conducted in the 1990s by Bjorkqvist et al. (1994) who reported that 55 per cent of female compared to 30 per cent of male university employees they interviewed had experienced harassment at work. Therefore, it is not surprising that workplace incivility persists in modern, egalitarian organisations and is particularly salient across gender and racial lines (Cortina et al., 2013; Pearson and Porath, 2009).\n6. Tolerance to workplace incivility: While research has investigated the trademark behaviours inherent in uncivil behaviour and the effects these have on individual well-being, there is a dearth of research on how disparities in work experiences between male and female employees affect their reaction to workplace incivility. In general, Pearson and Porath (2005, p. 9) consider organisations' responses to workplace incivility as \"spotty\" at best even though it is clearly a problem and a gender divide in the experience of incivility as well as reactions to incivility appear to exist. For example, Collinson (1998) found that an organisation with a tough male-dominated culture can often rely heavily on \"embarrassing jokes,\" \"dark humour,\" or \"humorous surprises\" in order to ensure conformity to a particular ethos. In the factory shop-floor he investigated, Collinson (1998) found the men were required to swear, joke, and be dismissive of women in order to lionise their working-class masculinity. Thus, this kind of behaviour can become accepted as part of the everyday organisational culture. However, it is important to note that this kind of humour or uncivil behaviour can easily become bullying if for some reason the targets cannot defend themselves (Collinson, 1998; Einarsen and Raknes, 1997).\n7. Gender differences in reaction to conflict: Research has generally confirmed that there are gender differences in the kinds of strategies that males and females employ when confronted by conflict. Traditionally, and as shaped by socialisation, females are more likely to adopt a relationship-oriented position and attempt to use problem-solving discussions to overcome their conflicts (Heavey et al., 1993). Magley et al. (2010) make the claim that females have relatively little organisational power compared with males. This awareness of a lack of power may result in an expectation in women that they have limited power to stop discrimination or mistreatment in the workplace. Maltz and Borker (1982), for instance, state that the socialisation to speak and act in feminine ways makes women \"as unassertive and insecure as they have been made to sound\" (p. 199). Tannen (1999) contended that men are more likely to take an aggressive stance when verbally insulted. Similarly, Cortina et al. (2002) found that female lawyers who were sexually harassed or who experienced incivility in the workplace were more likely than male lawyers to rely on passive coping strategies and social support. Consequently, the incompatibility of femininity and gender role requirements in the workplace incapacitate many women's confidence to more aggressively deal with conflict in the workplace (Fletcher, 1998; Kolb, 1992). Furthermore, according to Jaffee and Hyde (2000), these more passive strategies are the result of a \"caring\" rather than a \"justice\" moral orientation used by women. For example, many harassed women are not interested in punishing their offender but simply want the undesirable behaviour to stop; this is suggestive of a \"caring\" rather than a \"justice\" orientation (Riger, 1991).\n8. Method: Participants\n9. Results: Prior to any statistical analyses being run, all assumptions were checked following the guidelines presented in Tabachnick and Fidell (2001). The reader should assume, therefore, that the relevant assumptions were met unless otherwise stated.\n10. Discussion: The current study aimed to determine whether gender differences exist in terms of the response to workplace incivility when the workplace is seen to condone those actions. Specifically, the study investigated whether women, compared to men, would be less likely to withdraw from their work obligations when they perceive their workplace to be more tolerant of uncivil behaviours. The simple slopes analysis suggests that as the levels of tolerance for incivility in the workplace increases, men tend to also increase their work withdrawal behaviours (e.g. completing work assignments late, being late for work, thinking about quitting because of work-related issues, etc.). However, this trend did not reach statistical significance. As predicted, as the levels of perceived tolerance for workplace incivility increases, women significantly drop their levels of work withdrawal. Thus, our result partially supported our prediction.\n11. Limitations: There are a number of limitations that need to be acknowledged and considered. First is the issue of representativeness. This sample comprised predominantly of white-collar, White Australian workers with the Organizational Tolerance for Workplace Incivility Scale somewhat biased towards their experiences. One may query how this finding would generalise to a more diverse sample comprising a greater number of blue-collar workers, in addition to higher numbers of minority group members. Next, whether an individual was a full-time or part-time employee was not included as a variable in this study. Another limitation is the small sample size in our organisations which may have contributed to the inconsistency of the results we obtained. In addition, there may have been unequal male vs female participants in our sample. This may have led to the low power level (0.715) for the interaction effect in our study. It is advisable that future study of this comparative nature recruit approximately equal number of male and female participants.\n12. Conclusion: The present study highlights the importance of workplace incivility and the potential impact it had for both men and women in terms of work withdrawal behaviour. The findings of our study also confirm previous studies' findings that women tend to be the targets of workplace incivility and, more importantly, put up with it. However, there is an inherent dilemma in the findings of this study. Some may question what the problem is given that women do not withdraw from work when treated uncivilly in the workplace. In response to this, we believe that all employees, both men and women, have a right to be treated with respect and fairness at work. In addition, when an organisation is perceived to be implicitly or explicitly tolerating behaviour reminiscent of mistreatment, it sets the tone for its culture and influences how employees behave towards one another. If workplace incivility is not handled properly, it can spiral and create a hostile work environment which can lead to violence. Therefore, it is important that managers and upper management acknowledge the existence of workplace incivility and stop it in its tracks as early as possible. For example, to encourage a safe and respectful working environment, organisations should encourage a work culture that stigmatises all forms of mistreatment in the workplace. One way to start is to have mission statements and workplace policies that specifically set out appropriate work ethics. Women, in particular should be encouraged to learn how to handle workplace conflict more assertively and appropriately. This can be done as part of women's professional development. Similarly, managers and supervisors should regularly attend communication and leadership training to sharpen their ability to lead people. Finally, organisations should establish some informal and formal processes as part of conflict management and resolution. Only with some of these policies and processes in place can we expect a culture of safety and respect to gradually develop in one's workplace.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: There is a vast array of literature which investigates the concept and impact of workplace incivility. Evidence suggests that compared to male employees, female employees tend to experience and put up more with workplace incivility. However, there is limited research on how this affects female employee's willingness to complete work-related tasks. The purpose of this paper is to set out to examine whether gender moderates the role between tolerance for workplace incivility and those behaviours characterised by work withdrawal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 317 employees from a range of business industries and governmental agencies completed a quantitative survey of measures relating to their work withdrawal behaviour and their perception of their workplaces' tolerance for uncivil behaviours.\nFindings: Results revealed that when females perceived high levels of tolerance for workplace incivility, they decreased their work withdrawal behaviour. No relationship between tolerance for workplace incivility and work withdrawal was found for males.\nResearch limitations/implications: The homogeneity of the sample, that is, the sample comprised predominantly of white-collar, White Australian workers.\nPractical implications: Improve managers and organisations' knowledge and understanding about deviant workplace behaviours - especially between male and female employees.\nOriginality/value: The paper adds to the work in the workplace incivility, diversity-gender and equity research area. Specifically, it highlights how male and female employees react when they perceive that their workplace tolerates deviant behaviours. This knowledge will inform managers and their organisations of a more effective way of managing conflict.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Night markets: entrepreneurship and achieving competitive advantage
|
[
"Entrepreneurs",
"Competitive advantage",
"Night market"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Tourism image is an important influence on tourism destination decisions. Studies have shown that local cuisine is an important factor in strengthening a tourist's local overall image (Mkono et al., 2013). The unique Asian night market culture attracts many international tourists, and Taiwan is one destination for night markets (Liu et al., 2014). With the increase in the number of tourists who pursue exotic cuisine and different cultural experiences, the importance of regional tourism is also gradually highlighted in this trend (Bessiere, 1998; Hall et al., 2003; Long, 2004). Some studies have shown that Taiwan's food, hospitality, night markets and other features impress foreigners profoundly (Chang et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2014). Lin et al. (2011) believe that local cuisine is important for establishing a destination's brand (Kikuchi and Ryan, 2007). Therefore, how to make sightseeing highlights stand out using unique local cuisine and regional culture to attract international tourists has become a focus of many governments in recent years.\nLiterature review: Exploring the influence of competitive aggressiveness in risk taking\nMethod: Samples and data collection\nResults: Table II presents the background information of the participants. More females (194) than males (152) participated. Roughly 70 per cent of vendors fell within the age ranges of 21-30 and 31-40 years (33.8 and 32.1 per cent, respectively). Entrepreneurship in the Taiwan night market can be classified into three main categories: sole proprietorship, partnership and others. The latter category includes foreign vendors, corporation types and other unidentified business types. On average, sole proprietorship comprised 62.1 per cent of night market entrepreneurs, which means most night market entrepreneurs are SMEs. In terms of education background, nearly 90 per cent vendors graduated from university (college) or high school (48.6 and 42.2 per cent, respectively). Most vendors had 2 years of entrepreneurial histories, although the average length of entrepreneurial experience was approximately 8 years. One possible explanation for this result is that if a night market business is operated well, then inheritance, assignment, affiliations and other methods allow the vendor to pass on his or her entrepreneurial history and entrepreneurship experience.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Discussions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to propose a new model and examine how night market entrepreneurs have achieved a competitive advantage in strongly competitive markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two statistics methods, multiple regression analysis and structural equation models (SEM), were used to test the hypotheses for a sample of 346 vendor cases.\nFindings: The results indicate that competitive aggressiveness and being proactive are positively related to risk-taking among night market vendors, which, in turn, has a positive effect on innovativeness. Further, the findings also indicate that risk-taking positively influences innovativeness and, in a mediating role, also affects competitive advantages through innovativeness.\nPractical implications: Results of this study suggest that if night market entrepreneurs demonstrate innovativeness, positively develop new products and new services and attract customers to buy them, then they will have unique and attractiveness in the night markets, thus giving themselves relative competitive advantage.\nOriginality/value: This research is the first comprehensive examination of entrepreneurship among night market entrepreneurs to study the competitive advantages of different facets, which may provide a benchmark for future studies.\n",
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Digital library of required classical literature for elementary and secondary school curricula in domestic languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
[
"Bosnia and Herzegovina",
"Translation",
"Languages",
"Intellectual property rights",
"Literature masterpieces",
"School digital library"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nProject presentation and background information: General context\nCurrent outcomes: At the moment, more than 1,000 standard-formatted pages of the text have been translated. We have managed to translate \"Happy Prince and Other Tales\" by Oscar Wilde, \"The Adventures of Pinocchio\" by Carlo Collodi, \"Proces\" by Franz Kafka, \"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn\" by Mark Twain, \"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer\" by Mark Twain, \"The Stranger\" by Albert Camus, \"Robinson Crusoe\" by Defoe and \"Gulliver's Travels\" by Swift. Currently, we are working on \"The Miser\" by Moliere (Figures 1-4).\nFuture plans: The aim is to include as many classical masterpieces as possible. On the other hand, it is also planned, and it is an undergoing part of the project, to support students in reading and interpreting of the classical literature. As for now, multiple high-quality 10 min long standardized format video-lectures that present and interpret required classical literature masterpieces are being produced. The same literature artworks are being translated to the domestic languages as the contribution to the digital library. Because of unexpected circumstances of the coronavirus global epidemic, any digital content created was shared and used in virtual classes by teachers and students, mainly via Google Classroom and Viber, which are the predominantly used tools for virtual schooling at elementary and secondary levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The coronavirus pandemic increased the necessity of digital contents creation and distribution in schools (Figures 5-7).\nAccess to the digital resources: All interested schools and individuals may request access to the library resources. It is however the matter of the approval on a case-per-case basis, to grant free access. The free library usage is approved if the contents will be used for educational purposes only. If the books will be used for education, no demand is denied. Another option for the users is to pay per use by Gumroad (Figure 8).\nObstacles: Although the project team is highly enthusiastic, as they strongly believe in the bright future of this initiative, the numerous difficulties emerged, with the funding shortage as the most important one. In September 2019, this project was elected to get support from DigitalaPress, the non-profit organization located in Serbia, which promotes digital media and Web-publishing. Even though the competition was tough (this project was announced the best one among more than 50 others) the complete amount of the funding is Bosnian Marks 1,000, which corresponds to around EUR510. Another important obstacle is related to the specific political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are three official languages used in public schools, and as many as 11 different curricula being implemented in schools, which makes the project planning and implementation increasingly complicated. The problem with language is a predominantly political one. Bosnia and Herzegovina consist of two entities: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with mainly Bosnian and Croatian languages spoken, and the Republic of Serbska, with Serbian language spoken and taught in schools. Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of the additional ten cantons with the education process administered and governed at the cantonal levels. Practically, it means that it is almost impossible to coordinate any educational activity in all parts of the country. To find the solution, it was necessary to select such kinds of contents to be translated and included in the digital library, which are relevant to all schools' curricula in Bosnia and Herzegovina and wider. Even though the education system in the country is very complicated, still, there are so-called \"common core contents\" which are being taught at all schools, even globally. The focus has been on the classical literature which every school, anywhere in the world, teaches about. As such, this digital library aims to include the masterpieces such as \"Hamlet\" by Shakespeare, \"Pinocchio\" by Collodi, \"The Miser\" by Moliere, \"Madame Bovary\" by Flaubert and \"War and Peace\" by Tolstoi. The fact that the translator deals with translations from the languages other than ones spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, keeps this project, to a certain extent, outside of the national literature clashes (which occurs simultaneously with clashes related to national identity and the name of the language used). However, the following problem persists: to be accepted nationwide, it is necessary to provide translations to all three very similar languages which are still different enough so that they require three parallel proof-readings to be done. The source sites for original materials to be translated include The Project Gutenberg and Open Library.\nDigital contents transferability and preservation: The formats used for digital content are as simple and standardized and basic as possible, such as PDF format for digital books and MP4 for video contents. Having in mind that the project does not dispose of any regular funding, it is clear that using basic formats may facilitate long-time content preservation. In such a way, the digital contents may be migrated to other formats if necessary with the quality of the outcome as the main concern.\nMarketing and the project presentation: When we accomplish around 50% of the planned translations to any of the languages spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the social media campaign will intensify including primarily Facebook, which is the most used social media platform in South-Eastern Europe, and LinkedIn to present the project outcome to the professional community.\nDiscussion: The project Digital Library of Required Classic World Literature for Elementary and Secondary School Curricula in Domestic Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina initially was meant to support school libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina that in most cases lack printed resources as well as adequately equipped study spaces in school libraries (Suta-Hibert et al., 2015). The purpose was to fill the gap by creating digital content accessible through digital devices. The importance and relevance of the project sharply increased by the coronavirus pandemic crisis, which moved all classes online, globally. Online and distance education practices and applications are essential components of teaching and learning due to the emergence of the information technology-driven pedagogical solutions, such as Flipped education or Google Classroom (Santos Green et al., 2017).\nConclusion: School library is the access point to the information-based society by providing access to digital information resources related to the curriculum and users' preferences. The participatory culture, which has been emerged through the internet and social media, emphasizes the transfer of the library users' role: from the information consumer to the information creator. Consequently, school libraries need to provide the learning spaces equipped with computers and other facilities necessary for hands-on learning activities, and creating information products (Schultz-Jones and Oberg, 2015). This project ought to provide high-quality readings following the school curricula. On the other hand, having in mind its cross-platform project implementation, the students and teachers will have the opportunity to collaborate, learn, share and create the content.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present, in the introductory part, the main project phases and the translation of classical literature masterpieces in the public domain from English or French languages to Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian; digital formatting to make the contents as usable and attractive for students and teachers as possible; Web presentation and digital library application; and marketing of the project and the materials published. Additionally, extensive descriptions of all project activities and elaboration on the financial constraints are given together with the observations related to the proposed self-sustainability by using the cross-platform free cloud software. Another challenge originating in a unique political context was presented with an explanation of the necessity to create digital content in three domestic languages. The central part provides a wider context by discussing the potentials of similar digital practices to be applied elsewhere based on the lessons learned. Finally, in conclusion, the short recapitulation and the final assessment of the project are given.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents the project Digital Library of Required Classic World Literature for Elementary and Secondary School Curricula in Domestic Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina (in Bosnian: Digitalna biblioteka lektira). The descriptive methodology has been used to present the project to the scientific community and get constructive feedback.\nFindings: This study aims to be the first significant school digital library initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, because of zero funding and plans directed to self-sustainability through the use of free cloud software solutions, its viability will be tested over time.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitations are concerned with paper length and formal limitations. A longer study should be written to present all features of this project. However, it implies possible positive developments in digital content creation and usage in schools of Bosnia and Herzegovina.\nPractical implications: This study was initiated to support the physical school libraries, but in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, its importance increased exponentially since the classes went online.\nOriginality/value: This paper is based on the original project and is written by the person who is the project leader and digital librarian. This paper aims to be the first significant school digital library initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Effects of family encouragement on migrant workers' return-to-hometown intention and turnover: The moderating role of career-related concerns
|
[
"Migrant workers",
"Turnover",
"Career sacrifice",
"Family encouragement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Migrant workers refer to employees who get employment in places other than their household locations (cities or countries; Dyer et al., 2011; Qin et al., 2014). When such migration happens within the same country, they were termed as intra-country migrant workers (Dyer et al., 2011). This special subpopulation of workforce has been shown to play a particularly prominent role to Chinese economy, with National Bureau of Statistics of China (2018a) reporting that there were 244m people who live and work in cities other than their household registration cities in China. This is not surprising given the extensive differences in the economic development across different geographic regions in China. As the pay may vary tremendously for the same job depending on the working locations' economic development level (McKenzie et al., 2014), many employees choose to migrate to work in a relatively wealthy location for higher incomes. Indeed, report of the survey on migrant workers in the year of 2017 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2018b) shows that more than 75 percent of intra-country migrant workers relocated to relatively economic developed regions to work (around 55.82 percent in eastern areas of China and around 20.63 percent in middle areas of China). Host cities in China tend to benefit from the large interregional migration, as the enlarged human capital reservoir resulting from the migration can facilitate high-speed development of economy (Wong et al., 2007), industrialization and urbanization (Zhang et al., 2007). In fact, more than 17 percent of the increase in Chinese GDP from 2009 to 2015 was driven by the enormous transfer of surplus rural labor force to host cities (Hao, 2016).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: Intra-country migrant workers and labor market in the Chinese context\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Preliminary analysis\nDiscussion: In the current study, we investigated the psychological factors that shape intra-country migrant workers' turnover decision-making. Our findings showed that intra-country migrant workers' family encouragement to return to hometown was positively related to their return-to-hometown intention, and their perceived career sacrifice of returning mitigated this positive relationship. Additionally, we found that intra-country migrant workers' family encouragement indirectly facilitated their turnover from their current organizations via the mediation of their return-to-home intention. However, this indirect effect was weakened by intra-country migrant workers' perception that they might have to incur career sacrifice for returning to hometown.\nConclusion: Drawing on rational choice theory, the current study investigated the micro-mechanism underlying intra-country migrant workers' return-to-hometown intention and turnover in China. Our findings show that intra-country migrant workers' family encouragement of returning to hometown was positively related to their return-to-hometown intention, which subsequently predicted their turnover decision in six months. Further, intra-country migrant workers' perceived career sacrifice associated with returning to hometown weakened the effect of family encouragement to return.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Given migrant workers' critical role in the Chinese economy, the increasing number of migrant workers who leave their organizations and return to their hometown has caused severe socioeconomic issues in China. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to migrant worker literature by revealing the micro-mechanism underlying migrant workers' return-to-hometown intention and turnover.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a convenience sample from seven Chinese companies that employed migrant workers (n=147). The authors used path analysis to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Migrant workers' family encouragement of returning to hometown was positively related to their return-to-hometown intention, which subsequently predicted their turnover decision in six months. Further, migrant workers' perceived career sacrifice associated with returning to hometown weakened the effect of family encouragement to return.\nPractical implications: For organizations that need to retain migrant workers, the findings indicate that it is particularly important to take migrant workers' family needs and their career-related concerns into account. For migrant workers, the study highlights the importance of assessing gains and losses in the process of making turnover-related decisions.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to migrant worker literature by investigating psychological processes underlying migrant workers return-to-hometown intention and the subsequent turnover from a micro perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Increasing the independence of vulnerable consumers through social support
|
[
"Independence",
"Disability",
"Social support",
"Transformative service research",
"Vulnerable consumers",
"Mobility behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The realization that many consumers are often at a disadvantage has seen transformative service research (TSR) emerge as one of the top research priorities for services marketing (Parkinson et al., 2017). Although well-being for all consumers is the central tenant of TSR (Anderson and Ostrom, 2015), there is a pressing need for research in this space that focuses on services designed for vulnerable consumers (Ostrom et al., 2015). Vulnerable consumers, those who are considered as powerless in consumption experiences (Parkinson et al., 2017; Rosenbaum et al., 2017), are becoming the focus of increasing academic investigation with scholars examining different ways to provide support to these individuals (Baker et al., 2009).\nLiterature review: Vulnerable consumers and their transition to the workforce\nTransport independence literature review and hypothesis development: A review of the literature identified that there are many factors that may influence a YAWDs ability and willingness to travel independently. Two of the key concepts/models which have been identified are risk aversion and the model of goal directed behavior. The current study intends to use these concepts/models to understand if, and in turn the importance of, social support, in enhancing the pathway to independent mobility for vulnerable consumers. Only the dimensions, which are felt to be most salient to the current research, are investigated from the model of goal directed behavior, with the addition of risk aversion. For example, desire and intention are not captured in the current study as the focus of investigation is actual behavior and therefore these goal elements are not relevant. This revision of existing sociopsychological theories has been proposed as a way of deepening and broadening a theory in a specific context (Song et al., 2011).\nMethodology: Data collection and sample\nResults: At a full sample level, the proposed model collectively explained 0.603 of the variance in attitudes and 0.569 of the variance in behavior. These high R2 values indicate that the data fit the model and explained both attitudes and behavior well. At the high and low social support sample level, the model explained 0.339 of the variance in attitudes and 0.571 of the variance in behavior for high social support and explained 0.598 of the variance in attitudes and 0.500 of the variance in behavior for low social support. This suggests that the model is better suited to the low social support sample as it explains a greater variance of the constructs in this sample. The model may be better suited to this low social support group as the model is attempting to examine an individual's journey to work and the factors which influence their participation in this behavior. As such, as the low social support group has less support they, therefore, face more challenges in their journey to work and this model is identifying this. The means and standard deviations for all constructs across conditions can be seen in Table V.\nDiscussion: The aim of this research was to examine the effect of social support on YAWD independence with a particular focus on their pathway to independent mobility behavior. This was achieved by examining the relationships between constructs which have been identified as important in influencing one's behavior in prior research (Casalo et al., 2015; Bagozzi and Pieters, 1998; Ajzen, 2006; Banerjee and Ho, 2019) and identifying whether differences exist for individuals with high and low social support.\nImplications: Theoretical contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of social support on young adults with disabilities (YAWDs) independent mobility behavior with the aim of understanding how better to support this vulnerable consumer segment in their transition into the workforce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted which examined how social support (high and low) influenced YAWD's path to independent mobility behavior. The data were analyzed using partial least squares-SEM.\nFindings: It was identified that different factors were more effective at influencing independent mobility behavior for high and low socially supported YAWDs. For high social support individuals, anticipated positive emotions and perceived behavioral control were found to drive attitudes to independent mobility with perceived behavioral control significantly stronger for this group than the low socially supported group. For the low socially supported group, all factors were found to drive attitudes which then drove individual behavior. One entire path (risk aversion to anticipated negative emotions to attitude to behavior) was found to be stronger for low supported individuals compared to high.\nOriginality/value: This study is unique in that it is the first to identify the theoretical constructs that drive vulnerable consumer's independence behavior and understand how these factors can be influenced to increase independence. It is also the first to identify that different factors influence independent behavior for vulnerable consumers with high and low social support with anticipated negative emotions important for consumers with low social support and perceived behavioral control important for those with high social support.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Unleashing a decisive approach to manage quality costs through behavioural investigation
|
[
"SME",
"Profitability",
"Regression analysis",
"Appraisal costs",
"Internal failure costs",
"Prevention costs",
"Quality costs",
"External failure costs",
"Total quality costs",
"t-Test"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In view of competitive market, companies must provide the best quality products and services for their survival (Chiu and Su, 2010). Quality has become the most crucial deciding factor (Lari, 2002). It is therefore not surprising that the provision of high-quality products or services is often mentioned as a goal in almost every company's mission statement (Freiesleben, 2004). In a globally competitive market, manufacturers are forced to design and manufacture highly reliable quality products with competitive prices to fulfil customer's expectations. The Indian industries, as they have to compete with internationally established manufacturing organizations, need to produce their products economically (Psomas et al., 2011). The cost of quality (COQ) is an increasingly important issue in the debate over quality. Quality costs can help organizations to quantify-specific quality levels at certain productivity levels (Rahman and Siddiqui, 2006). Managing quality costs begin with a general understanding and belief that improving quality performance (as related to product or service) and improving quality costs are synonymous (Chiadamrong, 2003). The COQ systems are becoming important as the emphasis on customer value and satisfaction continues to be increasing. COQ programmes do not improve quality but provide inputs and feedbacks to quality systems for bringing overall quality improvements. The COQ should be a vital part of any quality management programme (Sedevich Fons, 2012). COQ programmes provide robust methods for identification and measurement of quality costs and thus suggest relevant actions for reducing concerned costs. The purpose of quality cost system is to provide a tool for facilitating quality programmes and quality improvement activities. Quality cost reports can be used to point out the strengths and weaknesses of a quality system presently being adopted in the organization (Campanella, 1999).\n2. Literature review: One of the most effective tools for evaluating the success of a quality management programme is the measurement of quality costs (Jaju et al., 2009). The COQ includes the price of not creating a quality product or service (Xia and Tang, 2011). Any cost that is necessary for good quality, can be defined as the COQ (Tye et al., 2011). The positive and negative aspects of non-optimized quality cost are widely discussed by Teli et al. (2014). Juran (1951) defined quality costs as the sum of all costs that would disappear if there were no quality problems. A quality-related cost is defined as the expenditure incurred on defect prevention and appraisal activities plus the losses due to internal and external failure (Ramudhin et al., 2008). It is the cost associated with preventing, finding and correcting defective works (Mukhopadhyay, 2004). The various types of quality costs have been illustrated in Figure 1. Prevention costs are the costs to prevent the occurrence of defects and non-conformities and include the quality expenditure to avoid unsatisfactory products in the first place (Sedevich Fons, 2012). The AC are associated with measuring, evaluating or auditing products, components and purchased materials, in order to assure conformance with quality standards and performance requirements (Jaju et al., 2010). IFC occurs when products, components and materials fail to meet quality requirements prior to transfer of ownership. These are the costs that would disappear if there were no defects in the product (Omachonu and Suthummanon, 2004).\n3. Proposed methodology: In the past tools like multi-regression, correlation and pareto analysis, etc. have been used to reduce the quality costs (Chiadamrong, 2003; Omachonu and Suthummanon, 2004; Jaju et al., 2010 and Srivastava, 2008). Researchers are facing many challenges like incomplete and unauthentic quality cost data in current scenario. The COQ definitions are often un-clear or not fully understood, resulting in varying interpretation and implementation over time. This variability tends to add significant noise to the quality cost data, clouding the assessments and hiding significant trends for extended periods of time. Next, statistical analysis of quality cost data is rarely performed. Early recognition of trends is missed/skipped which distracts everyone from the real issues. To resolve the above phobia, a step by step methodology is proposed and is briefly defined as here under:\n4. A case study: A case study is carried out on an Automobile SME located in the Punjab, India. The organization is an ISO-9000 certified enterprise and it manufactures different auto-components and supplies them to some of the esteemed vendors like Escorts, Swaraj Tractors and Sonalika, etc. The annual sales turnover of the enterprise is around Rs. 193 Lacs in financial year 2012-2013. The quality cost data were obtained mainly from the following source documents:\n5. Discussion: The behaviour analysis of different quality costs (PC, AC, IFC and EFC) has reflected a consistent rise in TQC with time. The Pearson's correlation coefficient between TQC and TFC is calculated and comes out to be around 0.985 which indicates a direct strong relation of TQC with TFC. The linear model assessed is described below:\n6. Conclusion: Quality costing has already emerged as a full-fledged subject for continuous business improvement (Singh and Khanduja, 2014). Large organizations can manage it through hefty consultation and companywide policies, whereas SMEs have scarcities of all kinds, but at least needs a road-map to adopt \"quality cost system\" in real sense. Above study stresses to build an authentic quality costing system in SME sectors to strengthen their respective business gains. The unleashed quality cost optimization approach will prove to be a vital key for the economic growth of SMEs. This paper verifies the fact that mere studying, monitoring and controlling of quality costs can save up to 14 lakhs per annum in a SME. It will certainly pressurize the practitioners or quality engineers to analyse the prevailing behaviour and trends in quality costs of their own enterprises, for bringing necessary breakthroughs. A strong correlation between TQC and TFC has been unleashed and further inspires SMEs to take care of TFC for taming TQC by root. The regression equations developed between TQC and other quality costs (like PC and AC) have tremendous scope for similar auto clusters of SMEs. Theses have almost similar product and process topology and can directly find required optimization for brisk profit gains. The graphical analysis through main plots and surface plots can be supportive to take critical decisions, related with behaviour (or variation) of different quality costs. This study not only provides a step by step procedure to accomplish optimization among concerned quality costs, but also fetches proofs and witnesses through a case study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Nowadays companies in the world are selling products by keeping quality as a central value for the customer. Quality-related costs arise from a series of activities performed in order to maintain the quality of product or service. Like other activities of business, quality costs can be programmed, budgeted, measured and analysed to attain the objective of better quality at lower cost. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a decisive methodology to optimize total quality cost (TQC), comprehensively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The TQC borne by any small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) is the authentic base, which decides budget and other financial policies for running its ongoing quality programmes. To minimize TQC, one has to make sufficient cut backs in the total failure cost (TFC). Through regression analysis, TFC has been statistically modelled with primary quality costs (like preventive costs (PC) and appraisal costs (AC)). Subsequent graphical analysis has been delineated to elaborate relevant behaviour of different quality costs. At last, potency of suggested methodology has been strategically verified by executing a successful case study in an Indian Auto SME. The requisite optimization has been achieved by using Minitab Statistical Software and its practical validation is checked by conducting a two-sample t-test, exclusively.\nFindings: It has been found that TFC has a direct positive correlation with TQC and it increases with time. Further, TFC is inversely proportional with PC and AC. PC and AC act as independent costs, while TFC is a dependent or secondary quality cost. If the authors strategically allocate PC and AC in advance by using statistical advanced tools, then internal failure costs and external failure costs will diminish amply.\nResearch limitations/implications: It inspires practitioner to harvest profits by inculcating quality cost optimization through lodged statistical behavioural investigation. Proposed approach is verified after performing an empirical study only on an automobile manufacturing SME. Further research is indeed required to testify the given methodology for more complex process configurations.\nPractical implications: Data related to quality costs is well available with practitioners but generally lying ignored. The case findings will motivate quality practitioners to use the proposed step by step approach for sustainable reduction in overall quality cost.\nOriginality/value: SMEs find it difficult to lower their TQC due to severe scarcity of resources and funds. Moreover literature provides mainly the theoretical or qualitative cases which remain ineffective to propel SMEs towards the real world savings. But this manuscript will act as a unique road-map to de-code the behaviour of different quality costs quantitatively without ignoring the existing constraints of SMEs, especially in the developing nations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Board diversity and investment efficiency: evidence from China
|
[
"China",
"Investment efficiency",
"Board diversity",
"Task-oriented diversity",
"Overall board diversity",
"Relation-oriented diversity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate investments decisions determine a firm's market position as it ensures sustainable development, on the one side, while the value for shareholders on the other. Managers must make risky decisions to run businesses. Good managers efficiently invest the firm's economic resources by curtailing over- and/or under-investments [1]. Various factors influence investment decisions such as economic conditions, monetary and fiscal policies, capital market and firms' operations (Richardson, 2006). Managerial personal characteristics such as overconfidence and irrationality also matter a lot, especially when a firm exists in an inefficient market and has a poor governance record (Malmendier et al., 2011). Traditional theorists such as Miller (1977), Myers (1984) and Myers and Majluf (1984) emphasize market-, industry- and firm-related attributes that affect a firm's strategic investment choices. However, decision-making as a function of corporate board will also be influenced by the personal characteristics of its members. Therefore, agency problems with information asymmetries and board members' personal attributes affect firm's performances. Earlier researchers documented several characteristics of decision-makers' personality that affect their decisions. However, their findings are inconclusive. Moreover, strategic decisions are the prerogative of boards in corporate settings. Therefore, impact of board diversity on investment efficiency is imperative to be investigated particularly in a country characterized as a \"double track system\" such as China. This study aims to fill the gap by investigating the impact of corporate board diversity on investment efficiency.\n2. Institutional background: Investment decisions are the prerogative of the corporate board and have important role in the firm's performance. However, agency theory and asymmetric information suggest that managers are more interested in their own empire building than pursuing the interests of their shareholders. For instance, extant literature document that bad investment decisions, i.e. under- and/or over-investment is the outcome of agency relations and asymmetry information between the principal and agent (Biddle et al., 2009). Over-investment is because of the agency conflict as managers are not the owners of the firms and have discretion over utilization of funds (Jensen, 1986), whereas under-investment is because of asymmetric information where inside managers have better and/or more information than outside stakeholders (Jensen, 1986; Jensen and Meckling, 1979). Asymmetric information makes it difficult for the outsiders to identify and properly evaluate the investment option and thus they set financing restrictions for the insiders. This often leads to sacrificing the net positive present value projects and results in under-investment.\n3. Literature and hypothesis development: Corporate boards with complex monitoring and advisory responsibilities are responsible for protecting the interests of stakeholders. In general, boards design overall corporate policies and set strategic directions (Krechovska and Prochazkova, 2014). It is evident from the earlier studies that good governance curtails agency problem and induces managers to perform appropriately (Manzaneque et al., 2016). Board's members from diverse socio-psychological backgrounds may have different policies and decision preferences. Therefore, board's composition plays an important role in corporate governance and firm's success.\n4. Research design: 4.1 Data sources and sample selection\n5. Empirical results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Conclusion: This study investigated impact of board diversity on firms' investment decision. Board diversity variables are grouped into relation-oriented (gender and age), task-oriented (education, expertise and tenure) and board overall diversity (sum of relation-oriented and task-oriented) categories. Using a sample of 2,431 Chinese firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during the period 2003-2018, this study provides robust and reliable empirical evidences on corporate board diversity and firm investment efficiency from the unique emerging setup. Our results are consistent with the notion that greater board diversity improves monitoring function, reduces agency problems and helps in access to critical resources capabilities and thus contributes to firms' investment efficiency. This is in line with the extant literature (Gomez and Bernet, 2019; Harjoto et al., 2018; Miller and del Carmen Triana, 2009; Mirza et al., 2019). Our findings are robust to different proxies of investment efficiencies and econometric methods. Moreover, statistically significant association is observed between board diversity and investment efficiency in non-crises period. However, this relationship is insignificant in crises period.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between board diversity measured as relation-oriented, task-oriented and board overall diversity and firm's investment efficiency.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study estimates four dimensions of board diversity, including age, gender, tenure and education. The four dimensions are further categorized in relation-oriented diversity (i.e. age and gender), task-oriented diversity (i.e. tenure and education) and overall board diversity (relation and task oriented). Panel data analysis is used to examine the board diversity-investment efficiency relationship in Chinese listed firms during the years 2003-2018. The findings of the study are robust to a battery of econometric techniques.\nFindings: This study finds relation-oriented, task-oriented and overall diversity of a board curb investment inefficiency by discouraging sub-optimal investment (over- or under-investment). In other words, board diversity improves firms' investment efficiency.\nPractical implications: The results suggest that board diversity plays a significant role in corporate decisions. The findings illustrate that board diversity disciplines the management, reduces agency conflicts and thereby improves corporate governance, resulting in higher investment efficiency.\nOriginality/value: This study has two important contributions. First, this study extends the prior literature of investment efficiency by considering socio-psychological dimension of the board diversity by constructing relation- and task-oriented diversity. Second, contrary to earlier studies on board diversity, this study takes four facets of board diversity, i.e. age, gender, education and tenure that improve corporate governance mechanism.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impact of integrated sustainability content into undergraduate business education
|
[
"Sustainability education",
"Business education",
"Climate change",
"Curriculum",
"Curriculum design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There are many assumptions regarding the role of universities in promoting sustainability, ranging from broad statements from the United Nations (Kelley and Nahser, 2014) through to individual government levels (see, for example \"Living Sustainably\", Australian Government, 2009), but these contain largely aspirational statements with no clear policy or strategy for achieving positive outcomes. The lack of policy or strategy is particularly important given that sustainability is increasingly recognised as a \"wicked\" problem, i.e. complex, contested and lacking in a shared understanding of causes and effects let alone effective strategies to address key issues (Allen et al., 2014; Dentoni and Bitzer, 2015; Waddock, 2013).\nResearch aims and initial findings: The specific aim was to compare the findings from a survey of a cohort of students across two time points. The cohort was surveyed in their first semester and again in their last semester of their first year of university (2012, approximately 250 students) to provide a baseline of student's attitude to sustainability and climate change. Also surveyed were students in their last semester of study, having had minimal exposure to sustainability-specific curriculum content. The cohort of students who commenced studies in 2012 was surveyed again in their third semester of their final year at university (2015, approximately 150 students), having completed a curriculum which had been revised to include substantial sustainability-specific content. This survey aimed to determine whether, and in what ways, these students' views appear to have changed, acknowledging that there will be influences external to the educational environment, such as family and friends that may impact on these changes. The overall aim was to determine what, if any changes to the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of undergraduates across their programme of study with and without specific sustainability content and to support on-going curriculum fine tuning.\nMethodology: This paper presents the third phase of a longitudinal study of first and third year undergraduate business students, as such it uses the same methodology as previous phases of the study as summarised below (Table I). Both a paper-based and online survey form was used, with the timing as shown in the schedule of surveys by cohort in Table I.\nDemographics: Three hundred and eighty (380) students completed the survey (Table II). Of the students surveyed, 62 per cent were female and 38 per cent were male. The majority of students were studying accounting (28 per cent) or management (including HRM) (25 per cent), 18 per cent were completing a double major, 9 per cent were completing tourism/hospitality/sports management, and another 8 per cent in marketing or economics (8 per cent). The remaining students were studying finance (3 per cent), information technology (2 per cent) or international business (1 per cent). In all, 73 per cent of students were Australian, 9.5 per cent were from Asia, 5 per cent from Europe, and 6 per cent from Papua New Guinea. The remaining 6.5 per cent were from other countries.\nFindings/discussion: Familiarity with key terms\nStudent knowledge: Current behaviour\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to compare the findings from a survey of a cohort of students at an Australian regional university across two time points: immediately on commencing their first semester of study and at the end of their final semester of study to determine whether, and in what ways, these students' views concerning sustainability appear to have changed. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of undergraduate business students regarding a range of sustainability issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A paper-based questionnaire was delivered to approximately 250 first year and 150 third year students.\nFindings: A factor analysis shows small but statistically different positive differences, which indicate that the revised curriculum has been successful in raising student awareness and achieving behaviour change.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focussed on Australian undergraduate university business students, which reduced generalizability of the findings.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study can inform instructors in higher education of student attitudes towards sustainability and climate change adaption and in turn inform changes to tertiary curriculum in sustainability and climate change adaption.\nOriginality/value: The authors confirm that the research is original and that all of the data provided in this paper is real and authentic. As the paper reports on the third phase of the longitudinal study, some parts of the methodology have been previously published but differ as they reflect the third phase of the study. The results of this study have not been previously published.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impact of oil and gas price shocks on the non-performing loans of banks in an oil and gas-rich economy: Evidence from Qatar
|
[
"Qatar",
"System GMM",
"Fiscal stance",
"Gas price shocks",
"NPLs",
"Oil price shocks"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Qatar provides an interesting case to study the association between bank credit risk and oil and gas prices shocks in the oil-exporting countries. During the last several years, Qatar has flourished with the sustained real GDP growth reaching around 37 percent in 2011 which is well above other countries in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) such as 13 percent for Bahrain, 34 percent for Kuwait, 19 percent for Oman, 27.1 percent for Saudi Arabia, and 21.3 percent for UAE over the said year. However, decline oil prices have dampened the outlook. Despite being the only GGC member economies, which did not have a budget deficit in 2015, due to low oil and gas prices, the economy has projected a budget deficit of SD 12.8 billion in 2016 which is about 6 percent of the GDP. Though Qatar's GDP is driven mainly by the oil and natural gas sectors, growth in construction, manufacturing, and financial services have raised the contribution of non-oil sectors to only around 50 percent of nominal GDP for the country. However, oil and natural gas account for 92 percent of export revenues and 56 percent of government revenues. The oil reserves of more than 25 billion barrels would allow production to continue at current levels of 56 years. Qatar's natural gas reserves exceed 25 trillion cubic meters, equivalent to 13 percent of the world's total and the third largest in the world. Due to the oil and natural gas, Qatar has the highest per capita income and lowest rate of unemployment in the world (Qatargas, 2016; Qatarpetroleum, 2015).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Literature on oil and gas prices\n3. Data, variables, and methodology: 3.1 Data\n4. Findings and discussion: 4.1 Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusion: There is no doubt that oil and gas prices and their production are of great importance to the economic development of oil and gas-exporting countries. However, the effect of oil and gas prices shocks on the NPLs of banks in those economies has so far lacked an accurate empirical analysis. This paper attempts to fill these gaps by giving an in-depth quantitative analysis of the impact of oil price shocks and gas price shocks, separately, on the NPLs of banks in an oil and gas-rich economy. Therefore, to our best knowledge, this study is a first study to examine the impact of oil and gas prices shocks and fiscal stance of government on the NPLs of banks as well as compare their impacts for both commercial and Islamic banks. Furthermore, we distinguish between direct and indirect channels through which oil price shocks and gas price shocks may affect banks NPLs. We examine the impact of oil price shocks, gas price shocks, as well as a fiscal stance of government on the NPLs of Qatari banks over the period 2000-2016. We consider 17 years panel data for 8 listed banks (5 commercial banks and 3 Islamic banks, using the one-step system GMM estimator).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the impact of oil and gas prices shocks on the non-performing loans (NPLs) of banks at the aggregate as well as at the level of commercial and Islamic banks in Qatar over the period 2000-2016.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the West Texas Intermediate Database, BankScope Database, World Bank's World Development Indicators Database, and International Monetary Fund Database, the authors use a one-step system generalized method of moments dynamic model to examine and compare the association between oil and gas prices shocks with NPLs in Qatari banks. The authors also test the hypotheses of direct and indirect impacts of oil price shocks and gas price shocks on bank NPLs.\nFindings: The results indicate that oil price shocks and gas price shocks do not have directly affect NPLs of Qatari banks at the aggregate level, while they have indirect effects that are channeled through the country-specific macroeconomic and institutional factors. The authors find that oil and gas prices shocks affect NPLs of Qatari Islamic banks directly through extended oil and gas-related cash flows, while their impact on the NPLs of Qatari commercial banks is indirect. In other words, Islamic banks in Qatar greatly benefits from increased cash flow caused by the rise in the oil and gas prices, which make their NPLs, much lower than that in commercial banks. Better capital cushion, better managerial efficiency, better risk management, and liquidity management systems should be used by the Islamic banks in Qatar to expand their customer base. The authors also find that positive fiscal stance of the government reduces the NPLs in both commercial and Islamic banks.\nPractical implications: The results of this study necessitate policy measures that can counter the effects of changes in oil and gas prices on the growth of bank NPLs.\nOriginality/value: It is widely recognized that oil and gas prices and the level of production are of great importance to the economic development of oil and gas-exporting countries. So far, however, no econometric study has been reported in the literature which analyses and compares the impact of oil and gas prices shocks on the NPLs of commercial and Islamic banks and also at the aggregate level in any of the oil economies. Thus, this study provides the first empirical evidence on distinct direct and indirect channels through which oil and gas prices shocks may affect bank NPLs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How MNC's subsidiaries may improve their innovative performance? The role of external sources and knowledge management capabilities
|
[
"Innovative performance",
"Knowledge management",
"Open innovation",
"External R&D",
"External sources",
"MNC subsidiaries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The development of internal capabilities and routines and the focus only on internal research and development (R&D) are no longer sufficient to cope with technological evolution and development costs. These drivers have changed all the organizations, favoring a shift from a monolithic structure of an internal vertically integrated and closed R&D to an open R&D structure by tapping into the external sources of knowledge through alliances and technology agreements (Berchicci, 2013; West and Bogers, 2014; Ardito et al., 2015). Instead of closed innovation, one of the most recent models suggests an open innovation paradigm, where the R&D structure should be seen as an open system (Chesbrough, 2006; Bellantuono et al., 2013). This paradigm assumes that the management of purposive outflows and inflows of knowledge speed up internal innovation processes (Chesbrough and Bogers, 2014). Following this paradigm, firms stimulate internal creativity and innovation by scanning and tapping external sources of knowledge. The phenomenon of looking for knowledge outside the organizational boundaries has received a lot of attention in the literature, as a consequence of the increasing number of R&D partnerships (Capaldo and Petruzzelli, 2014; Messeni Petruzzelli and Rotolo, 2015). In fact, to compete in turbulent business environments, firms are increasingly tapping into external source of knowledge through the opening of their organizational boundaries (Berchicci, 2013; Garavelli et al., 2013; Santoro et al., 2016).\n2. Theory and hypothesis: MNCs' subsidiaries may rely on different external sources, such as customers, competitors, suppliers, universities and research centers. At the same time, subsidiaries may tap into internal resources and internal R&D (within the subsidiary themselves) or, as occurs generally, through a combination of both. Moreover, subsidiaries are in the unique position that allows them to exploit another important source of knowledge that comes from the internal network (Yamin and Andersson, 2011). It means that subsidiaries may source within the internal network, composed by sister subsidiaries around the world and headquarters (HQs), new knowledge that is internal to the MNC but external to the subsidiary itself. The collaboration and interaction between internal units allow the subsidiaries to increasingly create, transfer and share knowledge (Szasz et al., 2016). In this context, the role of subsidiaries is more proactive (Ferraris, 2014), becoming a source of knowledge creation and innovations that are then transferred to the HQs and other subsidiaries or exploited in the local context (Bresciani and Ferraris, 2014). Most importantly, the three different sets of sources at a subsidiary's disposal may be balanced and present several interdependences, complementarities and synergies. Indeed, subsidiaries have to develop complementary internal networks to manage and integrate external knowledge and technologies (Hansen and Nohria, 2004). Then, by investing in in-house R&D and by further developing internal networks, subsidiaries can better recognize potential partners and increase the capacity of absorbing useful dispersed knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; West and Bogers, 2014).\n3. Data and variables: 3.1 Data\n4. Results: The hypotheses were tested using OLS regression analysis, and the results are presented in Table III. Model 1 represents the effect of external R&D and the control variables on subsidiary's innovative performance. As suggested by mainstream studies, instead, Model 2 is implemented to test the quadratic term of external R&D looking for the presence of an inverted U-shaped relationship. Finally, in Model 3, the interaction term is proposed to test the interaction effect concerning the moderator effect of KM orientation. Model 1 has an R2 of 0.18 (adjusted R2 is 0.15) and an F-value of 2.41 (p < 0.05). Model 2 has an R2 of 0.27 (adjusted R2 is 0.22) and an F-value of 4.28 (p < 0.001). Model 3 has an R2 of 0.44 (adjusted R2 is 0.41) and an F-value of 6.15 (p < 0.01).\n5. Conclusion and discussion: The paper aims at comprehending the effect of the adoption of KM practices at the MNC subsidiary level and its effect on the relationship between external R&D and innovative performance. In fact, firms are constantly investing in innovative activities and in creating knowledge and technological capabilities to compete in the markets. In particular, they tend to rely more and more on external sources of knowledge (such as customers, competitors, suppliers, university, research centers) to combine them with internal R&D efforts. Moreover, subsidiaries are in a unique position that allows them to acquire and combine knowledge that comes from the internal network (i.e. HQs and sister subsidiaries) and from the external host local environment. The centrality of these MNC's organizational units in the knowledge flows within and across MNC boundaries is becoming more prominent, and many subsidiaries have emerged as center of excellence (CoE) and competence creating subsidiary (CCS) or have created subsidiary specific advantages (SSAs) (Ferraris, 2014).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims at exploring the effect of knowledge management (KM) practices on the relationship between external research and development (R&D) and innovative performance. The authors argue that the firms which develop and possess superior KM capabilities have the ability to better manage external knowledge and combine it with the internal one.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used a sample of 117 European MNC subsidiaries. An OLS regression analysis was carried out to evaluate the moderator effect of KM on the relationship between external R&D and innovative performance.\nFindings: The authors found positive evidences in favor of a moderator effect of KM. This means that subsidiaries with superior KM capabilities are more effective in using external R&D, augmenting the magnitude of their external sources of knowledge and, consequently, improving their innovative performance.\nPractical implications: Managerially speaking, both corporate and subsidiaries' managers need to understand the relevance of managing knowledge effectively and efficiently at the subsidiary level. Corporate managers need to allocate more resources (both financial and managerial) to the subsidiaries that are active in knowledge transfer and sharing, while subsidiaries managers need to implement practically the KM tools and processes at the subsidiary organizational level to improve subsidiary's innovative performance.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes mainly to the KM field, highlighting the importance of KM at the subsidiary level, whereas most of previous studies focus on different units of analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
What drives a salesperson's goal achievement? An empirical examination
|
[
"Attitudes",
"Emotions",
"Salesforce",
"Goal achievement",
"Workplace conduciveness",
"Workplace ethics and diversity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: One of the most important concerns a manager has, is whether they are assisting their key employees to reach their highest potential. As reported in wsj.com, \"Technical sales and sales-management positions play a critical role for USA businesses [...]\" (Weber, 2015). Without an effective salesforce closing sales, a company will be unable to consistently satisfy their stockholders. For example, this generation of employees are very different than their previous generation counterparts, as they are more confident in their abilities, more technologically sound, motivated by significant tasks and cautious to take on a fast-paced work environment such as sales (Myers and Sadaghiani, 2010; Chou, 2012; Weber, 2015). Also, it takes over a year for a company to gain the full capacity of a newly hired salesperson, as knowledge about the product and target market takes time to learn and adjust to. Therefore, strategically retaining a company's present salesforce is a priority. To do this, supervisors must be able to effectively manage a salesforce with different skill levels, as there is a lot of variance in salesperson performance. For example, companies can have star performers, moderate performers and low performers (Kelley and Caplan, 1992). Though star performers achieve peak performance quality for the firm, low performers could contain an immense amount of talent that has not been discovered yet. With management that is informed about what motivates and drives their salesforce, the star performer's category could grow and the low performers could become moderate performers or get efficiently weeded out. Proper salesforce management would minimize the millions of dollars companies spend because of salesforce turnover, in training, lost incentives, detriment to customer relationships, etc. (Bendapudi and Leone, 2002; Zoltners et al., 2008).\nResearch motivation: In this section, we highlight the need for studying the drivers of goal achievement from a managerial perspective and an academic perspective. We discuss the managerial perspective by using model-free evidence from our data, and the academic perspective through a review of the relevant literature.\nConceptual framework: To understand what drives the extent of goal achievement, we study the influence of personal effects (customer satisfaction and performance levels) on the extent of goal achievement as well as the external effect of managerially set goals on the extent of goal achievement. The overall foundation for this framework has been developed from the identity theory and the goal-setting theory. Specifically, the identity theory helps us understand how a salesperson views himself/herself within the firm through hihe/sher past behavior using both cognitive and motivational processes (Stryker and Burke, 2000). If the salesperson is succeeding, they will feel motivated and will then, achieve more. For example, Zimmerman et al. (1992) shows students with high senses of focus and drive, or self-efficacy, regarding their education (typically because of previous academic achievement) have higher academic performance. When a salesperson's confidence increases, their performance on all accounts will also increase, thereby creating higher firm performance levels (Gist, 1987). Further, a salesperson wants to maintain their performance consistency within the firm, and as they succeed at this, their self-efficacy will be elevated (Stets and Burke, 2000). Applying this concept in a salesforce setting, the identity theory predicts that past performance results influence self-efficacy and, therefore, will influence future performance behaviors.\nMethodology: Data\nResults: The summary of our results can be seen in Table V. Recall that our first hypothesis proposes that with an increase in a salesperson's past performance, a salesperson's extent of goal achievement will increase. We find the effect to be positive and significant (b1 = 0.251, p < 0.01), thus supporting H1. The second hypothesis theorizes that as a salesperson's customer satisfaction increases, that salesperson's extent of goal achievement increases with diminishing returns. From the estimation, we find that the linear effect is positive and significant (b2 = 26859.43, p < 0.01), but the squared term is negative and significant (b3 = -1947.74, p < 0.01). This supports H2, implying the diminishing return relationship between customer satisfaction and the extent of goal achievement. Another quadratic relationship we're hypothesizing is hypothesis three, which proposes that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between preset goals and the extent of goal achievement. We find the main effect to be positive and significant (b4 = 0.206, p < 0.05), whereas the squared term effect is negative and significant (b5 = -0.0001, p < 0.01), thus supporting H3.\nDiscussion: The implications of this study have both an academic and managerial impact. Our main questions of this research is to understand how much preset goals, customer satisfaction and past performance levels affect the extent of goal achievement, how a salesperson's attitudes and emotions regarding workplace culture affect the relationship between preset goals and the extent of goal achievement, if there is a mediating effect between past performance and the extent of goal achievement via preset goals and finally, strategies managers can take to enhance the effect of goal achievement.\nLimitations and future research: First, this being a cross-sectional dataset, we're not able to account for unobserved heterogeneity. This is the first time that any study is showing these effects; therefore, there is opportunity for future researchers to test the effects across segments through latent class regression analysis. Second, because of the potential bias of social desirability or mood state bias, the salespeople could have answered the survey items in a more favorable way to please the firm or a different way as per their mood at the time.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how a salesperson's preset goals, customer satisfaction levels and past performance affect the extent of goal achievement, as well as how job-specific attitudes and emotions affect the relationship between preset goals and goal achievement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a modeling framework with both main, moderating and mediating effects, using transaction data and survey results from a telecommunications firm.\nFindings: The results indicate that preset goals and customer satisfaction, interestingly, have an inverted-U relationships with goal achievement. Further, attitudes and emotions regarding workplace conduciveness and workplace ethics and diversity, reduce the effect preset goals have on goal achievement. However, attitudes and emotions regarding workplace philosophy strengthens the effect preset goals have on goal achievement, whereas with disagreement, this relationship diminishes.\nResearch limitations/implications: Two of the primary limitations of this study are: one, because of the cross-sectional nature of the study, there is limited opportunity to control for unobserved heterogeneity; and two, performance goal achievement, though is important for the firm, is one of many potential goals that affect a salesperson. For example, customer satisfaction goals or a one-time special event goals could play a role. Therefore, only using performance goal achievement could be a limitation of this study.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to academic literature in three ways. First, it demonstrates the diminishing effect of customer satisfaction on goal achievement. Second, it identifies an inverse U-shaped relationship between preset goals and goal achievement. Finally, it examines how attitudes and emotions regarding workplace culture (conduciveness, ethics and diversity and philosophy) affect the relationship between preset goals and goal achievement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The impacts of deviations from standard daily procedures on stock performance - a case study of Carnival Cruise Line
|
[
"Accidents",
"Carnival cruise",
"Deviations",
"Stock performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The fastest-growing travel sector in the world is the cruise industry. Members of the global cruise industry collectively made $7.2bn in investments and expanded the fleet by acquiring 29 new ships in 2014 with another 20 expected to join the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Global Fleet by 2018. (CLIA State of the Cruise Report, 2014). The importance of the US cruise industry is significant. The USA alone accounts for 51.7 per cent of total cruise passengers, with the UK and Ireland coming in second, accounting for 8.1 per cent. In the USA, the cruise industry has generated more than $42bn in total economic activity, including over 356,000 jobs. The driving force for this large growth in US passenger cruising is leisure spending. The top three reasons consumers provide for taking a cruise by percentages is as follows: the value at 86.6 per cent; the destinations at 77 per cent; and brand reputation at 76 per cent.\n2. Literature: Over many decades, the stock price of cruise lines has risen sharply because of more travelers choosing cruises as a vacation alternative. The future of the cruise industry depends on its ability to produce and maintain larger, higher quality ships. The industry trend toward building bigger ships exploits economies of scale to decrease operating costs while increasing revenue (Lois et al., 2004). Economies of scale will not only impact revenue but also are likely to greatly increase the impact of deviations from standard daily procedures on performance. One of Carnival's vessels, Carnival Splendor, lost power in November of 2010, because a fire broke out in the engine room. Passengers felt life threatening when they lived in the cruise with no electricity and limited food. This left many passengers dissatisfied with CCL, even though they received a full refund for the trip. The deviations caused by these unfortunate accidents can significantly damage the long-term reputation of cruise lines, which is notoriously reflected in its stock performance. We reviewed literature ranging from introducing and evaluating typical cruise company performance all the way to analyzing accident-focused industry responses. The results were then used as a way of searching for effective strategies to protect reputation in the face of accidents and weather issues. Moreover, there are already effective methods adopted for reliable prediction of the stock performance of shipping companies in the literature. However, there is little research on quantifying the indirect impact of terrible accidents and weather issues on cruise line's stock performance. This paper aims to fill up the research gap by bringing the EMD method into stepwise regressions and hierarchical regressions. In the following sections, we first review the general studies on cruise performance in Section 2.1 and then identify the impact of possible accidents in the industry in Section 2.2. Above sections provide us a guideline to identify the scope of this current research. Then, traditional economic literature in predicting stock performance is reviewed in Section 2.3 as a fundamental step to move on to the empirical analysis. Detailed research method of EMD is discussed in Section 3.\n3. Methodology: In this paper, a framework based on EMD and multivariable linear regression was used to analyze the stock performance of CCL. EMD is used to investigate whether there are any short-term or long-term trends in company performance in the wake of deviation events. Multivariable linear regression was used to analyze the impacts of factors such as cruise accidents and weather issues.\n4. Discussions: Weather issues such as tropical storms and hurricanes do have an impact on the short-term trend of cruise line's stock performance, although there is no impact on long-term trend. Weather issues are less statistically significant to stock performance when compared with six categories of disasters, namely, Itinerary Change Due to Mechanical Malfunctions, Mechanical Problems, Collisions, Fire, Propulsion Problems and others. Terrible disasters that should have been avoided by cruise lines damage their reputation, which can be clearly seen from stock performance. Moreover, the negative influence of weather issues on stock price has been exposed after decomposing stock performance end price. So, cruise companies should also pay attention to weather issues while considering disasters. Based on the findings and data in Section 3, there is an immense opportunity to improve and evaluate cruise-related regulatory frameworks and policy measures. To provide more transparency and accountability, the cruise industry should consider stakeholders' participation in cruise policy process decision-making. By allowing stakeholders to participate, they may provide more tailored solutions for cruise-related issues, especially if participants are involved in different areas of business. Joint efforts organized by groups, in both the public (government) and private sectors, are able to provide strategic feedback and coordinate hurricane preparedness efforts. The cruise line industry can work to improve regulatory authority for accidents and hurricane prevention in the USA. This would help significantly decrease the number of accidents in the cruise industry, particularly for CCL. The CLIA has been working to improve the safety of North American cruise lines. The CLIA is actively communicating its Passenger Bill of Rights to the public and cruise line guests, and it is working closely with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to propose solutions to replace outdated cruise policies.\n5. Conclusions: As supported by the steady incline in total passenger nights, Carnival is the largest cruise line. However, CCL also accounted for 51 per cent (67/131 = 51 per cent) of accidents over our time frame. The top accident categories out of the eight were propulsion problems, fires and collisions. Based on the data, there is immense opportunity to improve and evaluate cruise-related regulatory frameworks and policy measures. To provide more transparency and accountability, the cruise industry should consider stakeholder participation in cruise policymaking process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the USA, the cruise industry has generated more than $42bn in total economic activities, involving over 356,000 jobs. The largest and most aggressive operator is acknowledged as Carnival Cruise Line (CCL), with a 48.3 per cent market share including all subsidiary companies in 2013. CCL has had a strong track record of reliability and high quality; however, within the past decade, there have been several deviations from standard daily procedure that have altered the way CCL does business. When trying to interpret changes in company performance, it is important to include other factors that may have contributed to changes at the time of any given deviation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use time series empirical mode decomposition to visualize whether there are short- or long-term shocks to company performance in the wake of deviating events. Besides, a thorough analysis is carried out with multivariable linear regression to identify the factors that really impact CCL's performance.\nFindings: This case study shows the seasonal patterns of weather issues with the largest number of hurricanes and tropical storms taking place during the third quarter of each year.\nOriginality/value: Empirical results will enhance understanding of the industry with regard to such events. It will provide shareholders information and opinions to enhance their decision-making processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Estimation of form deviation and the associated uncertainty in coordinate metrology
|
[
"Uncertainty form deviation",
"Coordinate measuring machine",
"Orthogonal distance regression"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In three-dimensional metrology, the privileged tool for control is currently the coordinate measuring machine (CMM). From discrete coordinate data obtained from the inspection of a manufactured part, the software of the machine fit a perfect geometric form (line, plane, circle, cylinder, sphere, cone, etc.) to the measured data, least-squares fitting and minimum-zone fitting are two widely adopted algorithms to evaluate the form error.\n2. Mathematical modeling of the problem: The problem of association of curves or ideal surfaces to measurement data is a problem often met in scientific disciplines and engineering. In the traditional case, we suppose that only y is subject to measurement error, and x is observed without error, the desired model is on the form:\n3. Application in three-dimensional metrology: The parameter setting of the basic geometric standards: The line, the plane, the circle, the cylinder, the sphere and the cone, led us to deal with the problem of non-linear optimization with stochastic variables, except for the line and the plane where the models are linear.\n4. Proposed algorithm: After modeling the various basic geometries, a data processing program was developed in visual C++ allowing the interfacing with ODRPACK.\n5. Validation of the model according to the standard ISO 10360-6: The standard ISO 10360-6 (2002) recommends for the validation of software a testing method of software used for the calculation of the substitute geometric element. This method concerns only the parameters of the associated element, this approach can be summarized as follows (See Figure 6).\n6. Experimental validation: This validation is to perform a series of measurements of the standard and the industrial parts on a coordinate measuring machine. The measured points will be treated by our software and the results compared with those provided by the sheets of different calibration standards, and with the results calculated by the Metrolog software available on the machine.\n7. Determination of the circularity and the associated uncertainty: Four methods are commonly used to evaluate the circularity error: minimum zone circle (MZC), maximum inscribed circle, minimum circumscribed circle and least-square circle. Among the four methods, only the MZC complies with ANSI and ISO standards and has the minimum circularity error value.\n8. Conclusion: This paper presents a new method of identification of the elements, which allows us to start from a discrete coordinate data taken on a CMM to estimate the parameters of the substitute geometrical elements and their uncertainties. Without the assumption of small displacements torsor this method integrates the uncertainty on the coordinates of points and can be applied in any reference placemark. The criterion of association used is the LSM, we relied on the ODR algorithm to estimate the parameters of the substitute geometrical elements and their uncertainties. The solution of the problem is resolved by an iterative calculation according to the Levenberg Marquard optimization method.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The uncertainty evaluation for coordinate measuring machine metrology is problematic due to the diversity of the parameters that can influence the measurement result. From discrete coordinate data taken on curve (or surface) the software of these machines proceeds to an identification of the measured feature, the parameters of the substitute feature serve in the phase of calculation to estimate the form error of form, and the decisions made based on the result measurement may be outliers when the uncertainty associated to the measurement result is not taken into account. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors relied on the orthogonal distance regression (ODR) algorithm to estimate the parameters of the substitute geometrical elements and their uncertainties. The solution of the problem is resolved by an iterative calculation according to the Levenberg Marquard optimization method. The authors have also presented in this paper the propagation model of uncertainties to the circularity error. This model is based on the law of propagation of the uncertainties defined in the GUM.\nFindings: This work proposes a model based on ODR to estimates parameters of the substitute geometrical elements and their uncertainties. This contribution allows us to estimate the uncertaintof the form error by applying the law of propagation of uncertainties. An example of calculating the circularity error and the associated uncertainty is explained. This method can be applied to others geometry type: line, plan, sphere, cylinder and cone.\nPractical implications: This work interested manufacturing firms by allowing them: to meet the normative, which requires that each measurement must be accompanied by its uncertainty-in conformity assessment, the decision-making must take account of this uncertainty to avoid the aberrant decisions. Informing the operators on the capability of their measurement process\nOriginality/value: This work proposes a model based on ODR to estimates parameters of the substitute geometrical elements and its uncertainties. without the hypothesis of small displacements torsor, this method integrates the uncertainty on the coordinates of points and can be applied in any reference placemark. This contribution allows us also to estimate the uncertainty of the form error by applying the law of propagation of uncertainties.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supply chain quality and pricing decisions under multi-manufacturer competition
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Quality improvement",
"Goodwill",
"Differential games"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nowadays, consumers are paying more attention to the product quality than the price alone. In a number of industries, competition is shifting from price to quality in specific segments of the market (Gans, 2002; Ren and Zhou, 2008; Kumar et al., 2016). A recent study of the automotive industry (Hu et al., 2016) shows that Chinese consumers placed more emphasize on the product quality when making purchasing decisions. Thus, many firms are stepping up their product quality performance to improve their competitiveness in the market.\n2. Literature review: This research is building on the body of literature on supply chain quality management under horizontal competition. Reyniers and Tapiero (1995) studied the effect of a contract on a supplier's quality improvement effort and a producer's inspection policy in both non-cooperative and cooperative games under the assumption of complete information. Lim (2001) extended the work of Reyniers and Tapiero (1995) into a supply chain with incomplete information. Balachandran and Radhakrishnan (2005) considered a double moral hazard case in quality investment effort and modeled the fixed share rate contract for allocating the costs of internal failures. Tapiero (2007) adopted the traditional Neyman-Pearson theory to the control of quality in a supply chain system. Hsieh and Liu (2010) investigated the quality investment decisions of the supplier and the manufacturer in four non-cooperative games with different degrees of information available. Xie, Yue, Wang and Lai (2011) investigated quality investment and price decision of a make-to-order supply chain with uncertain demand, and their results showed that both the supply chain strategy and risk-averse behavior have significant impacts on quality investment and price decision. Ma et al. (2013) investigated the equilibrium quality and marketing efforts of the manufacturer and the retailer under three supply chain structures.\n3. The model: The supply chain system considered here includes one supplier and two competing manufacturers, where the manufacturer produces a final product that consists of two components, one is provided by the supplier, the other is provided by the manufacturer itself. In addition, the two manufacturers produce/sell the similar products with different brands which are denoted as i, i[?]{1, 2}. xs(t) is denoted as the quality level of the component s that is offered by the supplier over time t, xm1(t) and xm2(t) as the quality levels of the components mi that are provided by the two manufacturers over time t, respectively. Similar to previous literature such as Nair and Narasimhan (2006), in our study, we broaden the scope of goodwill formation by considering it to be a function of quality. Based upon the model of Nerlove and Arrow (1962), the changing of the stock of goodwill for the supplier is given by the following equation:(1)\n4. Equilibria: We start by analyzing the first scenario (benchmark scenario), in which the channel members implement a non-cooperative program, and we use the subscript \"B\" to signify \"non-cooperative scenario.\" In the second scenario, players make decisions with a cooperative program, and we use subscript \"C\" to signify this scenario. The third scenario characterizes a joint venture, and we use subscript \"J\" to signify \"joint venture scenario.\" In the fourth scenario, the supplier integrates with a manufacturer, and we use the subscript \"I\" to signify this scenario.\n5. Numerical analysis: In this section, we use numerical analysis to further illustrate the impacts of the subsidy rate and sharing ratio on the profits for all channel members. In our numerical analysis, we use the following values to establish ranges for model parameters: a=200, k1=0.6, k2=0.4, ls=4, lm1=5, lm2=4, rs1=3, rs2=4, rm1=6, rm2=5, d=0.2, b=0.2, th=0.3, kh=0.2, r=0.3,\n6. Conclusion and directions for future research: The supply chain system considered in our paper consists of one supplier and two competing manufacturers. Utilizing differential game theory, the equilibrium quality decisions for all channel members are calculated and compared in four different scenarios: each channel member makes decisions with a non-cooperative program; each channel member makes decisions with a cooperative program; the supplier cooperates with a manufacturer as a joint venture; and the supplier integrates with a manufacturer.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In today's global competition, supply chain quality management is the key to a firms' competitiveness. However, managers find that making sound quality and pricing decisions under a complex multi-echelon in the current competitive electronic commerce environment is daunting and challenging. The purpose of this paper is to examine the optimum quality strategies under different cooperative mechanisms and investigate its effects on channel members' profits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is a result of a China-UK collaborative research effort, involving researchers with expertise in information systems, quality management, supply chain management, pricing, and game theory models. The authors consider the quality decisions of a single product in a supply chain system that consists of a supplier and two competing manufacturers. The authors examine the optimum quality strategies under different cooperative mechanisms and investigate its effects on channel members' profits. A modified Nerlove-Arrow model is employed to investigate the quality levels on goodwill and product sales.\nFindings: The results reveal that the traditional cooperative program is not very effective in the horizontal competitive market; and each channel member may have a profit improvement when the supplier integrates with a manufacturer.\nOriginality/value: The authors believe that this paper will contribute to the existing body of knowledge. Moreover, the paper provides insights for managers to better manage their supply chain quality management in an information-centric context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Brand meaning cocreation: toward a conceptualization and research implications
|
[
"Branding",
"Brand management",
"Brand meaning",
"Brand meaning cocreation",
"Cocreation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A brand can act as a source of meaning for customers in framing their lives and representing who they are (Escalas and Bettman, 2005). Firms such as Ryanair use the concept of brand meaning as a strategic platform for connecting with customers and other market actors. Ryanair initially promoted the brand as \"The low fares airline\" making \"air travel accessible to the masses.\" However, because of perceived antagonistic service practices customers cocreated disparaging brand meanings through narratives on the internet (e.g. ihateryanair.co.uk) and social media. To facilitate improved customer brand perceptions, Ryanair launched its \"Always Getting Better\" customer experience program in 2013, enhancing communications and customer service interactions. Commenting on the brand identity in 2014, the CMO said \"It was cheap and nasty. Now it's cheap and straightforward and smart\" (Topham, 2014) and an 11 percent increase in passenger numbers in 2015 suggests that customer perceptions are changing. This example illustrates the interactional, emotional, temporal, and contextual influences on brand meaning and underscores the non-proprietary nature of the concept.\nConceptualizing brand meaning: Linguistically and semantically, \"meaning\" is subject to ambiguity (Putnam, 1973) such that an interpreted outcome depends on the individual's attitudes, experiences, emotions, and activities, which are applied in deriving and signifying meaning (Ogden et al., 1946). Further, meaning is generally agreed to be contextual (e.g. Peirce, 1878; Putnam, 1973), with interpretation dependent on who expresses it as well as how, when, and where it is expressed (Lewis, 1943). In simple terms, rather than passively receiving information, individuals actively construct their own meaning and understandings (Allen et al., 2008).\nToward a conceptualization of BMCC within the service ecosystems context: The concepts of brand meaning variation and cocreation are to some extent implicit in the brand identity-brand image and meaning literature, as scholars have recognized that brand managers' intended meanings may not coincide with consumers' ultimate interpretation. However, the literature has not clearly identified the process and practices through which consumers arrive at brand meaning and the resulting strategic implications for brand managers. We define process as \"a sequence of individual and collective events, actions, and activities unfolding over time in context\" (Pettigrew, 1997, p. 338), and practice as \"a routinized way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood\" (Reckwitz, 2002, p. 250), which can lead to individual and collective meaning (Schatzki, 2005).\nEmerging perspective on cocreated brand meaning and implications for the BMCC process: Consumer research has begun to focus on the networked nature of brands and their meanings (e.g. Hatch and Schultz, 2010; Ind, 2014). This research emphasizes a gestalt of activities and market actors such as brand managers, employees, consumers, and other market actors in general that influence meaning outcomes (Brodie et al., 2006). Table I summarizes the emerging perspective on cocreated brand meaning by contrasting the firm and stakeholder perspectives across a range of analytic elements fundamental to BMCC.\nTheoretical implications and research propositions: In this paper, we have illustrated how brand literature has evolved toward a networked, interactive perspective that implies brand meaning is derived through a cocreative process. We have also theorized on the units of analysis within the BMCC process and how interactions and practices in this process, framed by socially constructed institutions, contribute to moments of brand meaning that evolve spatio-temporally across multiple, interdependent, interacting social, and service systems. We next consider the patterns and connections between these underlying properties to draw out the theoretical implications and develop research propositions.\nAn agenda for future research: With the purpose of exchange being mutual service provision and thereby \"access to resources that have value potential\" (Chandler and Vargo, 2011, p. 35), a brand can be seen as a resource that consumers interact with and integrate into their own meaning-creation processes. Consequently, brands are cocreated by the contextual environment in which brand management and consumption practices occur. While the premises of S-D logic and the associated literature enable researchers to question conventional branding models and practices (Arnould and Thompson, 2005; Thompson et al., 2006; Vargo and Lusch, 2008; Chandler and Vargo, 2011; Williams and Aitken, 2011), research has not studied the way these practices unfold across multiple interdependent and evolving service systems and influence the BMCC process.\nConclusion: Our conceptual understanding of BMCC provides a perspective of the emerging approach that considers the cocreative nature of branding within a network of brand stakeholders. This paper thus sheds light on the importance of brand meaning and the characteristics of BMCC. Researchers need to leverage the insights provided by this paper into empirical examinations of BMCC-related phenomena, as BMCC is becoming pervasive owing to technological and cultural advances that support customer voicing. Since these advances will continue, the study of BMCC offers a fruitful area of research for academics and a challenging area of practice for brand managers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consolidate and advance the understanding of brand meaning and the evolving process by which it is determined by introducing and explicating the concept of brand meaning cocreation (BMCC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: In-depth review and integration of literature from branding, cocreation, service systems, and practice theory. To support deep theorizing, the authors also examine the role of institutional logics in the BMCC process in framing interactions and brand meaning outcomes.\nFindings: Prior research is limited in that it neither maps the process of cocreation within which meanings emerge nor provides theoretical conceptualizations of brand meaning or the process of BMCC. While the literature acknowledges that brand meaning is influenced by multiple interactions, their nature and how they contribute to BMCC have been overlooked.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper reveals a significant gap in knowledge of how brand meaning is cocreated, despite the essential role of brand meaning for firm success and increasing academic interest in the notion of cocreation. Ultimately, this paper builds a conceptual foundation for empirical research in this regard.\nOriginality/value: This paper proposes that brand meaning is cocreated through the interconnection of different social and service systems, across system levels, time, and geographic space. Marketing theory is advanced by outlining a set of research propositions pertaining to the BMCC process. The authors consider how discrete actor-based brand meanings contribute to an overall brand gestalt and how such a gestalt potentially evolves along a continuum. Additionally, the authors provide a managerially and theoretically relevant research agenda to guide much needed empirical research into BMCC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Do types of strategic orientations make a difference? A study of MNCs' performance in foreign markets
|
[
"Configurations",
"Performance",
"Market orientation",
"Entrepreneurial orientation",
"Resource-advantage theory",
"Strategic orientations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A central issue of corporate strategy concerns how much to invest in major behaviours related to strategic orientations. Two behaviours are particularly relevant for competitive advantage (Ellis, 2006; Saeed et al., 2014) and call for scholarly attention, namely, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) (Cadogan, 2012; Pehrsson, 2016; see also Hakala, 2011). As originally developed by Miller (1983), EO reflects the extent to which corporations are innovative, proactive and risk-taking in their behaviour (Covin and Slevin, 1989). MO, on the other hand, is a behaviour manifested by generation and dissemination of market intelligence across the corporation, and responsiveness based on that intelligence (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990).\nBackground literature: Entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation\nTheoretical departure: This article draws on resource-advantage theory (Hunt and Morgan, 1995), which is an extension of the resource-based view of the firm. The resource-advantage theory incorporates an essential framework for understanding competitive advantage, i.e. heterogeneous demand theory (Dickson, 1992), into the resource-based view (Barney, 1991; Penrose, 1959). More precisely, because resource-advantage theory traces its roots back to marketing literature, it acknowledges that customer demand, in terms of preferences of buyers (Hunt, 2013, p. 290), is dynamic and heterogeneous across market segments. Furthermore, because customers lack perfect information about products or services that match their demand, the theory acknowledges that a corporation's efforts to reach customers are costly (Hunt and Morgan, 1995).\nMethods: This section presents the empirical setting, sample, data collection, variables, analysis procedure, and validity.\nIdentification of types of orientations: A K-means cluster analysis was performed to identify types of strategic orientations (Table I). Each type is unique because the Sheffe test demonstrates significant differences at p < 0.01 regarding each variable of EO and MO.\nDevelopment of hypotheses: Hypotheses regarding relationships between the types of strategic orientations and performance are developed in this section. The predictions draw from resource-advantage theory, and it is predicted that a single type would be inherently more beneficial than other types. The rationale behind this assertion follows the literature suggesting that competitive advantage is the result of heterogeneous and imperfectly mobile resources enabling delivery of a market offering superior to that of the competitors (Hunt and Morgan, 1995; see also Hunt, 2013). Consistent with this logic, Penrose (1959) and Wernerfelt (1984) argue that the potential of producing a variety of offerings is significantly increased when a heterogeneous set of resources is interconnected.\nTest of hypotheses: Table II provides descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients of variables used in the regression analysis. As expected, the Maximizing type of strategic orientation is positively and significantly correlated with performance (p < 0.01). This is true also for the control variables capturing the ratio of foreign sales (p < 0.1) and experience (p < 0.05). When it comes to the other types, it is only the Entrepreneurial that demonstrates a significant correlation with performance (p < 0.01); interestingly, the correlation is negative. In summary, Table II demonstrates underlying relationships that need to be examined further.\nContribution and implications: Discussion of the findings\nConclusion: This study carves up a new research direction within the domain of firms' strategic orientations. More precisely, two research questions are answered: What types of EO and MO can be identified? What is the relationship between types and performance?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to create a new research direction within the domain of firms' strategic orientations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on data from Swedish multinational corporations (MNCs), this paper identifies types, i.e. configurations, of strategic orientations involving the components of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation, and examines relationships with performance in foreign markets. Cluster analysis identifies types, and linear regression analysis examines relationships with performance in foreign markets.\nFindings: Four types of orientations were found: conservative; entrepreneurial; maximizing; and irresolute. Furthermore, it was found that the relationship with performance in foreign markets is most positive for the maximizing followed by the conservative and irresolute.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, it is established that entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation do not operate in isolation but are mutually supportive. Second, by establishing that type of orientations makes a difference for performance, this paper goes beyond the predominant view saying that just degrees matter. Third, the findings contribute to resource-advantage theory by establishing that competitive advantage results from resources being complementary in nature.\nPractical implications: Instead of solely relying only on entrepreneurial orientation, or market orientation, corporations are advised to carefully evaluate their configuration of orientations. The evaluation is decisive because it cites implications for performance.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the literature on strategic orientation in a unique way as it captures performance implications stemming from types of strategic orientations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Budget and midrange hotel managers' perceptions of and responses to Airbnb: Evidence from Istanbul
|
[
"Competitive strategy",
"Airbnb",
"Sharing economy",
"Peer-to-peer accommodation",
"Short-term rental",
"Budget hotels"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The tourism lodging sector has been dramatically impacted by the rise of sharing economy platforms like Airbnb that have rapidly attracted significant market share (Richard and Cleveland, 2016). Founded in 2008, Airbnb promotes itself as a complementary lodging segment that expands the tourism lodging market without directly competing with traditional hotels for the same guests (Gurran and Phibbs, 2017). However, several studies have highlighted the current and potential future negative impacts of Airbnb on hotel revenues (Benitez-Aurioles, 2019; Dogru et al., 2019; Guttentag and Smith, 2017; Zervas et al., 2017). In particular, smaller and independent hotels tend to perceive a greater threat from competitors like Airbnb operating in the informal economy (Williams and Horodnic, 2017). Moreover, less expensive hotels are especially vulnerable to Airbnb because they generally cater to leisure (vs business) travelers (Li and Srinivasan, 2019), just like Airbnb does, plus Airbnb hosts have much lower operating costs and therefore can offer lodging at very competitive rates that appeal to budget travelers (Guttentag, 2015; Richard and Cleveland, 2016; Zervas et al., 2017; Lu and Tabari, 2019). Despite the fairly direct competition that Airbnb seemingly poses for budget and midrange hotels, little is known about how budget and midrange hotel managers perceive Airbnb or how they have responded to the emergence of Airbnb with the development of appropriate competitive strategies.\nLiterature review: Competitive strategies in the hotel industry\nMethodology: In the absence of sufficient theoretical and empirical evidence on hotels' perceptions of Airbnb competition and their strategic responses to it, this exploratory research adopted an inductive qualitative approach. Various researchers have suggested using qualitative research designs to achieve a deep and rich understanding of informants' experiences and thoughts (Creswell, 2007). Hotel managers of one-, two- and three-star hotels operating in Istanbul were considered for the investigation. While different researchers have taken various approaches to classifying hotels (Chan and Tung, 2019; Dogru et al., 2019; Guttentag and Smith, 2017), the present research is labeling the one-, two- and three-star hotels included in the study as \"budget\" and \"midrange\" for the purposes of succinct description.\nFindings and discussion: As shown in Table I, most participants were middle-aged males. On average, the managers had over 15 years of work experience in the hospitality industry, including an average of 8 years in their current managerial positions. About half of the sample (ten) had a BA degree (typically in a field related to tourism and hospitality), three had college degrees and the rest (six) were high school graduates. All hotels in the sample were family businesses.\nConclusion: As Airbnb continues to gain popularity around the globe, traditional lodging businesses - and in particular budget and midrange hotels - may be increasingly susceptible to disruption. Therefore, it is important to understand how such hotels are perceiving and responding to this new competition. The present study investigated this question through rich qualitative data obtained via interviews with budget and midrange hotel managers in Istanbul. By doing so, the study addressed an important yet understudied issue within the Airbnb literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree to which budget and mid-range hoteliers perceive Airbnb as a threat, and the extent to which they are actively responding to the peer-to-peer accommodation business model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study draws on qualitative data collected through 19 semi-structured interviews with budget and midrange hotel managers in Istanbul, Turkey, covering how they view Airbnb and have responded to Airbnb's rise.\nFindings: The results suggest that the managers believed they were losing some business to Airbnb, yet they generally neither perceive Airbnb as a serious threat nor were they generally taking concrete strategic measures to respond to Airbnb. Regulatory lobbying against Airbnb and exploiting Airbnb as a new distribution platform were the most common responses, and cutting rate also was commonly seen as a potential competitive strategy.\nOriginality/value: The study responds to calls by several scholars for more research addressing the strategies adopted by traditional lodging facilities to protect their market share from Airbnb. This study does so with a specific focus on the budget and midrange hotel segments, which some studies suggest may be particularly vulnerable to Airbnb competition. Also, the limited research addressing Airbnb's perceived impacts on traditional lodging has been conducted in mature economies, so the topic remains largely neglected in maturing economies like Turkey.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Networking and knotworking practices: work integration as situated social process
|
[
"Networking",
"Activity theory",
"Work integration",
"Knotworking",
"Situated knowledge"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper addresses research that was conducted as part of the transnational activities of a project delivered by the European Community. The project focused on the disadvantaged and vulnerable people's work inclusion, with attention to the articulated and multiple transactions and interactions between interdependent organizational contributors and stakeholders. The project was embedded in a socio-material environment and sought to shape a suitable and actionable landscape of common sociality and relationship to enhance collaboration and shared practices (Docherty et al., 2009; Freeman, 2010; O'Higgins, 2010; Hemmati, 2002; Roloff, 2008). This situation of multi-stakeholdership requires the interaction between multiple experts and the integration of different types of specialist knowledge.\n2. Conceptual framework: The topic of social integration is an important issue in Italy (and in the world). One reason is that the development of social enterprises has resulted in the emergence of firms that have experience in integrating disadvantaged people into the workplace, resulting in increased demand for additional integration (Davister et al., 2004). Another reason is the concurrent emergence of difficulties and limitations associated with the concrete implementation of work integration initiatives (Borzaga and Loss, 2002).\n3. The context: The project, named Plans d'Action pour Realiser l'Insertion (PARI), was conducted a few years ago as part of a Community Initiative Program (named EQUAL), a European project for developing and enhancing social interventions. It required the involvement of at least two partnerships of public and private stakeholders. In this case, the stakeholders were the Italian and Spanish regional administrations involved in the analysis of the methods used for the work integration of disadvantaged people in different segments of the labor market.\n4. Methodology: Qualitative monitoring was conducted on the experiences considered to be emblematic in the two different countries to answer the research questions. The aims were to detect how integrated knowledge, embedded in the existing activity systems, was created and shared by practitioners and highlight how such practical knowledge evolves, becomes diffused and is circulated. We used a developmental ethnographic approach (Kerosuo, 2006) to detect meaningful, situated knowledge related to the activities for work integration of disadvantaged people. Through this approach, it was possible to highlight how the various players work in broad, distributed and interdependent organizational contexts that require new capacities to represent the operational space, enabling the development of new knowledge. Such knowledge is related to the processual connections through which the professional performs her/his functions.\n5. Findings: The process of knowledge production and sharing gave rise to a vast array of empirical data related to the multiple systems of activities that the participants dealt with. Thus, plural, diversified, variously represented and negotiated knowledge emerged (Scaratti et al. 2005), including different ways of handling the complexity of the situations, different ways to represent problems and attempts to determine and construct answers, shape repertoires and, if necessary, transform methods and tools. In the transnational comparison, in addition to new and reciprocal awareness concerning the shared problems that were being addressed, significant differences emerged between the two national perspectives. Examination of the meanings attributed in Spain and Italy to the concepts of \"employability\" and \"social economy\" indicated that there were different sensibilities and attitudes, as well as composite representations of the possible role of practitioners acting as mediators between work and the socially disadvantaged. Nevertheless, the historical shared situation of the worldwide economic crisis determined a common configuration of tensions and challenges, albeit with different cultural, local and contextual features.\n6. Lesson learned: a discussion: The dimensions that we emphasized as relevant findings of the research project shed light on the sense of moving in the field of work integration. This requires:\n7. Concluding remarks: The paper describes the process of work integration of disadvantaged people as a constellation of different activity systems, strongly related to how different local material and immaterial resources unfold, dealing with criticalities and contradictions. The work integration of people, always relative and contingent, emerges as a result of numerous factors. These are related both to individual features (disability) and to social exchanges, networks and knotworks that are more or less institutionalized, organized and coordinated.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present a transnational research intervention that relies on the qualitative monitoring of disadvantaged people's work integration program. In particular, the paper adopts the concept of networking and knotworking to intercept and describe the ways in which organizational payers shape knowledge in their contexts of work inclusion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is based on a developmental ethnographic research to detect meaningful, situated knowledge related to the activities for work integration of disadvantaged people. Two main techniques, \"at home ethnography\" (Ellis and Bochner, 2000; Hansen, 2006) and participant observation (Alvesson, 2009), were used for gathering data.\nFindings: The paper highlights the existing contradictions within and between the multiple activity systems. The advantages of using the activity theory's lenses are underlined together with two main approaches related to the assumption of a networking and knotworking orientation. The findings also refer to some new paths professionals identified for their daily activity.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a better understanding of the contemporary challenges of working, that is extremely helpful to policy makers and other practitioners, including researchers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Policing in partnership: a case study in crime prevention
|
[
"Police administration",
"Public administration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Policing organisations throughout the Western world are becoming subject to increased levels of accountability. From a financial standpoint policing is \"expensive\" and there is a demand from politicians and the public for \"value for money\". In addition, the police by their very position in society command significant media exposure; because of this, negative representation has a serious impact on the public's trust and confidence in their police service (Larsen and Blair, 2009).\nThe development of multi-agency approaches to crime prevention in the UK: A standard dictionary definition of the nature of multi-agency working would characterise it as \"involving several different organisations that work together towards a shared aim\". Empirical research into the impact of multi-agency or partnership working has a long history, with the roots of the multi-agency approach to crime prevention in the UK established in the 1960s. First came the creation of the National Crime Prevention Centre in 1963, then the organisation of Specialist Crime Prevention Departments within several police forces - following the publication of the Cornish Committee report on the Prevention and Detection of Crime (Home Office, 1965). In the following year, the Standing Committee on Crime Prevention (which gathered representatives from industry and Chambers of Commerce, trade unions, insurance companies, and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)) was established at the Home Office; it provided a basic national infrastructure for crime prevention (Guilling, 1994).\nThe case study: The Decent Homes Impact Study is a joint project between Nottingham City Homes (NCH) and Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University. This two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project has been funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), One Nottingham, and NCH. The project has enjoyed the collaboration of other local organisations such as the Nottingham CDP and Nottingham City Council.\nResearch methodology: Yin (2009) states that case studies are commonly used as a research method in the social sciences, providing examples in areas as diverse as sociology, psychology, community planning, public administration, education, and business studies. Grunbaum (2007) also mentions that case studies have gained a firmer foothold in the social sciences in the last four decades. However, their use in certain areas still remains controversial. For example, Atkinson and Delamont (1993) have questioned their use in the field of education, calling it a \"methodological cop-out and theoretical naivete\".\nKey findings: Levels of crime, and particularly burglary, have in the past been high across Nottingham, and in the BL&B area in particular. This area had seen higher rates of incidence of burglary than the city average, and higher than in similar areas (in terms of tenure type and demographic profile) within the city. Some key findings will be presented in the following sections.\nBurglary reduction: Burglary was reduced by 42 per cent across BL&B (Table I), compared to a city-wide reduction of 21 per cent over the same period. The BL&B statistic was also greater than the reduction seen in similar areas (in terms of tenure and demographic profile) in the city, of 38 per cent. The proportion of burglaries via a window was lower for properties that had had the Secure windows fitted.\nResident satisfaction: NCH's annual customer satisfaction survey (STATUS) indicated that tenants perceived burglary to be less significant an issue since the Secure work was completed. Tenants also appeared to be more satisfied with the general condition and overall quality of their homes. Finally, overall satisfaction with their neighbourhood as a place to live has risen from 58 per cent of tenants being fairly or very satisfied to 64 per cent since the work was completed, an increase of 6 per cent in a short space of time. The tenants consulted as part of the research reported that they felt safer in their homes as a result of having the new windows fitted. Other benefits also widely reported by tenants were improvements in the internal conditions of their homes, which are now warmer and less prone to condensation and damp. Local tenants, councillors and front-line officers all felt that the work had improved the look of the estates, and that investment in the fabric of their homes makes the community feel valued. This \"feel-good\" factor needs to be monitored in future years, when the novelty of the new windows has faded, and the impact on these communities of the government austerity plans (especially of changes in the benefits system) and the economic crisis affecting jobs (especially among the young with few or no qualifications) can be explored.\nConclusion: With a budget approaching PS13 billion and employing upwards of 230,000 operational and support personnel, the UK police service is a significant organisation not only in cost terms but also in terms of its impact on society (Skogan, 1996; Bradford et al., 2009). The police service therefore faces the dual challenge of reducing costs while at the same time maintaining levels of public confidence and trust in the services they provide (Larsen and Blair, 2009; Bradford, 2011).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to outline an exploratory study of how a multi-agency, partnership approach to crime prevention might enable the police more effectively to target their utilisation of resources in order both to reduce local levels of criminality and to improve public confidence. It is set against a backdrop of major police reforms that will require police commanders to demonstrate high levels of accountability in terms of resource and financial utilisation, and to show continuing improvement in levels of public confidence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study approach is adopted; it draws upon both primary and secondary data sources and is framed within a situational approach to crime prevention.\nFindings: There has been a drop in the levels of burglary in those areas where the home improvement initiative (Decent Homes Programme) has been carried out. The tenants consulted as part of the research reported that they felt safer in their homes as a result. Also, their general level of satisfaction with the police and other agencies has improved.\nResearch limitations/implications: There has been an overall drop in levels of reported crime in terms of burglaries across the UK. It may be asked whether such improvement in Nottingham has been due to a genuine improvement in police performance or is as a consequence of the home improvements. The present paper is a single case study, with no opportunity for a comparative analysis across other police force areas. This limitation could be overcome by other researchers involved in similar Decent Homes Programmes in other cities in the UK.\nPractical implications: The research illustrates that multi-agency working may indeed help create an improvement in living conditions for residents. It also identifies the fact that, as a result of successful integrated multi-agency approaches to crime prevention, the police are able to save resources in terms of time spent investigating crime.\nOriginality/value: This paper adds tangible evidence to theoretical discourse on the benefits of multi-agency work in the context of social housing\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
(Endogenous) occupational choices and job satisfaction among recent Spanish PhD recipients
|
[
"Human capital",
"Job satisfaction",
"Skilled workers",
"Jobs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The creation of new knowledge represents a crucial element to reach a sustainable growth pattern and progress towards a knowledge-based economy. The significant expansion of doctoral education, which many European countries experienced during the last decades (Kehm, 2006; Halse and Mowbray, 2011), might represent a stepping stone towards the achievement of these ambitious but necessary objectives (Neumann and Khim-Tan, 2011). Indeed, PhD holders have a key role in fostering innovation, because they represent an important channel through which new knowledge flows from universities to the productive system (Stephan et al., 2005; Auriol, 2010). For this reason, the production of new PhDs might constitute a fundamental contribution of universities in enhancing economic growth and development (Stephan et al., 2004). This positive impact of doctoral education on innovation and economic growth would be especially relevant when PhD holders are directly (and properly) employed in the productive sectors of the economy. However, while industry and the private sector represent a common destination of new PhDs in the USA reality, the academy still remains the main employer of PhD recipients in European countries (as revealed by the data from the \"Career of Doctorate Holders\" surveys[1] in 2006 and 2009). Nevertheless, the career prospects in industry or other private firms and in public administration and government jobs are becoming more and more common over time (Enders, 2002; Schwabe, 2011; Neumann and Khim-Tan, 2011).\n2. Related research: From the seminal studies of, Freeman (1978) and Clark (1996), job satisfaction is nowadays widely accepted as an informative economic variable. The debate as to whether job satisfaction constitutes a good representation of worker utility derived from a job remains on-going. However, job satisfaction is a strong predictor of labour market behaviour, including future job quits, absenteeism and work productivity (see Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2013 for a recent overview). Overall, job satisfaction might be taken as a comprehensive measure of perceived job quality, generated from the individual consideration of all the relevant (monetary and non-monetary) aspects of the job. Hence, in this paper we infer about disparities in job quality across sectors of employment by analysing (conditional) job satisfaction differentials between PhD holders employed in different occupations.\n3. Data and descriptive evidence: We draw on data from two successive waves of the survey conducted by the Agencia per la Qualitat del Sistema Universitari de Catalunya (Quality Assurance Agency for the University System in Catalonia, AQU). The AQU surveys of 2008 and 2011 were carried out to monitoring the labour market situation of PhD holders four years after graduation. The target population comprises all the Spanish-born individuals who were awarded their PhD by the seven Catalan public universities during the academic years 2003-2004 and 2006-2007 for the first and the second waves[3], respectively. The populations of the two graduating cohorts were 1,612 and 1,824 individuals and the questionnaire was completed by 934 in 2008 (response rate of 58 per cent) and by 1,225 in 2011 (response rate of 67 per cent). We restricted the sample to those individuals that had a regular, full-time job at the time of the survey and were under the age of 50 when they completed their PhD[4]. After cleaning for missing values in the variables of interest, we end up with a pooled sample of 1,709 observations.\n4. Employment sector and job satisfaction: The covariate-adjusted job satisfaction differentials are obtained from an OLS[5] regression(s) that relates each of the job satisfaction variables (y) to a set of covariates (x) and to dummies for employment sector (s), such as:\n5. Endogenous occupational choices and job satisfaction: 5.1. Empirical strategy\n6. Discussion and conclusions: This paper has examined differences in the degree of job satisfaction and job domains satisfaction among recent PhD recipients employed in different sectors. The results reveal the existence of significant disparities in job satisfaction between PhD holders working in the academia and those working in other sectors. In general, PhDs working in the public and private sectors are less satisfied than their academic counterparts with the non-pecuniary aspects of their work - i.e. job content and job-skills match. However, those employed in the public and private sectors tend to be more satisfied with the pecuniary aspects of their jobs (i.e. earnings and promotion opportunities among private sector workers), mostly because they tend to earn more and to enjoy better employment conditions (e.g. type of contract and more secure job tenure) than academic workers. On average, when controlling for individual, academic and job characteristics, PhD holders working in universities and research institutes are almost equally satisfied with their jobs. In addition, the main activity developed in the workplace explains part of the job satisfaction differentials between sectors.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse differences in overall job satisfaction and specific job domain satisfaction among PhDs employed in different sectors four years after completing their doctorate degrees. The author take job satisfaction as a comprehensive proxy of perceived job quality. The author draw on data from two successive cohorts of PhD graduates from public universities of Catalonia (Spain).\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, the author estimate covariate-adjusted job satisfaction differentials for PhD holders employed in different employment sectors, namely: university, research institutes, public sector (government and public administration) and private sector. A stepwise inclusion of job-related covariates enables appreciating the underlying mechanisms that that generate the observed job satisfaction differentials across sectors. Second, the author take into account the endogenous sorting of PhDs into different sectors by jointly modelling sector choice and job satisfaction, where the former is assumed to follow a mixed multinomial logit model.\nFindings: The results indicate that PhD holders employed outside academic and research jobs are more satisfied with the pecuniary facets of their work, but significantly less satisfied with non-monetary aspects of job quality. The selectivity-corrected job satisfaction differentials highlight the importance of self-selection and confirm that PhD holders suffer a penalisation for working in non-academic occupations, thus revealing the existence of \"academic rents\".\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper that presents a systematic and consistent analysis of job satisfaction differentials among PhD holders that work in different types of occupations, taking into account that sector choice is an endogenous variable, potentially related to unobserved traits that affect job satisfaction. The results are rich of policy implications, which are especially relevant in the light of the existing debate regarding the excess of PhD in the labour market of several European Countries and their subsequent risk of underemployment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Corporate social responsibility to build strong Brazilian bank brand
|
[
"Branding",
"Corporate social responsibility",
"CSR advertising",
"Brazil",
"Banks",
"Brand awareness",
"Marketing strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Companies' participation in society makes corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspectives integral to the organizational strategy, especially when searching for marketing competitive advantages.Various authors (Bakker et al., 2005; Westley and Vredenburg, 1996) contend that some studies exploring these actions find that CSR creates competitive advantage, primarily in the manufacturing industries. However, within this context, banks have been understudied.Examination of CSR articles published from 1958 through 2008 demonstrated that additional studies are required, in order to advance research, connecting marketing with CSR (Chabowski et al., 2011). Few papers have tested the marketing assets influenced by CSR as financial performance precursors (Hull and Rothenberg, 2008), and for various authors (Luo and Bhattacharya, 2009; Heugens et al., 2007; Hull and Rothenberg, 2008) the influence of multiple marketing assets focused on CSR must still be closely examined.Research reveals that the reliability between bank and customer may be one of the essential factors for the organization to be consumer-oriented (Roy and Shekhar, 2010; Liu and Wu, 2007), leading customers to value the institutional brand. In Brazil, the image of banks presents a paradoxical dichotomy. In popular understanding, banks are organizations that invest money for self-benefit; however, in research like that of Interbrand or BrandFinance, banks usually appear as the country's most valued brands. For McDonald and Lai (2011) this evaluation might be due to strategic efforts related to CSR, mostly because CSR involves a visible return to the community.This current study presents Banco do Brasil (BB), the largest Brazilian bank, and its marketing performance from a CSR perspective. Its purpose is to identify and analyze the CSR actions as mechanisms for strengthening of the organization's brand.\n2. Method: This qualitative exploratory research is a case study, with expository classification (Yin, 1993).The data were collected from in-depth interviews with two executives of BB and the documents \"Banco do Brasil's Agenda 21\" and \"Banco do Brasil 200 years\", both published by BB (Agenda 21, 2004; Banco do Brasil 200, 2008). The secondary data were used to triangulate interview results and to resolve inconsistency with regard to dates and facts.The first interviewee was Mr Reinaldo Kazufumi Yokoyama, Santa Catarina State Superintendent (SuperSC), General Director of the bank's agencies throughout the state. The interview occurred April 25, 2011, at the Superintendent's office. The interviewee has been with the company for 26 years and in his present position since July 2010. The interview lasted 92 minutes. The second interview was with Mr Mauricio Messias, Executive Manager of the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) of Banco do Brasil (SDUManager), who is responsible for all CSR policies of BB, in Brazil and abroad. The interview occurred May 11, 2011, at the Santa Catarina State Superintendence. The interviewee has been with the company for 27 years and in his present position since January 2010. The interview lasted 127 minutes. The interviewees' narratives were recorded, transcribed and summarized. In agreement with Yin (1993), this method does not allow for any statistical generalization, but an analytical one. To develop an unstructured interview, the most important ideas from Huang's and Rust's (2011) studies were incorporated.This study has been conducted in three stages, according to the methodological proposal of Maguire et al. (2004). The first stage is a general narrative of the organizational history. In the second stage, there is a chronological narrative of the achievements crucial to the attainment of corporate planning from the CSR perspective. In the third stage, the main results emerging from the case analysis, with a general framework relating the actions and their adaptation with respect to the conceptual model adopted, are identified. In this part of stage three the managerial and academic implications are verified.2.1 Adopted conceptual framework\n3. Banco do Brasil: Founded in 1808, Banco do Brasil operates under a mixed-economy status (public and private) and is bound to the Ministry of Treasury. It was the first bank to operate in Brazil and is currently the largest financial institution in the country, with a 19.8 percent market share.BB's 2011 Annual Report reflected 109,000 employees, 54 million customers, net profit of R$ 11.7 billion, total assets of R$ 812 billion, with almost 57,000 branches in 3,600 cities located throughout Brazil. One of BB's 2012 goals is to serve 100 percent of Brazil's cities.With a Basle index of 14.1 percent, Banco do Brasil presents a commercial acquisition balance abroad of US$ 21.3 billion. It is the largest third-party resource manager in Latin America, with R$ 360 billion. The balance of the agribusiness portfolio is approximately R$ 75 billion.Its brand is one of the most valuable in the country (Interbrand (2011) and BrandFinance (2011) indexes), having received the distinction of being first in reputation among Brazilian banks in 2006, granted by the US-based Reputation Institute, in a survey involving 25 countries. In the US it holds the status of \"Financial Holding Company\", granted by Federal Reserve Bank - FED, which allows BB to perform a wide range of bank activities in association with local banks operating within North American territories.With regards to sustainability, besides the actions pointed out in this case study, BB was elected by Espanha Management & Excellence (M&E) consultancy as the third most sustainable bank in Latin America. Additionally, it has adhered to \"Principles for Responsible Investment - PRI\", from BB-DTVM, in order to enable the inclusion of social, environmental and corporate governance issues to analyze practices and to manage investment.\n4. CSR and branding as brand value creators: Organizations are being asked to take a proactive position relevant to their CSR and to structure themselves to meet this new business paradigm (Bhattacharya et al., 2009; Liu and Wu, 2007).CSR is a form of management defined by the organization's ethical relationship with its stakeholders and the setting of goals that encourage sustainable development of society, while preserving environmental and cultural resources for future generations (Liedekerke and Dubbink, 2008; McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). It is composed of several principles, such as ethics in business, organizational citizenship, sustainability, environmental responsibility, and organizational philanthropy (Liedekerke and Dubbink, 2008). For the authors, it refers to the actions of companies in search of aligning their actions with the expectations of the environment in which they are conducting business.For several authors (McDonald and Rundle-Thiele, 2008; Gildea, 1994), consumers, besides wanting to receive competitive prices and excellent service, want to know how the companies they do business with behave in society. Thus, the actions addressing CSR efforts are publicized to stakeholders through communication developed by the companies themselves (Morsing and Schultz, 2006). According to the authors, messages on social business initiatives have the power to evoke strong positive reactions among the stakeholders.Despite being rooted in corporations, communication is one of the most controversial aspects of CSR, because while companies want their stakeholders to be aware of their actions, they fear the criticism and heightened expectations that these kinds of communication initiatives may generate (Heugens and Dentchev, 2007). For the authors, miscommunication of CSR actions and the reasons for their adoption, contribute to the feeling of anxiety in society, and it may be perceived as merely advertising or public relations. For Van Marrewijk (2003) each company must combine market objectives with the alignment of business strategy as a response to circumstances in which it operates.In research with three major TV networks in the USA, Peterson and Hermans (2004) evaluated the use of CSR in US bank commercials in 1992, 1997 and 2002. It was found that banks devote a considerable amount of their television advertising dollars to the subject, especially to the areas of the physical environment, consumption, opportunities for women, health and safety, and patriotism. In addition, the percentage of CSR-themed ads in 1997 was significantly higher than in 1992, and in 2002, it was higher than in 1997.In this sense, studies suggest that CSR is positively related to the organization's economic performance (Husted and Allen, 2000; Heugens and Dentchev, 2007), and that companies can gain a competitive advantage with its implementation (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001; Heugens and Dentchev, 2007). With a sample of more than 840 banks, Ohnemus (2009) confirmed that there is a significant correlation between the brand and the financial performance in the industry. The survey found that banks with a brand strategy have yielded up to 3 percent more for their shareholders when compared to their non-brand strategy competitors. The analysis also reveals that in the current strategic environment, branding continues being one of the few ways, if not the only way, for a bank to forge a competitive advantage.Branding involves processes related to communication with associations that differentiate one brand from competing ones (Ohnemus, 2009). For the author, new approaches to branding suggest analyzing the interaction between different stakeholders, the strategic implications of different approaches and the link between brand and financial performance.The benefits of CSR, such as increased profit, customer loyalty, and a positive attitude toward the brand, have been widely studied by McDonald and Rundle-Thiele (2008), and in the light of these positive outcomes, CSR strategies were adopted by the international banking community.Although the corporate world recognizes branding as an important marketing activity, executives still find it challenging to present branding's value in financial terms (Madden et al., 2006). Often, executives state that marketing managers make decisions based on intuition and on questionable data (Yeung and Ramasamy, 2007). Reporting the metrics of brand equity enables marketing professionals to communicate with the audiences they are typically kept at a distance from, by being able to use the financial language that shareholders and directors appreciate (Srivastava et al., 1998; Madden et al., 2006). To this purpose, Raggio and Leone (2007) propose a new conceptual model, establishing brand equity and brand value as distinct constructs. Brand equity moderates the impact of marketing activities in consumer behavior, representing one of the many factors that contribute to brand value, which implicates a business perspective.\n5. CSR as marketing strategy in a Brazilian bank: In 1808, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese empire and by approval of the Prince Regent, Banco do Brasil was created. From 1905 on, BB has also taken on the function of providing support to national development.5.1 Understanding the CSR concept\n6. Conclusions: The purpose of the study was to identify and analyze the set of corporate social responsibility actions as a support for strengthening an organizational brand.In 2003, with the creation of SDU, BB formalized its interest and willingness to adopt marketing processes that could involve CSR concepts. After examining the literature, identifying the actions taken by BB, and the comprehension of BB key executives, it has been shown that these CSR actions reflect the intention of managing responses to social, economic and environmental demands. These actions and the performed communication give support to the theory that they strengthening the brand among stakeholders.This strengthening can be seen through brand rankings. In BrandFinance's ranking (Table II, using the royalty relief method) BB's brand has risen in both the overall assessment and the specific evaluation of banks. The period coincides with the beginning of its CSR actions. At this ranking, especially the position of BB became consolidated. Although it cannot be credited solely to communication of CSR actions, according to its executives a representative part of brand development is due to these efforts. Communication of CSR activities helps to strengthen the brand (Ohnemus, 2009), because there is significant correlation between brand and financial performance in the banking sector.In Table III, (which uses the financial performance and the role of the brand in the purchase intent) Interbrand's ranking demonstrates the highlighted position of BB's brand. Two facts are important:1. brands from all sectors are included within these rankings; and2. BB is the first among banks.Throughout this study, customers commented on the connections they had with their banks, and BB's achievements were highlighted specifically. The organization has three distinct areas for investment in advertising:1. product;2. sports; and3. CSR actions.According to its executives, a significant portion of BB's communication promotes CSR actions. Thus, the construct \"Stakeholders\", which deals with perception and organizational reputation, as well as the construct \"Organizational Process\", which deals with the perception of stakeholder power within Scott and Lane's (2000) model, inform understanding of how BB's brand has been strengthened by CSR actions.The respondent executives are aware that the knowledge obtained by the internal work teams and those in the external group, customers or not, is vital to the success of activities approaching CSR. This became clear due to the investment made by the organization in awareness training, in communication with the various levels involved, and in personnel development.BB, as the main financial institution in Brazil, assists several stakeholders aiming at more wide-reaching CSR initiatives. Mutual support between the organization and society as a way of valuing the people involved and the organization's brand, directly addresses Scott and Lane's (2000) construct \"Desired Organizational Image\". BB has taken an extensive agenda of commitments to society, acting directly on the basic education system, on slave labor or discrimination of any kind. These initiatives have cultivated a positive brand assessment by Brazilians, as shown in Tables II and III, and are supported by the \"Stakeholders\" and \"Stakeholders Value Judgment\" constructs, the studied model, which defend that perception and social pressure give greater or smaller credit to the organizational reputation.Scott and Lane's (2000) model, adopted with adaptations in this study, has confirmed that the organization, from the stakeholders (the understanding of the bank's reputation and its connection with social, environmental and economic issues), the perception of stakeholders (the value given to the organization, based on the pressure that the company charges the market, through actions and communication) and internal processing (acting directly geared to sustainability issues), has met the requirements that a brand requires in order for the construction of an identity based on attitudes toward CSR.6.1 Research implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the set of corporate social responsibility actions of a Brazilian bank as support to the strengthening of an organizational brand. The specific scope is to discuss the reflections of sustainable actions adopted for the recognition of the organization's brand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study, based on Yin, and in-depth interviews with those responsible for the sustainability department of the studied organization were adopted.\nFindings: - Literature and the understanding of the organization's executives, when compared to actions adopted by Banco do Brasil, allow the conclusion that the set of corporate social responsibility actions reflects, in its instrumental use, the intention of managing answers to social, economical and environmental demands, and in its conceptual use has helped in strengthening the financial institution's brand.\nOriginality/value: - The paper focuses on the set of corporate social responsibility actions adopted by the largest financial institution in Brazil and its relationship with brand strengthening. It is one of the few studies examining the efforts of corporate social responsibility in a bank's brand.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Explaining why employee-customer orientation influences customers' perceptions of the service encounter
|
[
"Employee‐customer orientation",
"Job satisfaction",
"Employee commitment",
"Customer's perception of interaction quality",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Employees",
"Customers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The marketing concept has been defined in the literature as \"a philosophy of business management, based upon a company-wide acceptance of the need for customer orientation\" (McNamara, 1972, p. 51). Since customer orientation (CO) serves as a foundational element of the marketing concept (Brockman et al., 2012; Jaworksi and Kohli, 1993; Zablah et al., 2012) its implementation in service organizations is accomplished through customer-oriented employees and their interactions with customers (Donavan et al., 2004; Zablah et al., 2012). With the growth of competition in the service economy along with more recent global crises, CO and the delivery of better service quality to customers becomes ever more important (Farrell and Oczkowski, 2012). Given the intangible and interactive nature of services, customers' evaluation of service quality is often based on the attitudes and behaviors of employees (Hennig-Thurau, 2004; Teng and Barrows, 2009). Consequently, the service-worker's level of CO plays an important factor in performance outcomes and a firm's success (Bitner et al., 1990; Bove and Johnson, 2000; Bowen and Schneider, 1985; Brown et al., 2002; Donavan and Hocutt, 2001; Farrell and Oczkowski, 2012; Zablah et al., 2012; Homburg et al., 2011b). That is, since employees play an integral role in service delivery, those with higher levels of CO will develop more positive interactions with customers; this then influences a customer's perception of service quality delivered by an employee, and the customer's overall satisfaction with the service.Although theory and some empirical research (Brady and Cronin, 2001a, b; Dean, 2002; Donavan and Hocutt, 2001; Hennig-Thurau, 2004; Rafaeli et al., 2008; Susskind et al., 2007) support the relationship between CO and perceived performance, much of this research assumed a direct effect, thus failing to explicate how and why CO is related to a customer's perception of service quality and satisfaction. For example, the study of Susskind et al. (2007) found that CO accounted for roughly one-third of the variance in guest satisfaction. The authors suggested that the influence of other variables may help explain the linkages proposed in their model. Therefore, the first objective of this paper is to answer the fundamental question of why and how individual CO relates to the customer experience. In this paper, customer experience is defined as the employee-customer interaction quality (IQ) (a major component of service quality) and customer satisfaction (CS). Specifically, we tested the influence of employee CO on a customer's perception of IQ directly and through two mediating variables, employee's job satisfaction (JS) and organizational commitment (OC). By focusing on JS and employee commitment as intervening variables, we hope to contribute to the emerging CO literature by more fully explaining how and why employee's level of CO enhance the customer experience.The second objective of this study is to propose a different research design to investigate the linkages suggested in this research model. A majority of previous research examining the impact of CO on the customer experience used a one-sample research design. That is, only an employee or customer sample was applied in previous research (for an exception see Susskind et al. (2007)). By employing a two-sample research design with employee and customer data, we respond to the reported limitations in Dean (2002, 2007), Donavan and Hocutt (2001), Hennig-Thurau (2004), Susskind et al. (2007) and Zablah et al. (2012), all of whom suggested the use of data from both customers and employees in research attempting to establish the CO-perceived performance linkage. Therefore, the methodological contribution of this research should provide further insights into the relationship between CO and customer responses to dining experiences as well as reduce the common-method bias present in previous studies.\n2 Conceptual development: 2.1 Customer orientation\n3 Method: 3.1 Data collection\n4 Results: 4.1 Description of participants\n5 Discussion: This study was motivated by a desire to understand the relationship between employee level CO and a customer's perception of IQ, which is viewed as a major component of service quality. We focused on JS and OC to explain this linkage. Our results show that employee level CO was significantly related to customer's perception of IQ, which in turn positively affects CS. Further, we found that the relationship between CO and IQ were explained by the degree to which the employee is satisfied with his/her job and by the degree to which he/she is committed to the organization. Below we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.Although some researchers have empirically demonstrated the relationship between CO and the customer experience (e.g. SQ and CS), the link between employee level CO, a dispositional variable, and IQ has not been empirically tested previously. Our results support the propositions concerning a positive link between a dispositional CO variable and a customer's perception of IQ. A second contribution of this study lies in drawing together the JS and OC literatures to jointly explain how and why a surface trait personality variable (CO) influences a customer's experience. While most of previous studies assumed a direct effect between CO and a customer's perceptions, the only research that attempted to better explain the relationship between CO and SQ took a marketing perspective (Brady and Cronin, 2001a, b). Thus, by incorporating an organizational behavior perspective to develop its mediating variables, the present study furthers CO theory and highlights the important linkages between the marketing and organizational behavior fields. Our findings support previous suggestions that employee level CO influences job attitudes (Donavan et al., 2004;). Further, the results presented in this study support the suggestion that JS and OC are key drivers of employee performance, and that high quality interaction between frontline employees and customers is likely to positively affect a customer's consumption experience. The third contribution of this study lies in its research design. Although researchers have put considerable effort into investigating the relationship between the various forms of CO and a customer's perceptions, to the best of our knowledge only one study used data linking employee with customer responses. However, the employee and customer data in the study of Susskind et al. (2007) was aggregated to the organizational level while the present study aggregated the data to the individual employee level of analysis. Overall, the pattern of results reported here suggests that the higher an employee rates his/her CO level, the more the employee is satisfied with and committed to the job; in turn, customers will view their interaction with such an employee higher than usual, resulting in increasing levels of CS.This study has important practical implications for service managers and their organizations. From a human resources management perspective, this study highlights the importance of attracting, developing, and retaining employees who display a customer-oriented personality. Thus, best practices in selection/hiring procedures should be implemented to ensure that front-line service employees meet the traits of an ideal customer-oriented profile. For example, the CO construct used in this study could be given to prospective customer-contact position applicants as part of the selection process. Based on their CO levels, employers may be able to better place the right applicants into the right job. Those offered a position within a company, but with lower levels of CO, should go through specific interventions that may increase their levels of CO. Alternatively, employees with lower levels of CO should be placed in positions in which contact with customers is not extensive. In the case of a restaurant organization, instead of waiting tables or bartending, such employees should first start as bussers and move on gradually to more customer-contact tasks as the interventions/training take place. These interventions should focus on honing the employee's ability to pamper customers, to correctly read customers' needs, to develop personal relationships with customers, and to deliver good service on time.Interventions should also be conducted with supervisors. A recent study found that psychological empowerment exerts a positive influence on an employee's CO (Gazzoli et al., 2011). According to Lee and Koh (2001), empowerment is \"the psychological state of a subordinate perceiving four dimensions of meaningfulness, competence, self-determination and impact, which is affected by the empowering behaviors of the supervisor.\" Thus, training supervisors on how to empower their employees may be crucial for the development of customer-oriented workers. Service organizations having an empowerment culture may enhance employees' predisposition to meet customers' needs. If employees find meaning in their tasks, they may be more inclined to give their customers individual attention and strive to correct any customer service related problem (need to pamper the customer). Employees who are confident about their abilities (self-efficacy) are more likely to feel that it is important to anticipate their guests' needs (need to read customers' needs), and find pleasure in delivering a good service on time (need for delivery). Finally, if employees have influence and control over their jobs, they may be inclined to exercise initiative in improving interactions and developing closer relationships with their customers (need for personal relationship).\n6 Limitation and direction for future research: It is important to recognize the limitations of this study. First the data used in this research was collected from one restaurant chain, thus representing a unique service culture. Further, since the data came from only one service industry, generalization of these findings to other service areas may be debatable. Nevertheless, while it is important to maximize sample size and diversity (e.g. several industries) researchers should not fail to remember the rich insights that data from smaller companies, teams or departments may provide for empirical research and theory development. We believe that the two-way sample design with customer and employee data applied in this research provides some confidence that the results obtained in this study are due to substantive relationships between the variables. As stated by Schneider et al. (1980) studies that apply an employee-customer evaluation design may be able to better capture the relationships present in the attitudes between customers and employees. Second, although training was provided to restaurant managers and employees on how to collect the data and therefore reduce bias, we still relied on managers to collect data from employees and the employees to collect data from their respective customers.The findings of this study provide few directions for future research. First, researchers could use other outcome variables such as customer perception of service value and loyalty intentions. In addition, financial variables such as unit total revenues and profitability could be integrated in the research model for a multilevel design approach. Last, other mediating mechanisms from an organizational behavior perspective could be tested and help explain why CO influences a customer's perceptions. For example, instead of an overall employee commitment construct, researchers could investigate how the multidimensional nature of employee commitment (e.g. affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment) may influence the relationship between CO and perceived performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine why employee-level customer orientation (CO) influences the customer experience in a service setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Given the dyadic nature of the study, a two-way sample design was used which integrated employee responses with customer responses. A total of 186 employees and 1,117 customers participated in the study. The data was aggregated at the employee level of analysis.\nFindings: - The study found that job satisfaction and employee commitment mediated the relationship between employee-level CO and a customer's perception of interaction quality. Additionally, interaction quality is shown to be positively related to customer satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Although the design of the research utilized data from both customers and employees from several restaurant outlets in the USA, all the restaurants belonged to one chain (reflecting a single corporate culture), and thus it may be difficult to generalize the results.\nOriginality/value: - This study extends the CO theory by explaining how and why CO affects a customer's perceptions from an organizational behavior (OB) perspective, with job satisfaction and organizational commitment as mediators. This is important as the few studies that attempted to explain the effect of CO on customers' experience through mediating variables took a marketing perspective instead of an OB view. Practically, this research highlights the important role that human resource management may have from the interactive marketing perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Stakeholder power and corporate social performance: the ownership effect
|
[
"Ownership structure",
"Stakeholder theory",
"Social performance",
"CSP",
"Stakeholder posture",
"Stakeholder power"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The empirical literature on the implementation of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept has been criticized for the lack of some factors, other than financial performance, which may affect the level of corporate social performance (CSP) (Margolis and Walsh, 2003; Orlitzky et al., 2003; Wood, 2010). It has been shown that the power exercised by some stakeholders is one of the levers that leads to better organizational CSP score (Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito, 2010; Henriques and Sadorsky, 1996; Kassinis and Vafeas, 2002; Peloza and Papania, 2008).\nLiterature review: Stakeholder power\nResearch methodology: Sample selection\nResults: We have estimated three regression models: one model for the data related to year 2006, one model for data related to year 2007 and one model for pooled data related to both year 2006 and 2007. Table I gives the results for the three estimated models.\nDiscussions: Hypotheses related to shareholder voting power\nImplications for research: Our contribution to the stakeholder theory literature lies in the presentation of an empirical analysis of stakeholder power which, until now, has not exceeded the stage of normative developments. The aim of our study was to present a positive approach to stakeholder theory that reconciles between the descriptive and instrumental perspectives of the theory away from philosophical and normative recommendations that have dominated the field of reflection to date. This objective seems at first glance to go against the ideas of Donaldson and Preston (1995) that descriptive and instrumental stakeholder theory plays only a secondary role to the normative perspective. However, the survival of the stakeholder theory is subject to the proposal of models with some empirical validity that can provide tangible results in the hope of influencing pragmatic leadership behaviours. Our research shows that it is quite tenable to test hypotheses from the stakeholder theory. Ullmann's (1985) model is an illustration. Furthermore, our research has avoided the separation thesis between the ethical and the economic spheres challenged by Freeman (1999). Indeed, our empirical model outperforms traditional proposals of the financial impact on social performance. We incorporated the interests of shareholders in a general model that takes into account different sensitivities to other stakeholder groups. Thus, we have tried to describe in the best way, the interaction of the company with a range of stakeholders when measuring CSP.\nManagerial implications: We distinguish theoretical and practical implications.\nConclusion: The results of multivariate tests indicated that the CSP level of French companies is influenced by some stakeholder pressure. Indeed, we sought to know from putting into practice Ullmann's model, if shareholder voting power influences French companies' commitment to CSR principles. We found that companies with dispersed ownership and containing a high proportion of institutional shareholders have a greater chance of achieving efficiency in terms of stakeholder relationships management. With regard to the influence of company strategic posture and its financial performance, it appears that the implementation of environmental management standard ISO 14001 has a positive influence on CSP level, while financial performance carries a destructive effect.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the power of one of the primary organizational stakeholders (shareholders) in the development of a corporate social performance (CSP) score. Few research works in the CSP empirical literature have studied the relationship between stakeholder power and CSP.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Stakeholder theory is used as a theoretical framework to explain how shareholder voting power can influence the CSP level of French publicly listed companies. Stakeholder theory is tested through the operationalization of Ullmann's (1985) three-dimensional model. Hypotheses related to shareholder voting power, strategic posture and financial performance are formulated through a literature review. A Data Envelopment Analysis approach was presented as a strong tool to measure CSP level. Multiple linear regressions were undertaken to test the hypotheses in a sample of 129 French companies between 2006 and 2007.\nFindings: The results indicate that companies with dispersed ownership and high proportion of institutional shareholders record a high score of CSP. Strategic posture measured by the implementation of environmental certification standard was positively and significantly related to CSP. Financial performance does not affect significantly the level of CSP.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to empirically analyse the relationship between Ullmann's three-dimensional model and CSP level in the French context. It offers to managers a better understanding of the power that certain stakeholders can use to acquire satisfaction.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Assessing the model risk with respect to the interest rate term structure under Solvency II
|
[
"Interest rate risk",
"Solvency II",
"Internal model",
"Rating‐based credit risk model",
"Credit risk",
"Interest",
"Interest rates",
"Credit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Due to the large capital investments in interest rate sensitive assets in the insurance industry, the measurement of market risks, arising from changes in the interest rate term structure, is of great importance. The European supervisory system Solvency II provides one separate sub-module as a part of the market risk module for quantifying interest rate risk in the latest proposed standard model of 2010/2011. In 2011, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority in Germany (BaFin) published the results of the quantitative impact study QIS 5, applying the standard model of 2010/2011, for the German insurance industry. The reporting reflects the high relevance of interest rate risk in particular for life and health insurers (BaFin, 2011, pp. 16, 18, 21)[1]. Therefore, the aim of this is paper is to quantify the risk for corporate and government bond investments with a partial internal risk model that accounts for interest rate and credit risk and thereby focusing on different interest rate processes for model risk. We concentrate on the asset class of corporate and government bonds, where the credit risk (including spread risk) has to be quantified beside interest rate risk. Furthermore, diversification benefits by integrating both, the interest rate and credit risk, in an internal model are analyzed and the sensitivity of misestimation by calibrating the input parameters is identified.The European Union (EU) solvency regulation Solvency II, characterized by a three pillar structure in accordance with the European banking supervision Basel II/III, will impose risk-based capital requirements for insurance companies. In general, besides a scenario-based standard model, the regulators allow for deriving solvency capital requirements (SCRs) with a fully internal or partial internal approach (European Parliament and the Council, 2009, Article 112, Nos 1-7). The different methods deriving the SCR are described in detail in Gatzert and Wesker (2012). The standard model of Solvency II is structured by a bottom-up approach consisting of six modules to calculate the basic SCR (BSCR). Gatzert and Martin (2012) examine the market risk module, covering the risk resulting from the variation of the market value of financial instruments, and therein the sub-modules equity risk, interest rate risk and credit risk. They propose a partial internal model that fully accounts for equity, interest rate and credit risk for the asset class of stocks and bonds. Consequences for the insurers' investment behavior, caused by the new European solvency regulations, are analyzed by Fitch Ratings (Piozot et al., 2011). First, one main result is an increasing attractiveness and thus an increasing investment in higher-rated corporate and government bonds in general. Especially bond exposures with shorter maturities will be preferred due to the duration-based approach in Solvency II (Gatzert and Martin, 2012)[2]. Second, Fitch Ratings (Piozot et al., 2011) prognosticate a rising demand for government bonds issued by countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) or borrowings guaranteed by one of these states caused by a special treatment for these assets. Following Solvency II, no solvency capital for credit risk is required for investments from bond issuers that are members of the EEA as mentioned before, e.g. Greece or Ireland (EIOPA, 2010).In the literature, stochastic interest rate models are implemented, e.g. in Gerstner et al. (2008) and Graf et al. (2011) to specify the insurer's asset portfolio process of interest sensitive investments. While Gerstner et al. (2008) introduce the model from Cox et al. (1985) in a life insurance asset-liability model, the short rate model from Vasicek (1977) is applied by Graf et al. (2011) regarding the asset dynamic in the context of participating life insurance. In general, the literature on short term interest rate models and the valuation of interest derivates, such as bonds, is rather extensive (Merton, 1973; Vasicek, 1977; Brennan and Schwartz, 1977; Dothan, 1978; Cox et al., 1980, 1985; Brennan and Schwartz, 1979; Ho and Lee, 1986; Hull and White, 1990; Pearson and Sun, 1994). Furthermore, several papers have focused on the comparison and estimation of different short rate dynamics. Chan et al. (1992) empirically investigate different models for the short rate of interest fitted on the same data in one econometric framework. This procedure allows them to identify and compare the performance of eight interest rate models. Further investigations of short rate models and the calibration can also be found, e.g. in Nowman (1998), de Jong and Santa-Clara (1999), Duan and Simonato (1999) and Faff and Gray (2006). Song et al. (2012) examine the behavior of various short rate models concerning bond investments. In their analysis, they exclude credit risk but focus on risk measurement as the value at risk and the expected shortfall in terms of interest rate risk. To account for credit risk of defaultable bond exposures, reduced-form credit risk models are extensively researched in the literature (Jarrow and Turnbull, 1995; Das and Tufano, 1996; Jarrow et al., 1997; Duffie and Singleton, 1997; Lando, 1998; Duffie and Singleton, 1999).In this paper, we focus on the asset side of an insurer and quantify the SCRs for corporate and government bond investments in terms of interest rate and credit risk. The SCR is calculated with a partial internal model as well as the standard model of Solvency II (QIS 5). In this context, particular attention is paid to model risk of the SCR for interest rate risk, where the changes in the term structure of interest are determined by a short term interest rate process. Thus, the question arises which model risk results from the model selection of the short rate dynamic in the partial internal approach with respect to the SCR for bond investments, also compared to the Solvency II standard model in the current calibration (QIS 5). For quantifying the market risk of bond exposures, two types of risk, interest rate and credit risk, have to be distinguished. Based on the partial internal model for the SCR of bonds introduced by Gatzert and Martin (2012), we extent their work by focusing and comparing the application of different one factor short term interest rate models. Beside the Solvency II standard approach, three interest rate models in a continuous time framework are considered to derive the risk-free interest term structure. Besides the models' characteristics, calibration methods are introduced. In the numerical analysis, we concentrate on the interest rate models from Merton (1973), Vasicek (1977) and Cox et al. (1985), which are preferred in the bond valuation literature due to the affine term structure to calculate bond prices analytically. In addition, to integrate credit risk, the rating-based credit risk model published by Jarrow et al. (1997) is adopted. The model of Jarrow et al. (1997) describes the rating transition or rather default process of defaultable exposures with respect to credit quality. This process is defined by a time-homogenous Markov chain with a distribution determined by transition rates. Finally, the dimension of diversification benefit between interest rate and credit risk is analyzed.Our findings show that model selection of the short rate process can lead to a considerable change in the SCRs for interest rate risk with a partial internal model for corporate and government bonds due to particular characteristics of the different interest rate models. The influence of interest rate risk to the total capital requirements for the market risk of bonds is strongly dependent on the credit rating of the considered bonds. For bonds with higher credit quality and higher maturities, the numerical analysis shows that the SCR differ substantially when changing the underlying short rate model. Speculative grade credit quality assets are primarily affected by credit risk so that the interest rate model choice is nearly independent from the SCRs.The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The short rate modeling framework, the properties of affine term structure models and methods for calibration are introduced in Section 2. The procedure for the SCR quantification of bond exposures with an internal model approach and the standard model of Solvency II are presented in Section 3. Section 4 contains the results of the numerical analysis, and Section 5 concludes.\n2 Short rate models: a time-homogenous framework: 2.1 One factor short rate models in continuous time\n3 Model framework: 3.1 Partial internal approach\n4 Numerical results: In the numerical analysis, we present the SCRs for corporate and government bonds using four different models for interest rate risk also including credit risk (and spread risk): a partial internal approach distinguished between three affine short rate term structure models, Merton (1973), Vasicek (1977) as well as Cox et al. (1985) and the standard model of Solvency II. After presenting the input parameters, the different interest rate term structure and the associated zero coupon bond price, determined by each interest rate process, are shown. In a next step, the impact of the model selection on the SCR is compared for single bonds and portfolio of bonds including model risk with respect to parameter calibration of the short term interest rate models. Finally, we separately analyze the SCR for interest rate risk as a function of coupon payment and maturity as well as credit risk as a function of credit quality and maturity. All numerical results are given in percentage values of the invested capital to the assets. Monte Carlo methods are employed for the SCR calculation in the internal model with 100,000 paths[28].4.1 Input parameters\n5 Conclusions: In this paper, we examine the model risk of measuring the SCRs for corporate and government bonds with a partial internal model in the context of Solvency II. A special focus in the analysis is laid on interest rate risk, being a significant important position in the SCR calculation, in particular for life and health insurers. Three approaches for modeling the interest term structure are considered: the short rate model from Merton (1973), Vasicek (1977) and Cox et al. (1985), all including the benefit of an affine term structure to valuate interest rate sensitive assets analytically. To obtain comparability, the short rate models for interest are estimated based on a common interest rate time series. In addition to interest rate risk, bond assets are primarily affected by credit risk that is also integrated in the internal approach and modeled by the credit risk approach from Jarrow et al. (1997). The credit risk model is based on the assets' credit quality and quantifies the risk by the probability of changes in the credit rating due to default. Hence, this procedure includes credit in the internal approach. Finally, the SCRs with the internal model and the three interest rate models are compared with the results of the Solvency II standard model for different corporate and government bonds, i.e. different maturity and credit quality. With respect to the standard approach of Solvency II, we analyze the interest rate risk as well as the spread risk sub-module that contains credit risks.Our results concerning the different short rate models for measuring the SCR for interest rate risk show that the model selection can have a large impact on the SCR for corporate and government bonds. Considerable differences result in particular for high rated bonds and thereby increase with increasing maturity of the exposure. Regarding bond exposures with lower credit quality, the analysis demonstrates a negligibly small impact on the selection of the short rate process and the internal models approximate each other, as a consequence of high requirements for credit risk. For investment grade bonds, however, the short rate model selection plays a significant role for the SCR calculation in the internal model. One main risk driver for interest rate risk is given by the volatility of the underlying short rate process: an increase in the volatility of the interest rate process implicates an increasing SCR for investment grade assets. A comparative analysis of higher rated bond exposures with the internal and the standard model always induces the lowest SCR level using the model from Cox et al. (1985), followed by Vasicek (1977) and Merton (1975). The difference in the SCR can be explained by the varying volatility, even though all models are calibrated on the case data set. In general, the SCR resulting from the standard model of Solvency II is in accordance with the model from Vasicek (1977). Regarding interest rate risk only (without credit risk), the same model order for the SCR applies.Furthermore, an analysis of single investment grade corporate and government bonds emphasizes the significant model risk for interest rate with respect to short rate models. When comparing the standard model with the internal models for single bond assets, the SCR for interest rate risk vary from a -45 percent lower SCR (Cox et al., 1985) up to 56 percent higher requirements (Merton, 1975). However, for a portfolio of corporate and governments bonds, the fluctuation is reduced to -36 percent (Cox et al., 1985) and 26 percent (Merton, 1975). The model from Vasicek (1977) is approximately in accordance with the requirements given by the Solvency II approach.Diversification benefits, in general, represent an important aspect for calculating a total SCR for corporate and government bond investments implying interest rate and credit risk (including spread risk). For our examined bonds, the benefit derived by diversification is up to 40 percent for single bonds and up to 31 percent for the portfolio of bonds. Thus, diversification is of high importance to the total SCR of bond exposures. For investment grade bonds, the largest diversification benefit is achieved by the Cox et al. (1985) model, however, regarding the diversification in absolute values, the benefit is approximately equal. Beside the model selection, moreover, the input parameters of the short term interest rate models are detected as sensitive to calibration. The starting value and, in particular, the standard deviation are identified as a significant risk driver and are highly prone to errors in the input calibration.In summary, the measurement of interest rate risk with a partial internal model in the context of Solvency II is affected by model risk in several ways. First and foremost, the selection of the process for modeling the risk-free interest term structure is of relevance. Different short rate models partly deliver diverging results for single bond assets. In our analysis, the model from Cox et al. (1985) always induce the lowest SCRs compared to the other internal models as well as the Solvency II standard model. Considering a portfolio of bonds the same result remains, while the SCR with the internal models converg for low-rated bonds. Furthermore, to provide an adequate reflection of the insurers' risk situation, the input parameters should be critically analyzed. In addition to interest rate risk, credit risk is of high of importance to low-rated bonds and not sufficiently reflected in the standard model of Solvency II.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Interest rate risk, i.e. the risk of changes in the interest rate term structure, is of high relevance in insurers' risk management. Due to large capital investments in interest rate sensitive assets such as bonds, interest rate risk plays a considerable role for deriving the solvency capital requirement (SCR) in the context of Solvency II. This paper seeks to address these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In addition to the Solvency II standard model, the author applies the model of Gatzert and Martin for introducing a partial internal model for the market risk of bond exposures. After introducing calibration methods for short rate models, the author quantifies interest rate and credit risk for corporate and government bonds and demonstrates that the type of process can have a considerable impact despite comparable underlying input data.\nFindings: - The results show that, in general, the SCR for interest rate risk derived from the standard model of Solvency II tends to the SCR achieved by the short rate model from Vasicek, while the application of the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross model leads to a lower SCR. For low-rated bonds, the internal models approximate each other and, moreover, show a considerable underestimation of credit risk in the Solvency II model.\nOriginality/value: - The aim of this paper is to assess model risk with focus on bonds in the market risk module of Solvency II regarding the underlying interest rate process and input parameters.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring the potential effects of expatriate adjustment direction
|
[
"Cultural intelligence",
"Cross-cultural adjustment",
"Adjustment direction",
"Two-way flow expatriation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The cross-cultural adjustment (CCA) of assigned expatriates within and across different cultural and national boundaries has been an issue of critical significance in the international management literature (Hofstede, 2001; Molinsky et al., 2012; Selmer, 2001, 2006; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997; Ward and Kennedy, 1993). Starting with Black and Mendenhall (1991) and others in the 1990s, expatriate adjustment theories and models have been developed in the psychological, socio-cultural, and human resource management domains. However, only scant literature exits in examining empirical regularities relating to the direction of cultural flows in describing the CCA of expatriates (Zhang, 2013). The absence of definitive a priori theoretical explanations of the observed effects of two-way flows of cultural asymmetry on CCA requires empirical research which can discover and therefore induce potential theoretical explanations. This paper attempts to explore and discover whether the success of the expatriation process depends not only on the expatriates' competencies and local cultural environments, but also on the effects of the direction of cultural flows that an expatriate is assigned.\nBackground and research questions: CCA\nMethod: Sample\nResults: The estimates for examining the propositions between the various facets of cultural intelligence and CCA are presented in Table II. To examine P1, the full sample results clearly reveal that only the motivational dimension of CQ is statistically significant for both SCA (b=0.286, p\nDiscussion: The results uncover some interesting empirical relationships and in part confirm some previous propositions. The importance of motivational cultural intelligence has previously been identified by (e.g. Ang et al., 2007; Ramalu et al., 2011; Templer et al., 2006; Williams, 2008) for SCA and by (e.g. Ang et al., 2007; Williams, 2008) for PCA. Our findings endorse the credibility of these previous results, and underscore the importance of strong relationships between expatriates' motivational cultural intelligence and CCA. An important implication of this repeatedly same finding across diverse samples, across different methods, and across various studies is that, high motivational CQ will direct successful SCA and PCA.\nLimitations and implications for future study: In summary, our results suggest the possible existence of some important relations for explaining expatriate CCA. We have offered some tentative theoretical explanations for the emergence of these findings. Certain limitations, however, should be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings of the study, and these limitations specified below provide avenues for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The expansion of the phenomenon of two-way flow expatriation due to the accelerated process of globalization has resulted in an increasing need for a better understanding of cross-cultural transitions. Given the absence of convincing a priori theoretical explanations, as part of an inductive discovery process, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between cultural intelligence (CQ), job position, and cross-cultural adjustment (CCA) for expatriates.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Explicit consideration is given to uncovering the potential importance of cultural distance asymmetry (CDA) effects. Structural equation modelling techniques are employed to analyse survey data from a two-flow sample of expatriates between Australia and China.\nFindings: Results indicate that motivational CQ has a statistically significant effect on CCA. CDA is found to moderate the relationship between job positions and expatriate adjustment, such that the relationship depends on the direction of cultural flow between more and less authoritarian cultural contexts.\nOriginality/value: These findings discover and highlight the potential importance of identifying the direction of cultural flows of expatriation in understanding successful expatriates' CCA.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Applying internet-based information systems to facilitate business alliance activities
|
[
"Internet",
"Information systems",
"Strategic alliances",
"Small to median‐enterprises",
"Taiwan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In an era of rapid development in information technology (IT), enterprises must keep an eye on the progress of managerial practices and technological development in order to sustain their competitive advantage (Cheng et al., 2005; Burn and Ash, 2005; Ahsan and Herath, 2006). Currently, alliance strategies and internet-based information systems (IBISs) are very popular approaches adopted by many enterprises to enhance their capabilities for competition. They are considered the major applications that change the types of organizational competition and can help enterprises improve their standing in a dynamic business environment (Carney and Gedajlovic, 1991; Kalakota and Robinson, 1999). Compared to large enterprises, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) usually have insufficient resources, especially technological and financial. Alliance becomes a useful strategic weapon for SMEs because it can help them develop strategic partnerships for acquiring the resources they lack (Miles and Snow, 1978). An effective business alliance involves intensive interactions among the allied partners, which may require additional investments by the partners. Unfortunately, SMEs usually cannot afford such investments because of their insufficient resources. The IBIS system for business alliance activities is thus very helpful in this regard.Hawryszkiewycz (1997) pointed out the possible advantages of applying IT in business alliances. However, no research has been done on the alliance IBIS system. This study explores this issue and its main focus will be on the IBIS system for daily alliance activities. Alliance Sciences (2004) classified the alliance into ten types:1. standards;2. consortium;3. marketing;4. integration;5. distribution;6. supply chain;7. research and development (R&D);8. investment;9. joint venture; and10. merger and acquisition (M&A).Among them, the connection level of the parties in an alliance is increasing in sequence. If the alliance of the enterprises is aimed to standardize the related products or services, the connection level is the lowest; on the other hand, the level is the highest for the merged companies. Different connection levels of the alliance reflect to some degree different workloads of handling business activities among the allied partners. Hence, not every type of alliance needs the IBIS system to the same extent. In particular, alliance types with either a very weak or a very strong alliance relationship do not have as high a demand for the IBIS system for business alliance activities. With a very weak alliance relationship, the allied companies do not have to contact each other frequently. Alliance activities within the allied companies are the ordinary contacts that can be handled by general communication or information systems. Thus, there is no need for a specialized system. With a very strong alliance relationship, the alliance activities mainly involve the joint operations in the merged or joint-ventured companies that can be handled by the enterprise resource planning (ERP) or supply chain management systems. As before, there is no need for a specialized system.The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of applying the IBIS system to business alliance activities to enhance the alliance's effectiveness, especially for SMEs whose business performance is highly dependent on their strategic alliance partnerships. Since, the alliance types with either a too weak or a too strong alliance relationship are not proper targets for the IBIS system for business alliance activities, this study focuses on the following six alliance types of the ten types in the classification of Alliance Sciences (2004): marketing, integration, distribution, supply chain, R&D, and investment. In the remainder of the paper, the related literature will be reviewed in the next section, and followed by the section of case study. We studied six cases to investigate the demand of the IBIS system for business alliance activities. The research method and findings are reported in this section. Based on the findings from the case study, a prototype of the IBIS system for business alliance activities was developed and evaluated. It is presented in the fourth section and followed by the sections of managerial implications and conclusion.\n2 Related literature: 2.1 Business alliance\n3 Case study: 3.1 Research method\n4 The IBIS system for business alliances: The study's next work was to develop a prototype IBIS system for business alliance activities. Based on the result of the case study, communication, human resources support, equipment sharing, technology sharing, information sharing, knowledge sharing, and customer sharing were common business alliance activities; and among them, communication and information sharing were the two most important activities when applying the IBIS systems to business alliances. Our IBIS system was, therefore, mainly focused on communication and information sharing activities. However, the other five types of activities, except technology sharing which was harder to implement, also had IBIS applications in at least one of our case firms. So the functions for the other five activities were also considered in the system, but only with basic functionalities. Table V shows the functions of our IBIS prototype system. Since, this system was designed for and aimed at common enterprises, especially the SMEs, the system platform was most effective using groupware software, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, OpenGroupware from Open Source, or IBM Lotus Notes. The study chose Microsoft Exchange Server with ASP program because most of the SMEs, at least in Taiwan, were technologically more capable of using it than other platforms.For the communication activity, the IBIS system we developed provided allied enterprises with four functions to meet various communication methods commonly used in practice. Company mailbox was designed for routine message delivery among the allied partners. Its functionality was similar to a proprietary web mail offering instant connecting service in the alliance. Activity scheduler was an online mechanism that helped the allied partners synchronously arrange the schedule of alliance activities. Company calendar provided the functionality of coordinating the schedule of alliance activities with the company's own schedule of internal operations. Activity reminder provided the functionality of reminding users about the status of the alliance relationship and the activities that had to be followed up. For the information sharing activity, the IBIS system provided three functions: business information exchange, online-transaction processing, and security and authority control. The function of business information exchange was to facilitate the distribution of business information including industry statistics, market information, and business ideas among the allied partners. Online-transaction processing provided the allied enterprises with the functionalities of handling business transactions and preparing related statistics and analyses. The function of security and authority control was to ensure that the business confidentiality of the allied enterprises would be protected and that the IBIS system could operate normally and securely to facilitate the alliance activities. For the remaining five alliance activities, public manpower database offered the functionality of gathering data of the manpower that could be dispatched within the allied partners through negotiation. Companies looking for temporary support from professional manpower could search the database for possible support from the allied enterprises. Public equipment management system provided the functionality of borrowing some equipment from the allied partners who had surplus capacity and were able to lend it out in certain period. Technology database and knowledge base provided the functionalities of sharing technological documents and management know-how among the allied partners to increase the technological and managerial capabilities of the allied companies. And finally, public customer database offered the functionalities of exchanging customers' information among the allied partners to expand their firms' potential customer database for marketing promotion.The prototype IBIS system was evaluated by four graduate students, majoring in management information systems (MIS), and alliance affairs' managers from two case firms. The former group provided professional evaluation from the technological aspect. Several functionalities were added or modified following their comments. The latter group tested the system from the aspect of practical use in business alliance activities. After the test period of two weeks a meeting was held. Both managers were very impressed with the innovative design and comprehensive functionalities of the system. In their opinion, the IBIS system offered would provide firms with the ability to handle business alliance activities. They also showed a strong inclination to adopt the system in their firms and said they believed that the application of the IBIS system would not only facilitate the business alliance activities but would also help the integration and management of resources in the allied firms.\n5 Managerial implications: Establishing business alliance relationships with other enterprises is an effective strategy embraced nowadays by a lot of enterprises to improve their competitive advantage because the allied enterprises can increase strategic effectiveness or improve operational efficiency through business alliance activities. IBISs are powerful tools to help enterprises facilitate operational activities among interrelated individuals or units in recent years. Many studies have reported the advantages of building strategic alliances and applying IBIS systems. The advantages of enterprises' strategic alliance include facilitating competition (Miles and Snow, 1978; Carney and Gedajlovic, 1991); lowering costs (Miles and Snow, 1978; Varadarajan and Cunningham, 1995); sharing resources (Carney and Gedajlovic, 1991); reducing risk (Baron and Schmidt, 1991); business cooperation (Baron and Schmidt, 1991; Varadarajan and Cunningham, 1995); expanding functional scope and cultivating business capabilities (Varadarajan and Cunningham, 1995); and increasing operational efficiency and strategic effectiveness (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995). The implementation of IBIS systems can bring enterprises the following favorable results: improving operational efficiency, increasing operational convenience, and reducing operational costs (Robson, 1994; Ngai and Gunasekaran, 2004); increasing management effectiveness (Trappey and Ho, 2002); facilitating communication and decision making (Aiken et al., 1994); and promoting marketing performance (Scullin et al., 2004).Common business alliance activities can be summarized in eight types: communication, human resource support, equipment sharing, technology sharing, information sharing, knowledge sharing, customer sharing, and financial support (Brown and Pattinson, 1995; Davies et al., 1996; Das and Teng, 2000; Cheng et al., 2001; Zsidisin and Ellram, 2001; Lloyd and Varey, 2003; Zeng et al., 2003). The financial support activity was not found in the case study and is, therefore, not worth developing in an IBIS system. The study result showed that communication and information sharing were the most frequent and important activities in an alliance and, of the common business alliance activities, created the strongest demand for the IBIS system. As for the other five types of alliance activities, the frequency of activities varied in different alliances and the demand for the IBIS system was dependent on the alliances' specific circumstances. In addition, the business alliance activities' demand for the IBIS system might be dependent on the characteristics of the products (or services) of the allied firms and their pricing strategies. We found from the case study that information sharing activities, including the operational processes of transferring transaction data and exchanging product price information, were often excluded from the IBIS system because there was too much updating of such data or information in the business alliance. Likewise, technology sharing and knowledge sharing activities would be excluded from the IBIS system when product specifications change frequently.In the case study, the business alliance activities of dissatisfied firms were those involving inefficient processing, or involving too much manual operation. These problems are exactly the targets of IBIS application (Hsieh and Lin, 2004; Ngai and Gunasekaran, 2004). Among the six firms, only NYS and RSA did not have an IBIS system for the alliance activities. However, they were very dissatisfied with the inefficiencies of communication and information activities and agreed that adopting IBIS applications would help them improve the alliance's operation. The four firms that have adopted IBIS systems all experienced increased efficiency in the alliance activities. We can, therefore, argue that, in practice, the demand for an IBIS system of business is very high.According to Yang et al. (2005), the maturity and familiarity of IT was one of the most important reasons that corporations adopted the IBIS system. The result of our case study also revealed that the decision to adopt an IBIS system for business alliance activities was dependent on the allied firms' technological capabilities. It was crucial, therefore, to increase the allied partners' IT capabilities before the alliance decided to improve its operational efficiency by applying the IBIS system to their alliance activities. Increasing the IT investment, including infrastructure building and employee training, would be a good strategy for tackling the issue. In addition to the technological issue, the strategic fit among the allied partners was another important issue that had to be taken care. Our case study found that the allied partners might not agree to adopt the IBIS system for business alliance activities because of their differences in strategies. A similar result was found in the research of Ju et al. (2005), which suggested that strategic fit among the alliance partners was a key point in effecting a competitive advantage for firms in the high-tech industry. In order to effectively apply the IBIS system to the business alliance activities, the allied partners must coordinate their strategies so that they can agree on the goal of the system and pay enough support during the system's implementation.\n6 Conclusion: This study explored current business alliance practices in Taiwan to reveal the demand for applying IBIS systems in business alliance activities. Since, the alliance types with either a too weak or a too strong alliance relationship were not proper targets of the IBIS system for business alliance activities, our alliance IBIS system focused on only six alliance types of the ten types in the classification of Alliance Sciences (2004). We conducted a case study of six firms and found that communication, human resources support, equipment sharing, technology sharing, information sharing, knowledge sharing, and customer sharing were common alliance activities. Major findings of the case study include:* communication activities and information-sharing activities were the most appropriate activities to apply the IBIS systems in business alliances;* the adoption decisions of the IBIS systems were dependent on the allied partners' support and the technological capabilities they possessed; and* the lack of trust in internet security was one of the key factors that may hinder the IBIS application for business alliance activities.Based on these findings, a prototype of the IBIS system for business alliance activities was also developed and evaluated. The positive result of the system evaluation supports that it was feasible to apply the IBIS system to facilitate business alliance activities.The result of our study has its contribution to practical use. First, the adoption of the IBIS system for enterprises' alliance was much more complex than implementing an IBIS system in an enterprise. The business activities engaged by the allied enterprises usually varied from one alliance to another because of an alliance's specific objective and its members' unique characteristics. Determining which business alliance activities should be put at the top of the IBIS system priority list was not an easy task because multiple parties were involved. The activities proposed in the study can be used as reference in making such a decision. Next, the system developed in the study can be adopted directly or used as a prototype to design the IBIS system for a specific alliance. For SMEs that do not have the capability or resources to develop a specific system for their business alliance activities, our system would be their good choice. The research has also made a contribution to academic research. Both the IBIS system and strategic alliance are important research issues in business. However, integrative research of the two issues is seldom undertaken. This study validates the feasibility of applying the IBIS system to increase the operational efficiency of a strategic alliance. The results of our study can be used as the basis for investigating the IBIS application to strategic alliances.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of applying an internet-based information system (IBIS) to facilitate business alliance activities, especially for small and median enterprises whose business performance is highly dependent on their strategic alliance partnerships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study of six firms was conducted to understand current business alliance practices in Taiwan and to investigate the demand for applying IBIS systems in business alliance activities. A prototype of the IBIS system was also developed and evaluated.\nFindings: - We found that communication and information sharing are the most appropriate activities in business alliances for the application of an IBIS system and that the decision to adopt an IBIS system is dependent on the allied partners' support and the technological capabilities they possess. However, the lack of trust in internet security is one of the key factors that may hinder enterprises from applying the IBIS system to business alliance activities.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The prototype IBIS system was tested by two case firms. Though the test result was positive, a larger test group might be helpful in discovering ways of improving the system for practical use.\nPractical implications: - The positive result of the system evaluation supports the feasibility of applying the IBIS system to facilitate business alliance activities.\nOriginality/value: - Both the IBIS system and strategic alliance are important research issues in business. However, integrative research of the two issues is seldom undertaken. This study validates the feasibility of applying the IBIS system to increase the operational efficiency of a strategic alliance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.11ac : A new network architecture and opportunity for higher-education institutions
|
[
"Mobile communications",
"Local area networks",
"Mobile work",
"Mobile communication systems",
"Wireless technology",
"Wide area networks",
"Wireless wide-area networks (WWANs)",
"LTE-Advanced",
"LTE",
"Wireless local-area networks (WLANs)",
"IEEE 802.11",
"Wi-Fi"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Mobile data traffic globally is forecasted to increase from 884,906 Terabytes per month in 2012 to 11,155,531 Terabytes per month in 2017 - a 13-fold increase equivalent to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 66 percent, and this increase is occurring in both enterprise and consumer segments (Cisco, 2013). From an organizational perspective, it was recognized early on that mobility enabled by wireless local-area networks (WLANs) can enhance worker productivity (e.g. Venkatraman, 1994). The emerging fourth-generation (4G) wireless wide-area networks (WWANs) also can improve interpersonal and inter-organizational interactions \"[...] in ways that are more efficient and/or that involve greater value in terms of the richness of the information that can be communicated\" (Deloitte, 2011, p. 12). More importantly, enterprise mobility has been linked to business transformation instead of merely automation (Barnes et al., 2006).\n2. Organization use scenarios: There are many tasks that workers can carry out while moving between the campus and the wide area, such as checking email, texting, and voice calls. For example, 40-60 percent of cellular voice calls are carried out while the user is in the office in a Wi-Fi coverage area, so moving voice calls onto Wi-Fi can improve wireless reception and reduce cellular charges (Finneran, 2011). Because both LTE-A and IEEE 802.11ac can achieve gigabit speeds, this paper focusses on those scenarios requiring high data rates and seamless transition. To underscore the importance of integrating IEEE 802.11ac and LTE-A for seamless mobile connection with high data rates, two use scenarios are reviewed in the next two subsections.\n3. Enabling technologies: The integration of LTE-A and IEEE 802.11ac networks represents an opportunity to higher-education institutions because both networks can achieve gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds. An overview of these networks and technologies required to enable seamless connectivity is presented below.\n4. Integrated network architecture: Both LTE-A and IEEE 802.11ac have all IP-based core networks, which are the appropriate base for common implementation, signaling exchanges, and handovers between the two radio access networks. Figure 3 shows the new architecture that integrates both the institution's IEEE 802.11ac and the operator's LTE-A networks. From the institution's standpoint, the access point is the radio base station that maintains the wireless connection with the user equipment (UE) (e.g. smartphone). The WLAN access gateway (WAG) handles all traffic to and from the UE and enforces local policies and rules that governs such traffic. From the operator's standpoint, the enhanced node B (eNodeB) is the radio base station, and the serving gateway (SGW) handles all traffic to and from the UE; because UE tends to move around more in a WWAN, the SGW also serves as the mobility anchor when UE moves from one eNodeB to another eNodeB. On the other hand, the packet data network gateway (PGW) is the interface between the LTE-A core network and other packet data networks (e.g. the internet) (Ghosh et al., 2011). The PGW enforces policies and rules, and it is the network element that maintains a UE's virtual IP address needed for IP mobility and persistence.\n5. Organizational considerations: In addition to the emerging technical capabilities, there are also organizational considerations regarding integrating high-speed WLANs and WWANs. This section presents two such considerations that can support an institution's decision-making process regarding such integration: decision framework for network integration and cost/benefit analysis.\n6. Conclusions: The modern knowledge worker is mobile and on-the go, not fixed to a certain workplace location, or desk, and an architecture that supports these works have to adapt quickly. This paper identifies a new network architecture consisting of both LTE-A and IEEE 802.11ac and opportunity for integration in the context of higher-education institutions. Use scenarios that can leverage and emerging technologies that can enable the new architecture are presented. In addition, organizational considerations including a decision framework and cost/benefit analysis are provided. With the use of traditional, tethered desktop PC declining and tablets and smartphones growing, the need for network-agnostic mobile connectivity becomes important, and moving to an integrated architecture should be desirable for those higher-education institutions with faculty and staff that require high levels of locational and interactional mobility.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Mobile data traffic globally is increasing rapidly in both enterprise and consumer segments. The purpose of this paper is to identify a new network architecture and opportunity that support ubiquitous mobile work for higher-education institutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: It reviews existing literature and enabling technologies and proposes integrating both wide-area Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-Advanced) and local-area IEEE 802.11ac networks for seamless, gigabit-speed services. A decision framework for moving toward such architecture and a cost/benefit analysis are also presented.\nFindings: Integrating both LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.11ac networks for seamless connectivity is technically and organizationally feasible, provided that a higher-education institution has faculty and staff that require locational and interactional mobility. The cost/benefit analysis also shows that moving to the new architecture has potential benefits that can accrue to the higher-education institution.\nResearch limitations/implications: With the coming availability of these wide-area and local-area gigabit networks, a new architecture that can ubiquitously supports mobile workers may be advantageous to universities and colleges.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is one of the first that proposes such integrated architecture in the context of higher-education institutions. In addition to the examination of technological issues and proposed architecture, the decision framework, and cost/benefit analysis should be valuable for institutions contemplating the move toward the new architecture and for guiding further research in this area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Linking Halal food certification and business performance
|
[
"Business performance",
"PLS-SEM",
"Halal",
"Halal food",
"Food manufacturer",
"Halal food certification"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in Halal food certification (HFC), particularly from the consumers' perspectives. Research on HFC often focussed on consumer purchase intentions or behaviours (Aziz and Chok, 2013), willingness-to-pay (Verbeke et al., 2013), awareness or perceptions (Haque et al., 2015) and confidence level (Mohamed et al., 2013). The reasons behind the rising attention on HFC research could be attributed to the heightened awareness, concern and knowledge on Halal food among consumers.\n2. Literature review: HFC, either in the form of license, logo, seal or stamp, is a form of identification to inform users that a food product is sourced, produced and distributed in accordance with the strict Islamic standards. Throughout this paper, the term HFC refers to Riaz and Chaudry's (2004, p. 170) definition that it is \"a document issued by an Islamic organisation certifying that the products listed on it meet Islamic dietary guidelines, as defined by [a specific] certifying agency\".\n3. Research framework and hypotheses: One of the established theory for assessing business performance is the resource-based view (RBV) theory. In a seminal work linking firm resources and sustained competitive advantage, Barney (1991) explained that any form of resources made available to a firm, if used effectively and efficiently, could lead to favourable business outcomes. The foundation of the RBV theory is based on the assumption that a firm's tangible or intangible attributes, if correctly executed, could possibly create inimitable, rare, non-substitutable and valuable possessions. The ability to have resources of such natures may eventually benefit a firm with sustained competitive advantage.\n4. Research methodology: As the study aims to assess the link between HFC (MS1500) and business performance, it applies a quantitative research design and employs a survey methodology. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed based on the review of past literature and sourced from several published instruments that were akin to the present study[1].\n5. Results and analysis: 5.1 Demographic profile\n6. Discussion and conclusion: The present study was designed to explore the relationship between HFC and business performance. For this research, the business performance variable is the combination of operational and financial performances. Additionally, three hypotheses were proposed and a theoretical framework was developed (Figure 1).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between Halal food certification (HFC) and business performance. This study argues that Halal food certificate implementation positively influences business performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 210 Halal certified food manufacturing companies in Malaysia participated in the study. Data were gathered through a structured questionnaire and were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.\nFindings: The study proved that HFC has a positive relationship with operational performance. Additionally, operational performance mediates the relationship between HFC and financial performance. Altogether, this signifies that Halal food certificate implementation positively influences business performance.\nPractical implications: By linking HFC and business performance, managers may be aware of the significant role of HFC in influencing operational and financial performance. It would entice more food companies to become Halal certified that opens up an opportunity to a lucrative Halal food industry. It also empirically justifies that a religion-based food certification has the ability to influence business performance, consistent with other established food standards such as ISO 22000 or HACCP.\nOriginality/value: Although numerous studies have concentrated on well-established food certifications, the expanding Muslim population, rising demand for Halal food, and lucrative Halal food market have raised the attention on HFC research among academicians and practitioners. This research is able to highlight the importance of implementing HFC among food companies as it could potentially lead to superior business outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The processes of inclusion and exclusion: The role of ethnicity and class in women's relation with the accounting profession
|
[
"Intersectionality",
"Gender",
"Ethnicity",
"Agency",
"Class",
"Accounting profession"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The dominant discourse on the history of women in accounting over the past 30 years centers on the western gender binary and how it has led to the horizontal and vertical segregation of women in the development of accounting as an occupation and profession (McKeen and Richardson, 1998; Shackleton, 1999; Kirkham and Loft, 1993; Devonport, 2008; Cooper, 2008; Barker and Monks, 1998; Emery et al., 2002; Lehman, 1992). The inequality between male and female accountants revealed by the discourse and, at the same time, the refutation of women's incapacity (Wootton and Kemmerer, 2000; Wootton and Spruill, 1994; Ikin et al., 2012; Cooper, 2008; Black, 2006) has contributed significantly to the broader feminist project, including returning \"women and women's activities to the historical record\" (Boydston, 2008, p. 561). At the same time, however, the unidimensional analysis, coupled with an \"a priori assumption of shared experiences,\" which was traditionally considered the foundation for a \"collective response\" to women's oppression (Hancock, 2007, p. 65), contributes to \"women\" being viewed as a \"unitary and universal category\" (Haynes, 2008, p. 543, drawing on Gallhofer, 1998). The research has more recently been criticized for privileging the struggles of white, middle-class Anglo women in gaining a foothold in the accounting profession to the exclusion of women from other racial and ethnic backgrounds and lower socio-economic levels (Haynes, 2008; Walker, 2008; Gallhofer, 1998; Lehman, 2012)[1]. The criticism, which has been leveled at gender history as a whole, has led to the \"emergence of intersectionality as a major paradigm of research in women's studies,\" which recognizes the contingent and co-existent nature of axes of power (McCall, 2005, p. 1771).\nLiterature review: Notwithstanding the comparatively slow response to the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework of women's experiences in accounting (Walker, 2008), a growing number of studies are providing a more complete and sophisticated analysis of the relation between women and accounting. In doing so, they are challenging the assumption of \"shared experiences\" internationally and locally as well as the universal relevance of the western gender framework and, similarly, revealing the contingent nature of categories of difference.\nHistorical social background: The terms on which women who, with the advent of the Second World War were invited to join the Australian-Anglo profession, would have understood their identity and that of others, including the profession, would have been defined by the social and historical forces that shaped stratified Australian society in the lead up to the Second World War. The larger social and historical forces can be found in the historical links to Great Britain and the cultural hegemony of the bourgeoisie (middle-class) who gained economic and political ascendency in Australia in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Connell and Irving, 1980). When Great Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies \"broadcast that 'Great Britain has declared war [...] as a result, Australia is also at war'\" (Gelber, 2010, p. 89). Menzies' proclamation reflected the fact that white Australians saw themselves as part of the \"British family\" (Gelber, 2010, p. 89), at least from the cessation of the transportation of convicts to the penal colony in 1838 until after the Second World War[4]. British, white cultural heritage was represented in, for example, the English language (the \"mother tongue\") including literature, sport, dress, food, art, and architecture (Connell and Irving, 1980; Hage, 2000); and with the expansion in capitalism in the latter half of the nineteenth century, middle-class values of Christian faith, democracy, equality, egalitarianism, and liberal independence (Tavan, 1997; Connell and Irving, 1980)[5]. The mechanisms for transferring the values and symbols centered on the family, the education system, government, law, and the church (Grimshaw et al., 1994; Connell and Irving, 1980). However, notwithstanding adherence to notions of, for example, democracy and equality, vested with the tasks of \"economic development and the maintenance of the superiority of the British race in Australia\" (Connell and Irving, 1980, p. 122), middle-class hegemony saw the dispossession of Aborigines, who \"many whites hoped, (would) die out\" (Grimshaw et al., 1994, p. 178), the preferential treatment of British migrants in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, and in the extreme the White Australia policy (Grimshaw et al., 1994), which extended to white European nationals (Price, 1968). Thus, until 1949, immigration to Australia was overwhelmingly from Britain. However, there were, at times, substantial numbers from China and Germany, and \"constant heavy flows from Ireland\" (Lever-Tracy and Quinlan, 1988, pp. 2-3). However, these declined sharply in the latter part of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, \"so that in 1947 only 0.6 percent of the population had been born in Ireland and only 1.9 percent in non-Anglophone [...] countries\" (Lever-Tracy and Quinlan, 1988, p. 3).\nMethod: The data collection method employed consists of semi-structured interviews conducted in 2009. The three interviews were part of a larger study of 13 Australian-born women, from five of the six Australian states, who entered the accounting field in Australia in the Second World War. The women responded to advertisements placed in Australian newspapers and magazines calling for women who worked in accounting in Australia during the Second World War to contact the researchers involved. The overwhelming majority of the women were educated to enter the workforce as office workers and all 13 began their working lives in that capacity. The ages of the women ranged from 83 to 92[10]. The type of accounting work that they undertook during the war included auditing and the preparation of financial accounts and taxation returns. The sectors of the economy in which they were employed included public accounting practice, industry and the public service.\nBridget: Bridget was born in Australia in 1925 to a Jewish father and an Australian-born mother of German parentage. Bridget's father died of injuries sustained in the First World War when she was seven years old. From that point, she and her younger brother were raised by her mother, who remained a single parent. Her mother, described by Bridget as a very good business woman, continued to run the retail businesses started by her husband at the end of the First World War. Contrary to many of the women of her generation, Bridget's mother was always in the business world. Prior to her marriage in 1923, she worked as a secretary in a large city department store earning 7 pound a week. Now that was an enormous sum of money, because when the men came back from the War [WWII], the clerks [...] got 5 pound and sixpence.\nGrace: Grace was born in Australia in 1922 and was the eldest of two children. Her parents were children of Italian migrants. Grace would go on to live most of her life in the same working-class suburb. Grace's mother was a pianist who played in the pit in a picture theatre [...] silent movies from the age of 15 until Grace's younger brother was born in 1924. Her father worked for her paternal grandfather, who had migrated from Italy in the late nineteenth century. Her grandfather, described by Grace as very poor, began his working life in Australia in a sort of circus but went on to work for himself operating first a merry-go-round and [...] an ice-cream factory and eventually a butter factory. Grace's father continued operating the butter factory when her grandfather died in 1930.\nRhona: Rhona was born in Australia in 1923, the younger of two children. Her parents were first-generation Australian migrants from the British Isles. Rhona's father was in the building trade. He was what they called in those days a hard plasterer. In other words that's someone who plasters and makes cornices and all sorts of fancy things by hand. Her mother worked in a big [city] store, prior to her marriage. Subsequently, she was just a housewife and the family sort of person who looked after us very well.\nDiscussion and conclusion: The purpose of this study was to examine how gender and the social categories on which it is contingent, ethnicity and class, mediated women's relation with the Australian accounting profession following the invitation to women to join the profession in the Second World War. The paper is informed by the intersectional paradigm and the work of Bourdieu, which emphasize the need to recognize structure and agency in understanding social practices.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to revisit the issue of the entry of women into the Anglo-Australian accounting profession in the Second World War and provide insights on the role that gender, class, and ethnicity played in mediating women's relations with the accounting profession in that period.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on the narratives of three women from diverse social backgrounds who entered the Anglo-Australian profession during this period.\nFindings: The analysis indicates that while participants had the mindset needed for accounting work, the more removed the individual's perceived social identity was from her perception of the dominant British, white, middle-class ideology of the profession, the less likely she was to embrace the opportunity to join the accounting profession. The distance was anchored in social (ethnicity and class) and historical forces. The study also finds that the appropriation of education and credentials ameliorated disadvantages accruing from gender and working-class status.\nPractical implications: This study has implications for our understanding of the accounting profession and what is required to reduce the risks of marginalization in a contemporary setting.\nOriginality/value: The study provides a richer understanding of how class and ethnicity shape the female experience differently. The results also demonstrate that in times of social change, the processes of inclusion and exclusion are not confined to the deliberations of the accounting profession but also the individual. Whether the women valued accounting as an occupation depended on whether or not if offered them the freedom to achieve what they valued most. At the same time, however, the freedom to realize what they valued most was a function of class and ethnicity. Finally, the results demonstrate the capacity of unique experience to shape the perceptions, aspirations and actions of women.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Smuggling and small-scale trade as part of informal economic practices: Empirical findings from the Eastern external EU border
|
[
"East‐central Europe",
"Economic conditions",
"Informal economy",
"Arbitrage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Several authors point out that the informal sector is an important part of the economic functioning of post-socialist countries (Egbert, 2006; Neef, 2002; Ledeneva, 2006; Wallace and Haerpfer, 2002). Whether we speak for example of the Blat' culture in Russia (Ledeneva), the Polish small-scale trade tradition (Bruns, 2010; Wagner, 2010) or the big effects of little bribes in practically every post-socialist country, informal economic practices form an important part of daily life for many people. In this article, we want to focus on this phenomenon by illustrating informal practices with the example of small-scale trade and smuggling at the Eastern external borders of the European Union (EU). We conducted qualitative research on these topics at four different sections of the Eastern external EU border in the years 2008 and 2009: at the Finnish-Russian border in Eastern Karelia, mainly in the towns of Niirala, Tohmajarvi and Sortavala; at the Polish-Belarusian border in Bialystok, Kuznica and Brest; at the Polish-Ukrainian border in Przemysl and Zovkva; and at the Ukrainian-Romanian border in Sighetu Marmatiei and Solotvina.Informal activities[1] are not a new phenomenon. Informal social networks were a necessity in the socialist everyday life to cope with the omnipresent deficit of any kind of goods (Gel'man, 2010, 10f.). In order to compensate the \"economy of shortage\" (Neef, 2002, p. 6) during socialism, more and more households concentrated on informal household services. However, most of them did so whilst at the same time relying on the basis of formal employment for their basic livelihood (Neef, 2002, p. 6). Therefore, formal and informal economic activities are diverse economies but nevertheless should not be regarded as \"separate or abstracted economic forms but [...] interwoven sets of economic practices\" (Smith and Stenning, 2006, p. 192). Rather, formal and informal economies operate on a continuum, as two aspects of one single economy. \"In fact it is because there is a formal economy (i.e. an institutional framework of economic activity) that we can speak of an 'informal' one\" (Castells and Portes, 1989, p. 13). The definition of what is formal and what is informal depends on the acceptance of the norms made up from the specific context they are embedded in, but is in the end made by the state and its law enforcement.Dealing with the phenomenon of informal activities is a complex task. In order to find a way into the topic, we will first give a definition of the term informal economic practices. We emphasize the relation between informal and formal activities as a first axis and examine the role of the state that defines the boundary between the legal and the illegal and therefore sets up the legal conditions which people being active in the informal economy are confronted with. The continuum between legality and illegality is thus the second dimension to categorize informal practices. As a third dimension, we try to embed informal practices on the axis between legitimacy and illegitimacy (Figure 1): in how far are informal practices accepted by people having to do with them? What is their normative evaluation? We then shed light on the current contextualization of informal economies in post-socialist countries before illustrating our theoretical explanations with some empirical examples from cross-border trade and smuggling.\nLegal, illegal, formal, and informal: the analytical framework: Economic practices in their relation to the state\nMethodology: Research on smuggling and informal small-scale trade is a \"sensitive topic\" (Lee, 1993) which means that it \"present(s) problems because research into them [sensitive topics] involves potential costs to those involved in the research, including, on occasion, the researcher\" (Lee, 1993, p. 4). It is obvious that under these conditions people are reluctant to share confidential information with unfamiliar researchers. Qualitative research - in contrast to quantitative methods - facilitates the building of trustful relations between researcher and researched. Furthermore, qualitative research allows for flexibility and openness in the research process which is essential when carrying out research in remote sites and in different cultural and linguistic surroundings as we did.We undertook several field trips with durations between one and two weeks to our research sites. On each border relation we carried out the same methodical set in order to guarantee comparability of our results. Our main methodical instrument was group discussions. During a preliminary journey we discovered that people very often started to talk informally in groups about their experiences at the border, complementing, affirming and/or disagreeing with each other. This observation led us to the decision to use two kinds of group discussions: one with small-scale traders and one with small entrepreneurs on each side of each border region. Group discussions serve the purpose to simulate everyday situations of exchange of different opinions (Bohnsack, 1999, p. 123). The aim of our group discussions was to gain access to collective orientations and informal knowledge which form the basis of the traders' and entrepreneurs' border-related practices (Bruns et al., 2010, p. 769).Additionally, we conducted systematic observations (Beer, 2003) on relevant field sites such as border crossing points and open-air markets situated close to the border. The advantage of this method is the direct access to \"real\" practices in contrast to written rules or described experiences (Bohnsack, 1999). Furthermore, these observations offered an opportunity to collect additional information concerning the activities mentioned in the previously carried out group discussions.In order to get as much information as possible on the respective research contexts which differed considerably, we finally conducted expert interviews primarily with representatives of the border regime, i.e. border guards and customs control. When choosing our interview partners we were guided by the contributions of our discussion members. We paid attention to which institutions and persons they identified as relevant for their trading activity and interviewed them later on.All group discussions and most of the interviews took place between spring and autumn 2008, some were carried out in early 2009. The point of time is relevant insofar as main changes of the border regime took place in the beginning of 2007, when Poland employed the regulation of the Schengen acquis in full. Compared to the \"old Schengen border\" of Finland and to the Romanian border which is still on the way to become a Schengen border in its full sense, people from Poland and Belarus were aware of the changes of rules, norms and control mechanisms that had taken place some months before and they were still struggling to find their way to deal with the new border realities. That makes their experiences especially valuable for understanding the actual border regime on the grounds.When applying our research instruments, we obviously had to pay attention to the specific local characteristics and adapt our originally uniform set of methods to each context, which is also an asset of qualitative research. The names of all the participants in group discussions and our interview partner are anonymised.\nEmpirical groundings and findings: The meaning of informal economic activities\nConclusion: Under conditions of transformation, informal activities are widespread and widely accepted within everyday economic practices as a means to gain a living. As our examples from different sections of the external border of the EU show they fill two gaps: informal activities fill, first, the gap that results from a lack of (adequately paid) jobs within the formal economy. Here, the border creates certain extra opportunities as it enables arbitrage dealings. In order to realize profits potential wins and risks have to be calculated by the traders. All these calculations as well as the realized transactions have to deal with institutions many of them closely related to border regulation and authorities, i.e. to \"the state\". Here, informal activities can (eventually) fill, second, an institutional gap that results from a state that is somehow liberal, weak or not interested in offences that might be regarded as minor or even tolerable as they help to ensure social peace.However, the common border regime of the Schengen member states that is part of the newly emerging state like qualities of the EU presents itself as strict thus creating a secure internal space. It has changed remarkably all conditions of border crossing, effecting formal as well as informal cross-border activities. Small-scale traders and entrepreneurs have to adjust to new realities and they develop a wide range of tactics. But while there are still those \"with the experience of negotiating a space's 'floating mists'\" (Round et al., 2008, p. 175) - and, therefore seem to be successful in gaining a living across the border of the \"Fortress Europe\", their \"degree of power over how that space is produced\" (Round et al., 2008, p. 175) seems to be rather limited and ephemeral. This is the point where informal economic practices in general and informal practices in terms of cross-border small-scale trade intersect: informal practices are still a legacy from transformation processes as they were especially necessary in order to fill the gap that opened when formal economies collapsed or shrank remarkably and people had to figure out new ways of making a living. Cross-border trade was one possible solution, but one bearing some extra risks for those who decided to engage in it. These risks do not derive so much from the informal character of the practices in general but from the conditions under which they are carried out, i.e. profound changes of the institutionalization of the border to which they actually can only react what makes them especially vulnerable. But nevertheless, they do react: sometimes more strategically, sometimes more tactically, sometimes successfully, but always running the risk of losing their source of income. Rather as a side effect, the Schengen visa regime has evoked a decreasing profit margin of transborder economic activities. Owing to high visa costs one may raise the question how long and for whom the Eastern external EU border will serve as an informal economic resource in the future. If transborder small-scale trade and smuggling would not be possible any longer, it is very likely - against the background of high unemployment rates and low wages in the peripheral regions close to the border - that people formerly engaged in this activity will try to sustain a livelihood by turning to other informal practices. In the light of few well-paid jobs the communities can offer, local authorities tend to tolerate the informal activities of their population as the informal engagement of many citizens conserves the municipal social spendings (Bruns, 2010, p. 94).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Using small-scale cross-border trade and smuggling as an example of an informal practice carried out in many post-socialist countries, the purpose of this paper is to explore which different meanings this activity possesses for the people being involved in it and in how far small-scale cross-border trade is being accepted and looked at by society. The authors hope to show the different connections between informal and formal activities and specificities of localities which people in the mentioned countries deploy when trying to secure their livelihood.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors used a qualitative empirical research including group discussions with small-scale traders and small entrepreneurs, expert interviews with representatives of the border authorities and systematic observations at border crossing points and open-air markets at the Finnish-Russian, Polish-Ukrainian, Polish-Belarusian and Ukrainina-Romanian borders.\nFindings: - The paper provides empirical insights about why people carry out smuggling and small-scale trade and how these informal activities are perceived in the local environment. It suggests that informal economic cross-border activities are often highly legitimized despite their illegal character. The border creates certain extra opportunities as it enables arbitrage dealings. Rather as a side effect though, the Schengen visa regime has evoked a decreasing profit margin of transborder economic activities. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the Eastern external EU border will serve as an informal economic resource in the future.\nOriginality/value: - Thanks to a multisited qualitative approach to a very sensitive research topic, the paper allows empirical insights into meanings and uses of smuggling and cross-border small-scale trade.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Knowledge sharing and social capital in globally distributed execution
|
[
"Social capital",
"Multinational companies",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Distributed control"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A growing number of studies address processes of knowledge sharing in globally distributed teams (GDTs; Mattarelli and Gupta, 2009; Ghosh and Scott, 2009). The background for an interest in globally distributed execution, and specifically in onshore-offshore configurations, is the recognition that in today's competitive environment, strategic command of global resources is eminently important to many industries (David et al., 2008; Kasper et al., 2013). However, unifying offshore and onshore activities in successful projects remains a challenge to many organizations (Goodall and Roberts, 2003). A key topic of interest here concerns the process of knowledge sharing between the different sites involved in the distributed execution. Necessary as the process is, knowledge sharing is personal, culturally laden and, therefore, particularly in international business settings, not easily effected (Ghosh and Scott, 2009; Cavaliere and Lombardi, 2015). The opposite seems often true; a growing body of literature recognizes that employees are not always competent or motivated to share their knowledge with others, have trouble understanding each other or differ in how they make sense of situations (Barner-Rasmussen and Aarnio, 2011; Goodall and Roberts, 2003).\n2. Theoretical background: knowledge sharing and social capital in globally distributed teams: 2.1 Knowledge sharing in distributed execution\n3. Empirical illustration: The case organization maintains a network of offices in more than 25 countries. To successfully compete in a strong competitive increasingly globalized market economy, the company is continuously pressurized to increase cost-effectiveness. This has resulted in offshoring detail engineering work from Western offices to offices located in countries where labour costs are significantly lower. In addition to the benefits of cost minimization, this distributed execution also gives Western offices access to a larger and more diverse workforce which, due to global time differences, enables a project group to work 24 h a day. The company recognizes that benefits of using a distributed execution model will be negated if the project team does not act as a single, homogeneous unit. They have adopted a \"one-team\" approach as critical to overall project success. Sharing available and necessary knowledge with each other is considered to be an important component of the \"one team\" approach, as are the interpersonal relationships between the team members, which form the foundation for a successful collaboration.\n4. Methods: The research population concerns employees at the European and Asian offices who have collaborated with colleagues from the other office. A targeted group of 733 employees from these divisions was selected as potential respondents, combining all 323 employees at the European office and 410 people at the Asian office who, according to their project history, had worked on a project that was executed together with the European office. All these employees were invited by email and received three weeks to fill out the survey distributed as an online questionnaire. After two weeks, a reminder email was sent to guarantee that everybody who wanted to participate in the survey would have the chance to do so. Additionally, department managers were asked to remind their employees of the survey. Full confidentiality was guaranteed. To avoid social desirability bias, it was warranted that all individual responses would be anonymous. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the analysis would be restricted to an aggregated level that would prevent the identification of any individual. To guarantee this, the company in question demanded that data concerning the researched constructs would be stored in a fully separate file from the data that could be linked to individuals or groups (all control variables; see below). This precluded the use of a stepwise regression. In all, 606 persons replied (a response rate of 82.7 per cent), of which 281 said they had no recent (+-5 years) experience with a distributed execution project. The remaining 325 useful responses were marked as the final sample of this research.\n5. Results: 5.1 Reliability and validity of the constructs\n6. Discussion: The social relationships between people - and the social capital that resides within these relationships - have an important influence on the development and distribution of knowledge (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). This is why this study assessed knowledge sharing in the company's GDTs through a social capital lens. In the case study, a certain lack of trust (cf. the relational dimension of social capital) between colleagues of both offices (emerging primarily in the desire to monitor a colleague's work) appears to exist. Also, the existing social interaction ties (cf. the structural dimension of social capital) between the two offices indicate that the relationships between both offices rarely go beyond the necessary and formal contacts to get the job done. The absence of more personal relationships with one another deprives employees of additional opportunities to exchange knowledge (other than job specific knowledge) with each other. The instability of an employee's overseas network, due to higher employee turnover rates in the Asian office and constantly changing colleagues within projects, also obstructs the development of enduring interpersonal relationships. However, looking at the complete distributed execution relationship, the existence of a certain lack of trust together with the limited social interaction ties do not appear to hinder the process of knowledge sharing and the quality of shared knowledge to such an extent that they become paralyzed (Makela et al., 2012; Montazemi et al., 2012; Raab et al., 2014). Other aspects of social capital, such as identification with colleagues abroad (thus confirming exploratory research by Mattarelli and Tagliaventi, 2010), norms of reciprocity (in line with Lin and Chiu, 2011) and a shared vision (supporting Montazemi et al., 2012) towards helping and learning, prove to occur satisfactorily within the relationship.\n7. Conclusion: Overall, this research confirms the role of social capital as a strong predictor of knowledge sharing (both process and quality). The analysis also shows the differential value and role of social capital when perceived from the sending and receiving end of distributed execution relationships. On average, the process and quality of knowledge sharing as well as the level of social capital are assessed more positively at the Asian office than at the European office. Also, social capital, even if highly relevant, is a weaker predictor for both aspects of knowledge sharing at the European office. A possible explanation may come from the fact that, on average, the Asian office's employees fall short in experience compared with their Europe-based counterparts, which influences the direction of knowledge shared between both offices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess whether social capital explains level and quality of knowledge sharing in globally distributed execution. More specifically, the study examined how knowledge sharing in combined European-Asian teams of a globally operating engineering and construction company was affected by these teams' social capital.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Social capital was approached via constructs covering its structural, relational and cognitive dimensions. Data for 325 employees were collected via an online questionnaire and analysed using multiple regression models.\nFindings: The analyses confirm that components of social capital offer powerful explanations of both the level and the quality of knowledge sharing. The study also found many differences in how social capital affects the level versus the quality of knowledge sharing and also in how it works in the European versus the Asian situations. No social capital factor appeared to significantly predict both level and quality knowledge sharing in the European and Asian situations alike.\nOriginality/value: This study is novel in empirically establishing how knowledge sharing in globally distributed execution is affected by teams' social capital as an integrative construct bringing together individual and group characteristics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The symbolic meaning of luxury-lite fashion brands among younger Chinese consumers
|
[
"Branding",
"Semiotics",
"Affordable luxury",
"Masstige brands",
"New luxury brands"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study is a meaning-explication project that aims to uncover the connotative and symbolic meaning of Qing [light] She [luxury] (translated as \"luxury-lite\" in this paper), the Chinese notion of \"masstige\" brands, from the perspective of younger Chinese consumers. A frequently-cited paper by Silverstein and Fiske (2003) addresses the rise of a new breed of brands sought after by America's middle-market consumers in the 2000s: masstige brands. The word \"masstige\" is short for mass prestige (Silverstein and Fiske, 2003; Paul, 2015). Silverstein and Fiske (2003) wrote that while \"masstige\" brands commanded \"a premium over conventional products, they are priced well below super premium or old-luxury brands\" (p. 50). They described the consumption of masstige brands as middle-market consumers' trading-up behavior (Silverstein and Fiske, 2003).Masstige brands are part of the democratization of luxury, dating back to the 1990s (Paul, 2015). The mass marketing of luxury brands (Nueno and Quelch, 1998) includes not only masstige brands, but also other forms like downscale extension, a kind of line extension strategy of luxury brands to sell more affordable products that share the parent brand name (Riley et al., 2013) and, more recently, discounted old-luxury products sold online. These brands mark a resurgence of luxury consumption as a result of a booming global economy that benefited the richest in North America and Asia in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Nueno and Quelch, 1998). Ever since, Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and China have become major foreign markets for Western luxury brands. Today, the fastest-growing market of masstige brands is China, due to its rapid economic growth in the past 20 years (Huang et al., 2017). The Chinese masstige fashion market is projected to grow into a 620 billion-RBM (over 90 billion USD) business by 2025. Thus, this study is of practical significance because it provides insights into the masstige fashion market of China and offers strategic recommendations to brand managers.This study is also of theoretical significance to research on branding, since we aim to explicate the meaning/definition of \"luxury-lite,\" the Chinese version of \"masstige.\" First, previous studies suggest that consumers' understanding of \"masstige\" may be context-specific (Paul, 2015). The unique elements of Chinese economy, culture, and society may leave distinctive marks on \"luxury-lite.\" Second, \"masstige\" is mostly known as jargon in the English language, but Qing [light] She [luxury] has become a linguistic sign and part of younger Chinese people's lexicon. At the level of denotation, the designation of luxury-lite brands seems to refer to roughly the same type of brands signified by masstige brands. However, very little is known about its cultural, social and symbolic meaning. Third, advertising is an important tool to transfer social and cultural meaning to brands (McCracken, 1996). As China has a highly localized social media landscape, studies are needed to examine the cultural and social meaning(s) of \"luxury-lite\" created or transferred by social media advertising.Given that the purpose of this study is to explicate the meaning of luxury-lite brands, a review of various interpretations of masstige brands is offered first. The theoretical framework that guides this study is marketing semiotics (Batey, 2008; Oswald, 2015; Penn, 2000). A mixed-method approach is employed to explicate \"luxury-lite.\" Following previous studies (e.g. Granot et al., 2013), we used the qualitative methods of focus groups and interviews to examine consumer insights. In addition, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine how luxury-lite brands present themselves to consumers through social media advertising.\nLiterature review: Quantitative and qualitative approaches to define masstige in various markets\nStudy 1: semiotic analysis of focus group discussions: Method of study 1\nResults of study 2: Discussion of study 2\nGeneral discussion: Luxury-lite advertising, as an effort to democratize \"luxury,\" needs to reconcile these symbolic interpretations by consumers of different social status and generations. Generation Z, with less financial resources but lending an image of youthfulness to luxury-lite brands, are pursuing trading-up experiences and rich symbolic meaning. The more mature and richer Millennials, casting a light of social prestige on luxury-lite brands, are looking for affordable upgrades from conventional brands, tastefulness, and youthfulness. The content analysis showed that being handmade (0 percent), symbols of social classes (0 percent), hedonic feelings (1.6 percent), and price (2.3 percent), meanings important to Generation Z, were barely used in the advertising. Rather, social media advertising of luxury-lite brands focused on the meanings that both segments uphold: social presence, tastefulness and disposition, international appeal, and youth.Balancing the interpretations of two consumer segments is not an easy job, and that is where the polysemy of \"light\" [Qing ] comes in handy. In Chinese, \"light\" [Qing ] means \"slight\" or \"lightweight,\" so Generation Z can interpret luxury-lite as a \"slight\" taste of \"luxury.\" The image of \"luxury\" comes from Millennials, who can afford to buy luxury-lite brands more frequently. This interpretation of \"light\" [Qing ] as \"slight\" is closer to the English meaning \"affordable luxury,\" which refers to the American middle market's trading-up. However, \"light\" [Qing ] also means \"young age\" in Chinese. This hidden and less obvious meaning is appreciated by Millennials: luxury-lite is the luxury belonging to younger people, in contrast to the image of elderly \"aunties\" who purchase traditional luxury brands.Going back to our mission of explicatingQing [light] She [luxury], we can now offer a definition of this concept in the context of China. Luxury-lite brands are a type of masstige brands. Like other masstige brands, luxury-lite brands charge \"a premium over conventional products, they are priced well below super premium or old-luxury brands\" (Silverstein and Fiske, 2003, p. 50). Meanwhile, they are unique to the Chinese market, since it stands for lower-middle-market consumers' trading up to the life of the upper-middle class, and is a symbol of youthfulness and aspirations in contrast to the old establishment.\nManagerial implications: To create a brand image that separates luxury-lite from conventional brands, brands should maintain a price premium that only allows occasional consumption by Generation Z. The communication should emphasize brand associations that conventional brands do not have, for example, social presence, foreign country of origin, being stylish, youthful, and aspirational, etc. Additionally, by targeting two demographics, luxury-lite brands have the opportunity to establish an image of youthfulness thanks to the younger demographics, and social prestige due to the more mature consumers. A balance needs to be maintained in brand communication to appeal to both segments. To do so, a luxury-lite brand should avoid associating itself with the mainstream, extravagant lifestyles, certain traditional values, an older age group, and the social establishment, like the imperial family or the royal tradition.Study 1 and Study 2 also uncovered a gap between consumers' expectation for more storytelling in social media advertising and the brands' practices. Product description (44.8 percent) was the top category of brands' social media advertising. It is largely information-oriented and limits the development of narratives. While self-expressive benefits, and particularly celebrities, were topics for brand stories, other symbolic meanings that appeal to both segments, like youthfulness, uniqueness, and aspiration, were barely addressed. Thus, brands are missing out on a wide range of stories that resonate with their core segments. A line of studies revealed similar gaps in social media advertising by Western luxury brands (Chen and Wang, 2017). We recommend that managers broaden topics of stories, make more effort to create desirable symbolic brand meaning, and use social media to excite these young crowds. At the connotative level, stories about younger people's lives and their desire to own something unique can create a clear contrast to the \"stale\" image of old luxury. At the ideological level, narratives about younger generations' diverse aspirations can deeply resonate with Generation Z consumers and bring a sense of \"youthfulness\" that appeals to Millennials. Talking about environmentalism, futurism, feminism, and individualism, etc., can not only attract eyeballs, but also reflect a \"cool\" image cheered on by young Chinese consumers.\nLimitations and future studies: The findings from the current study are not without limitations. This study used qualitative research methods to examine consumers' interpretations of brand meaning. Semiotic analysis is an interpretive approach, and the findings are inherently subjective. As in the other qualitative studies, our sampling of the focus group and in-depth interviews is not representative, and thus cannot produce any generalizable findings. Although an objective and systematic quantitative content analysis was conducted, findings are descriptive, and can only represent the social media advertising of the selected brands. To advance the research, future studies could apply quantitative methods to test the contradictory and contrastive positioning themes uncovered by Study 1. These methods can provide empirical evidence for the associations and causal relationships between the positioning of luxury-lite brands and brand images in the Chinese market. We also suggest that future studies take a closer look at the gaps between Generation Z and Millennials' expectations and brands' practices of social media advertising.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is uncovering the connotative and symbolic meaning of \"luxury-lite brands\" [Qing She ].\nDesign/methodology/approach: Applying mixed methods, this study conducted two studies: (1) a semiotic analysis of a focus group discussion and 10 interviews on luxury-lite brands and (2) a content analysis of 248 Weiblog posts from 10 luxury-lite brands in a two-month period.\nFindings: Study 1 showed that luxury-lite brands are interpreted as foreign brands that serve people's needs for social presence, and symbolize youthfulness, tastefulness, and aspirations. Other descriptors of luxury-lite brands included unique design, and less than the best quality offered by luxury brand. Study 2 suggested brands are missing out on a wide range of stories that resonate with their core segments in their social media advertising.\nPractical implications: Based on the definition of luxury-lite brands in the context of China proposed by the researchers, we recommend that managers broaden topics of stories, make more effort to create desirable symbolic brand meaning, and use social media to excite these young crowds.\nOriginality/value: Luxury-lite brands have been a cultural sign in the Chinese market projected to grow into an over 90 billion USD business by 2025. Therefore, an insightful understanding of the masstige market of China is a must for any Western masstige brand to be successful and competitive.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Civic engagement in the Indonesia health sector: The role of religiosity, empathy, and materialism attitude
|
[
"Emerging health economies",
"Emerging healthcare delivery structures",
"Cancer",
"Quantitative research",
"Political strategy",
"Behavioural social or mental health issues",
"One health movement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Community engagement is an essential element for the public health sector, especially in developing countries, where there is a need of remarkable resilience to deal with an issue of great complexity. The concept of community engagement in the health sector has been paved the way to a core strategy of the WHO framework since the Alma Ata Declaration in 1987 (World Health Organization, 2017). This action needs partnership, which calls for great socio-political empowerment and sense of community through encouraging social networks and communication (Ramey et al., 2018).\nLiterature review: Civic engagement in the health sector\nResearch method: Model\nResults: The first model assessment focusses on the measurement models by evaluating the reliability and validity of the construct measures. Table II shows the traditional criteria for internal consistency relies on the coefficients of Cronbach's a, which indicate that all constructs are reliable with coefficients higher than 0.75. The coefficients of composite reliability also suggest that the observed constructs meet the standard for internal consistency reliability with values ranges from 0.851 to 0.882.\nDiscussion: Theoretical implication\nConclusion: This paper contributes to the discussion on altruistic theory by challenging a widespread assumption that the feeling of empathy drives civic engagement. The effect of religiosity on generosity become weak for those who have high materialism. The results are different from the tradition proposition, which argues that religion makes people more generous. This study recognises that for top materialism people, the religiosity is critical to whether they will support those who suffer from the health problem.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of religiosity on civic engagement in the health sector through giving advocacy for people with AIDs, mental health, cancer and disability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors achieve this aim by proposing a structural equation model, which was derived based on literature. The data collection involved an on-line purposive sampling survey, which targeted young people who intend to work in the health sector. The survey asked about the experience and perception of 610 respondents in Indonesia.\nFindings: The results indicate that the respondents with high religiosity were identified to be more caring towards those who suffer from mental health, AIDs, cancer and disability. However, the highly religious were less motivated by empathy in conducting civic engagement in the health sector. In this study, the impact of religiosity on civic engagement was found to be stronger for those who identified with low materialism.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the discussion on altruistic theory by challenging the widespread assumption that feelings of empathy drive civic engagement. The results extend the discussion on how to promote civic engagement in the health sector for young people with high materialism attitude.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Assessing performance of multi-hospital organizations: a measurement approach
|
[
"Hospitals",
"Hospital management",
"Performance measurement (quality)",
"Surveys",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's turbulent health care environment, characterized on one hand by an economic slowdown, and on the other hand by actively involved and sophisticated health care consumers, hospitals, more than at any other time in their history, are confronting the fundamental business challenges of survival and success (Yavas and Shemwell, 2001). Several troubling signs are in place. Hospital stays are shortening and occupancy rates are declining as more patients opt for ambulatory and out-patient care (Shemwell and Yavas, 1999; Yavas and Shemwell, 1996). Excess capacity is rising (Fuchs, 1997; Madden, 1999; Succi et al., 1997). Furthermore, hospitals are suffering from an erosion of their once sacrosanct image (Sharp, 1995). And all of these are happening at a time when hospital closures have already reached an all-time high (Lee and Alexander, 1999).As a result of these trends, investment banks are backing away from the health care sector and are refusing to lend money to many hospitals (Larkin, 2000). Without access to low cost capital necessary for modernization to compete for managed care contracts (Phillips, 1999) and not being able to negotiate favorable terms with physicians, insurance companies and medical suppliers, individual hospitals are constantly losing ground to provider networks and alliances. Recognizing that multi-hospital systems have better access to capital due to their higher revenues and lower expenditures per admission than independent hospitals (Wilcox-Gok, 2002) and to reap the benefits of several synergies, independent hospitals are seeking solutions by joining multi-hospital organizations (MOs) (Solnik, 2001). Questions that beg answers are:* How effective are these MOs from the perspective of individual hospitals?* How well do they perform?* Do they deliver the expected benefits to member hospitals?* How satisfied are the administrators of individual hospitals with the accomplishment of goals they had when entering the MO?The purpose of this article is to partially address these decidedly critical questions by proposing a reliable and valid performance measure. In the next section, we summarize the relevant literature. Then we present the methodology of our study. This is followed by the results. We conclude with discussion of the implications of the results and suggestions for future research.\nRelevant literature: The definition and measurement of organizational performance have long intrigued the minds of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines as well as management practitioners (Lewin and Minton, 1986; Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986; Van de Ven and Ferry, 1980). While the development of a universal theory of performance measurement has eluded scholars and a high degree of fragmentation still exists, interest in the topic is still very much alive. This is not surprising. From a managerial perspective, sound measures of performance are crucial, since without a performance referent, managers cannot objectively or consistently evaluate the quality of their strategic decisions. And research shows that organizations with sound performance measurement systems outperform those that do not have such systems in place or those that are less disciplined in this respect. From a research perspective, performance is often a dependent variable of primary interest emanating from a desire to understand why some organizations are more successful than others. Success factors, attributes or characteristics thus identified can be used in strategy design by decision makers. Consequently, valid and reliable measures of performance are critical for both managerial and research purposes.Our review of the extant literature shows that performance of any organization in general and an organizational alliance (e.g. an MO) in particular can be assessed via objective or subjective approaches (Behn, 2003; Cameron and Whetten, 1983; Lewin and Minton, 1986; Parks, 1984; Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986; Yavas et al., 1994). Objective approaches rely on hard measures (e.g. hospital revenues and other financial measures) and take them as indicators of effectiveness (Anderson, 1999; Bazzoli et al., 2000; Menke, 1997; Glandon et al., 1987; Coyne, 1986; Meliones, 2001). Subjective approaches, on the other hand, collect data regarding managers' perceptual evaluations of performance and/or their satisfaction with the attainment of expected outcomes (Mellor et al., 1999; Todd and Baker, 1998).While some scholars (cf. Cameron and Whetten, 1983) suggest that no one approach is inherently superior to another, the issue of \"hard\" versus \"soft\" measures is a topic of significant debate (Kelly and Swindell, 2002). Some purists insist that only such hard measures as financial and operational indicators (Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986) provide reliable measures of organizational performance (Berman, 1998; Keehley et al., 1997; Ammons, 1996). Others believe that soft, qualitative measures present a richer and multifaceted picture of performance (cf. Kokkinaki and Ambler, 1999).A major criticism of financial measures embodied in objective approaches is that such measures evaluate only a single dimension of performance. Since MOs may be formed to pursue a diversified range of objectives (e.g. access to new markets, access to scale economies) in addition to financial outcomes, financial measures may not be able to accurately capture MO performance. For instance, an MO associated with poor financial results may have met or exceeded its participants' objectives and thus be considered successful if its participants' main objective in joining the MO is market access. Conversely, an MO may be viewed as unsuccessful, despite its good financial performance, if this was not a major motive for participation in the MO in the first place. Furthermore, while hard measures are quantitative and are easily interpretable, they may not necessarily reflect managers' satisfaction with the outcomes obtained. Yet, the perceptions embodied in subjective approaches represent an individual's interpretation of reality, and individuals act on them as reality (Hawkins et al., 2001). For instance, if a manager enjoys certain outcomes (e.g. decrease in duplication of services) of being a member in an MO, this is much more important to him/her than some hard measure reported in a financial report. As Gray (1985) cogently argues, partners' belief in positive outcomes to be derived from an alliance is a major determinant of their decision to initiate an alliance and partners' satisfactions with attainment of performance-related qualities of an alliance largely determine their intentions to remain in the alliance (Eroglu and Yavas, 1996). Writing specifically in the context of hospital MOs, D'Aunno and Zuckerman (1987) point out that a major threat to the long-term viability of an MO is failure to meet members' expectations. Against this background, in this study we propose a subjective measure.\nMethodology: Measures\nResults: Internal consistency reliability\nConclusions: \"What gets measured gets done\" is a popular saying in organizational management. However, monitoring and assessing how well strategic goals are attained are complex exercises for any organization. These challenging tasks above all necessitate availability of sound measures. In this study we proposed a subjective performance measure that can be used to assess the performance of multi-hospital systems from the perspective of joining hospitals and compared the psychometric properties of three alternative formulations of that measure. The evidence generated here favors the P and I*P measures. While all three formulations produce acceptable alphas and demonstrate commendable nomological validity, it appears that the internal structure of the I+P formulation is not as crystallized as the other two. It should be noted that basing a measure on a single dimension (i.e. P) is parsimonious, and hence may be desirable for data collection purposes. Yet the recommendation here is to adopt the I*P measure. This is because using multiplicative/weighted scores as opposed to only the importance or performance scores makes it possible to go beyond the mere \"why\" or \"how\" questions. Simultaneous consideration of importance and performance dimensions affords a richer and more relevant understanding (Cranny and Doherty, 1988). For instance, by simply establishing management's satisfaction with a particular objective, any notion of good or poor performance with regard to this objective cannot be determined without knowing how important the objective is for the management in the first place. The concept of importance acknowledges that a hospital's effort was deliberately and primarily directed toward achieving that particular objective, as opposed to less important goals on which the MO can afford to under-perform. For example, for a given hospital at a given time, access to new markets may be a more important objective than cost containment. Consequently, it is the relative importance of each one of these objectives, along with managers' satisfaction levels, that will determine whether performance should be classified as success or failure.The measure developed in the current study could be used in structural equation models to investigate the effect of individual actions on performance and the impact of performance on, among others, intentions to stay in an MO. And, by examining its components, management might identify areas that need special attention. For instance, if an MO falls short on the attribute of \"occupancy rate\", this would signal a need for intervention.On a closing note, it should be underscored that this study was conducted among a particular sample of hospital managers. This may delimit generalizations. Replications among other samples would be illuminating in cross-validating the findings. Also, the exact content of the objective function of a hospital for joining an MO is not necessarily constant over time, but subject to change. Because as strategic objectives are achieved, new ones are formulated, new actions are required to achieve the objectives and new measures are needed to monitor those strategic actions. Therefore, studies similar to this one need to be conducted on a periodic basis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to introduces a measure to assess the perceived effectiveness of multi-hospital organizations (MOs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of top managers of non-profit hospitals serves as the study setting. Data were collected via mail surveys. Usable responses were obtained from 189 hospitals. The measure was developed by considering the instrumentality and effect components of a set of relevant motives for joining an MO. During the course of the study, three alternative formulations were examined.\nFindings: - Results show that the measures based on effect alone and a multiplicative combination of effect and instrumentality demonstrate sound psychometric properties. The recommendation here is to adopt the latter measure.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study was limited to a particular sample. Replications among other samples are needed to validate the current findings. Also, because the exact content of the objective function of a hospital for joining an MO is not necessarily constant over time, there is a need to conduct similar studies on a periodic basis.\nPractical implications: - The measure recommended here uses multiplicative/weighted instrumentality and effect scores as opposed to only the instrumentality or effect scores. This makes it possible to go beyond the mere \"why\" or \"how\" questions. Simultaneous consideration of instrumentality and effect dimensions affords a richer and more relevant understanding.\nOriginality/value: - Valid and reliable measures of performance are critical for both managerial and research purposes. The measure proposed in the current study could be used in structural equation models to investigate the effect of individual actions on performance and the impact of performance on other outcome measures (e.g. intentions to stay in an MO).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Labor markets, academic performance and school dropout risk: evidence for Spain
|
[
"PISA",
"Unemployment",
"Academic performance",
"Labour market",
"Multilevel logistic regression"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Labor market dynamics and the expectations of finding a job are believed to be strong determinants of individuals' educational decisions (see Belzil and Leonardi, 2007; Raaum and Roed, 2006). Indeed, labor market conditions can exercise two separate effects on schooling decisions. On the one hand, unemployment can increase the risk of school dropout and undermine academic performance via a first channel that we will refer to as the \"family\" effect of unemployment. Parental unemployment can lead to a deterioration in household conditions and in educational resources. In extreme cases, it may even compel young adults to complement the household income (Montmarquette et al., 2007). On the other hand, unemployment may have a positive influence on the individual demand for education via a \"local labor market\" effect. As labor opportunities worsen, the opportunity cost of education falls, and individuals are encouraged to stay in school (Albert, 2000).\n2. Literature review: Better educated workers have higher activity rates and face a lower risk of unemployment (Stern et al., 1989; Gautier, 2002). However, during economic crises, unemployment rates grow and the monetary returns to education might fall, affecting significantly the population with the lowest levels of formal instruction (Black et al., 2005). Therefore, schooling decisions may be closely related to changes in the labor market and their impact on the family and community. Indeed, Defloor et al. (2015) conclude that the quality of the first job depends considerably on individual effort, but that this effort depends largely on such circumstances as educational attainment and the situation of the labor market.\n3. Methodological approach and data: Our study draws on information from the 2006, 2009 and 2012 PISA waves, which allows us to monitor the academic performance of 15-year-old students both before and during the economic crisis. The analysis of the impact of unemployment on academic performance is undertaken using hierarchical linear regressions (HLR).\n4. Empirical analysis: Results for the HLRs of each wave and the pooled sample are presented in Table II. Note that the coefficients should be interpreted as associations and not as causal effects. The model tested includes all first- and second-level explanatory variables, interactions between household unemployment and each of the quartiles of the ESCS index and also two socio-economic and cultural index variables: household ESCS and average ESCS by school.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: The level of unemployment of the school community has a marked negative effect on the students' mathematical performance. This is an unexpected outcome in relation to our second research question. We report a negative effect on academic performance, but its magnitude had fallen by 2012. Indeed, the effect is only relevant in the case of the students' fathers and not in that of their mothers. We recognize that these results are not sufficiently compelling to claim that the \"local labor market\" effect of unemployment -proxied by the level of unemployment of the school community - generated an upturn in students' academic outcomes as the crisis become more intense. This effect is nevertheless not homogeneous across the ESCS distribution: while it is strong and statistically significant for students in the bottom ESCS quartile, it is statistically non-significant for those in the top quartile. It should be stressed that these same results were obtained even after controlling for the student and school levels of socio-economic status, which points to the existence of an independent effect of the level of unemployment of the school community.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the links between labor market conditions and academic performance by disentangling the effects of unemployment. The contribution of this study is, therefore, threefold: first, it provides new evidence on the link between labor market conditions and educational decisions; second, it quantifies separately the two separate effects of unemployment on academic performance at age 15; and third, it analyses heterogeneous effects of the \"family\" and \"local labor market\" - proxied through the unemployment rate of the school community - effects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis of the impact of unemployment on academic performance is performed through hierarchical linear regressions.\nFindings: The results show that academic performance at age 15 is affected by labor market conditions, and, at the same time, previous performance determines future educational decisions. Thus, these results highlight the sensitivity of students' educational decisions and academic performance to shifts in the labor market.\nPractical implications: This suggests that strategies aimed at reducing early school dropout rates should not be restricted solely to the education system. In other words, school failure is not only dependent on schools and, hence, on education policies.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing new evidence on the relationship between short-term labor market dynamics and academic performance. More specifically, this paper represents a significant step forward in comparison to the previous literature as it has provided responses to three key questions faced by countries with high unemployment and high early school dropout.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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