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Maintaining performance: Understanding the relationship between facility management and academic performance at K-12 schools in the State of Arizona	[ "Facility management", "Strategic facilities management", "Building maintenance", "Resource management", "Asset management", "Value management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An emphasis on academic performance has gained both political and public momentum in recent years, specifically the implementation of standardized systems for evaluating student performance. This pursuit of academic achievement culminated in the implementation of Common Core or equivalent testing methods adopted by more than 40 states (Coburn et al., 2016). Today, academic standards-based testing is administered to align educational curriculum, educator professional development and establishing a baseline for measuring academic performance (M.S. Smith et al., 1991). Greater accountability is expected with respect to academic spending as the expectations of educational administrators intensify. The importance of establishing processes designed to deliver repeatable and measurable value specific to facility infrastructure spending is, therefore, one of the many important aspects of educational reform (Young et al., 2003). The scope of facility infrastructure spending, explicitly the process of prioritizing plant maintenance and operations work, is inherently complex and, for the most part, subjective (Atkin and Brooks, 2014). The maintenance and upkeep of educational facilities are at the discretion of academic districts. Therefore, this research aims to understand the method for decision-making, which guides this discretionary thought process.\nBackground: A well-managed facility maintenance organization enables the conversion of operational expense to a return on that investment (Womack et al., 1990). Optimization of the facility, therefore, requires the identification of value, defined in terms of a product, a capability and/or the customer (Womack and Jones, 2010). A business's ability to identify the intended value of an operational expense, and then to manage the asset in accordance to the value proposition is defined in terms of a return-on-assets (Selling and Stickney, 1989), and is understood to be a metric of operational effectiveness. If the organization is civic, the perceived value may become unclear. Such is the case with the nation's public school systems.\nResearch methodology: A correlation was performed using a bivariate data set consisting of standardized test scores and plant maintenance and operation indirect expense spending per student. Following the correlation, the authors met academic districts to complete an informative questionnaire and participation in a semi-structured interview. The resulting mixed method analysis (Figure 2) provided an in-depth understanding of the facility maintenance and operations organizational structure, processes and the prioritization of routine work in support of the objectives of the districts they support.\nResults: The results of the research are organized according to the correlation, questionnaire and categories of the semi-structured survey. Furthermore, the results correspond to the two research questions presented: (RQ1) Is there an empirical correlation between facility expense indirect spending and educational outcomes? (RQ2) What are the process and procedures governing discretionary spending by a district? Researchers documented a summary analysis of both the research questions and the qualitative interview in Discussion in this paper.\nDiscussion: The performance metric return-on-assets is an indicator of operational effectiveness. For this paper, the metric applies to educational infrastructure, defined as a product of academic achievement and expressed in terms of standardized test scores. Previous research, cited herein, observed a positive relationship between facility capital improvement projects and student achievement. This paper distinguishes itself in using facility maintenance indirect expense as the independent variable. The findings represent the ability of an institutional facilities management strategy to enable organizational objectives thus creating value, which, in this situation, is measured as the academic performance by a school district. The prioritization of ongoing routine work within a district is an essential factor in this strategy.\nLimitations: The study may not reflect each district's approach to facility maintenance and operation. Furthermore, a fundamental assumption of this paper is the sample population accurately account for expenses associated with facility maintenance and operations. The views and methods shared by the districts identified in the purposeful sample, however, may not reflect the opinions and practices of other districts within the State of Arizona.\nConclusion: The purpose of this paper was two-fold. First, the objective was to quantify the relationship between facility maintenance indirect expense spending and the goals of the organization. In answer to this question, a quantitative bivariate correlation resulted in no significant positive relationship between the two variables. The lack of positive correlation should not be understood as a resolution to defund facility maintenance supporting K-12 education. To the contrary, a number of academic studies have in fact established a strong positive correlation between the condition of the built environment with educational outcomes (Young et al., 2003; Duyar, 2010; Earthman and Lemasters, 1998). Moreover, there is a direct link between a decline in academic performance and the degradation of academic facilities (McGuffey, 1982). Rather, the results of this study suggest that there may be an opportunity for performance improvement concerning indirect facility maintenance expense, and questions how facility maintenance work is prioritized to fulfill that opportunity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of K-12 indirect facility maintenance and operation expense spending in Arizona and how the prioritization of work enables academic performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from more than 200 academic districts over a five-year period to measure the correlation between plant maintenance and operations and academic outcomes. A qualitative analysis provided an in-depth understanding of how routine work is prioritized.\nFindings: Results of the correlative model indicate that no positive relationship exists between academic performance and facility expense spending within the sample population. The lack of a positive correlation may be a result, in whole or in part, of many variables. The qualitative analysis, however, provided a more in-depth understanding of how academic districts manage educational facilities and how the prioritization of work may factor into a correlation.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses the link between academic performance, expressed in terms of a return-on-assets, and facility management. The contribution of this paper is the documentation of facility maintenance and operations organizational structures to include the method of prioritizing routine work and the process of indirect expense spending in support of K-12 public education in the state of Arizona.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Personnel performance assessment in information systems outsourcing environments	[ "Outsourcing", "Semantic web", "Information system outsourcing", "Personnel performance assessment", "Information technology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In an environment of globalization and competition, institutions have turned to knowledge as a strategic asset that drives sustainable economic advantage (Sharma et al., 2010). And as a consequence of this the development of intellectual capital of corporations represents one of the most significant challenges for today's managers and one of the most fertile fields for business innovation, human resource management and education research (Casado-Lumbreras et al., 2010). In this environment, the power of knowledge in our contemporary life has produced many new terms and concepts including: \"knowledge society\"; \"knowledge economy\", \"knowledge management\" and \"knowledge culture\" (Bakry and Alfantookh, 2010). Drucker (1998) stated that knowledge is the most significant economic resource of a post-capitalist society. As a consequence, many companies have opted for a model in which knowledge is a fundamental element of corporate and operational strategy. This has led to the formation of definitions such as knowledge intensive organizations (KOI), which, according to Starbuck (1992), are those organizations in which \"knowledge plays a more important role than any other of the inputs to an organization\". According to the work of Karreman et al. (2002), KOIs exhibit the following characteristics:* Personnel are highly qualified and hold university qualifications or a comprehensive professional qualification.* Products and services are complex and not standardized.* The product, the market and staff development are regarded as significant activities within the organization.Managerial organizations, which display characteristics of KOIs include, among others, legal services, strategic consulting companies, software engineering organizations, re-search agencies and other technology-based organizations (Hurley and Green, 2005). In such a setting, employees of software engineering companies, which are the subject of the current research, may be termed \"knowledge workers\", a phrase coined by Peter Drucker (1959). The growth of the Internet has provoked a change in the working environment of all employees, in particular knowledge workers. Thus, new technological capacities greatly benefit the outsourcing of the processes in the networked enterprise, which is transforming current society into an e-Society. In these societies, knowledge must present a tacit structure for sustainable advantage (Sharma et al., 2010). Given this requirement, competences and competence structures for information technology (IT) professionals can be seen as enablers for the Knowledge Society, needed also of intellectual capital and competent IT workers (Hernandez-Lopez et al., 2010). Human capital is particularly critical for competitiveness in high-tech sectors (Bartelsman et al., 2004) and more in particular in IT sector (Trigo et al., 2010). Moreover, IT has been considered fundamental for the development of productivity and knowledge-intensive products and services (Soto-Acosta et al., 2010).The key role of IT has obliged an increase in the importance of human capital in general and its evaluation. IT workers professional practice must be continually revised and improved in order to adapt workers competences' to technical innovations and soft skills to evolving markets (Casado-Lumbreras et al., 2009). Moreover, IT organizations, who frequently lead the development of change based around ICT, are being asked to develop new products and services that add significant value for customers and to radically change their internal processes so that they are more cost effective (O'Sullivan and Dooley, 2010).Taking into account that the use of competency frameworks as a basis for workplace learning initiatives is now relatively commonplace in organizations (McGuire, 2001), competency assessment can be seen as a key enabler to workplace learning assessment. Moreover, Garavan and McGuire (2001) emphasized the need to develop consensus on definitions of competence if it is to contribute to more effective workplace learning. There is a growing awareness that recognition of adult learning cannot be restricted to learning which occurs in formal settings (Owen and Stupans, 2009) and workplace learning must be assessed in order to keep track of employees' development, no matter where they are. In outsourcing scenarios, different cultures and organizations are mixed and factors considered critical for the effectiveness of workplace learning (e.g. organizational learning culture (Rebelo and Duarte Gomes, 2011)) vary in a considerable amount. In IT picture, there are several works reporting that software engineers did not find formal courses efficient to acquire application-domain knowledge and most employees learn how to solve a problem at hand informally from peers (Johnson and Senges, 2010). In such setup, instruments that detect learning needs, learning outcomes and assess the overall performance of a worker could be a competitive advantage for the company.In an environment supported by the Semantic Web, the aim of the tool presented in this paper is that workers in outsourcing environments, client organizations and contractors benefit from the capacities of PAIS-OUT to avail of an open environment for management and evaluation of performance in outsourcing environments. Thus, PAIS-OUT permits the monitoring of outsourced personnel development activities including formal and informal learning outcomes.\n2 State of the art: This section reviews the state of the art of the solution. Thus, first, semantic web technologies, which are the cornerstones of PAIS-OUT are outlined. In the second term, a functional description of outsourcing is provided, as well as an outline of the principal initiatives which regulate the relation between the provider of the outsourcing services and the contracting organization. Finally, the principal features of the evaluation of personnel are presented.2.1 Semantic technologies\n3 PAIS-OUT: internals: The main aim of the system proposed in this paper is to assist in the assessment of IT personnel in outsourcing environments. This section presents the principal characteristics of PAIS-OUT. To do so, in the first place, the architecture of PAIS-OUT is presented, in the second place, implementation issues are presented and discussed. This section concludes with a use case to illustrate the functioning of the tool in an applied scenario.3.1 Architecture\n4 Conclusions and future work: In the IT domain, corporations are adopting outsourcing and offshoring models, each time more carefully. In this environment, sharing and taking advantage of a number of information sources, tracing skills, experience and expertise in different fields can bridge the gap of knowledge integration between outsourcing actors. New forms of knowledge extraction and expert location are deeply impacting companies around the world. IT companies are facing a war for talent in which, every project must be scheduled according to the availability of resources and their competences. Having this in mind, tools that seek for competence in these kinds of organizations are seen as knowledge enablers and could be also a competitive advantage for the company.In this work, we have presented a tool to achieve personnel performance assessment in outsourcing environments using semantic technologies. However, limitations of this work should not be ignored. The first limitation is the descriptive nature of the paper. Therefore, a useful extension of the paper would be to carry out an empirical study of the implementation of the tool. This study will permit an analysis of its improvement in performance and the decrease in the rates of staff rotation and absenteeism in subcontracting environments. The second big limitation is the limited scope of the tool. Thus, in the first place, it is aimed to include tools, which enable automatic analysis of the competencies of the workers, based on the opinions of users expressed in Web 2.0 tools, which would be utilized internally within the organization. Finally, it is aimed to expand the system in order to collect evidences of competence of outsourced workers. These evidences of competence can be seen as the cornerstones of the evaluation, feeding the system with material in which assessment can be built. Possible sources of these data can be found among software artifacts: programs, designs, requirements, to cite the most relevant ones.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to present a tool which uses semantic technologies for personnel performance and workplace learning assessment in outsourced information technology environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents the tool from a technical perspective and introduces a use case that depicts the main features related to human resource management issues.\nFindings: - Semantic technologies enable the monitoring of personnel throughout all of the phases of the management of outsourcing, basing itself on established communication standards used in leading business management tools and recent outsourcing efforts. This monitoring provides to human resource management issues an integrated approach to assess both employee performance and learning outcomes as a result of competence evaluation.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that semantic technologies can be applied to human resource management tools to bring its intrinsic characteristics to human resource management tasks including personnel and learning assessment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Identifying employees' perceptions on organizational obligations: A comparison between the Greek public and private sector	[ "Corporate strategy", "Psychological contracts", "Public sector organizations", "Private sector organizations", "Greece", "Employees" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Individuals enter exchange agreements to the extent they believe these are mutually beneficial (Blau, 1964). For example, in terms of an employment relationship, an employee may expect to get, for example, money, status, recognition, or chances to express creativity in return for hard work, consistency, commitment, or loyalty. According to Rousseau (1989), reciprocal obligations form the basis of employment relationships. Beliefs regarding employees' obligations toward the organization and vice versa comprise the psychological contract between the parties involved. Psychological contracts consist of unwritten agreements on direct or indirect promises given. The degree of promises' fulfillment specifies the quality of the employment relationship (Morrison and Robinson, 1997).And why should someone care for the quality of the employment relationship formed? Simply because following the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) and the reciprocity norm (Gouldner, 1960), not fulfilling obligations towards the other party may evoke several negative reactions. This is one of the two main reasons that psychological contracts have become very popular among organizational behavior researchers during the last decade (i.e. Bunderson, 2001; Kraymer et al., 2005; Lemire and Rouillard, 2005; Millward and Brewerton, 1999; Schein, 1965; Turnley and Feldman, 1997). These researchers have approached psychological contracts as a means not only for understanding but also for managing attitudes and behaviors within organizations. The second prominent reason for examining psychological contracts relates to understanding the currently constantly changing employment terms, in order to effectively manage employees (i.e. Dainty et al., 2004; Hiltrop, 1996; McLean Parks and Kidder, 1994; Herriot and Pemberton, 1996, 1997).In any case, since psychological contract exists in the eye of the beholder (McLean Parks and Kidder, 1994), each party's perception of the reciprocal obligations is crucial and may be influenced by individual and organizational factors (Dainty et al., 2004; Herriot et al., 1997; Raja et al., 2004; Rousseau, 1995), even social referents (Ho, 2005).In this context, this study attempts to recognize variations in employees' perceptions regarding organizational obligations that are determinative of their employment relationship's quality, based on the sector within which the employing organization operates. Specifically, the study took place in Greece, where public sector's organizational particularities create a unique, clearly distinct organizational setting, providing hence, ground for comparison.With the exception of a previous study that failed to support significant differences (Herriot et al., 1997), this is the first attempt to identify organizational obligations that constitute a desirable psychological contract.\nThe Greek public and private sector: Since 1981, when Greece entered the European Union, a lot of changes have taken place in the public sector, as certain directives - including several privatizations - had to be followed (Hiritakis and Pitelis, 1998). Some 25 years later, the Greek public sector is still an extremely complex morpheme, which functions under monopolist conditions, largely bureaucratic, with minimum concern for the quality of service delivered, and ineffective cost-control (Makrydimitris, 1991).As for employees, several deficits exist, including employee permanency, political parties' power, lack of substantial employee evaluation, and incentive ellipse. More specifically, employee permanency ensures life-long employment, without actually taking skills or performance into consideration. Although there are rules for punishing non-disciplinary actions, there is no system to identify harmful actions or omissions and to take corrective steps (The Greek Ombudsman, 2003). Such tolerance lies mostly in two factors:1. lack of substantial performance appraisal, which is followed by inability to ascertain deviations, even serious ones (Joumard and Mulonas, 1999); and2. political parties' influence, which \"protects\" followers in case of unfavorable events (Sotiropoulos, 1993; Spanou, 1999).As for the Greek private sector, it needs to be mentioned that the vast majority of organizations are small and medium sized, usually owned and managed by families. In fact, a recent study suggested that 86.17 percent of Greek organizations employ up to 49 employees whereas only 2.31 percent employ more than 250 employees (ICAP, 2006).\nLiterature review: The psychological contract\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: The first analysis looked at the levels of importance that employees place on the organizational obligations examined. After calculating mean scores, it was found that 32 of 40 items were regarded as at least \"very important\" by employees. The means and standard deviations for all organizational obligations appear in descending order in Table I.Within the ten most important organizational obligations are timely payment of wages, healthy and safe working environment, respect from supervisor and co-workers, job security, non-stressful work, effort recognition by supervisor, involvement with decisions affecting self and enough resources to do the job. As evident, most relate to the work environment and the job itself, rather than the consequences of completing the job. Surprisingly, certain obligations scored rather low (i.e. balance in personal life, performance-based reward, and opportunity for personal growth and development - 28th, 30th, and 40th place respectively). Contrary to previous findings, (Martin et al., 1998), training was not regarded by employees to be among the most important organizational obligations.T-tests were used to examine variations between employees' perceptions based on the sector. As can be seen in Table II, employees working in the public sector hold different perceptions for the ideal psychological contract than those working in the private sector. In particular, it was revealed that employees place significantly different value on seven of the 40 employer obligations examined, based on sector. Among these differences lie fair supervision, enough resources to do the job, flexible work schedule, rewards for increased performance, involvement with decisions affecting self, constant informing on corporate issues, and job security.In order to create a clearer picture view of the different employee perceptions based on sector, Table III provides a comparative ranking of organizational obligations' with a mean value greater than four, as these were not very different for those that scored below four. As evident, the greatest difference relates to \"life balance\", as it scores in the 13th higher position for employees working in the private sector but only in the 27th for those employed at the public sector. Other great differences appear in the relative ranking of \"fair supervision\" (22nd versus 11th position for the public and private sector respectively), \"rewards for increased performance\" (8th versus 17th position for the public and private sector respectively) \"enough resources to do the job\" (12th versus 5th position for the public and private sector respectively), and equal opportunities for all (17th versus 10th position for the public and private sector respectively).Of course, there were also certain organizational obligations that were placed in the same (or roughly the same) position, including timely payment of wages, healthy working environment, safe working environment, non-stressful work, open and honest communication with supervisor, supervisor's support during work problems, and interesting work.\nDiscussion: The findings of this study are really interesting and are of both theoretical and practical significance. Generally, as it became evident, in accordance with the employment relationships' complexity, employees place increased importance on several organizational obligations. Among the most important organizational obligations are several \"prime\" ones, such as timely payment of wages, safe and healthy working environment, and enough resources to do the job and a traditional one, job security. Other than that, it seems that nowadays, individuals care for a non-stressful work, maybe due to the increased anxiety that their current job bears, and for involvement in decision affecting self, which is natural for increasingly skilled employees. In any case, such high ranking of transactional obligations may very well reflect employees' acknowledgment of organizations' inability to provide long-term employment in a constantly changing setting.After comparing public and private sector employees' perceptions, however, significant variations came up. In fact, the differences that were revealed are in accordance with the sectors' characteristics. Besides, according to Rousseau and Greller (1994, p. 385), \"practices used in recruiting, training, performance review and compensation all contribute to employees' beliefs in a psychological contract with their employer\". In specific, it seems that individuals whose employing organization operates within the public sector value significantly more fair supervision, probably due to experience (direct or indirect) of unfairness. In the case of Greece, such a variation may be attributed to political parties' interference (Sotiropoulos, 1993). These employees also seem to care more for having enough resources to do the job maybe because Greece is a developing country and thus public resources are not abundant (Nikoletzos, 2005). Involvement with decisions affecting self and constant informing on corporate issues can be ascribed to the fact that the Greek public sector is a highly bureaucratic system, in which most decisions are made in a centralized manner and, hence, individuals often have no control over them. Besides, the public sector's size inevitably renders more time-consuming procedures - including disseminating information (Makrydimitris, 1991). Another interesting finding pertains to job security. Individuals working in the public sector value it more than those working in the private sector. Although such a finding may seem odd, as they are absolutely secure in their employment relationship, already, it may very well reflect individuals' priorities. In Greece, the most common reason for preferring the public to the private sector is said to be the employment permanency that the former entails (Theophanidis, 2006). On the contrary, they value less rewards for increased performance just for the reason that they know that there is no connection between them (Law 3205/2003).When it comes to the private sector, however, things are quite different. These employees seem to care less for job security, probably due to the fact that they know that organizations can no longer provide long-term, let alone life-long, employment any more (Herriot et al., 1997). Fair supervision is, certainly, important but not because there are signs of deficiency, but for equity reasons (Adams, 1965) while provision of enough resources to do the job may be considered as given in a privately held organization. Under the circumstances, employees can be involved - at least to some extent - to decisions affecting self, as private organizations are definitely less bureaucratic and centralized than the public sector (at least in the case of Greece), and they are better informed for corporate issues perhaps due to smaller size. Rewards for increased performance and gratitude for special contribution appear to be more important for employees working in the private sector than those working in the public sector. Besides, it is only natural to expect privately held organizations' reward systems to take - more or less - performance and extra-role behavior into consideration. Finally, these employees value flexible work schedule and life balance more, possibly due to the fact that their jobs are more demanding (both in terms of time and effort). In the case of those working in the Greek public sector, in most occasions there is no such thing as overtime, beyond their 37.5 working hours per week (private sector employees' working hours per week in Greece are 40), not to mention taking work at home (Katsimi and Tsakloglou, 2000).All these differences that were revealed between individuals working in the Greek public and private sectors are in line with previous researchers' suggestions (Herriot et al., 1997; Rousseau, 1995) about organizational characteristics impacting on the psychological contract. It seems, thus, that detachment of organizational characteristics when examining the psychological contract provides only a partial picture of individuals' perceptions regarding organizational obligations. Consequently, it is likely that studying organizational characteristics, such as size, and business, human resource policies and practices, organizational culture, strategies adopted and available resources may forward our understanding of psychological contracts.Of course, information on individuals' priorities within the work setting provides organizational agents of what it takes to satisfy employees. As a result, such information can be exploited towards minimizing contract breach that stems from incongruence and subsequent negative attitudes and behaviors (Morrison and Robinson, 1997).As any study, this one has some important limitations that need to be taken into consideration when interpreting its results. First, as already mentioned, since it took place in Greece, where several particularities apply to the public sector, its findings cannot be safely generalized among employees working in the public sector around the world. Yet, it seems to be an interesting case for identifying essential differences between the public and private sector, providing ground for further research. Researchers in the future could test psychological contract synthesis and items' relative importance first of all in different national settings and second in specific sectors within the public and private sector.Moreover, there is a chance that individual characteristics related to the national culture reflect on the findings, For example, Greeks were the most risk avoidant people among those that Hofstede (1980) examined when studying national culture differences. Given that national culture impact on employees' perceptions of the psychological contract has not been examined up to now, further research is needed before extrapolating these findings across employees around the world.The questionnaires were randomly personally administered to employees around Greece, as no employee database is available in Greece. Even though this was a convenient sample, this was the only way for conducting a study of this scale. Besides, the sample for many studies conducted on psychological contract used MBA students or graduates (i.e. Edwards et al., 2003; Rousseau, 1990; Robinson et al., 1994; Robinson and Morrison, 1995; Robinson et al., 1994; Shore and Barksdale, 1998).Nevertheless, it is believed that these limitations are counterbalanced by the strengths of the study. Taking for granted that psychological contracts are important for understanding organizational behavior and changes in the employment relationship and that a clearer picture of the content itself is necessary, this study looked into the relative importance that employees place on several organizational obligations and the differences that exist between employees' perceptions, based on the sector their organization operates within.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study aims to identify the organizational obligations that are mostly valued by employees and potential variations in perceptions regarding the ideal psychological contract, between employees working in the public and the private sectors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 1,145 employees, with 398 being employed in the public sector, participated in the study. The study took place in Greece, where the public sector's particularities provide excellent ground for comparisons with the private sector. Overall, 40 organizational obligations, drawn from existing literature, were adopted to measure employees' view of the desired psychological contract. A comparison based on sectors was made to check for differences.\nFindings: - Overall ranking of the organizational obligations, based on employee perceptions, is provided. Next, statistical analysis through t-tests exposed significant variation in seven organizational obligations. In all cases, variations could be attributed to organizational and structural differences between organizations operating within the Greek public and private sectors.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The Greek public sector particularities may limit this study's findings' generalization across all organizations operating within the public sector around the world. Besides, national culture may have also affected the results. Finally, the sample is a convenient one, as no relevant database was available.\nPractical implications: - According to this study's findings, employees working in the public and private sector have different view of the desired psychological contract. Theoretically, such a finding provides support to previous researchers' suggestions about organizational factors' impact on psychological contract formation. Practically, it seems that effective human resource management necessitates taking organizational factors into serious consideration.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides information of both theoretical and practical significance with regard to employment relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enablers of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in a developing country	[ "Entrepreneurial self-efficacy", "Entrepreneurship education", "Entrepreneurial experiences", "Entrepreneurial knowledge", "Instrumental readiness", "Risk propensity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of self-efficacy has been a massive consideration over the past few decades (Kazeem and Asimiran, 2016). The idea is associated with renowned scholars Krueger and Brazeal (1994), who defined self-efficacy as the trait related to personal control and competence. As such, the trait supports the value of transforming perceived failures into learning experiences. According to Pihie and Bagheri (2011), students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) is associated with the perception of merely moderate capacity to succeed and may lead to fewer entrepreneurial intentions. Chen and He (2011) proposed that ESE is linked to growth and venture creation. The earlier literature suggested that ESE significantly and positively impacts students' mandate for entrepreneurship education (Chun-Mei et al., 2011). Zhao et al. (2005), for example, observed that entrepreneurship education promotes students' ESE. Lebusa (2011), however, reported that entrepreneurship education failed to improve students' ESE, although when implemented as part of a well-planned curriculum, it definitely develops skills essential to prosper in business. Students possessing such skills have the apparent capacity to be successful. In the same vein, Bandura (1997) strongly emphasized that self-efficacy is the basic element in the entrepreneur's undertakings. Entrepreneurs must demonstrate self-confidence in their perceived capabilities to influence the circumstances that are crucial to success. To grow investors' confidence, an ambitious entrepreneur needs to exhibit the skills and proficiencies that are necessary to succeed (Kasouf et al., 2013). This can make ESE an energetic predictor of entrepreneurial success. ESE provides entrepreneurs with the support to carry on in the face of challenging circumstances and to fight setbacks during the venture's start-up development. Entrepreneurs who are resilient and self-efficacious are better equipped to face challenges in the global business environment. Henceforth, the development of students' ESE is paramount if they are to endure in the current competitive society.\nLiterature review and conceptualization: Literature suggest that ESE is closely associated with entrepreneurial intention (Erlina and Muda, 2018; Chen and He, 2011). It is also explored that ESE is enhanced by entrepreneurship education in potential entrepreneurs (Gurol and Atsan, 2006; Wilson et al., 2007; Chell, 2008; Kazeem and Asimiran, 2016) and has high impact on business students compared to other subjects' students. Entrepreneurial training prepares potential entrepreneurs with the skills needed to move ahead in business (Hamidi et al., 2008). Breslin (2017) proposed two assumptions for an evolutionary learning approach to self-efficacy. The first assumption related to change; the study showed that some respondents concentrated more on changing their thoughts about marketing-related matters; some focused on marketing as the source of change; and others focused on upgrading the quality of the idea. The second assumption was related to self-efficacy; self-efficacy increases as self-belief and confidence in one's thoughts grows; and this was reflected in respondents' progress over the course of the module. The development of self-efficacy was even more noticeable within a sub-group, who received full exposure to practical business situations in their companies within six months of completing the course. Empirical research by Shahab et al. (2019) highlighted that two factors, attitude toward entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial creativity, mediate an association between entrepreneurial intention and self-efficacy. The same study also recommended that entrepreneurial education is the factor that can best grow entrepreneurial creativity to effectively nurture entrepreneurial intentions, irrespective of the economic maturity of the student's countries. Maritz and Brown (2013) also indicated that involvement in an entrepreneurial program enhance the entrepreneurial learning and self-efficacy among the participants.\nResearch methods: The researchers applied a positivist approach employing a powerful technique that generally uses numerical facts. According to Payne and Payne (2004):Quantitative methods (normally using deductive logic) seek regularities in human lives, by separating the social world into empirical components called as variables which can be represented numerically like frequencies or rate, whose associations with each other as explored by statistical techniques, and accessed through researcher-introduced stimuli and systematic measurement(p. 180).\nStatistical results: Demography\nDiscussion and conclusion: The study found a positive and significant impact of entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneur experience, instrumental readiness and risk propensity on ESE. These results validate the findings of Sun and Lo (2012), Indarti and Kristiansen (2003), Ramayah and Harun (2005), Susetyo and Lestari (2014) and Puni et al. (2018) in the context of Pakistan. In the context of a developing country such as Pakistan, knowledge has a positive influence on ESE. The findings may support enhancing business information, insight of input and outputs of the business, operations, sales and marketing fundamentals. It may also support improving entrepreneurial start-up capability, confidence and ESE. The positive influence of entrepreneurial knowledge on ESE is aligned to findings of the previous studies like Zhao et al. (2005), Linan (2005), Krecar and Coric (2013) and Puni et al. (2018). They pointed out that entrepreneurship knowledge acquisition is the best dimension of entrepreneurship education that tremendously develops ESE, which further supports the development of entrepreneurial intention. Roxas (2014) recommended that acquiring knowledge is the best way to nurture students' self-confidence and attitudinal propensity to engage in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial knowledge is a dominant construct and has an incredible role in fostering a students' cognitive abilities and improve the efficacy of oneself to entrepreneurship (Boyd and Vozikis, 1994; Zhao et al., 2005).\nImplications and limitations: First, the results of this study may offer guidance to policymakers and higher education management for the design and development of effective degree program. It will also help on boosting confidence among students through sharing entrepreneurial experiences, learning and knowledge about entrepreneurship. Second, this study may offer useful evidence for further consideration of self-efficacy in relation to the protagonist factor of venture/business development and entrepreneurial performance. Finally, this study may prompt further research on the relationship between ESE and entrepreneurship in developing countries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in a developing country (Pakistan). The literature reports that entrepreneurship education does not enhance the level of ESE of the students. In the same vein, it is strongly emphasized that self-efficacy is the basic element in the entrepreneur's undertakings. However, limited research has been conducted on the subject and the factors that impact ESE in the context of developing economies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach was adopted, and data were collected from the 564 target respondents of different private and public universities of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the association between the variables of the conceptual model.\nFindings: This study found a positive and significant impact of the predictors, entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial experiences, instrumental readiness and risk propensity on ESE among the students.\nPractical implications: The findings of the study will help in developing self-efficacy for entrepreneurship in young potential entrepreneurs. They will also assist higher education management in developing and designing entrepreneurship academic curriculum and programs for the achievement of program learning outcomes. In addition, the findings will contribute to the literature of entrepreneurship and self-efficacy factors in the context of the developing country.\nOriginality/value: The results of the study confirm empirically tested factors that have a positive impact on ESE in a developing country setting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Science parks and intellectual capital: An integrated model for intangibles' representation, evaluation and control	[ "Intellectual capital reporting", "Knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the \"Knowledge Era\", organizations are relying on knowledge-based activities much more than ever before and the concept of intellectual capital (IC) as knowledge that is of value to an organization, is spreading and affirming both at a theoretical and a practical level.\n2. IC in knowledge-based organizations: In many companies, IC is the most valuable resource. Such positioning of intangible factors within the hierarchy of the organization' resources should encourage a growing number of scientists to search for more and more effective methods not only to measure intangible but also to shape processes and organizational models.\n3. Science Parks as repositories of IC: Among knowledge-based organizations our attention is here addressed towards Science and Technology Park which have got a complex and dual nature: they are research centres with a vocation towards new firm support and with a network like business structure. Therefore, in Science and Technology Parks, the management of intangible resources is a great challenge and needs a special focus.\n4. Measuring IC in organizations: IC is a relatively recent line of research that has received increasing scholarly interest with the continuing growth and development of the global knowledge economy. As anticipated, several IC models have been developed in an attempt to operationalize the essence, function and benefits of IC. These models and tools for the assessment and measurement of IC are ultimately motivated by the drive to improve overall business performance in the knowledge economy. The methodological challenge in developing these models is to find ways in which to reliably identify IC and its economic impact, and on the other hand to find out how IC can be optimized with a view to boosting economic growth.\n5. An integrated model for intangibles' representation, evaluation and control for Science Parks: Reviewed the main instruments for measuring intangible resources in an organization, the goal of this section is to provide a strategic tool for management activities, necessary to guide organizational processes in Science Parks.\n6. Final remarks: The paper stresses the importance of IC-based management for Science Parks. These are knowledge-based organizations characterized by a dual nature since they are research centres with a vocation towards new firm support and with a network like business structure. Therefore, in Science Parks, the management of intangible resources is a great challenge and needs a special focus.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Dealing with intellectual capital (IC), the purpose of this paper is to provide a strategic tool for management activities in knowledge-based organizations. In particular, in the contribution, an integrated framework for intangibles' representation, evaluation and control in Science Parks is developed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Starting from a review of the main instruments for measuring intangible resources in an organization, an integrated model of IC for Science Parks is formulated.\nFindings: The paper demonstrates that Science Parks are big repositories of knowledge but they are neither familiar with the IC management nor with the use of methodologies functional for the resources representations and for the variations dynamics of their value. Thereby it answers to questions related to the IC process representation, responding to managerial exigencies and to measurability and repeatability as strategic activities for business running.\nOriginality/value: Unlike the great number of studies on IC that formulate objective metrics of the value of firms' intangible assets, the paper presents a model not to describe but to shape processes in a knowledge-based organization and to achieve and communicate results both for management and for increasing transparency of communication with external stakeholders.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Full engagement: the integration of employee engagement and psychological well-being	[ "Employee attitudes", "Work psychology", "Occupational psychology", "Psychology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPurpose and background: This article seeks to bring together the two previously distinct constructs of employee engagement and psychological well-being. Both constructs are currently of interest to practitioners and researchers alike but currently they are not normally considered together and form the focus of distinctive and separate research streams. By reviewing the conceptualisation and measurement of both constructs the article seeks to develop the proposition that current views of engagement are too narrow. The current, narrow focus of employee engagement concentrates too heavily on employee commitment, attachment and citizenship and not enough on employee psychological well-being. The article seeks to demonstrate that this integrated construct of \"full engagement\" provides a better theoretical and practical viewpoint.Around the world there is currently a great deal of interest in the concepts of employee engagement and employee well-being. Employee engagement has become a very important issue during the last decade and research from survey data frequently reveals low levels of engagement in many countries. For example in mainland China 33 percent of people are reported to be partly or fully disengaged, figures for many other countries show similarly high levels of disengagement. Evidence of high levels of interest in employee well-being is more difficult to find on a global basis but there is evidence that interest is growing, at least in some countries. For example, in the UK, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) reported a very large increase (from 26-42 percent), over a one-year period, in the number of employers with an employee well-being strategy or similar approach (CIPD, 2007a). In addition to indications of heightened interest within organizations, there is also significant interest at national government level in well-being. For example, a number of UK government-sponsored working groups and reports have focused on well-being, including the Foresight report on Mental Capital and Well-being (www.foresight.gov.uk), Dame Carol Black's report on Health, Work and Well-being - and the related government response (Office of Public Sector Information, 2008).On a national scale, the impact of poor psychological well-being on the economy is significant. Recent estimates of the costs to business of stress and other mental health conditions for the UK economy are PS3.8 billion a year (CIPD, 2007b). Stress and poor mental health represent the tip of the iceberg as far as psychological well-being is concerned - and take no account of the potential financial gains that could be achieved through improvements in positive well-being, for individuals and organisations (Robertson, 2007).\nEngagement and psychological well-being: Organisational and individual benefits\nApplying the model: The incorporation of commitment/citizenship and psychological well-being into a single concept of full engagement provides a construct that delivers benefits for both employees and organizations. For both practitioners and researchers it is therefore important to be able to identify the key factors that might be used to bring about improvements in full engagement. Faragher et al. (2007) report on a means of measuring the aspects of the workplace that block well-being and limit potential engagement levels. The key factors that they assess through the psychometric measure ASSET are:* work relationships;* work-life balance;* work overload;* job security;* control/autonomy;* resources and communications;* pay and benefits;* job satisfaction.More recently the ASSET measure has been further developed to incorporate direct measures of full engagement, including:* sense of purpose;* organisational commitment;* engagement;* positive psychological well-being as well as physical health and psychological health (Robertson Cooper, 2008b).Obviously measuring current levels of full engagement and the workplace factors that block or enhance it represents an essential stage in improving engagement but from a practical point of view other steps are also critical. These steps include developing a business case.The business case\nDiscussion: The integration of employee engagement and psychological well-being into the construct of full engagement may provide a practically useful approach to improving organisational effectiveness. Research shows that both factors are linked to beneficial organisation-level outcomes and it is theoretically quite feasible that the combined effect of both factors is greater than each one alone. Some initial research evidence supports this view and shows that the inclusion of psychological well-being enhances the relationships between engagement and beneficial outcomes. The proposition that psychological well-being is important in developing sustainable levels of employee engagement also appears to be consistent with theoretical expectations and background research evidence. Individuals with higher levels of psychological well-being behave differently - in ways that would be expected to lead to higher levels of engagement.Further research to explore the relationships between engagement and psychological well-being is required. The interpretation and integration of this research into a coherent body of knowledge will be significantly enhanced if researchers and practitioners could move closer to an agreed definition and measurement protocol for employee engagement. The conceptualisations and measurement of subjective well-being are somewhat clearer and more uniform, although the measurement of well-being at work is still in its relatively early stages of development. Empirical work exploring the statistical relationships between items and scales designed to measure both engagement and well-being at work would also be useful and help to provide a foundation for conceptual and practical progress.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - By introducing the concept of \"full engagement,\" this article aims to propose that employee engagement is more likely to be sustainable when employee well-being is also high.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Research evidence covering the separate concepts is reviewed and evidence of the benefits that both engagement and well-being confer on organizations is presented.\nFindings: - Most current perspectives on employee engagement include little of direct relevance to well-being and reflect a narrow, commitment-based view of engagement. This view focuses too heavily on benefits to organizations. A broader conception of engagement (referred to as \"full engagement\"), which includes employee well-being, is a better basis for building sustainable benefits for individuals and organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Research exploring the links between employee engagement and well-being is needed to validate and develop the propositions put forward in this article.\nPractical implications: - A model for improving full engagement in organizations is presented and brief; case study illustrations are also given.\nOriginality/value: - The integration of well-being and commitment-based engagement into the single construct of full engagement provides a novel perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The interactive role of performance appraisal reactions and regular feedback	[ "Performance appraisal", "Job satisfaction", "Norway" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In recent years there has been an increased emphasis on user reactions to performance appraisal (PA) (e.g. Jawahar, 2007). This research interest originates from the observation that reactions to appraisal and the appraisal process seem to significantly impact on the overall effectiveness of appraisal systems (Levy and Williams, 2004). Murphy and Cleveland (1995) argued that \"reactions are almost always relevant, and an unfavourable reactions may doom the most carefully constructed appraisal system\" (p. 314). Still, despite the rhetoric of PA and its impact on commitment and work performance, these relationships are mostly assumed rather than tested, and Levy and Williams (2004) called for more field research on the relationship between PA reactions, employee attitudes and behavior. Accordingly, the first purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between PA reactions and affective organizational commitment and work performance.\nTheory and hypotheses: The most frequently measured reaction in PA research has been some form of PA satisfaction or acceptance (Keeping and Levy, 2000). In the present study, I investigate perceived helpfulness of PA, defined as the extent to which employees' perceive the feedback and goal-setting information involved in PA as informative, understandable, relevant, accurate, and recognizing. Goal-setting and feedback are key PA activities that are widely believed to affect performance positively through enhancing the information and motivation necessary for work performance (Earley et al., 1990; Fletcher, 2001; Neubert, 1998).A direct relationship between PA reactions and employee outcomes\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Except from autonomy orientation, the principal component analysis revealed that all items fell within the inclusion criteria (see Appendix, Table AI). The facts that all of the items used to measure perceived helpfulness of PA loaded on the same component, that no of the items cross-loaded on other components, and a coefficient alpha of 0.93, suggest that the scale is discriminantly valid and internally consistent. The eight items used to measure autonomy orientation loaded on three separate components, and the component with the three items producing the highest reliability estimate was used to compute the autonomy orientation scale.Means, standard deviations, bivariate correlations and coefficient alpha indicating scale reliabilities are reported in Table I. Pairwise and multiple variable collinearity were inspected by collinearity diagnostics in SPSS prior to analysis. The lowest tolerance value was 0.72, which is far from the common cut-off threshold value of 0.10 (Hair et al., 1998).Table II shows that perceived helpfulness of PA is positively related to affective organizational commitment both before (b=0.20, p < 0.001) and after (b=0.13, p < 0.001) perceived regular feedback is included in the model. Accordingly, H2 was supported, and the nonsignificant interaction term indicates that this relationship is not moderated by perceived regular feedback.Table III shows that perceived helpfulness of PA is significantly related to work performance (b=0.08, p < 0.05), providing initial support for H2. The significant interaction term (b=0.11, p < 0.001), however, suggest that this relationship is moderated by perceived regular feedback. To probe the form of the interaction in order to test H3a and H3b, I followed the procedure recommended by Aiken and West (1991) and plotted low versus high scores on perceived developmental feedback and goal-setting in PA and perceived regular feedback (one standard deviation below and above the means) and calculated simple slope tests to determine whether the slopes were significantly different from each other and from zero. The plot display in Figure 1 reveals a positive relationship between perceived helpfulness of PA and work performance only for high levels of perceived regular feedback. The slope for high levels of perceived regular feedback is significantly different form zero (t=4.03, p < 0.001) and the two slopes are significantly different from each other (t=3.42, p < 0.001). Accordingly, H3a was supported, whereas H3b was not.\nDiscussion: Ultimately, a central goal of PA is to increase performance at the individual and, subsequently, the organizational level (DeNisi and Gonzales, 2000; Youngcourt et al., 2007). The key finding from this study, however, suggests that the performance implications of PA are uncertain and complex. First, perceived helpfulness of PA was only weakly related to work performance. Second, there was a positive relationship between perceived helpfulness of PA and work performance only for employees who perceived that they received high levels of regular feedback.Although some managers and employees may view formal PA as a way to compensate for low levels of regular day-to-day interaction between managers and subordinates, the findings of this study indicate that positive PA reactions need to accompanied by high levels of perceived regular feedback in order to be positively related to work performance. Accordingly, even though perceived regular feedback is unrelated to work performance, it may represent a necessary condition for PA to result in increased work performance. Perhaps a certain level of interaction between managers and subordinates beyond formal appraisal activities may be needed for appraisers to be able successfully to tailor PA to the needs of individual appraisees? Many organizations, at least in Norway, use standardized formats consisting of detailed manuals of how appraisers should conduct PA and how to perform standardized PA. Standardized approaches may be chosen for several different purposes, for instance, to gather information and document personnel decisions (Youngcourt et al., 2007), but the moderating roles of intrinsic motivation and autonomy orientation (Kuvaas, 2006a, 2007) strengthen the argument that a \"one-size-fits-all\" strategy will probably not increase employee performance. Folger et al. (1992) also warned against conducting PA in a mechanical or \"cookbook\" fashion, and Whiting and Kline (2007) recently presented a person-environment fit approach to PA, where they found a positive relationship between person-performance appraisal congruency and both turnover intention and organizational commitment.Consistent with the observation that satisfaction with PA is associated with employee commitment, perceived helpfulness of PA was positively related to affective organizational commitment in the current study. This particular finding highlights the importance of positive PA reactions as the point of departure in positively influencing employee attitudes.The contributions of this study should be viewed in the light of several limitations. First, the fact that the data were gathered at one point in time makes it impossible to draw inferences of causality. Even though the respondents rated their prior experiences with PA and their current work performance, the possibility of reverse causality cannot be completely ruled out. Research suggests that positive performance evaluations may lead to more positive PA reactions (e.g. Kavanagh et al., 2007), and there is a chance that prior performance and positive evaluations have influenced both perceived helpfulness of PA and current work performance. Consequently, longitudinal studies controlling for prior performance or experimental studies are needed to come closer to causality inferences on the relationships examined. Second, the reliance on self-reported questionnaire data causes concerns about possible mono-method bias and percept-percept inflated measures (e.g. Crampton and Wagner, 1994). Still, by employment of relatively stringent rules-of-thumb for item retention, mono-method variance should not represent a serious threat. Besides, the only construct that could have been validly measured by other means than self-report is work performance. Whereas performance ratings by supervisors help rule out the validity threats of self-report and mono-method, however, PA research suggests that performance ratings conducted by supervisors may be even more biased than self-report measures (Levy and Williams, 2004) and that supervisors may lack both the ability and the motivation to achieve accurate performance ratings (Murphy, 2008a, 2008b). Finally, the relatively modest correlations between perceived helpfulness of PA and work performance (r=0.24) and affective organizational commitment (r=0.39) further indicate that mono-method variance has not heavily influenced the observed relationships. Still, future studies should preferably use both self-report and supervisor or peer measures of work performance or investigate work settings where objective performance measures are both available and representative of work performance.A final limitation may be that the data were obtained exclusively from Norwegian organizations, since relationships may differ in other countries. Most PA research is conducted in the USA, and it is not obvious that the findings from this study can generalize to other countries (Fletcher and Perry, 2001). On the more positive side, however, respondents were drawn from three relatively different organizations. Research in other organizations from different industries in other countries is warranted, however, before any firm conclusions can be drawn.In conclusion, this study provides support for the position that reactions to PA impact on the effectiveness of appraisal systems. Still, the relationship between perceived helpfulness of PA and work performance seems to be more complex than is often assumed in PA research. Accordingly, future research on PA reactions and employee outcomes should continue to investigate potential moderators of this relationship, such as individual differences or factors representing the broader social context of PA (Levy and Williams, 2004).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between performance appraisal (PA) reactions and employee outcomes in terms of affective organizational commitment and work performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper presents the results of a cross-sectional survey of 803 employees from three organizations located in Norway. The survey was conducted in 2005.\nFindings: - The findings reveal that perceived helpfulness of PA was directly related to affective commitment. The relationship between perceived helpfulness of PA and work performance was significant only for employees reporting high levels of perceived regular feedback.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The two most important limitations, which are discussed in more detail at the end of the paper, are the cross-sectional nature of the study and the reliance on self-reported questionnaire data.\nPractical implications: - The positive relationship between PA reactions and affective organizational commitment highlights the importance of positive PA reactions. At the same time, the relationship between PA reactions and work performance was moderated by regular feedback, which suggests that formal PA cannot compensate for low levels of regular feedback.\nImplication for further research: - Future studies could apply longitudinal research designs and supervisor- or peer-ratings of work performance.\nOriginality/value: - The finding of a positive relationship between PA reactions and work performance only for employees who experience that they receive high levels of regular or day-to-day feedback.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intergenerational learning in organizations	[ "Ageing workers", "Intergenerational learning", "Organizational development", "Workplace learning", "Knowledge building", "Organizational generations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The problem addressed in this paper is grounded in the demographic change occurring within the European Union. Recent studies in the European Union point to the fact that the population is aging (European Commission, 2009; Giannakouris, 2008). Furthermore, demographic forecasts coming from EU members point to huge gaps in employment because of the looming baby-boomer retirements and a coming lack of younger employees to replace older ones (European Commission, 2010). This change in the demographic make-up has consequences for society, for organizations and the individuals who work in them. At a societal level, governments are concerned about financing the growing older population and as a result look to raising the legal age of retirement. This already the case in some Scandinavian countries and similar measures are being discussed elsewhere in the EU (European Commission, 2012a). The consequence of an older legal retirement age for the individual is a longer working life. This in turn means that the average age of workers will most likely rise. Alongside of this, because of fewer births, a lack of new workers will raise the demand for labor and organizations will be forced to keep older workers longer in service or lose valuable human capital. These developments combined will lead to a higher average age of the workers in the organization. This in itself is does necessarily a problem, but the way older workers are dealt with by management is. Knowledge-intensive organizations, such as those that make up the context of this research, rely on human capital for sustained competitive advantage (Coleman, 1988) and will need to adjust their current human resource management policies so as to optimize use of all employees - not just the younger ones, which is current policy (Barnes-Farrell, 2006). Research clearly shows that while managers are aware of the demographic changes and the negative potential consequences for their organization (Kooij, 2010) - the measures they typically take are grounded in the idea of easing older workers out of the organization (what might be referred to as an human resource management (HRM) approach) instead of investing in them through training and development (what might be called an human resource development or HRD approach) as a way to help assure continued productivity. But not investing in an employee who is about to retire makes economic sense because the possibility of a low return on investment due the limited number of years left for service. Negative perceptions about older workers\nApproach: This paper takes a practice-based approach and as such guided the search and analysis of published work on IGL. The review is by no means comprehensive, but instead serves to find recurring themes related to the idea of IGL as an effective learning model for older workers. This type of pragmatic literature review is called thematic analysis (Aronson, 1994) and is often done in the social sciences when one is looking to identify common or important themes (Weber, 2011) and where there is a high diversity of research populations, contexts, designs, or analyses, as is the case in a management question like IGL (Denyer and Tranfield, 2006). Thematic synthesis is a qualitative approach to literature research that utilizes various types of sources including scientific reports, case study reports, practitioner reports, social program evaluations and White Papers on the topic (Berry, 1995). The search method employed was \"snowballing\" (Greenhalgh and Peacock, 2005), which means sources unfold and emerge as the study progresses. Snowballing is done through reference tracking, a process where reference lists are scanned and professional judgment used to decide whether to pursue these further. Once found, sources were analyzed for themes related to intergenerational learning outcomes and processes. These are first presented and later discussed in relation to several major theories on workplace learning.\nUnderstanding IGL in organizations: In this section an attempt is made to come to an understanding of IGL in organizational settings focused on outcomes. This is done by first looking at IGL in sociology and education - two fields with a longer and richer tradition of IGL - and using insights from these fields to inform IGL in an organizational context. The section starts with discussion of the concept of generation.\nIGL and workplace learning theory: In the practical literature several best-practice reports deeming IGL programs to be an effective approach to workplace learning were found (Spannring, 2008; Zygouritsa, 2008). Interestingly, these descriptive reports lacked an approach to workplace learning that considers the rapid, continual change and complexity of modern organizations and the competences needed for older employees (and younger employees too, for that matter) to deal with this continual and complex change (Fuller and Unwin, 2005). Many of the programs described in the reports missed this perspective, being focused on improving vocational skills. This is a rather limited view to workplace learning as it does not consider the idea of situated learning, nor learning to learn, i.e. gaining what are called meta-competences. Vocational competences are related to the ability to perform a task while meta-competences are higher-level cognitive processes such as critical reflection, creative thinking and for adapting to change in the work organization. Related to this is the fact that one of the reasons that ageing employees leave the work organization is that the person-environment fit is out of balance (Ropes, 2011), which can be a result of an inability to change along with the organization. Current theories on workplace learning consider learning meta-competences to be a crucial focus (Schultz, 2005), yet standard training programs typically do not take this into account (Mulholland et al., 2001; Casey, 2005) and as a result fail to in help older workers to learn to change along with the organization. Learning to learn is important for knowledge workers in the complex, rapidly changing environments in which they typically work (Muthusamy and Palanisamy, 2004). This is especially true for older workers (Kooij, 2010). In this sense, workplace learning theory can inform IGL in a positive way, expanding the perspective taken on it in the practical literature.\nIGL as a model for effective motivation for older worker learning: In the introduction it was argued that managers will need to learn how to deal more effectively with an ageing worker population or lose organizational capability. In an ageing demographic landscape, making sure that older workers remain both connected to the organization and effective in their work is one of the biggest challenges facing European managers (Barnes-Farrell and Matthews, 2007). One way managers can face this challenge is to promote participation in learning activities (Kooij, 2010). However, as put forward in the introduction, this can pose some problems as older generations learn differently and for different reasons (Macky et al., 2008; Nieuwenhuis and van Woerkom, 2007) and require different approaches to learning and development than what is currently the standard. This last part of the paper analyzes IGL from this perspective and argues that it is in fact a way for managers to effectively assure participation in learning.\nConcluding remarks: In conclusion it is important to mention that while IGL seems promising, it is certainly not a silver bullet. There are some practical considerations concerning both design and implementation of IGL programs related to such things as motivation of particular employees and their ability to work in knowledge-building environments, which can be difficult and lead to frustration (Illeris, 2002, 2003). Clear managerial support and informal organizational cultures allowing collaboration and openness to (age)diversity are also crucial factors (Sambrook, 2006; Tracey et al., 2001). There is also a need for empirical work on the subject that would underpin some of the practice-based reports better, especially in regards to implementing IGL and the outcomes it can achieve.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of intergenerational learning as a way for organizations to deal with an ageing worker population in a positive and constructive way.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employs a thematic synthesis of qualitative literature and considers all types of sources including quantitative scientific reports, reports on case studies, practitioner reports, social program evaluations and White Papers.\nFindings: The paper points out that intergenerational learning is an effective way to organize learning at the workplace as it appeals to older worker motivations and learning styles, benefiting both worker and organization.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper leads to several testable hypotheses concerning intergenerational learning. There also needs to be more work on how cognitive differences might affect interactive processes in intergenerational learning groups.\nPractical implications: This paper can give managers ideas on organizing intergenerational learning as a strategy for dealing with an ageing worker population.\nOriginality/value: This paper opens up new possibilities for both researchers and practitioners of workplace learning by using age and other concepts of diversity as a building block for organizing learning environments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of knowledge management in providing innovative services in university libraries in Nigeria: A structural equation modeling approach	[ "Service innovation", "Nigeria", "Knowledge management cycle", "Knowledge management", "Structural equation modeling", "University libraries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The competitive information environment has created the need for libraries to begin to engage in innovative services. There are now many information service providers including internet centers that are competing with university libraries in the business of information provision. The search for innovative services has led libraries to begin to adopt business-oriented approaches. In this direction, total quality management was considered and applied in libraries for quality and innovative services. Thereafter, it was felt that treating especially university libraries as learning organizations would bring about the desired change aimed at innovating library services. Now, both attention and emphasis have shifted toward knowledge management as a survival strategy for university libraries facing limited funding and increasing user expectations. The challenge of increasing expectations of library users is connected with the internet revolution or information explosion. Knowledge management helps to provide the right information to the right people at the right time.\n2. Significance of this study: University libraries in Nigeria are facing a lot of challenges. These challenges include inadequate library resources, poor funding, declining usage, transition into digital services and ever-increasing demand for new services (Igbo and Imo, 2011; Johnson and Lily, 2012). For these libraries to remain relevant in the digital environment, they must define their roles and innovate to create new services (Li, 2006).\n3. Literature review: 3.1 Concept of KM and the library\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Research type\n5. Data analysis: 5.1 Demographic information\n6. Discussion of findings: In this study, four hypotheses were tested. These hypotheses were developed from the two main questions that guided this study. H1 was tested with a strong relationship between knowledge capture/creation and service innovation. H2 was tested whereby a strong relationship was found between knowledge sharing/transfer and service innovation. H3 was also tested with a strong relationship between knowledge management and services innovation. However, knowledge capture/creation has the strongest influence on service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria. This means that apart from the fact that KM generally impacts service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria, each of the KM cycle of knowledge capture/creation, knowledge sharing/transfer and knowledge application/use also impacts service innovation, though moderately.\n7. Implication of findings: The important finding of this study is that even though the KM cycle of knowledge capture/creation, knowledge sharing/transfer and knowledge application/use moderately account for the variations in service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria, knowledge capture/creation and knowledge application/use have the most significant contributions to service innovation. These findings have implications for under-resourced and pressurized academic library managers in Nigeria or information service providers who may be interested in knowing about what should be prioritized in terms of knowledge management so as to have the greatest chance of success in being innovative. Knowledge management fulfils a number of functions in the innovation realm (Islam et al., 2015; Du Plessis, 2007), and this study provides four basic KM functions for innovative library services to be championed by the library managers or information services providers in Nigeria.\n8. Conclusion: The study endeavors to investigate the influence of KM on service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria. The underpinning research model is conceptualized from the review of related literature, especially on the associations between KM and innovation. The research model shows the path associations between all the research constructs. The research constructs are defined by KM cycle and service innovation. The KM cycle consisting of knowledge creation/capture, knowledge sharing/transfer and knowledge application/use is the independent variable, whereas service innovation is the dependent variable. The associations between these constructs were developed from the literature into the four research hypotheses that guided this study and were tested at 0.05 levels of significance. A SEM approach was used to validate the research model or test the hypotheses that guided this study. It was found that knowledge management affected service innovation positively. While the three KM measures, namely, knowledge capture/creation, knowledge sharing/transfer and knowledge application/use, significantly impact service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria, the most significant impact was seen in the activities of KM cycle of knowledge capture/creation followed by knowledge application/use. This shows that university libraries in Nigeria with high activities in knowledge capture, knowledge sharing and knowledge use are more likely to provide innovative services to their users, or that knowledge management is playing important role in university libraries' offerings of innovative services in Nigeria.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Previous studies have shown that knowledge management (KM) plays a role in service innovation or that there is a positive relationship between them. However, this role or relationship is yet to be established quantitatively through empirical evidence within the context of university libraries in Nigeria. The purpose of this study is to determine how knowledge management affects innovative services in university libraries in Nigeria.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopted a quantitative approach and used questionnaire to collect data from 250 librarians who participated in the study. A structural equation modeling approach was used to validate the research model.\nFindings: It was found that KM affected service innovation positively. The three measures of KM cycle, namely, knowledge capture/creation, knowledge sharing/transfer and knowledge application/use were found to have positive and significant effect on service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria. In conclusion, university libraries in Nigeria with high activities in knowledge capture, knowledge sharing and knowledge use are more likely to provide innovative services to their users.\nPractical implications: The study suggests that libraries with high level of activities in knowledge capturing, sharing and application are more likely to engage in innovative services. The study is also capable of encouraging students to take courses on KM and library and information science educators to place more emphasis on KM in their curricular.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers a unique empirical direction for service innovation in university libraries in Nigeria. As there is a dearth of quantitative empirical evidence in the area of service innovation in libraries, the empirical evidence obtained in this paper will not only contribute to the body of knowledge in this area but also be used to create an environment for innovative library services.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Looking ahead: energy, climate change and pro-poor responses	[ "Energy", "Climatology", "Poverty", "Energy consumption", "Developing countries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially. The future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. The recent global economic crisis has made tackling these challenges much more daunting.There is dire need to secure reliable and affordable energy for the poorest people in developing countries. Today, roughly 2.6 billion people use fuelwood, charcoal, agricultural waste and animal dung to meet most of their daily energy needs for cooking and heating. In many countries, these resources account for over 90 percent of total household energy consumption. The inefficient and unsustainable use of biomass has severe consequences for health, the environment and economic development. Under current trends, the number of people using biomass increases to 2.7 billion by 2030 as population rises. That is, one-third of the world's population will still be relying on these fuels, a share barely smaller than today. Moreover, there are 1.6 billion people in the world without electricity, equal to over a quarter of the world population. Electrification is very unevenly distributed worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the regions with the highest proportion of the population still without access to electricity. Overall, 80 percent of those without access to electricity currently live in rural areas of developing countries. Because of continuing population growth, if no new policies are put in place, there will still be 1.4 billion people lacking access to electricity in 2030.Preventing catastrophic and irreversible damage to the global climate ultimately requires a major decarbonisation of the world energy sources. On current trends, energy-related emissions of carbon-dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases will rise inexorably, pushing up average global temperature by as much as 6degC in the long term. Strong, urgent action is needed to curb these trends. The energy sector will have to play the central role in curbing emissions - through major improvements in efficiency and rapid switching to renewables and other low-carbon technologies, such as CO2 capture and storage (CCS).Securing energy supplies and speeding up the transition to a low-carbon energy system both call for radical action by governments - at national and local levels, and through participation in co-ordinated international mechanisms. Households, businesses and motorists will have to change the way they use energy, while energy suppliers will need to invest in developing and commercialising low-carbon technologies. To make this happen, governments have to put in place appropriate financial incentives and regulatory frameworks that support both energy-security and climate-policy goals in an integrated way. Importantly, they need to ensure that energy access goals are also met.This paper lays out scenarios for global energy demand and greenhouse-gas emissions and highlights the impact of these trends on developing countries. Special emphasis is given to the effects on health, economic opportunity, food scarcity, and on energy demand in cities and in the transport sector. The interplay between energy and climate change is profound - energy use is one of the leading causes of climate change and, increasingly, climate change is affecting our future energy choices. There are ways to reduce energy deprivation in developing countries. Some of these are outlined here. The paper concludes with some insights on how we can use the knowledge gained from scenarios and \"success stories\" to meet the challenges ahead.\n2. Scenarios: the outlook for energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions: Energy demand projections\n3. Implications of scenarios for poverty and for energy demand in cities and the transport sector: Health impacts of energy poverty\n4. The impact of climate change on the energy sector: As well as playing a leading role in causing global warming, the energy sector could itself be substantially affected by a change in the global climate. Worryingly, some sources of renewable energy - one of the main climate-change mitigation options - could be adversely affected. Hydropower is the world's largest renewable source of electricity, generating 3.035 TWh in 2006, around 16 percent of total electricity. The unexploited potential is large, particularly in developing countries. However, although hydropower is a key mitigation option, climate change may have an overall net negative impact on water resources and therefore affect its future generation potential. Growing concerns about competition for water supply, as well as other environmental and social concerns, may constrain some project developments. Where climate-change impacts result in water scarcity, the need for adaptation may result in improved water-use efficiency through metering and incremental pricing, increased withdrawal of water for irrigation and the trading of water rights. There could be some adverse effects on local hydropower plant operation and costs. Climate change is also likely to alter river discharge rates and hence water availability for in-stream uses, including hydropower, navigation, fisheries and recreation, as well as for out-of-stream demands, such as irrigation, municipal use, industrial use and cooling.The overall effect on hydropower production potential would be mixed. In alpine areas, run-off may decrease in summer and increase in winter, exacerbating sedimentation problems but perhaps also making the management of water storage easier. There may be less storage as snow and ice in winter, thereby adversely affecting river flows in summer and autumn. In Nepal, China and elsewhere, storage of water as ice in glaciers may decrease and seasonal discharge rates change. Hydrological regimes driven more by precipitation than by snow and glacier-melt processes could experience increased year-to-year variability of mean annual discharges, thus adversely affecting the hydropower generation potential. Sudden discharge outbursts from lakes formed by rapidly melting glaciers have already created surges of water and debris sufficient to damage hydropower facilities and threaten local communities. Some hydropower generators have already adjusted their production forecasts downwards to reflect changing precipitation projections, thus affecting the economics over the lifetime of a plant.The prospect of climate change introduces uncertainties which could affect virtually all forms of renewable energy. Wind resource intensity and duration can affect turbine capacity factors and extreme gales may damage turbines and shorten their working life. Solar radiation levels are subject to reductions of up to 20 percent in some regions, due to increased cloud cover, and there is a risk of damage to solar collection facilities from extreme weather conditions, such as hail. In addition, higher ambient temperatures can reduce the output and life of photovoltaic cells. Biomass may experience lower crop yields due to water shortages and increased warming, though higher atmospheric CO2 levels will increase crop and forest growth rates. There could be effects on biomass use for traditional cooking and heating purposes as well as on biofuel production for transport fuels. Longer frost-free periods and fewer freezes can benefit some crops more than others, and there will be regional differences, with Africa and southern Asia more likely to be adversely affected than other regions.Local and regional air pollution\n5. Pro-poor solutions: The challenges are enormous, but the steps necessary to avoid the unsustainable path that we are on are clear. Yet even if the long-term energy and climate change objectives are met, the world will not be in a better place unless we can ensure that the poorest citizens do not suffer from the adverse impacts that are sure to come in the near term. How can we guarantee that they will also benefit?Targeted subsidies\n6. Using foresight to initiate change: Decisive action is needed to accelerate energy development and to arrest the potential impacts of climate change in poor countries. We have a very good idea of what must be done to meet global long-term environmental and energy sustainability goals - a radical and fundamental change in current energy systems. Promoting energy efficiency is a first step but ultimately we need to decarbonise the global power sector, widely deploy CCS and switch to hybrid and electric vehicles in the transport sector. We also know that all nations will need to be involved in this transformation in a fair and proportionate manner. All governments must agree on mandatory emissions reductions.It is not so clear what can be done in the near term to ensure that these goals are ultimately met without catastrophic implications for the world's poorest citizens.Developing countries face urgent and legitimate development priorities that make climate change a low political priority. These countries face difficult choices in allocating scarce resources among pressing development needs, and climate change is often viewed as a longer-term concern that must be traded off to address short-term needs. Dealing with these trade-offs require participatory and transparent policies to ensure their long-term effectiveness.Poor people must be seen as part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. Environmental quality of growth matters to the poor. Moreover, environmental management cannot be treated separately from other development concerns.Good governance in the energy sector is critical to attracting infrastructure investment. In resource-rich countries, an improvement in the efficiency of revenue allocation and the accountability of governments in the use of public funds would improve the likelihood of oil and gas revenues being used to alleviate poverty. Tackling energy poverty requires comprehensive and co-ordinated economic and social development plans and policies, with a much greater focus on effective management of the wealth generated by hydrocarbon resources. A first requirement is to make oil and gas revenues transparent to the public. They will ultimately hold governments accountable for the allocation of these revenues. Poverty issues must be integrated into national development frameworks, and the decentralisation of environmental management must be strengthened, by empowering civil society, in particular marginal groups, and by addressing gender dimensions of poverty issues.Laws and regulations that impede energy trade and investment have to be reformed, and various measures to attract private capital should be considered. Public policies aimed at improving both the quantity and quality of energy services need to be backed by broader policies to promote investment, growth and productive employment. These include rural infrastructure development, training and education, and support for microfinance programmes. More generally, efforts are needed to strengthen the overall legal, institutional and regulatory framework, including the protection of land and property rights. Existing laws and regulations need to be enforced more effectively.Foreign direct investment needs to be more pro-poor and the contribution of multilateral environmental agreements to poverty reduction needs to be improved. And importantly the effectiveness of development cooperation and debt relief should be enhanced. Reforms are needed to make the current global trading regime more inclusive and balanced in terms of developing country needs. At the national level, a sound and supportive domestic policy and regulatory framework is needed. The accepted goal of 0.7 percent of GDP of OECD countries for official development assistance has not been met. Eradicating poverty will demand a much more ambitious effort and the financial flows most be received with efficiency and accountability to be effective.Effective policies will need to be locally designed, since there are substantial differences between and even within countries. Long-term commitments are needed from development partners to scale up energy investments, transfer knowledge and deploy financing instruments which will leverage private capital, particularly in countries with the largest concentration of the energy-poor, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.Investments in programs that are tailored to promoting development and addressing climate change simultaneously have been successfully employed in some developing countries. For example, the promotion of biofuels for transport has reduced the economic impact of oil imports and supported the rural economy. Other initiatives include renewable energy for rural electrification; support for mass transit which avoids urban congestion and reduces oil demand; and the use of locally produced bioenergy to fuel generators for mobile phone recharging and for performing mechanical tasks, such as hulling, pressing and milling.Cost-reflective pricing is a critical priority to meet long-term economic development objectives. Removal of price subsidies does not need to be undertaken in one painful step. A phased schedule that sets a medium-term goal for removal of the subsidies is necessary. The phased schedule must be widely publicised well in advance of price increases, and these increases need to be accompanied by well targeted social measures. Higher price impacts on the poor can be ameliorated by targeted direct compensation payments.Policy reforms and development priorities must be tailored to each country's situation. In the poorest African and Asian countries, relying predominantly on private capital to develop energy infrastructure from scratch is unlikely to succeed, because of the risks involved. One way forward for these countries may be to establish public-private partnerships between host-country governments, donors, multi-lateral development banks, non-governmental organisations and private companies. The rich industrialised countries have obvious long-term economic, political and energy-security interests in helping developing countries along the path to energy development. For, so long as poverty, hunger and disease persist, the poorest regions will remain vulnerable to social and political instability and to humanitarian disasters. The cost of providing assistance to poor countries may turn out to be far less than that of dealing with the instability and insecurity that poverty breeds.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - In the absence of new policies, global trends in energy supply and consumption are unsustainable all around. Today, roughly 2.6 billion people use fuelwood, charcoal, agricultural waste and animal dung to meet most of their daily energy needs for cooking and heating. There are 1.6 billion people in the world without electricity, equal to over a quarter of the world population. The purpose of this paper is to present pro-poor solutions for addressing the crippling impacts of current global energy use on the world's poorest people.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper lays out scenarios for global energy demand and greenhouse-gas emissions and highlights the impact of these trends on developing countries. Based largely on publications and research from the International Energy Agency, it shows that better targeted subsidies, capacity building, integrated policy approaches and improvements in data collection can help to alleviate the impacts of current energy use on health and the environment.\nFindings: - Decisive action is needed to expand energy access and to arrest the potential impacts of climate change in poor countries. It is demonstrated here that investments in programs that are tailored to promoting development and addressing climate change simultaneously can be successfully deployed.\nOriginality/value: - There is an urgent need for policymakers in rich and poor countries to join together and tackle the global energy and climate challenges, and, as this paper shows, pro-poor foresight is needed to ensure that these challenges are met in an equitable and sustainable way.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Making a Blue Ocean Shift: Tata Ace captures a new market	[ "India", "Automotive", "Emerging markets", "Blue Ocean Shift", "Blue Ocean Strategy", "Tata Ace", "Value innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Competition is at the heart of strategy. To achieve goals, firms undertake exercises on competitive benchmarking and work on competitive advantage. The aim is to succeed by beating the competition and creating a superior position for oneself. Firm strategies aim at positioning either as differentiators by increasing value and therefore customers' willingness to pay or as cost leaders (Porter, 1980). The strength of a firm is measured by its portfolio of offerings, market share and industry attractiveness. It typically works well when industry structure is helpful or when the firm has a strong position. The industry attractiveness often shapes the strategy of its incumbents, and competition becomes the defining variable of strategy rather than buyer value. Over time, firms are not able to create a niche position for themselves when their value chain becomes similar to that of their competitor(s), and their offerings (product or service) do not stand out. They are often seen as alternatives by buyers as they compete on the same factors (Kim and Mauborgne, 2005).\nTata Ace - the journey: In its 70 years as a company, TML has looked at understanding customer needs with a focus on the economic environment. They have successfully translated their insights into product offerings that fulfil customers' unmet desires. Over the years, TML has innovated and rolled out indigenous passenger cars and commercial vehicles in cargo and passenger transportation categories. In its cargo transportation category, it introduced a wide range of vehicles in the form of big, medium and mini trucks, but \"Tata Ace\", their innovation in the mini-truck category, has been successful in redefining the industry boundaries.\nInception of Tata Ace: Year 2001 - commercial-vehicle-segment analysis\nConclusion: beyond Tata Motors Limited and Tata Ace: Increasingly over time, with difficult market conditions across industries, companies have to make considered choices. Even when there is industry growth, competing on similar factors can lead to giving \"more for less\", which in a zero sum world of market shares can end in competing to the bottom. With shorter horizons of sustaining an edge, the need to create new non-customers is increasingly important. The experience of TML with Tata Ace is a case in point for companies aiming to get out of red oceans. The five steps in the shift process viewed through the prism of the Tata Ace illustrate an application of reaching for profitable growth by creating huge value for a set of non-customers, which renders competition irrelevant.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to understand how organizations can apply the Blue Ocean Shift process to achieve profitable growth and make competition irrelevant.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses a case study approach. Based on interaction with the senior management of an organization and secondary sources, this paper presents an application of the Blue Ocean Shift process on a strategic move by an organization to achieve value innovation.\nFindings: This paper presents a case of how Tata Motors Ltd. applied Blue Ocean Shift process to come up with the product Tata Ace, which achieved value innovation while making competition irrelevant. From assessing the current state of play to forming a motivated team, working with suppliers and fulfilling the needs of the non-customers and unhappy existing users, they were able to create a strong position for themselves.\nPractical implications: Blue Ocean Strategy, through a process defined as Blue Ocean Shift, can be applied by organizations to achieve value innovation, change market boundaries and achieve profitable growth through their strategic offerings. It can help them get out of \"red oceans\" which may be a way to view the existing hypercompetitive world.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the application of the Blue Ocean Shift process in the Indian context while studying a strategic move of an Indian firm. It showcases an example of how large Indian organizations can successfully apply the process to achieve value innovation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of financial management practices and competitive advantage on the loan performance of MFIs	[ "Competitive advantage", "Social impact", "Uganda", "Financial management practices", "Loan performance", "MFIs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this paper we report the results of studying the impact of financial management practices and competitive advantage on loan performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs). In developing countries, MFIs serve as better avenues for providing microfinance services to the disadvantaged members of society as well as to small- and medium-enterprises, than the well-established financial institutions (Parikh et al., 2006; Kumar and Golait, 2009; Collier et al., 2011; Moti et al., 2012) and have been celebrated for their social impact on poverty eradication (Schicks, 2010). In continuing with this service, Biekpe and Kiweu (2009) find that portfolio quality of MFIs is critical and with issues of over-indebtedness emerging among microfinance customers, MFIs achievements are at risk (Schicks, 2010). As early as 2005, Kalyango (2005) noted poor loan performance of MFIs in Uganda. More evidence suggests that loan performance of Ugandan MFIs has continued to deteriorate despite the increased effort to boost the firms' competitive advantage through improved investment in competitive advantage assets (Adongo, 2012). Back in the 1990s, a number of researchers had suggested a framework, based on the dual concepts of outreach and sustainability, for the assessment of MFIs performance (Kereta, 2007).\nLiterature review: Financial management practices\nMethodology: Research design and study sample\nResults and discussion: We generate means and standard deviations to summarize the observed data. For simplicity we report the means of global variables. We report the means because according to Field (2009), means represent a summary of the data while standard deviations show how well the means represent the data. The main purpose is to establish whether the statistical means are a good fit of the observed data (Field, 2009). The means and standard deviations of all the items are summarized in Table V. All mean scores of the items range from 3.57 to 4.15 with the standard deviations from 0.519 to 0.612. Because of small standard deviations compared to mean values, it is clear that the data points are close to the means and hence calculated means highly represented the observed data (Field, 2009). To establish the relationship between the pair of the variables under study, correlation analysis is conducted. Table VI shows the results.\nConclusion, implications and future directions of research: Conclusion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of financial management practices and competitive advantage on loan performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this cross-sectional study, the authors surveyed 70 MFIs in Kampala, Uganda. The authors applied principal component analysis to reduce the number of factors and identify the important elements that capture financial management practices, competitive advantage and loan performance of MFIs. The authors put forward and tested three hypotheses relating to the significance of the relationship between these three variables of MFIs using the statistical software package, SPSS and also apply the normal theory approach developed by Sobel (1982) and Baron and Kenny (1986) in testing the mediation by competitive advantage.\nFindings: Robust financial management practices are associated with better loan performance of MFIs. Results also reveal a significant positive relationship between the competitive advantage of the MFIs and their loan performance. Furthermore, a significant positive relationship between competitive advantage and loan performance is found. Moreover results also show a full mediation effect of competitive advantage on the association of financial management practices and loan performance, implying that the association of financial management practices of the MFIs on their loan performance is entirely through their competitive advantage.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although there is plenty of literature on loan performance, financial management practices and competitive advantage, there is scarce literature on their effective conceptualization. This together with the imprecise definition of competitive advantage may have affected conceptualization of the authors study. Thus, in this study, the authors do not claim highly refined measurement concepts. Moreover, many of the extant studies for instance have measured loan performance quantitatively, yet process factors which are inherently qualitative in nature can better explain variances in loan performance concept. More research is therefore needed to better refine qualitative concepts used in this study.\nPractical implications: Efforts by the MFIs management to improve loan performance must be matched with adoption of financial management practices that provide MFIs with sustained competitive advantage over their rivals.\nOriginality/value: In order to explain loan performance of MFIs, and drawing from social economics, management and accounting strands, this study shows that assessing the role of competitive advantage in the relationship between financial management practices and loan performance is imperative. Also, many of the extant studies have measured loan performance quantitatively, yet process factors or antecedents which are inherently qualitative in nature can better explain variances in loan performance concept. Thus this study calls for the refinement of loan performance concept and accounting for endogeneity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Market values for olive oil attributes in Chile: a hedonic price function	[ "Chile", "Market value", "Olive oil attributes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Olive oil is perhaps one of the most characteristic elements of the Mediterranean diet (Lazaridis, 2004) and is appreciated worldwide for its proven health benefits (Hu, 2003; Martinez-Gonzalez and Sanchez-Villegas, 2004). Currently, 70 per cent of world olive oil production and 60 per cent of consumption are concentrated in Mediterranean countries of the European Union (International Olive Oil Council (IOOC), 2012), which are considered as traditional producers and consumers. Olive oil production (including extra virgin, virgin, and common olive oil) reached 3.1 million t in 2012 and increased by more than 20 per cent between 2000 and 2012 (IOOC, 2012). Spain leads world oil production (43 per cent) and is followed by Italy (14 per cent), Greece (10 per cent), and Portugal (2 per cent). A second group of countries account for 24 per cent of production: Syria (6 per cent), Tunisia (6 per cent), Turkey (6 per cent), Morocco (4 per cent), and Algeria (2 per cent). All these countries are located in the Mediterranean Basin and are considered as traditional olive oil producers (Mili, 2006); their historical importance in growing olive trees goes back to the Roman Empire (Ben Kaabia and Gil, 2011).\n2. Materials and methods: The hedonic price function assumes that market goods consist of a set of characteristics that can be represented by a vector k of attributes:\n3. Results and discussion: Equation (6) was estimated in semi-logarithm form including all the above-mentioned attributes and attribute levels. Table II shows how attribute levels are included in the model.\n4. Conclusions: The objective of this study was to determine the implicit value of the most relevant attributes of extra virgin olive oil in an emerging market such as Chile. A hedonic price log-linear function was estimated with information collected (retail price and product attributes) from 248 differentiated products in 12 retail stores. Results obtained suggest that origin and acidity have a positive influence on extra virgin olive oil. On average, imported extra virgin olive oil is $633 more expensive than its domestic counterpart. An additional percentage point in acidity increases mean prices by approximately a similar quantity ($640). This is an interesting result since an increase in acidity is related to lower quality (maintaining the 0.8 per cent threshold to be considered as extra virgin olive oil). This result is related to the higher acidity of imported olive oil and provides useful information for producers to orient their long-term investments and marketing strategies. Extra virgin olive oil is still an emerging market in Chile. If producers are able to adequately communicate the relationship between quality and acidity, they can offer a very competitive product as compared with the imported product, and this could compensate increasing advertising costs. Then again, producers can reduce costs by increasing acidity and selling the product much cheaper than imported extra virgin olive oil.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Focused on the olive oil sector in Chile which is a non-traditional market (both in production and consumption), the purpose of this paper is to determine the implicit value of the most relevant attributes of olive oil on the final price charged by supermarkets to consumers through the hedonic pricing methodology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Field work was carried out between September and October 2012 in 12 supermarkets belonging to the four most important Chilean retail chains. A log-linear price-attribute function was used to estimate the hedonic price function. The sample included 248 observations olive oil prices available to consumers in the leading supermarkets in the city of Chillan (Chile).\nFindings: The model estimation results led to the observation that the attributes that most positively influenced final price are oil acidity level, tin can container of imported oil, and origin. On the other hand, the attributes that most negatively influenced final consumer price are retailer house brand and plastic container.\nResearch limitations/implications: A limitation of this study is associated with the geographic area where it was carried out, that is, the city of Chillan in the Bio-Bio Region, which is the second largest region and accounts for 12 per cent of the total population. Further research should include other cities such as Santiago (capital), Concepcion, Curico and Valparaiso.\nOriginality/value: This study can be considered as a first approximation of a hedonic pricing model estimation for olive oil in non-traditional markets like Chile, which is considered an emerging market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Trust in customer-salesperson relationship in China's retail sector	[ "Retail shopping behaviour", "Perceived risk", "Trust in sales personnel", "China retailers", "Risk analysis", "Consumer behaviour", "Trust" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In keeping with the conditions for membership in the World Trade Organization, China has removed most restrictions on foreign retailers for setting up wholly-owned retail outlets. Together with the rising consumption power of Chinese consumers, an increasingly more open and transparent retail market in China has attracted many international retailers to invest there. In fact, according to The Economist (2011) China is the world's fastest growing retail market. Emergence of a large number of international retailers and widespread imitation of merchandise strategy and interior store layout by local retailers has generated intense competition in China's retail market. This on the one hand has accentuated the need to develop close and stable relationships with local suppliers so as to minimize the cost of supplies, as evidenced by the experiences of Wal-Mart (US), Tesco (UK), Carrefour (France) and the Chinese companies such as Shanghai Balian and Wumart, and on the other hand has called for heavy commitment to customer satisfaction and retention of regular customers. A recent paper by Uncles (2010) discusses the retail change in China and concludes with observations about the future of retailing in China.The study of the relationship between customers and service firm, or its frontline employees, lacks both theoretical and empirical work particularly designed to investigate systematically the antecedents to trust and the role of trust in consumer-employee relationships in the context of consumer service (Eastlick and Lotz, 2011; Johnson and Grayson, 2005). The present study is an extension of research on the role of trust in the relationship between the customer and the frontline sales people in various retail contexts in an emerging market like China. In particular, we explored the effects of two types of trust, cognitive trust and affective trust, on customers' commitment in developing and maintaining this kind of relationship. In order to establish the need of cultivating trust in and relationship with the retailer's frontline employees as a means to reduce the perceived risk inherent in consumption process by consumers, the present study also explores Chinese consumers' risk perceptions of different retail modes and the relative importance of sales personnel in their choice behaviour.\n2. Research objectives: Proliferation of different types of retail formats in China has consequently intensified both within-group and between-group competition. Chinese consumers may not be able to acquire sufficient knowledge of various retail modes and retail operations in line with rapid development of the retail sector. Many Chinese consumers may experience greater risk when shopping in different retail settings if they do not have enough store knowledge to predict the outcome associated with the purchase. Assessing choice behaviour and risk perception is necessary to understand further Chinese consumers' commitment to the business relationship with the retailer and its implications for effective operation and relationship management strategy in China.For retail services, consumers always look for tangible cues like store image (e.g. Hsu et al., 2010) and behaviour of sales staff that may help them reduce perceived risk (Jayawardhena and Farell, 2011; Mitchell and Harris, 2005; Semeijin et al., 2004). The appearance of frontline salespersons represents the first impression of the company in the customer's mind. Their service behaviour and relationship with the customer also add value to the product/service and provide psychological and social utilities (Lloyd and Luk, 2011). In this connection, frontline sales personnel serve as risk reliever (Macintosh and Lockshin, 1997). This risk reduction role will be more significant if the sales staff is perceived as trustworthy (Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002; Wong and Sohal, 2003), particularly for people-dominant services (Brown and Lam, 2008).Trust plays a critical role in an enduring customer-retailer relationship. Moorman et al. (1992) define trust as a willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence. Others have conceptualised that trust exists when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity (Arnott, 2007; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). The importance of trust in retailing overall has not received much attention, although a few studies have reported a significant role of trust in the retail context in company-customer relationships (Ganesan, 1994; Guenzi et al., 2009; Too et al., 2001), in salesperson-customer relationships (Ball et al., 2004; Young and Albaum, 2000, 2003; Macintosh and Lockshin, 1997; Ranaweera and Prabhu, 2003), and in online retailers (Nassir et al., 2008).Following are the specific objectives of this study:* To understand Chinese consumers' attitudes towards frontline sales personnel and measure the level of perceived risk associated with the purchase from three major modes of retail stores in China, including traditional department stores, independent specialty shops, and franchising/chain specialty stores.* To validate two trust scales, one for \"cognitive trust\" and the other for \"affective trust\" in the context of China's retail sector and based on them to study the level of trust in frontline sales personnel by Chinese consumers in various retail settings.* To examine the relationships among customer satisfaction, trust, and customer commitment, when trust is conceptualized as either cognitive or affective trust.We believe the findings can provide insights of the influences of frontline sales personnel on two particular aspects of behavioural intention of Chinese shoppers: repeated purchase and development of a relationship with the frontline salesperson.\n3. Factors affecting shopping behaviour: 3.1 Perceived risk in retail purchase\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Findings and discussion: 5.1 Respondent characteristics and purchase behaviour\n6. Conclusion and implications: Several hypotheses were derived and tested and the results are summarised in Table VIII. Two scales, which incorporated the behaviour-cognition and affect properties of trust respectively, were examined in the present study. The findings suggest that the scale containing cognitive measures is more suitable to explain consumer-employee relationship in a consumer marketing setting like retailing.China is a guanxi society and interpersonal relationships play an important role in business activities. The findings provide support for the statement that salesperson-related factors are as important as store-attributes in influencing shoppers' choices of retailing service in China. Satisfaction with the frontline salesperson will have impact on the customer's perception of the frontline salesperson's reliability and competence in fulfilling his/her promise. This perception will facilitate the cultivation of trusting behaviour of the customer on the frontline salesperson.The findings support that cognitive trust has positive impact on affective trust. However, the most important contribution of the present study is the investigation of the relative importance of cognitive trust and affective trust on relationship commitment under different retail settings. In general cognitive trust is more powerful predictor to the customer's commitment to the relationship with the frontline sales personnel, but affective trust appears to have moderate impact on relationship commitment if the retail service is more customized for individual customers, as in the case of specialty stores.All in all, in a retail context, satisfaction with the services provided by the frontline salesperson appears to be a more powerful determinant of the customer's intention to purchase from the same salesperson again than the level of trust in the frontline salesperson, except for purchasing in specialty stores. This suggests the importance of delivering excellent service. It may take a relatively long time to establish trust in the frontline salesperson, but the experience of \"satisfaction\" or \"dissatisfaction\" will have instant impact on the customer's repurchase intention and the desire to continue the relationship.6.1 Managerial and research implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer attitudes and purchase intentions toward three major retail types within China-department stores, independent specialty stores, and franchising/chain specialty stores. Of particular interest is perceived risk of purchase, the relative importance of frontline sales staff, trust, and the relationships among satisfaction, trust, and customers' commitment to the salesperson.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were obtained by a street intercept personal interview survey from 554 Chinese consumers to test hypotheses about consumer behavior and attitudinal reactions to the three types of retail store formats. Personal interviews were conducted in four urban cities, each in a different region of China. Two measures of trust were studied - affective trust and cognitive trust.\nFindings: - There was a difference in perceived risk in purchasing from the different types of stores, but the importance of the frontline salesperson's influence on consumers did not differ. Increased satisfaction by consumers with the salesperson leads to a higher level of both cognitive and affective trust. Intention to maintain a relationship with the salesperson is positively related to both types of trust.\nOriginality/value: - This study is the first to examine three major types of retail institutions in China and how trust in retailer salespersons is linked to customer satisfaction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Convergence or difference? Western European household food expenditure	[ "Ireland", "United Kingdom", "France", "Italy", "Food consumption", "Cluster analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This research examines convergence theory in terms of food expenditure patterns across a subset of Western European countries. Previous economic research focusing on convergence in food consumption between countries has usually used summary level data at the national level. Sociological and nutritional research into change in food consumption has generally focused on difference and has used data at the individual and household level. This analysis integrates analysis of change across countries with change within individual countries to determine if food consumption is converging/diverging within and across national boundaries.\nMethods: Household budget surveys have been collected internationally for decades and have extensive data on expenditures, income, demographics and socio-economic information. Therefore, they are a valuable source of information for studying consumption at the social group level. Though household budget surveys have been conducted in all four of the sample countries for decades, much of this information has been collected at different intervals and is not available in computerised form (in most cases) until the 1980 s. Given that Ireland has the least amount of data available, Ireland has been used as the basis for choice of years for household budget surveys from the other countries included in this research as well. Table I lists the data sets used for this research project. While household budget survey data were available for (nearly) identical years for Ireland, Italy and the UK, it was not possible to access data for those years from France. Thus data for years close to the reference years were obtained. The methodology behind the household budget survey is similar for all four countries included in this research. The Working Group on Household Budget Surveys is a European group which includes Ireland, Italy, the UK and France. Their aim is to harmonise household budget survey data. They first met in 1989 (Eurostat, 2005).\nHousehold food budgets: measuring convergence across countries: proportional change and change in the coefficient of variation: An initial step in assessing whether or not the food expenditure patterns of Ireland, Italy, the UK and France are becoming more or less alike is to compare how the household food budget for an average household in each country has changed over time. Table II provides 1987 information (1985 for France) on: the average household food budget for each country; the spread, the average and the standard deviation for each food category across countries, and the coefficient of variation (CV) for each type of food expenditure (calculated using the four national averages for each food category). Table III provides the same information for 2004-2005. A comparison of the two tables makes it possible to assess convergence/divergence. If the coefficient of variation is increasing, this indicates that the ratio of the standard deviation relative to the mean is increasing over time and indicates divergence (i.e. increased variation relative to the average). Convergence could be concluded if the coefficient of variation decreases for a food category over time. This information is summarised in Table IV.\nHousehold food budgets: assessing similarity: cluster analysis: Countries and subgroups within countries that are converging in terms of food expenditure across national boundaries will have food budgets that are becoming more similar over time. To assess similarities in food budgets and change over time, cluster analysis was used to group cases together that share characteristics of interest, specifically proportional food expenditures. Then, using cross-tabulation and chi-square analysis, it was possible to determine if these clusters were significantly different based on country and also household level variables that have been shown to differentiate food consumption patterns: age of head of household, urban versus rural residence, gender ratio, family type and employment status. (It was not possible to include occupational grouping, region or educational attainment in this analysis because there was either no comparable data across countries or there was too much missing data within countries. Cross tabs and chi-square analysis outcomes for cluster by: country by year, urban vs rural residency, employment status of head of household, ratio of females in the household, household composition by family type and age group of head of household are available on request but were too lengthy to include in this article.)\nConclusion: This research has assessed whether or not food expenditure patterns are converging across and within the boundaries of Italy, France, Ireland and the UK.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research examines convergence theory in terms of food expenditure patterns within and across a sample of Western European countries, specifically Italy, Ireland, France and the UK.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Household budget survey data from Italy, the UK, France and Ireland (1985-2005) have been analysed comparing average food budgets and change in coefficient of variations for common food groupings and through cluster analysis for all four countries to determine whether or not countries are becoming more or less alike.\nFindings: Unlike the average food budgets in Ireland, the UK and France, Italian food budgets are still made up of a high percentage of foods to prepare and eat at home, similar to food budgets in the other countries for socio-demographic groups that either have chosen to eat traditionally or cannot afford to eat out (food poverty households). Modern households within France, the UK and Ireland are spending a higher percentage on foods away from home with some households, specifically those with a head of household who is young, employed and single, spending, on average, two-thirds of their household food budget dining away from home.\nOriginality/value: Previous research into convergence theory has generally analysed national summary level data. This research uses household level data, allowing for both an analysis of convergence across countries and within countries, specifically looking at socio-demographic groups that share similar food budgets and food lifestyles.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
University governance: insights from England and Greece	[ "Governance", "University" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A convergence in higher education policy would be facilitated by a well-established information network among the member states and a close monitoring of individual higher education systems. It appears that the factors capable of forcing a major change in the governance of higher education institutions focus not only on competitive pressures and the growth of universities (external strategies) but also on the integration and coordination of internal university policies and strategies into a coherent system of higher education for every member state. Despite any cultural, social or economic differences among countries, the process of globalization aims, through common guidelines and interventions in the restructuring of higher education institutions, to arrive at a common template of systemic governance (De Haan, 2015; Dobbins, 2017; Fassoulis, 2014; Lazzeratti and Tavoletti, 2006; Lanford, 2016; Kickert, 1997, cited by Capano and Regini, 2014; Pandey, 2004; Tandberg, 2010; Van Vught, 1989; Wadhwa, 2016). Indeed, an underlying element of globalization is the utilization of education performance mechanisms such as indicators and tables, not only to emphasize the need for an improvement in the efficiency, quality and effectiveness of institutions but also to drive higher education to become more qualitative by leaning toward a key globalization principle: a common governance model.\nResearch methodology: The paper employs the O and M technique in order to investigate and assess the role played by university governance in the effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system. This method is based on the analysis of answers to key questions such as \"why is it done?\" or \"how is it done?\" regarding the conduct of scientific observations and interviews with staff. An analysis of the responses helps the researcher to identify what is required to improve the system, both in terms of the management and efficiency of the system (Steele, 1987, Saiti, 2009). Using this method, and through the examination of two examples (case studies) of the governance of higher education institutions in Greece and England, the main aim of the paper is to analyze the role of university governance. The necessary information and data used in this study were obtained from a higher education institution in England and two universities in Greece. More specifically, the relevant legislative framework, documents and reports relative to university governance were studied and discussions were held with academic and administrative staff of the relevant higher education institutions. At this point, it should be made clear that, irrespective of the universities used in this study as sources of information and data on university governance, the higher education system in each country is applied equally in all tertiary institutions of the respective country.\nResearch results: Example 1: university governance in England\nEvaluation of the case report: From the above, the slight orientation of the Greek system toward a more market-driven approach is evident since, according to the new legislative framework (Greek Law, 4009/2011), at least at the postgraduate level, all programs are required to charge fees for their postgraduate programs. It should be mentioned at this point that since 1964 education in Greece, at all educational levels, has been free of charge while all State education institutions (which are the vast majority) have operated with financial support from the government and every citizen has equal educational opportunities, irrespective of family background, racial origin or gender.\nDiscussion: According to the above analysis, in practice, the changes in academic governance in both countries under consideration that resulted in a decrease in the powers of the relevant academic bodies have led the education system toward a weakening of internal collegiality and cooperative spirit, with serious consequences for the decision-making process (Ahmed et al., 2015; Fassoulis, 2014; Ntim et al., 2017; Shattock, 2013). Taking into consideration that changes are key components of higher educational policy in any country, both countries have been (and still are) seeking any changes that will ensure the sustainable development of the higher education system and also establish the framework within which all the relevant stakeholders should operate.\nConclusions: Based on the above analysis and on the two higher education systems under consideration, clearly there is no indicative recipe or prescription for quality assurance processes, whether it be in higher education or in any other sector. Aside from the differences in those systems' characteristics, all the relevant changes were implemented in the name of \"quality improvement.\" This study acts as a complement to previous research on higher education governance since it develops further the analysis and the understanding of university governance. Certainly, the analysis developed in this study would benefit from a deeper exploration by investigating more numerous and diverse examples from the international arena of higher education. However, by using as examples two countries with different orientation in their higher education system (mainly due to differences in cultural and ideological perceptions) and keeping in mind that there is no ideal model for university governance, this study could enlighten decision makers in any country to develop a more effective and constructive model of university governance that would serve societal interests more effectively.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and assess the role played by university governance in the effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system through literature analysis and the management evaluation method of Organization and Methods (the O and M technique) and argue for a more radical change in, and greater scrutiny of, university governance so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of university operations and thus yield a more optimal satisfaction of social needs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employs the O and M technique in order to investigate and assess the role played by university governance in the effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system.\nFindings: The \"objective\" is education and knowledge and there is no room for experimentation in the system. The higher education sector does not need experiments to develop further. Rather, it deserves cautious, creative and innovative consideration and needs a very distinctive treatment of national problems. No matter the policy orientation of the system, higher education policy makers should not forget that higher education has a tremendous influence on peoples' attitudes and beliefs so the focus should be on the actual knowledge on social responsibility and on the commitment of higher education to serve social interests and needs.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysis developed in this study would benefit from a deeper exploration by investigating more numerous and diverse examples from the international arena of higher education.\nOriginality/value: This study acts as a complement to previous research on higher education governance since it develops further the analysis and the understanding of university governance. By using as examples two countries with different orientation in their higher education system (mainly due to differences in cultural and ideological perceptions) and keeping in mind that there is no ideal model for university governance, this study could enlighten decision makers in any country to develop a more effective and constructive model of university governance that would serve societal interests more effectively.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Collaborative inquiry play: A design case to frame integration of collaborative problem solving with story-centric games	[ "Play", "Socially shared regulated learning", "Problem-based learning", "Collaborative inquiry", "Game-based learning", "Complex systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Educational research has shown that game-based learning environments provide playful contexts that allow participants to immerse themselves and extend their identities, engage in collaborative problem solving and complex literacy practices, and develop expertise in their communities of practice (Turkle, 1995; Gee, 2003; Klopfer et al., 2005; Squire, 2006). In these contexts, play can be defined as grounded in real social experiences yet includes imaginary contexts and roles that extend the individual beyond their current abilities (Fein, 1981; Leslie, 1987; Nicolopoulou, 2007; Vygotsky, 1967). In a similar vein, scientific inquiry in games can also involve authentic experiences that leverage challenging and meaningful roles. Thus, games can provide the context for rich scientific inquiry, encouraging learning of content and engagement with scientific practices. However, supporting inquiry through game-based learning environments is not a straightforward task in part because of the difficulties in defining inquiry and the challenges of integrating play in educational contexts (Pedaste et al., 2015; Dichev and Dicheva, 2017). Moreover, the success of inquiry-based technologies for learning and teaching depends on multiple factors such as support in the classroom and at the institutional level (Kim et al., 2007). These difficulties are further compounded when one is interested in designing for collaborative inquiry learning.\nThe design case: To address the challenges of integrating collaborative inquiry with game-based learning environment, the current article presents a design case of how collaborative inquiry play shapes the integration of learning content into the player experience in crystal island: ecojourneys. A design case is a description of how a particular artifact or experience is designed (Boling, 2010). By highlighting the iterations of the design, the article presents an argument for how collaborative inquiry play can promote agency without subverting player interests, even in a constrained environment with specific pedagogical goals. Furthermore, the design case can couple with conjecture mapping, a framework that articulates the relationship between design and conjectures as a formalized way of building on theoretical, design, and research precedent (Sandoval, 2014). Embodied conjectures refer to the way in which design goals and theoretical propositions might be reified within design environments including tools, material, activity structure, and social interactions (Sandoval, 2004). Embodied conjectures have several characteristics:\nCollaborative inquiry play: Research in science inquiry learning has indicated that inquiry is productive but challenging to support especially in technology-rich environments (Pedaste et al., 2015; Dichev and Dicheva, 2017; Kim et al., 2007). The challenges of inquiry learning are further compounded by working in groups (Dillenbourg, 1999). Yet, the fact remains that collaborative inquiry learning is a critical element of science learning, as evident by the call for integrating inquiry practices and collaboration in workplace environments (Hilton, 2010; National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2019). Despite these challenges, technology-rich environments such as game-based learning environments have demonstrated that productive inquiry learning can indeed be supported (Donnelly et al., 2014; Ketelhut et al., 2010). Even though research in educational games has provided useful frameworks for the design of story-centric games (c.f., Arnab et al., 2015; Plass et al., 2015), the integration of games in specific educational contexts remains underspecified (Dichev and Dicheva, 2017). Given that the design of educational games should be informed by learning theories, a theoretically-principled approach toward the game design could allow an articulation of how student interactions with rules can offer insights into play and learning. Thus, the research team utilized PBL, an instructional approach that draws on a constructivist paradigm.\nDesign iterations and data sources: The research project is currently in the third year of its design and implementation and will present data from the first three years of the five-year research project. Utilizing an instrumental case study approach (Stake, 1995), the article discusses the design priorities as exemplified in the design conjectures and the associated research studies related to the three iterations of the design conjecture. Across the three years, 96 students and two teachers participated in the different studies. In the first year of development, design work was centered on embodying the processes of collaborative inquiry in the story. The high-level conjecture was that successful collaborative inquiry learning depends on engagement with inquiry. This was primarily embodied in the story and a collaborative modeling activity, which was designed in place of the traditional whiteboard. To differentiate the design of this collaborative space from the traditional PBL whiteboard, the article refers to this space as a brainstorming board. The story was centered on supporting inquiry learning and understanding of ecosystems content. Specifically, students learned about systems thinking based on the Phenomenon-Mechanisms-Components (PMC) framework (Jordan et al., 2014; Hmelo-Silver et al., 2017).\nFirst iteration and field test I: Designing the context and collaborative interactions: One area of focus in the initial design was the problem space and how the phases of inquiry would be embedded in this problem space. Another area was the shared collaborative space, or the brainstorming board. In the first iteration, the brainstorming board was designed as a modeling tool. In what follows, the article highlights the instantiation of the high-level conjecture in two aspects of the design, the context (i.e. story and problem space) and the brainstorming board tool. These features were selected because they illustrate how the conjecture was embodied, especially with an eye toward how the PBL model informed the design (Smith, 2010).\nSecond iteration and field test II: Supporting collaborative inquiry and regulation of learning: Based on findings from the Field Test I focus groups, the team prioritized designing an immersive play environment that afforded an effective problem space that was challenging yet sensitive to student agency, and allowed for scaffolds to appear integrated as part of the play experience. Although PBL engages students in collaborative learning, it does not explicitly define the process. This was evident from the collaborative model-building activities, where roles had to be specified or developed organically from student interactions. In this phase, the conjecture map was revised to attend to SSRL (Jarvela et al., 2016, Figure 5). Note that the revisions to the conjecture map appear in the highlighted boxes.\nThird iteration and field test II: externalizing inquiry and supporting classroom interactions: In the current iteration of the conjecture, several aspects of the design were revised or added: the brainstorming board (i.e. the game-based version of the PBL whiteboard), an agreement index, the to-do list, and the group contract. Additionally, the interactive story was broken up into chapters so as to help support student content learning and to better align the story to the PBL inquiry phase. The agreement index was added because it was necessary to externalize aspects of the inquiry process, such as sharing, and negotiating ideas. This index was integrated as part of the brainstorming board (see section below). Finally, the to-do list and group contract were additional ways of embodying the principles of SSRL. Due to space constraints, only the agreement index and brainstorming board are discussed (Figure 6).\nCoda: Designing for collaborative inquiry play: As a pedagogical model, PBL provided a useful framework to support the iteration of the design. The high-level conjecture shifted from a focus on inquiry processes to including social interactions that are crucial to collaborative inquiry learning. A key tension in designing for learning and play, however, is to manage the process of learning without compromising the imaginary context and agency. Below, several key takeaways are highlighted on how one might design for collaborative inquiry play.\nConcluding thoughts: In sum, our work highlights how learning principles from PBL can be productively mapped to definitions of play, imaginary contexts and roles that extend the individual beyond their current abilities. The embodied conjectures allowed the team to be aware of the affordances and constraints of the design and offer support on how these designs were iterated. Notably, the focus on problem solving has meant that the definition of play is based on the roles that students choose to adopt in the designed context. Although this does not align with typical definitions of play, especially those that define play as involving fun - the importance of agency cannot be underspecified. Designing challenging yet constrained collaborative contexts do not mean that students neither enjoy themselves nor engage in play. Indeed, students reported that they took on adult roles that they specified for themselves, and highlighted that sharing and negotiating ideas provided enjoyment when using the brainstorming board.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present a model of collaborative inquiry play: rule-based imaginary situations that provide challenging problems and support agentic multiplayer interactions (c.f., Vygotsky, 1967; Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). Drawing on problem-based learning (PBL, Hmelo-Silver, 2004), this paper provides a design case to articulate the relationship between the design goals and the game-based learning environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014), this paper presents an iterative development of the conjecture map for crystal island: ecojourneys and highlights the development of the story and tools in crystal island: ecojourneys, an immersive game based on PBL pedagogy. By articulating this development, the authors highlight the affordances and constraints of designing for collaborative inquiry play and address challenges in supporting learner agency.\nFindings: The PBL inquiry process served as the foundation of collaborative inquiry play. Attending to the rules of inquiry fostered student agency, and in turn, playful engagement in the game-based learning environment. Agency however meant holding students accountable to actions undertaken, especially as it pertained to generating group-based explanations and reflecting on productive collaboration. Moreover, socially shared regulation of learning and systems thinking concepts (i.e. phenomenon, mechanisms, and components) must also be externalized in representations and interactions in the game such that students have the agency to decide on their learning paths.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents the model of collaborative inquiry play and highlights how to support player agency and design content-rich play environments which are not always completely open.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"You must finish your dinner": Meal time dynamics between grandparents, parents and grandchildren in urban China	[ "Children (age groups)", "China", "Parent‐child dynamics", "Children's agency", "Parents", "Grandparents", "Family life", "Social dynamics", "Food products" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The unprecedented economic growth experienced in the past three decades in China has brought about remarkable change in dietary patterns, with a shift towards greater consumption of meat and poultry, cooking oil, and food with high energy and animal fat. The alarming trend of childhood obesity (Ji et al., 2004) and warnings that childhood overweight may pose considerable public health risks have attracted much research attention. However, there is a dearth of studies examining the beliefs and attitudes about food held by caregivers and how these influence actual feeding patterns at home. Jiang et al. (2007) found that since grandparents are the primary caregivers of children in three-generation families in China, they play a large role in shaping children's dietary patterns. Because of grandparents' cultural belief that children who are heavy at a young age are well nourished and will become tall in future, they will urge children to eat more and serve them larger portions at meal times. While parents consider it a problem if their children are overweight, grandparents believe quite the contrary. Jiang and associates shed valuable light on the differences in beliefs and attitudes about feeding and nutrition between the two cohorts of caregivers. This paper aims to explore how these generational differences interplay and lead to tension and conflict in the interactions between grandparents and parents during meal times; and how children, who though inevitably affected by adults are also agentic beings themselves (Goh and Kuczynski, 2009) also contribute to such tension around the dinner table. It will illustrate these dynamics through data collected from Xiamen, a Southeastern city in China.\nCulturally relevant theory frame: The prevalence of three-generational stem families in urban China has been supported by previous studies (Logan and Bian, 1999; Logan et al., 1998; Zeng, 1986; Shen et al., 1999; Liu, 2004). This popularity of multigenerational co-residence has been found to be a pragmatic choice rather than the persistence of traditional values (Logan et al., 1998). Chinese women's participation in the labour force is today among the highest in the world (United Nations, 2000). Having grandparents co-residing under the same roof thus solves the problem of childcare for many young families. The Intergenerational Parenting Coalition (IGPC), a recent culturally relevant theory frame (Goh and Kuczynski, 2010; Goh, 2011) which conceptualises grandparents and parents as a unit of analysis, is utilized to guide the inquiry in this study. This theory proposes that the three-generational framework (grandparents, parents and grandchildren) is embedded in the cultural context of contemporary China. It recognises that Chinese society is undergoing shifts in both demographic and intergenerational norms and hence, dialectics and bilateral influence are inherent in parent-child relationships (Kuczynski and Parkin, 2007). The IGPC theory frame depicts three classes of social dynamics which are relevant to analyzing intergenerational dynamics around dining tables: interactions between the grandparents and parents; interaction between the child and each of the adults of the IGPC; and interaction between the child and the IGPC as a whole.\nMeals and meal times in Chinese families: In the Chinese diet, the most important foods are the staple which they call fan. For Southern provinces like Xiamen, rice is the most common staple food. Foods that flavour staple are called cai. No meal is complete without both fan and cai (Newman, 2004). In Xiamen, an urban city, the main meal (usually the evening meal when adult children have come home from work and the three generations will eat together) almost always consists of several cai (including meat and vegetables or a mixture of both, cut into small pieces for easy serving as no knives are used at a Chinese dining table) and rice. Each dish is served on its own platter or bowl in the centre of the dining table. Food is not put on an individual's plate, except for rice which is always served individually in a bowl. Children are served the same amount of fan as the adults. Everyone uses chopsticks both to eat and to help themselves to cai from the serving dishes, selecting one or a few morsels at a time and taking them in any order they please (Newman, 2004). Traditionally, young persons were taught to show respect by the act of jia cai (putting a special food item onto the rice bowl) for their elders. With the only child being the central focus of contemporary Chinese families, it is now adults, especially grandparents, who jia cai to the rice bowls of the children instead of the reverse. The mid day meal is smaller and simpler. For children with grandparents residing under one roof (or in the vicinity), grandparents will prepare noodles (usually with vegetables and meat in one bowl together with noodles and soup), or fan with only one or two cai dishes for the child as lunch. Majority of parents from families without grandparents as caregivers will rush home from their work places to prepare simple lunch for their children and themselves. This practice is feasible as typical lunch break for working adults in Xiamen lasts for two hours (12 to 2 p.m.). Children will return to school for second half of the school day after lunch which lasts between 1.30 to 4 p.m. In addition to main meals, children eat snacks in between. They usually have mid-morning snacks which parents/grandparents pack for them as well as in the period after school (usually about 4 p.m.) and before dinner (usually about 6 or 6.30 p.m.). It is common to see children pestering grandparents to buy them snacks from roadside stalls as they walk home from school. These stalls are selling ice cream, candy, hot buns and other snacks targeted at hungry school children.\nMethods: Using children's levels of competence in self-care (particularly their ability to feed themselves during meals) as window of investigation, this study attempts to understand the dynamics within the IGPC in three-generational families (hereafter, multigenerational families, as MF) and to compare it with children raised in nuclear families (hereafter, as NF). Grandparents and parents from ten MF (n=37) and parents from ten NF (n=20) were recruited through a non-governmental organisation (NGO) serving the educational needs of children in Xiamen. All these families had only one child, aged six to nine - i.e. middle childhood stage. All the families were recruited through a snowballing process, as grandparents and parents who took part in the project recommended their friends (Table I).Eight out of the ten MF had two grandparents residing under the same roof and helping with childcare, while the other two families had only one grandparent involved in caregiving. Seven of the children from MF which participated in this study were boys and three were girls. All the parents (adult children) in these families, except one, were married at the point of data collection. The exception was a widow; she and her daughter lived with her parents.The ages of the children in the ten NF were evenly distributed between six and nine years. There were, however, more girls (n=7) than boys (n=3). All the parents in the families (both MF and NF) were gainfully employed outside the home (Table II).Three research assistants were trained personally by the principal investigator before deploying to conduct in-depth interviews with each caregiver in all the households. The issues explored in the interviews included meal time dynamics; the attitude of caregivers towards food; strategies caregivers use to ensure children eat up their food; differences or similarities of strategies used by parents and between parents and grandparents; and children's responses towards caregivers' strategies. After the interview a survey was administered to all the caregivers, asking them to rate the children's ability to care for themselves in areas such as eating meals, personal hygiene, managing personal belongings and helping with household chores.All interviews were transcribed and coding of data was performed with the aid of Nvivo 9. Themes of these in-depth interviews surfaced after many layers of coding by reading and rereading the transcripts (n=57). Survey data on the other hand was analysed by the SPSS software. The qualitative data gathered from different caregivers from the same household provided multi-dimensional insights about food, diet and meal time interactions (Milburn, 1995). Hence, it was possible to access the dialectical nature of the intergenerational relationships. One limitation of this method, however, is the lack of direct access to the voices of the children. Owing to time and resource constraints we did not manage to interview the children directly but could only understand their meal-time behaviours and responses from the perspectives of the adult caregivers.\nFindings: One prominent theme which surfaced from the interviews pertains to the child's behaviour and attitude concerning chifan (eating during meal times). The issue of chifan is complicated by the differing attitudes and reactions from the two senior generations. This section will first report the finding from the survey administered to all participants. Second, it will report the qualitative findings from interviews which corroborate these quantitative findings and provide an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of interactions across the generations.Survey\nDiscussion and conclusion: Despite the Chinese value of yi he wei kui (maintaining harmony at all costs), different attitudes between adult caregivers towards the feeding of children came to a head around the dining table and made it a place of tension and contention in Chinese families.Dining tables as wrestling rings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - By using food consumption as a kaleidoscope, the aim of this paper is to illustrate the bidirectional and dialectical interactions among caregivers and between single children and their multiple caregivers in Xiamen.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper reports findings from in-depth interviews with grandparents and parents (n=33) from ten three-generational families and parents (n=20) from ten nuclear families with single children between six and nine years old.\nFindings: - Grandparents unequivocally accorded supreme importance to ensuring a child finishes his/her meals while parents tended to hold slightly more liberal views. These differences created higher conflict and tensions between the caregivers in three-generational families as compared to nuclear households. Children in multigenerational families were more frequently force-fed by adult-caregivers whereas their counterparts were more capable of feeding themselves during meal times.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This exploratory study provides in-depth insights but carries the limitation of generalisability. Future research can apply similar methodology on bigger samples so as to ascertain a better estimation of the extent of stress and tension across generations over meal times in urban China.\nPractical implications: - The initial finding reported in this paper is useful for public health workers and family life educators in China to help families with children of middle childhood to manage tension arising from meal times.\nOriginality/value: - Diverging from most parenting research which tends to focus on parent-child dynamics, this paper included three generations - grandparents, parents, grandchildren - in the research conceptualization. This is important as grandparents are integral parts of childrearing in China.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Life as an entrepreneur: leadership and learning	[ "Entrepreneurs", "Coaching", "Mentoring", "Workplace training", "Leadership", "Business development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nLife and learning as an entrepreneur: Spurred on by a wealth of opportunities, awoken by the internet, new business start-ups are a fact of twenty-first century living. A quick review of the UK's TV habits reveals an insatiable appetite for entrepreneurship with programmes such as Dragon's Den and The Apprentice high in the rankings. Entrepreneurship is at the heart of our society and our economy. Over four million companies in the UK employ around 58 percent of the private sector workforce; these are joined each year by more than half a million new businesses.This article examines the keys to entrepreneurial success, and in particular the importance of leadership and learning as an entrepreneur. The UK Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) believes that skills are a key factor affecting whether a new company succeeds or not. Most entrepreneurs are very smart learners, but does their learning style and approach become a trap? And if so, when?According to the FSB, \" ... keeping it going is tough. Half a million firms start up each year but 300,000 of them will go bust in the first three years. So, having the right skills, both for the new boss and for any staff they can take on, can make all the difference.\" We examine whether an entrepreneur's very drive and determination can actually stop learning and impede further success.\nIn the beginning: To succeed, entrepreneurs need to develop their own beliefs and ideas and create a viable action plan to move these ideas forward. The business comes to fruition because of that vision and drive, but having peers to bounce ideas off is very important and often lacking in the early days. Too often, the people running their own businesses cannot see the wood for the trees; they find it difficult to stand back and reflect on the problems they are experiencing. Sometimes their very determination to succeed can undermine a business. Key steps of the later business model are missed, not seen or unable to simply be addressed because \"there isn't time right now\". At this point, establishing a mentoring relationship can allow the entrepreneur to step into \"pools of reflection\", to enable them to see situations differently, more clearly and from different perspectives. We help entrepreneurs to focus on the big picture, instead of on the nitty-gritty daily routine of running the business.\nPassion transfer and organizational learning: The twenty-first century entrepreneur seems to be motivated by the more holistic rewards of job satisfaction and personal fulfillment. The latest research from entrepreneur think tank, the Tenon Forum, reveals that entrepreneurs are more likely to be inspired by the \"softer\" rewards of being their own boss, than the spoils of wealth. The buzz of creating a business, and then watching it grow, is confirmed by 85 percent of SME bosses who cite working on something that interests them as their chief motivator.Once a business is established, there are many factors that influence success. At the very heart is the fact that the entrepreneur needs to change if the business is to be allowed to change. For better or worse, the business will have the blueprint of the leader's personality ingrained into it. Faced with more staff, and less direct influence, the leader has less touch points for DNA and passion transfer and must now look to organizational learning. But this can be very tough for the passionate entrepreneur.So, can the entrepreneur move beyond this early rush of excitement? Is there the vision and desire to enlist a team suited to run the business and meet its changing needs? This is hard. Cash is tight; time is tight, yet again and again we see that the most successful businesses find ways to focus on future issues. And this focus is not just directed to commercial issues, but includes aspects of style, approach and bringing out the best in people.\nBuilding learning into a fast moving successful business: Learning changes as a business changes. What worked in a small company is not the key to success as the business grows. Entrepreneurs need to develop a learning mindset - working in their business, and on their business. We know good learning can be fun and energizing. Time spent in the classic \"double loop learning\" works. It can spring the trap.Learning to be flexible is the solution. As the company tastes early success, the entrepreneur can no longer focus on all of the day-to-day activities. New skill sets are needed, like delegating work fairly and responsibly with more emphasis on accountability, rather than control.This includes limiting personal shortcomings by building a balanced team. As the organization grows, managing becomes more important. Maintaining the entrepreneur's vision becomes a management issue rather than a structured expression of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. A learning organization never loses its values, and good management is necessary to sustain its purpose.Finally, much of the research on learning has taken place in large organizations. While adapted for smaller businesses, there remains much room for new learning as people create businesses and develop themselves. In smaller businesses particularly, it is hard to slow down to reflect, when each moment appears to be crucial, time is of the essence and the views of others, although useful, are not necessarily imperative. The ability of the entrepreneur to change their style, attitude and mindset as the business develops can be the difference between the next level of success or the organization becoming stagnant or worse sabotaging itself. We know entrepreneurs are fast and adaptive learners, so let's help them use that to maximise organizational change and long term business growth and success.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide experienced insights to help entrepreneurs to maximise organisational change and achieve long term business growth and success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is based on personal experience - as a mentor/coach for over 15 years - working directly with entrepreneurs who are looking to make breakthroughs with their business or for themselves as individuals.\nFindings: - Because so many businesses fail, the impact of the entrepreneur - the business leader - is critical. The transition from entrepreneurial control to business management is crucial and if not well handled can result in missed opportunities, failure or even sabotage.\nOriginality/value: - The paper will interest entrepreneurs and SMEs, but is also targeted at larger organisations which invest in organisational change. The paper emphasises the key link between leadership, personal development and business growth.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organisational culture, procedural countermeasures, and employee security behaviour: A qualitative study	[ "Organisational culture", "Security education", "Employee security behaviour", "Information security awareness", "Information security policy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Historically, organisations have emphasised a technological approach to protect the security of their information assets. However, because many attackers have started to include social means in their malicious efforts, e.g. social engineering, the need for a holistic approach in addressing information security issues has emerged. The domain of behavioural information security (InfoSec) research highlights the importance of taking into consideration the \"human\" element when ensuring information security throughout the organisation. Research and practice have shown that technical tools are powerless when it comes to the enforcement of behavioural rules such as password sharing, reporting of security incidents, adherence to a clear desk policy and the secure disposal of confidential documents. Rather, compliance with these rules entirely depends on employees' motivation to conform. Therefore, it is essential to understand factors that lead to compliant behaviour or that prompt employees to break organisational information security rules. This study provides new insights about security behaviour in selected US and Irish organisations by investigating how organisational culture and procedural security countermeasures influence security actions. Crossler et al. (2013, p. 90) note that \"although a predominant weakness in properly securing information assets is the individual user within an organisation, much of the focus of extant security research is on technical issues\". In response, our work takes its place among the small number studies to date that focus on behavioural as opposed to technical issues.\n2. Theoretical context: Our proposed theoretical model, shown in Figure 1, integrates OC values, procedural security countermeasures, information security awareness and employee security behaviour. General deterrence theory (GDT) and prior OC literature underpin this model. This framework expands GDT by including procedural security countermeasures as factors that tend to increase employee information security awareness. In turn, employee awareness about organisational information security requirements, security threats and consequences of illicit actions is inclined to lead to compliant behaviour. That is, procedural security countermeasures influence employee security behaviour indirectly through employee security awareness. Commonly, GDT is employed to study negative behaviours, while we include both negative and positive, further extending this theory.\n3. Research approach: Our intention was to explore employee security behaviour from the perspective of study participants and to obtain rich qualitative findings that will help us to better understand it. The methodology adapted for this study draws on the analytical grounded theory approach (Matavire and Brown, 2013) using the constant comparative method as elucidated by Maykut and Morehouse (1994). The method used in this study is characterised by a mix of description and interpretation of data, the outcome of which is an interpretive-explanatory framework supported by participants' quotes.\n4. Research findings and discussion: Our findings indicate that procedural security countermeasures and OC values tend to affect employee security behaviour in organisational settings (Figure 1). In particular, information security policy and security education tend to increase information security awareness. This awareness, in turn, is inclined to lead to compliant behaviour. Furthermore, OC values of solidarity and people-orientation are positively associated with security behaviours, whereas sociability and task-orientation tend to have a negative effect on security-related actions. Additionally, a flat structure is inclined to encourage employees to address issues related to information security and therefore, improves the overall level of information security in organisations.\n5. Conclusion: Our results show that information security policies and security education tend to increase employee information security awareness. In turn, the awareness is inclined to lead to compliant behaviour. These insights extend GDT in a novel way. In particular, the deterrent effect of procedural security countermeasures increases information security awareness. This awareness, in turn, tends to prevent malicious actions of employees and encourage security-cautious behaviour. Furthermore, GDT is typically used to study negative behaviours, whereas there are calls in the literature to apply the theory across the variety of behaviours, including negative and positive (D'Arcy and Herath, 2011). The focus of this study is both negative and positive behaviours, which further extends GDT.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper provides new insights about security behaviour in selected US and Irish organisations by investigating how organisational culture and procedural security countermeasures tend to influence employee security actions. An increasing number of information security breaches in organisations presents a serious threat to the confidentiality of personal and commercially sensitive data. While recent research shows that humans are the weakest link in the security chain and the root cause of a great portion of security breaches, the extant security literature tends to focus on technical issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper builds on general deterrence theory and prior organisational culture literature. The methodology adapted for this study draws on the analytical grounded theory approach employing a constant comparative method.\nFindings: This paper demonstrates that procedural security countermeasures and organisational culture tend to affect security behaviour in organisational settings.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper fills the void in information security research and takes its place among the very few studies that focus on behavioural as opposed to technical issues.\nPractical implications: This paper highlights the important role of procedural security countermeasures, information security awareness and organisational culture in managing illicit behaviour of employees.\nOriginality/value: This study extends general deterrence theory in a novel way by including information security awareness in the research model and by investigating both negative and positive behaviours.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Children as actors of tomorrow's hypermarket experience	[ "Technology", "Children", "Hypermarkets", "Experience" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The children and retailing research topic has been growing in popularity and currency over the last few years because children and young people have been shown to have an increasing buying power and power of influence in the retail sector for more than 50 per cent of the household's expenses. This implies that there is a need to understand young consumers' behaviour in the retail process in this advanced age of retailing. The definition of children depends on the context. In our context, we are going to examine children in the analytical stage of consumer socialisation, aged 7-11 years (John, 1999, 2008). These children are able to analyse based on multiple dimensions and can understand both their own perspective and the perspective of others (John, 1999, 2008). At the same time, they can recognise consumption symbols (Chaplin and John, 2007) and are still \"children\" but are likewise, literate enough to understand advertisements and have experiences as consumers.\nThe child hypermarket customer experience model - a broad overview: Customer experience in retail\nComponent description and related evidence: This section supports the constructs considered in the model, starting from the ultimate dependent variable (children as actors of hypermarkets experience) and thereafter moving backwards (see Figure 2).\nConceptual and methodological critique: It is important to highlight that there are very few studies concerning children and retail stores (Wilson and Wood, 2004). Especially, despite a relatively high research interest, that continues in the children's market today (e.g. Kaur and Vohra, 2013), little is known about the factors influencing children's experience in contemporary retailing formats such as hypermarkets. The theoretical framework proposed in this paper is based on general discussions about children as retail consumers (Atkin, 1978; Ayadi and Cao, 2015; Nelson, 1978). Many specialty stores have already taken initiatives to specifically target children such as Ikea, Nature & Decouvertes or Toys'R'Us to mention some (LSA, 1980), but not hypermarkets. There has been no published study on children and hypermarkets to date.\nConclusion and future recommendations: Child-friendly experiential marketing events appear to be an effective strategy that offline retailers such as hypermarkets could use to reach children. We suggest that to increase children's and parents' satisfaction, more informative and entertaining experiences are offered (e.g. Zakaria, 2017). The establishment should choose appropriate brand ambassadors which are children-friendly activators and design the activity or game with durability and safety in mind, being sure to keep the aisles wide enough so mums and dads pushing strollers can move freely around the layout. Hypermarkets could also encourage friendly competition when possible (e.g. challenge parents or family). More precisely, and in line with the conclusions of the Deli-Gray et al.'s (2014) study, we would like to suggest some proposal which could be of interest to retail managers at the time of, on the one hand, attracting children to the store and, on the other hand, positively involving them in purchasing decisions. Our first proposal is inspired by a \"multi-generational cultural tourism\" initiative. It deals with actions that typically tourist destinations (e.g. monuments, churches, archaeological remains), which initially are dull for children, have put in place to reverse this effect. Parents can travel with their offspring to these sites and everyone can enjoy them. These actions consist of involving children in the visit experience by creating challenges, or an adventure, for them. For example, the city of Salamanca in Spain, famous for its marvellous architecture and prestigious historical background, has produced maps of the city with all its monuments marked and special leaflets for children, in which there are competitions or challenges that the children should complete while visiting the city. Once completed correctly they can return to the tourist information office and collect their prize, which is some form of tourist memorabilia, usually a beautiful poster, city keyring or cap, to mention but a few. Similarly, retail managers could create a distinct project directly involving children. For example, they could design a series of random competition or gamification according to the days, time, that their customers visit the store with children (e.g. numbers, counting, shapes, sizes, matching pictures, measuring or calculations). The challenge could be, at first, to find food rich in protein, fibre or calcium, specific fruit or vegetables. This could be in conjunction with established brands or own brand/private label products. The child could be given a sheet of paper with the numbers from 1 to 10 written on it (i.e. or 1-50 depending on age) and could put a tick against the numbers of products or opposite products found (e.g. items in their parent's strollers, healthy food vs candies, etc.) that have been identified during their visit to the hypermarket. They could look at the price tags of the food items, read them aloud and look at the numbers on the food/bazaar items. Once completed there would be a guarantee prize. Another option could comprise some form of surprise gift (e.g. small models, stickers or cards) or points to collect to receive a reward. The children's expectation of receiving a gift at the time of paying at the check-out which they can play with later or swap with friends, is a way of connecting the establishment with the children and other families and vice versa. Collecting the points ensures continuing involvement in order to obtain more. With both options, engagement is certain and the shopping experience improved. These strategies can contribute to generating physical experience for Generation Z and Generation Alpha, creative and over informed consumers, and avoiding, in a certain way, its extreme forecast digitalization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to see how children aged 7-11 years can become the actors of tomorrow's hypermarket experience by providing a review of past research on children as retail consumers, with a specific reference to their customer experience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The literature review will be organised by presenting a \"child hypermarket customer experience\" model. Finally, a conceptual and methodological critique of past research will be presented followed by the revised model and conclusions.\nFindings: The literature review finds six independent variables presented in the model: customer satisfaction, in-store conflicts, buying intention, purchase basket value, loyalty and average time spent in store measure a positive hypermarket shopping experience for children. There are then six types of mediators presented in the updated model: type of product, product offering, pocket money amount, environment, technology (games, tablets) and experiential marketing that mediate the impact of these independent variables on children as the actors of tomorrow's hypermarket experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is conceptual in nature. Future research should empirically validate the conceptual model developed in the paper for children 7-11 years of age.\nPractical implications: The conceptual discussion shows that hypermarket managers can use technology such as games and tablets not only to reduce the conflicts between parents and children in hypermarkets but also positively impact on the average time spent in the store. Further, the discussion shows that hypermarket managers can offer children the experience they expect with the use of specific experiential stimuli adapted to children in \"children's aisles\" such as toys, children's clothing, children's hi-tech and children's books. They can also theme the experience for children using memorabilia and the engagement of senses. Managerial research should empirically validate this for children 7-11 years of age.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that conceptually creates a model of children as the actors of tomorrow's hypermarket experience. This is something that empirically researched will enhance the understanding of young consumers' behaviour in the retail process in this advanced age of retailing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A refined framework of information sharing in perishable product supply chains	[ "Information sharing", "Asset specificity", "Relationship uncertainty", "Environmental uncertainty", "Perishability", "Product vulnerability", "Product criticality", "Template analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Perishable products are defined as products whose quality deteriorates over time (Karaesmen et al., 2011). Products such as fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry, dairy products, pharmaceuticals, and human blood can be categorised as perishable products (Karaesmen et al., 2011; Ferguson and Ketzenberg, 2006). Products' vulnerability varies, with some more susceptible to contamination by disease and damage by unpredictable weather, thus making it difficult to guarantee quality standards and product availability (Clements et al., 2008). Management of the perishable product supply chain (PPSC) is particularly complex due to the uncertainty of demand, the variability of short shelf lives, and high deterioration rates, requiring special storage conditions to slow the rate of decay (Van Donselaar et al., 2006; Ferguson and Ketzenberg, 2006). Storing perishable products for long periods of time without proper storage facilities will adversely affect the quality and safety of these products and, in some cases, make them dangerous for human consumption. Typically, spoiled products can no longer be used or recycled and are wasted with environmental and cost consequences (Kaipia et al., 2013). This leads Turnbull (1989) to suggest that managing perishable products requires a coordinated supply chain (SC) to maintain high quality and customer service levels in a short shelf life environment.\nResearch method: An SLR is adopted in this paper to select, map, and assess the existing studies on IS-PPSC. SLR was originally proposed in 2001 by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination; this method covers the identification of research areas, selection of studies, quality assessment, data extraction, and data synthesis (NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, 2001, as cited in Tranfield et al., 2003). SLR provides rigorous and transparent processes for conducting a review, inclusivity of relevant studies, explanatory or interpretive findings, and heuristic outputs that lead to the next stage of research (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009). These processes distinguish SLR from other literature review techniques that frequently lack rigour and audit trail, leading to biased results (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009).\nAnalysis and synthesis of literature (step 5): To understand how information sharing influences PPSC performance, we unravel how the IS-PPSC literature addresses information sharing by mapping the relationship mechanisms that explicitly and implicitly relate to PPSC performance; see Table IV. For example, in row 1, we identify collaboration between buyers and suppliers as a central construct (i.e. primary dimension) which is explicitly addressed in the literature (Aggarwal and Srivastava, 2016). We then find that collaboration is driven by the need to share vital information (Krishnakumar et al., 2009); therefore, information sharing is an antecedent of collaboration. We further identify that collaboration can lead to SC efficiency and reduced waste (Aggarwal and Srivastava, 2016); therefore, SC efficiency and waste are consequences of collaboration.\nA refined framework of IS-PPSC (step 6): Drawing on the constructs of TCE, OIPT, and CT, we classify the constructs and variables of IS-PPSC identified in Table IV according to the uncertainty and information sharing capabilities which affect the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance (see Table VI). This classification is based on our initial theoretical framework presented in Figure 1. From the perspectives of TCE and OIPT, relationship uncertainty includes relationship/asset-specific investments and SC interdependence (Yigitbasioglu, 2010; Kim et al., 2005; Premkumar et al., 2005). In this SLR, we classify investments in information sharing systems as relationship/asset-specific investments. Yigitbasioglu (2010) measures SC interdependence in terms of the degree of process customisation required to operate in the SC and the potential switching costs associated with replacing SC partners, whereas Kim et al. (2005) measure interdependence in terms of the degree of collaborative or integrative work which occurs between SC actors. Accordingly, we classify all constructs and variables related to SC collaboration and integration as SC interdependence. This classification is also partly based on dependency factors suggested by Cool and Henderson (1998).\nConclusions and implications: Our SLR suggests that the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance remains unclear, and that there is inconsistency in the positioning of information sharing amongst the other constructs and variables identified in the IS-PPSC literature. This inconsistency reflects different ways of understanding the phenomenon of IS-PPSC and its relationship with PPSC performance. In addition, while we have strictly limited the scope of review to the PPSC context, the role of perishable product characteristics in shaping the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance has been largely ignored by studies to date.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between information sharing and performance of perishable product supply chains (PPSC). Building on transaction cost economics (TCE), organisational information processing theory (OIPT), and contingency theory (CT), this study proposes a theoretical framework to guide future research into information sharing in perishable product supply chains (IS-PPSC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the systematic literature review methodology, 48 peer-reviewed articles are carefully selected, mapped, and assessed. Template analysis is performed to unravel the relationship mechanisms between information sharing and PPSC performance.\nFindings: The authors find that the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance is currently unclear, and there is inconsistency in the positioning of information sharing among constructs and variables in the IS-PPSC literature. This implies a requirement to refine the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance. The review also revealed that the role of perishable product characteristics has largely been ignored in existing research.\nOriginality/value: This study applies relevant multiple theoretical perspectives to overcome the ambiguity of the IS-PPSC literature and contributes nine propositions to guide future research. Accordingly, this study contributes to the refined roles of relationship uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, information sharing capabilities, and perishable product characteristics in shaping the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Nurturing user creative performance in social media networks: An integration of habit of use with social capital and information exchange theories	[ "Communications", "Electronic media", "Information exchange", "Knowledge sharing", "Social networks", "Social values" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social media refer to the interactive platforms generated by mobile and web-based technologies on which individuals and communities can share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content (Kietzmann et al., 2011; Scott and Orlikowski, 2014). Such platforms include collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social network sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). These kinds of media have advanced continuously throughout the last few decades. The earliest social media such as bulletin board systems started in 1978 and offered pure text content for posting and communication. The new-generation social media in the 1990's allowed users to generate personal content on the World Wide Web (e.g. user forums). Today, social media networks (SMNs), such as Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and YouTube, can distribute online user-generated content and increase the number of users participating in web-based collaboration process (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). The SMNs help users co-create values through large-scale user participations (McLean et al., 2007) and accumulate group experience and knowledge through social interaction and information exchange behaviors. These sites instigate collectively user creative behavior (e.g. launching online marketing campaigns) and allow many creative ideas to be generated and distributed spontaneously. Such a collaborative production of creative content enhances the feeling of connection with others and strengthens the coherence of a virtual community (Hildebrand et al., 2013), in addition to the formation of a new brand consumption model (Davis et al., 2014). With the development of related technologies, SMNs (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn) nowadays feature multi-user-generated digital profile, content search and privacy, user-managed relational ties, and user-managed network transparency (Araujo and Neijens, 2012; Ellison and Boyd, 2013; Schoen et al., 2013; Evangelos et al., 2013; Kane et al., 2014). They support a shared pattern of coordinated synchronous behavior among individuals with a common focus when they work together through video conferences, discussion forums, etc. (Dennis et al., 2008). Thus, social media critically influence social learning and creativity among people on today's SMN platforms.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1. Social learning theory in SMNs\n3. Literature review and hypotheses: 3.1. Social media capabilities\n4. Research methodology: 4.1. Research model\n5. Analyses and results: This study follows the two-step approach recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) and Bagozzi and Yi (2012) to perform data analysis. The first step involved analyzing the measurement model, while the structural model delineating relationships among latent constructs was tested during the second step. The goal of using two-step approach was to establish the reliability and validity of the measures before assessing the model's structural relationships. Using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling with SmartPLS 2.0 software also allows us to estimate a model with hierarchical (mixed-order) constructs (Wetzels et al., 2009) and a large or small sample size (Ronkko and Evermann, 2013). As social capital and information capital in the model are postulated as two formative second-order constructs, we used PLS because it allows latent constructs to be modeled as either formative or reflective indicators while keeping minimal restrictions on the measurement scales and residual distribution (Chin and Newsted, 1999). Moreover, a variance-based SEM method (e.g. PLS) is considered more appropriate than a covariance-based SEM method (e.g. LISREL or EQS) if the research objective is prediction and theory development (Hair et al., 2011). As the aim of this study is to predict the influence of social media capabilities on user creative performance through social capital, information capital, and habit of use, the use of PLS approach is more appropriate than LISREL.\n6. Discussion and implications: 6.1. Summary of the results\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Creative performance relies on the capability of developing and presenting an original concept or idea, and the collaborative production of creative content which enhances feeling of connection with others and formation of strong community. The purpose of this paper is to apply the theory of work performance containing four dimensions (capacity, opportunities, willingness, and performance) to investigate how the capabilities of social network sites enhance user creative performance through collective social capital and information capital (opportunities) for and individual habit of use (willingness) of the user to engage in social learning process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Many measurement items are adapted from the literature, except those measuring the constructs of social media capabilities (i.e. transmission velocity (TV), parallelism, symbol sets, rehearsability, and reprocessability) and user creative performance. The study uses survey method to collect data from social media network (SMN) users in Taiwan. Facebook is chosen as the source because it is the most prevalent and sophisticated social media platform that provides a home for users to interact and communicate. Structural equation modeling with partial least square is used to analyze the usable data collected from 533 Facebook users.\nFindings: The results show that the constructs are significantly and positively correlated, meaning that social media capabilities enable social capital, information capital, and habit of use to improve user creative performance in SMNs. Three out of five social media capabilities (i.e. TV, parallelism, and rehearsability) are identified as the key enablers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the sampled surveyed subjects and the single research method, there are some limitations in this study. The research results may lack generalizability that should be taken into account when they are interpreted. The authors encourage researchers to test the proposed theoretical model further with additional subjects, variables, and linkages.\nPractical implications: The findings of this research shed light for managers of SMN platforms on how to manage the platforms more effectively. A healthy SMN platform must implement at least these three media capabilities: the functions of news feed (i.e. TV), chat (i.e. parallelism), edit (i.e. rehearsability), in order to sustain its service.\nSocial implications: This study confirmed that user creative performance can be increased in various ways through social capital, information capital, and habit of use. Company management should use SMNs (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) to enable employees to interact and exchange ideas and promote \"coopetition\" among employees across the company. If the organizational culture supports free expression of ideas and sharing of opinions, the development and robustness of group creativity can be enhanced, leading to higher competitive advantage for a company against its competitors.\nOriginality/value: Past studies related to individual creativity have mostly discussed it as a personality trait or talent; yet, personality trait or talent is implicit until it is shown by one's behavior. Thus, for the collective performance of user creativity on SMNs, the authors elicit individual creativity through the creative performance manifested by user behavior. Furthermore, the authors confirm that social capital, information capital, and habit of use are the critical antecedents of user creative performance, and that the five social media capabilities are the enablers of social capital, information capital, and habit of use on SMNs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of work-to-leisure conflict in promoting frontline employees' leisure satisfaction: Examining the job demand-control-support model	[ "Frontline employees", "Job Demand-Control-Support model", "Leisure satisfaction", "Work-to-leisure conflict" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Traditionally, the hospitality and tourism industry has been regarded as a labor-intensive job setting, and their employees often work on an around-the-clock basis (Choi et al., 2000; Delfgaauw, 2007; Wong and Lin, 2007). Particularly, service providers with customer-contact employees must manage high-pressure factors, such as heavy workloads, repetitive duties and job tension (Chiang et al., 2014; Cleveland et al., 2007; Lin et al., 2014a; O'Neill, 2012; Wong and Lin, 2007). When service personnel display positive emotions and behaviors, customers are more willing to recommend the company to their friends (Tsai, 2001; Yavas et al., 2008). To ensure service quality, frontline personnel must be friendly, hospitable and able to cope with work pressure.\n2. Literature and hypotheses: To better understand frontline employees' perceived WLC, we first reviewed occupational phenomena of the hospitality and tourism industry based on the work and non-work relationship (Clark, 2000; Guest, 2002), and work-family/work-life balance (Choi and Kim, 2012; Deery, 2008; Karatepe, 2010; Mulvaney et al., 2007). Then, a conceptual framework and hypotheses were proposed in accordance with the groundings of the JDCS model and spillover theory.\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistic and reliability\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusions: The aim of this study is to investigate relationships among job stress variables, WLC and leisure satisfaction. This study further examines a mediating model of WLC based on the JDCS model. Considering these implications, the study findings help HRM managers broaden their understanding of the role of WLC in balancing frontline employees' life in work and non-work domains. When frontline employees experience high level time-based conflict, managers can provide flexible working schedules to reduce employees' levels of work interfering with leisure (Tsaur et al., 2012).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine a mediating model of work-to-leisure conflict (WLC) based on the job demand-control-support model (JDCS model) and conflict roles of work and non-work life. This model proposes that work loading, time-off autonomy and support from supervisors and co-workers are related to WLC and leisure satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample of 457 frontline employees drawn from within the hospitality and tourism industry completed a study questionnaire. All hypothesized relationships were estimated using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Results support a theoretical model in which WLC works as a partial mediator between job stress variables and leisure satisfaction. Findings suggest that low workload and flexible time-off contribute to alleviating WLC and facilitating leisure satisfaction and with the addition of high co-worker support, directly benefit employee leisure satisfaction.\nPractical implications: Management implications related to job design and work-related social support are discussed.\nOriginality/value: The current study contributes to the existing knowledge base by testing WLC as a partial mediator between work loading-leisure satisfaction and time-off autonomy-leisure satisfaction relationships. These findings help human resource management managers broaden their understanding of the role of WLC in balancing frontline employees' life in work and non-work domains.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Flexible work: ambitious parents' recipe for career success in The Netherlands	[ "Gender", "Career satisfaction", "Career development", "The Netherlands", "Parents", "Working patterns" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For growing numbers of dual earner families in most industrialized nations, the daily struggle of combining work and family can be facilitated by the utilization of work family policies offered by governments or employers. Mainiero and Sullivan (2005, p. 120) mention The Netherlands as a prime example of those few countries that \"have initiated policies that provide considerable support for working parents.\" Indeed, The Netherlands is often heralded for successfully creating flexible working arrangements that allow employees, particularly parents, to integrate work and personal lives (Plantenga, 1997; Visser, 2002). Part-time work is a legal right in The Netherlands, and thus the non-standard work arrangement most frequently offered by employers (Plantenga and Remery, 2005). In The Netherlands, more than 60 per cent of women work part-time, working on average 24 hours per week (OECD, 2007). In contrast, 15 per cent of men work part-time, with an average of 36 hours per week. The Netherlands has the highest rates of women (and men) working part-time throughout the OECD countries (OECD, 2007). Typically, the Dutch way to combine work and family is the prevalent \"one-and-a half income\" model. In this model, fathers are expected to work (almost) full time and mothers are expected to work around 20 hours per week. Furthermore, part-time work has become a permanent pattern: in The Netherlands mothers with older children and women without children also typically work part-time (Portegijs and Keuzekamp, 2008). In trying to explain this \"part-time\" phenomenon, the public debate often gravitates towards ambition, preferences and values. In such debates, ambition is generally perceived as a sine qua non for labour force participation in general and career success in particular. To illustrate this debate, we provide an outspoken example from the Dutch popular media, namely a review of a recently published book that was widely discussed. The book title is The Glass Ceiling Myth by Marike Stellinga and in it, according to the reviewing journalist, the author argues that \"[Dutch] working mothers lead a happy life of luxury, women will definitely not work more if childcare is better and cheaper and women definitely do not have the same career goals as men do. Conclusion: women have less ambition than men and the glass ceiling does not exist.\" (De Pers, 2009).Part-time work is thus the most frequently used family friendly policy in The Netherlands, but as a consequence there is a widespread belief in the magical disappearance of women's ambition once children arrive (Sools et al., 2007). While perhaps reducing day-to-day work-family conflict, part-time work may have negative long-term career consequences, which also need to be taken into consideration (Roman, 2006).Ambition as a construct is frequently used in the public debate about gender differences in labor force participation in general and careers in particular (Fels, 2004), but there are surprisingly few studies that actually address the nature, antecedents, and consequences of ambition (Ng et al., 2005). While more is known about similar constructs such as career aspirations, career motivation, career orientation, and need for achievement (McClelland and Boyatzis, 1982; Miner, 1993; Schein, 2006; London, 1993), a literature search across several disciplines on ambition did not generate conclusive information on what ambition is, nor how it can be measured. Furthermore, the relationships between ambition and various work and career variables are largely uninvestigated. Finally, it is unclear whether ambition is a cause or a consequence of career attainment and opportunities.The limited available research on gender differences or differences between mothers and fathers in career aspirations produces mixed results (Cassirer and Reskin, 2000; Corrigall and Konrad, 2006). A meta-analysis of sex differences and similarities in job attribute preferences (Konrad et al., 2000) indicates that women and men differ slightly but significantly in their preferences, generally along gender stereotypical lines, with men being more interested in earnings, promotion, leadership, and power, whereas women are more interested in interpersonal relationships, intrinsic job aspects, good hours, and a good commute. Interestingly, Konrad and colleagues found no significant difference in the preference for prestige, an important aspect of ambition. They argue that men's and women's job attribute preferences have become increasingly similar over the last three decades, presumably due to women's increasing labour force participation.Despite this lack of empirical evidence for a gender difference in ambition, there is a multitude of socio-cultural and historical explanations for the belief that women lack ambition. The most prominent explanation refers to women's greater share in care responsibilities compared with men (e.g. Kirchmeyer, 1998; 2002;, 2006). This explanation is supported empirically. In various studies, marriage and children represent obligations that hinder the upward mobility of women (e.g. Kirchmeyer, 2002; Tharenou, 1999). In 2005, Dutch women still spent twice as much time performing household and nurturing tasks than men did, with the division of labour being most unequal in households with children (Portegijs et al., 2006). An interesting, though neglected aspect of the typical Dutch one-and-a-half income model and the high rate of (female) part-time work is whether a reduction of work hours is indeed related to lower ambition levels. Our first research question will therefore address the relationships between gender, career ambition, and working hours of parents.In addition to part-time work, which is very common in The Netherlands (Plantenga and Remery, 2005), the national government and employers have implemented other so-called \"family-friendly\" or work-home arrangements beyond reduced hours in order to assist employees in combining work with care-giving responsibilities. Broadly, two categories of such work-home arrangements can be distinguished:1. flexible arrangements that enlarge employees' spatial or temporal flexibility (e.g. flexible work hours, working from home); and2. care-related arrangements that facilitate balancing work with raising children (e.g. parental leave, calamity leave).In this study, we focus on flexible arrangements. Recent studies have addressed the fact that the utilization of available arrangements depends largely on organizational culture (Thompson et al., 1999; Dikkers et al., 2007), and a sense of psychological control (Kossek et al., 2006). However we do not know which role ambition plays in using specific arrangements. Flexible hours or compressed work weeks generally allow parents to work more hours than they would if they were forced to fit their hours into a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 schedule. Teleworking, by making it possible to work while not \"at work\", also often results in working more hours (e.g. Golden et al., 2006) whereas reduced work hours or care-related arrangements such as parental leave allow parents to work fewer hours than the standard number of hours per week. Does the utilization of alternative work-home arrangements, beyond part-time work, sustain career ambitions by allowing parents to work more hours and care for children? Our second research question, therefore, addresses the associations between gender, ambition, and the utilization of other flexible work-home arrangements or WHAs (flexible work hours, block hours, compressed hours, teleworking, and working from home) of working mothers and fathers.Employers' underlying assumption of creating and providing work-home arrangements including part-time work, is that it will allow parents (and in the Dutch context especially mothers) to combine work and family and thus remain in the labor force rather than opt out or drop out. Indeed, Cabrera (2007) found that 35 per cent of the 497 randomly selected women graduates included in her study cited rearing their children as the only reason for opting out, and that mid-career women were more interested in finding balance in their lives. Employers may expect that by offering such arrangements they have an edge in winning the war for talent (Barnett and Hall, 2001), and that they will be perceived in a positive light by important stakeholders (customers as well as future employees). Indeed, recent research suggests that there may be a positive relationship between work-family initiatives and business outcomes, which further strengthens the \"business case\" for employers (Kelly et al., 2008). However, the effects of utilizing such arrangements on individual career outcomes have received limited attention from organizational scholars, and the question is whether the assumed positive relationship between the utilization of arrangements and career outcomes is in fact supported by empirical evidence. Furthermore, working part-time or using other flexible work arrangements could potentially have negative career consequences as well. Our third research question is therefore focused on the relationship between work hours, the utilization of work-home arrangements, and career outcomes in terms of job level and career satisfaction. Finally, we study whether work hours and the utilization of work-home arrangements (partially) mediate the basic relationship between ambition and career outcomes. If ambition is a sine qua non for career success, how does the utilization of work-home arrangements allow ambitious parents to express their aspirations while at the same time taking care of their children? The research model is given in Figure 1. Below we will address our research questions in more detail and develop hypotheses for the relationship between the variables in this model.Ambition, gender, work hours, and the utilization of other work-home arrangements\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study sets out to examine how gender and ambition are related to work hours and the utilization of other flexible work-home arrangements, and how this use is - in turn - associated with career-related outcomes (i.e. job level, and career satisfaction).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, 212 Dutch working parents from different organizations participated in a questionnaire survey. Underpinned by an inter-disciplinary theoretical framework, hypotheses were developed on the associations of gender, ambition, work-home arrangements and career-related outcomes.\nFindings: - It was found that ambitious parents made more use of flexible work-home arrangements and worked more hours per week than less ambitious parents. This relationship was especially strong for mothers. Furthermore, parents' work hours and utilization of flexible arrangements were positively related to their job level and career satisfaction. Finally, the association of ambition with career-related outcomes was mediated by work hours.\nPractical implications: - Employers should support their working parents in using flexible work-home arrangements, thereby simultaneously assisting them in balancing work with care-giving responsibilities, preventing them from losing their ambition, and promoting their career success.\nOriginality/value: - The study made a pioneering effort to conceptualise and operationalise career-related ambition. By showing that utilization of flexible work-home arrangements is positively related to career success, the study also adds to the business case for these arrangements. Moreover, the study challenges the popular assumption that Dutch women's ambition vanishes into thin air once they become mothers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mapping public value processes	[ "Policy analysis", "Policy visualization", "Public value", "Public Value Process Mapping" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is now well-established that while the public sector is essentially different from the private sector (e.g. Allison, 1980; Perry and Rainey, 1988; Moore, 1995), there are inter-connections and overlaps at various points, blurring the line between them. Indeed many managers and scholars in the field recognise that almost any governmental responsibility calls for inputs from a range of actors across both sectors - and also from the non-profit or community sector (Salamon, 2002; Alford and O'Flynn, 2012; Government Accountability Office, 2004; Braithwaite, 2008).\nProcess frameworks in private and public management: An important strand of policy and management in both the private and public sectors in recent decades has been the effort to develop accounts of the production process, broadly defined, as a series of actions, steps and/or flows (for an overview, see: Bryson et al., 2004\nKey factors in PVPM: These frameworks all entail the visualisation of data - which is useful for decision makers. Visualisation capitalises on several features of human cognition. As Ware (2005) notes, \"it is possible to have a far more complex concept structure represented externally in a visual display than can be held in visual and verbal working memories\". Visualisations can make use of the human affinity for pattern finding (Ware, 2004); and draw on both the visual and the spatial working memory system (Logie, 1995). Scaife and Rogers (1996) also argue that visualisations can enhance our processing ability because users can abstract information \"at a glance\", i.e. much more quickly than from an informationally equivalent textual description. During problem-solving, visualisations can therefore help reduce \"cognitive load\", and assist an individual's capacity for coping with complex task requirements (Cox and Brna, 1995).\nComparing the major frameworks: But in respect of all these factors, to paraphrase Tolstoy (1877), while all the process mapping frameworks are lacking, each is lacking in its own way. Moreover, they vary in the efficacy of the specific mapping tools - that is, the extent to which they facilitate the benefits of visualisation discussed above. Table I sets out the relative coverage of each framework, showing the aspects well-aligned to purpose in darker grey, those less aligned in lighter grey, and those that do not align at all in white.\nMethodology: The example on which we focus is the goal of improving Indigenous child nutrition in remote communities, mainly in northern and central Australia - chosen because it includes a wide array of activities and actors that are nonetheless fairly amenable to representation with the visualisation tools. The data were gathered from three types of literature: scholarly studies; government reports; and media reports. Pertinent documents were selected to underpin the description and analysis of the example. Our intent was not to attempt to solve the problem at hand, but to use the problem as an exercise to unearth the main potentially relevant factors, which could then be the focus of targeted further analyses. While the authors take a broad normative stance that Aboriginal child malnutrition is a tragic problem that needs to be tackled, we seek in this study simply to understand it better, and in the process demonstrate the uses and pitfalls of this kind of mapping framework.\nIndigenous child nutrition in remote Australian communities: A quarter of Australian Aborigines live in remote communities, mainly in northern and central Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). There are 1,200 communities around the country, on historical sites such as colonial missions or cattle stations, or on traditionally owned land (Altman, 2003). Many of them are accessible only by four-wheel drive, or in some cases inadequate roads mean access is only by air during certain periods of the year (NT Department of Business, 2012). This remoteness adds significantly to the difficulty of ensuring adequate nutrition for the children of these communities.\nMapping the public value process for Indigenous child nutrition: Taking the foregoing information as an account of the given situation, the task is to determine how it should be addressed in practical terms. PVPM entails a series of steps, all of them requiring judgement and intuition as well as analytical technique:\nUses of public value process maps: This example shows a number of uses of the public value process map for policy analysts and public managers. First, it calls on them to think more rigorously and persistently about outcomes, as the threshold step in applying this method. This in itself holds out the possibility of clarifying what is valuable.\nPitfalls of public value mapping: Public value mapping, as with all analytical techniques, is not without its potential problems. The first is that causation is tricky to uncover. It may appear that A causes B because they occur together, but in reality C may have slipped under the radar and actually be causing B (hence the well-known phrase \"correlation does not imply causation\"). In addition, causation is not always one way; feedback loops can occur in which A leads to B, which in turn makes A more likely and therefore increases B, etc. An example of this in child nutrition is the interaction between malnutrition and disease: infection makes malnourishment more likely; malnourishment leads to compromised immune function, increasing susceptibility, severity, and potentially transmission of infection; and more severe and widespread infections further worsen nutrition (Hammond and Dube, 2012). Bearing these issues of causation in mind, it is important to remember that, as Bryson et al. (2004) note, \"the map is not the territory\" (p. 305).\nConclusion: PVPM is not a \"paint-by-numbers\" routine. Rather, it should be seen as an aid to analysing public sector programmes and to developing policies. It is prone to some of the same shortcomings as other methods of analysis, such as subjectivity, difficulty in relating cause to effect or knowing where to draw the boundaries of the issue. But its major advantage is that facilitates the identification and comprehension of a broader range of causal factors and actors, which heightens the possibility of imagining new and innovative solutions to difficult public policy issues, and alternative ways of delivering public services.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to add to the analytic toolkit of public sector practitioners by outlining a framework called Public Value Process Mapping (PVPM). This approach is designed to be more comprehensive than extant frameworks in either the private or public sectors, encapsulating multiple dimensions of productive processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper explores the public administration and management literature to identify the major frameworks for visualising complex systems or processes, and a series of dimensions against which they can be compared. It then puts forward a more comprehensive framework - PVPM - and demonstrates its possible use with the example of Indigenous child nutrition in remote Australia. The benefits and limitations of the technique are then considered.\nFindings: First, extant process mapping frameworks each have some but not all of the features necessary to encompass certain dimensions of generic or public sector processes, such as: service-dominant logic; external as well internal providers; public and private value; and state coercive power. Second, PVPM can encompass the various dimensions more comprehensively, enabling visualisation of both the big picture and the fine detail of public value-creating processes. Third, PVPM has benefits - such as helping unearth opportunities or culprits affecting processes - as well as limitations - such as demonstrating causation and delineating the boundaries of maps.\nPractical implications: PVPM has a number of uses for policy analysts and public managers: it keeps the focus on outcomes; it can unearth a variety of processes and actors, some of them not immediately obvious; it can help to identify key processes and actors; it can help to identify the \"real\" culprits behind negative outcomes; and it highlights situations where multiple causes are at work.\nOriginality/value: This approach, which draws on a number of precursors but constitutes a novel technique in the public sector context, enables the identification and to some extent the comprehension of a broader range of causal factors and actors. This heightens the possibility of imagining innovative solutions to difficult public policy issues, and alternative ways of delivering public services.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Can integration difficulties affect innovation and satisfaction?	[ "Innovation", "ISO 14001", "Customer satisfaction", "ISO 9001", "Integration of management systems standards", "Management systems standards" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Innovation and customer satisfaction have become strategic drivers in seizing new opportunities and enhancing firms' productivity and performance (Hurmelinna-Laukkanen et al., 2008; Nemati et al., 2010). In this regard, the focus on customers encourages companied to find new customer preferences and thus promotes their innovation because firms have to introduce new products in the markets to meet customer demands (Juran, 1988; Prajogo and Sohal, 2001; Dinh et al., 2006).\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Difficulties related to the integration of MSs\n3 Methodology: 3.1 Questionnaire and measures used\n4 Data analysis and results: 4.1 Assessment of the measures\n5 Conclusion: The economy globalization and the recent financial crisis have led organizations to new challenges (Leopoulos et al., 2010). Customers are becoming more demanding and expect more in terms of new products, quality and price (Stark, 2000; Simon and Petnji Yaya, 2012). To adapt to this rapid shift of customers and the global competition demands (e.g. costs, performance, and service), organizations must enhance their innovation to introduce new quality products and services in the market (Juran, 1988), that are environmentally friendly (Casadesus and Karapetrovic, 2005; Zeng et al., 2007). In this respect, many companies are relying on the implementation of MSSs, such as ISO 9001 for QM or ISO 14001 for EM, since they are seen as a tool that helps companies to survive and be successful (Zeng et al., 2007). According to Douglas and Glen (2000) and Karapetrovic and Willborn (2001), firms with at least two standardized MSs have the option to integrate them into a unique and jointly managed system. Such a practice may be sources of difficulties that may undermine the potential benefits of individual MSSs on innovation and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the objectives of this study were two fold. The first objective was to assess the possible key dimensions to measure the difficulties of integration, IMS documentation, IMS procedures and innovation. We used exploratory factor analysis and CFA to confirm whether the scales have a factor structure that depicts the theoretical dimensionality of their setting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The difficulties in the integration of management systems (MSs) and their relationship with innovation and customer satisfaction are explored by proposing a model that links these three concepts together. Integration, innovation and customer satisfaction are relevant issues for the competitiveness of companies, especially for the ones that have implemented several MS standards. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for the study derives from a survey carried out in 76 Spanish organizations registered to at least both ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 standards for quality MSs and environmental MSs, respectively. An exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) are utilized to assess and confirm the proposed scales validity and the relationships of the conceptual model.\nFindings: Based on the empirical study, the second-order SEM shows that the difficulties of integration are directly and negatively related to both of MS documentation and procedures. This level is also directly related to the innovation and satisfaction. Nevertheless, no relationships were found between the difficulties of integration and the integration level of MS human resources. Moreover, no direct relationships were found between the difficulties of integration and both the constructs of innovation and satisfaction. Also, the results showed the integration level of MS procedures was not related to the construct of innovation.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first studies to relate integration difficulties with innovation and customer satisfaction, with a conclusion that an organization should give more importance to the difficulties of integrated MSs that have been uncovered to have a relationship with innovation and customer satisfaction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Thai Airways: key influencing factors on customers' word of mouth	[ "Customer satisfaction", "Word of mouth", "Service quality", "Airline", "Service convenience", "THAI" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: These days, by presenting new services and using numerous promotional instruments, airline companies attempt to attain a more share of the market and attract more and more passengers to use their services. However, some of these instruments are not able to inspire the consumers to use their services, principally in the final decision-making stages. People receive information from their environment, mass media and also communication with other people. Information resulting from communication with other people about the goods and the services is the outcome of their personal experience or the information received from the employees of the company or other customers (Silverman, 2001). In an environment where the trust in the organizations and advertising announcements has decreased, word of mouth is a way to get a competitive advantage.\n2. Literature review: Service convenience\n3. Hypotheses development: The influence of service convenience on service quality\n4. Research methodology: Sample size\n5. Findings: Descriptive analysis\n6. Discussion and implications: The result of the study provided some discussion and implication. The current research examines effects of service convenience, service quality and customer satisfaction on the creation of word of mouth in airline industry. According to hypothesis testing in this research, word of mouth is positively and significantly influenced by service convenience dimensions (i.e., decision, access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit), service quality dimensions (i.e., tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) and customer satisfaction.\n7. Managerial implications: The findings of this study have several imperative implications for managers of airlines. First, current research confirms that service convenience has the significant indirect influence on word of mouth through the two crucial mediating factors (i.e., service quality and customer satisfaction). Among the service convenience dimensions, decision has the greatest impact on word of mouth. The study also proves that decision convenience has the most positive significant effect on word of mouth compared to service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. Therefore, to continue a high level of positive word of mouth, airline managers should consider better quality and attractiveness of information for customers to impress them well. By creating and developing the plan in order to increase the quickness of obtaining information, the customers can gather the favorable information faster and by a little time. With more available information, customers are likely to devote more cognitive effort to their decision processes because they can see the potential for realizing additional benefits (e.g. more informed or improved choices; lower prices) through additional effort (Johnson and Payne, 1985). The study implies that similar to decision convenience, the higher access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience and post-benefit convenience will result in more word of mouth. It can be accomplished in the airlines services by proceedings, such as convenient transfer through the services at the departure airport; completing transaction to be done rapidly; decreasing expecting time at departure and arrival airports.\n8. Conclusions: This study evaluated the factors influencing word of mouth in airline industry by considering service convenience components, service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. The target population for this study was international flight passengers of THAI. The following paragraphs show the conclusions for the research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and analyze the influence of service convenience, service quality and customer satisfaction on the formation of word of mouth in airline industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample included 400 passengers who had experienced THAI'S international flights. To test the study hypotheses, a research model was examined applying structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The findings submit that, in addition to effects of service convenience, service quality and customer satisfaction on word of mouth, decision convenience has the most positive significant influence on word of mouth compared to service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present research focuses on assessing the word of mouth level only for THAI; therefore, its findings may not be generalized for the other airlines. In addition, the target market of this study is the customers of THAI. Future researchers can select the markets of other airlines customers.\nPractical implications: In airline companies, service convenience plays a central role on customer word of mouth. Therefore, airlines should concentrate on travelers' convenience in the service procedure. They should plan the service to support the best convenience for travelers.\nOriginality/value: This investigation would help airlines to understand what makes customers more satisfied before, during and after using an airline service and to understand how this is related to the word of mouth.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Succeeding with freemium: strategies for implementation	[ "Business model", "Business model innovation", "Freemium", "Freemium business model", "Online digital firm", "Online strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The development and spread of various online technologies has led to the emergence of innovative online consumption patterns, markets and business types, including \"freemium\" products and business models (Niculescu and Wu, 2014). In a nutshell, the freemium business model involves providing a basic version of a product or service for free, with the intention of persuading sufficient numbers of customers to pay for a more advanced version. Industry data indicate that 98 per cent of Google's Play Store revenue and 95 per cent of Apple's App Store revenue come from freemium applications, making freemium a robust business model of the digital age (Anderson, 2010).\nThe 4V business model framework: Scholars, industry experts and consultants employ a wide repertoire of definitions and graphic representations when explaining what a business model is, ranging from simple narratives of how a firm does business to complex system charts. To summarise our findings across the four successful cases, we use the 4V framework presented in Table I, which suggests that a company's business model consists of four basic interconnected elements: value proposition, value creation, value delivery and value capture (Holm et al., 2013). The 4V framework is closely related to the business model framework put forward by Baden-Fuller and Haefliger (2013), and is derived from the work of other business model scholars (Teece, 2010; Gassmann et al., 2015; Baden-Fuller and Mangematin, 2013). The main advantage of the 4V framework is that it facilitates a discussion on the strategic level of a company.\nThe freemium business model: The principle of the freemium business model is that there are at least two groups of consumers who benefit from a value offering: non-paying users (often referred to as free users), who receive a limited value proposition for free, and paying customers, who get a more enhanced value proposition for a premium (Gassmann et al., 2015). Free users can later become paying customers and vice versa. In an online digital business, the value proposition as defined in the 4V framework is typically a digital product distributed through the company's own and its partners' digital channels. Engagement with the product and its consumption takes place mostly online and sometimes offline through a digital device. To deliver its value offering, the online digital company builds a suitable infrastructure and platform, and often integrates its products with various media. The company communicates and interacts with its consumers electronically. It captures value by collecting revenues from paying customers, who may represent various groups of the mass market and/or specific segments of the B2B market. The successful online digital firms we studied have comparable freemium business model configurations, which we summarise using the 4V framework in Figure 1.\nThe freemium strategy: Our analysis reveals that the successful freemium companies built their business model on the execution of a strategy characterised by continuous innovation and growth imperatives. They grew through new products and market development, and strived for excellence in free offerings and constant growth in a number of users. Whether the growth was initially sporadic or planned, the growth factor played a fundamental role in the survival and further development of the freemium companies' business.\nConclusions and implications: Choosing the freemium business model for an online digital business in fact means choosing to compete in a particular way. Our research suggests that this approach is based on a logical chain of innovation and growth strategies, the freemium-relevant business model elements and the strategic choices, which we present in the article.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this article is to highlight the key points for succeeding with the freemium business model in online digital business from a strategic point of view. The freemium business model has recently become one of the most dominant business models in online markets. However, entrepreneurs and managers still have a limited understanding of why some freemium business models become successful and sustainable while others do not.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The findings and recommendations derive from the study of online digital companies and applications, which either succeeded or failed to develop a sustainable freemium model. These are LinkedIn, Spotify, Box, Eventbrite, Chargify, Gasketball and TravelCrony.\nFindings: The article describes the generic strategy and the key strategic choices that enable and support successful freemium business model execution in an online digital business.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is limited to digital companies applying a freemium business model and offering their products and services online.\nPractical implications: The findings and recommendations can help new and existing companies, first, to evaluate if the freemium business model is feasible for them, and second, to adjust strategies to develop a successful freemium business model and scale it up.\nOriginality/value: The article extends the current understanding of the freemium business model logic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of social and emotional competencies on effectiveness of Spanish executives	[ "Emotional intelligence", "Competences", "Personality", "Performance management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The search for characteristics other than traditional intelligence which adequately explain success has been continuous within social psychology and the organizational field. Emotional intelligence (EI) emerged as an attempt at solving this dilemma, and from the beginning it has been hypothesized as being an important predictor for success in work and life (e.g. Goleman, 1995; Cherniss and Goleman, 2001). EI was built around the idea of predicting success in life (Goleman, 1995) and that is one of the main reasons why the construct has attracted not only a broad scope of disciplines, but the public in general. Despite claims that emotional intelligence predicts performance on work-related tasks and successful interpersonal interactions, little research exists to support these claims and this remains an open question (Day and Carroll, 2004; Salovey et al., 2000; Lyons and Schneider, 2005; Journal of Management Development special issue in February, 2008). Numerous studies are aimed to investigate the association between EI and performance (e.g. Extremera and Fernandez-Berrocal, 2005; Lyons and Schneider, 2005; Dulewicz and Higgs, 2000; Newsome et al., 2000; Boyatzis, 1982) but there are still insufficient data that assess predictive validity with the different EI measurement tools (Perez et al., 2005). Consequently, scholars claim that further research is needed to understand a major unresolved issue of the EI field, its predictive power (e.g. Cherniss, 2001b).EI models\nMethods: Sampling\nResults: Regression models\nConclusion: Results lead us to the conclusion that both emotional and social competencies and personality traits are valuable predictors of job performance as measured by the nominations procedure in this study. In addition, competencies seem to be more powerful predictors of performance than global personality traits. This supports the idea of the criterion validity of EI in line with previous studies (e.g. Dulewicz et al., 2003), and helps to build a body of research that contributes to overcoming the paucity of evidence for the predictive validity of EI measures claimed by many authors. Thus, the first hypothesis stating that emotional and social competencies will be more successful in predicting performance than personality traits is confirmed.Our findings differ from many previous findings because we have corrected for measurement error. This leads us to speculate the true usefulness of EI for enhancing our understanding of human performance. Results provided in the literature have encouraged controversy as the opposite conclusions have been reported in prestigious scientific journals over the last five years. Some studies (Newsome et al., 2000; Bastian et al., 2005) questioned the uniqueness of EI as a powerful source of predicting performance. Conversely, other studies were in coherence with our findings (Lyons and Schneider, 2005; Petrides et al., 2004; Gannon and Ranzijn, 2005; Ciarrochi et al., 2000; Van der Zee et al., 2002).In addition, the measurement of the dependent variable, performance, is also complex. And the contexts and participants in which studies were carried out vary tremendously, from university students to top managers in organizations. Thus, there may be major limitations to confidence in the comparability of all the above studies. Looking at the literature, our findings are in accordance with studies that use a behavioral approach of EI and job performance as the dependent variable (Higgs and Dulewicz, 2002; Boyatzis, 2006; Murensky, 2000). Future research is recommended to eliminate the shadows of doubt hovering over the usefulness of EI as a construct to predict important life and job outcomes.The managerial sets of competencies, power, affiliation and achievement show stronger relations with performance than the awareness competencies. The competencies within the Achievement and Power sets of competencies seem to be more closely related to performance than competencies within the affiliation set. Power seems to be the most powerful variable for predicting performance within organizations. The concept of threshold and differentiating competencies introduced by Boyatzis (1982) may be useful to grasp the relationship between EI and job performance. The Affiliation set may be a threshold set of competencies for managers and leaders in organizations. In contrast, the power and achievement sets may make the difference.Performance was integrated into a general framework of competencies and the hypothesis that states that the managerial sets of competencies will have stronger effects on performance is partially confirmed. Results show the predicted positive relationships through the managerial competencies (affiliation, power, achievement), but only power shows a strongly positive direct effect. An additional path was suggested that specifies a direct effect from \"self-confidence\" to performance. The effect of \"self-confidence\" through affiliation, achievement and power is strongly positive, but the direct effect shows that the higher the \"self-confidence\" the lower the performance. Thus, it needs to be associated through other managerial variables to have a positive impact on performance. High values of \"self-confidence\" (over-confidence) could harm performance if they are not associated with the appropriate managerial skills.A limitation of this study is that it has not taken into account possible consequences of multicollinearity among the constructs of the empirical model. Since multicollinearity inflates the standard errors of the regression coefficients and may distort the estimated regression coefficients and significant tests, we encourage further research to validate our findings.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of this paper is to address the predictive validity of the behavioral approach of EI by Boyatzis and Goleman. There are two research questions guiding this study: emotional and social competencies are positively and significantly related with job performance; and emotional and social competencies will be more successful in predicting performance than universal personality dimensions, like the Big Five personality traits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is based on the data of three medium-sized Spanish organizations (n=223) that were involved in a competency management project based on emotional and social competencies. SPSS and structural modeling techniques available in the SEM program LISREL 8.51 software are used to enter the empirical analyses of the paper.\nFindings: - Results show that emotional competencies and personality traits are valuable predictors of job performance as measured by the nominations procedure in the study. In addition, competencies seem to be more powerful predictors of performance than global personality traits.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample size is small.\nPractical implications: - The paper will provide reflective practitioners with useful conceptual and developmental handles for emotional competencies within organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The paper helps to build a body of research that contributes to overcoming the paucity of evidence for the predictive validity of EI measures claimed by many authors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The mediating role of adoption of an electronic tax system in the relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance	[ "Uganda", "Tax compliance", "Adoption of electronic tax system", "Attitude towards electronic tax system", "Small business enterprises" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Tax compliance is of paramount importance for the government to provide public goods and reallocate wealth (Jayawardane, 2016). For government to be able to provide public goods and reallocate wealth, there is a need for taxpayers to comply and pay the correct amount of taxes due and on time (Musimenta et al., 2017; Nkundabanyanga et al., 2017; Jayawardane, 2016). Because of the economic crises in several countries, for example, the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, there has been a marked increase in the importance of tax compliance in the global economic environment (Ritsatos, 2014). Tax revenue sustains economic development and finances both social programmes and infrastructure investment (Ibrahim et al., 2015). Osundina and Olanrewaju (2013) state that taxation (a process of levying and administering taxes) is a key player in every society of the world because it is a chance for the government to collect revenue needed in satisfying its pressing obligations. Tax revenues provide governments with the funds needed to invest in development, dismiss poverty, deliver public services and build the physical and social infrastructure for long-term growth (OECD, 2010). Therefore, mobilization of tax revenues through taxation of all the economic agents is the most important way through which the government can raise funds to provide public services (Ndekwa, 2014). Small business enterprises (SBEs) are one of such economic agents the government can raise revenue through taxation. In Uganda, small and medium enterprises employ approximately 2.5million, constitute approximately 90 per cent of the private sector generating over 80 per cent of the manufactured output that contributes 20 per cent of Uganda's gross domestic product (Ojiambo, 2016; Hatega, 2007). With all their significance, studies have shown that the problem of non-tax compliance is still widespread among small businesses (Yusof et al., 2014; Kasipillai and Abdul-Jabbar, 2006). Most SBEs fall under the presumptive tax system yet during the financial year 2014/2015, a large number of businesses that fell under the presumptive tax bracket did not pay taxes to Uganda revenue authority (URA) (Auditor General report, 2015).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theoretical foundation\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Research design, population and sample\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Mediation test results: This study aimed to establish the mediation effect of adoption of the e-tax system on the relationship between attitude towards the e-tax system and tax compliance. Mediation tests were thus conducted to be sure that the conditions suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986) are met. According to Baron and Kenny (1986) and Kenny et al. (1998), mediation occurs if the following conditions are met:\n6. Discussion of results: Based on the TRA, it can be argued that attitude towards electronic tax system improves tax compliance given that in Uganda; the filing of returns is done online. When a taxpayer evaluates the e-tax system as favourable, for instance as time-saving, improving performance in preparing tax returns, making work easier and being secure the person develops a positive attitude towards an e-tax system and end up adopting it, and this translates into tax compliance. This is supported by the findings of Ondara et al. (2016) who concluded that there is a strong relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance, though the author did not explore the mediation effect of adoption towards electronic tax system and tax compliance. Similarly, Kiring'a et al. (2017) found that there is a strong relationship between the perception towards online tax filing in terms of ease and simplicity to file and tax compliance. In Uganda, increased usage of the e-tax system by the taxpayers is associated with improvement in tax compliance. This is precise because when a taxpayer uses an e-tax system, for instance, to file returns, pay the tax dues, avoid penalties, comply with the law and register to get a tax identification number; this is likely to play a big role in tax compliance. According to TAM, one's perception of the use of information technology is critical to its adoption. Once information technology is embraced by the owners of SBEs, it is likely that tax compliance will improve. This finding agrees with results of the study on tax compliance by Muturi and Kiarie (2015) which indicated that there is a strong positive correlation between adoption of an e-tax system through online tax registration, online tax return filing, online tax remittance and tax compliance among small taxpayers in Meru County, Kenya.\n7. Summary and conclusion: This study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of adoption of an electronic tax system in the relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance of SBEs in a developing country in a single study. This was achieved through a questionnaire survey of 214 owner managed SBEs through managers of these businesses. Results suggest that adoption of electronic tax system mediates the relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance. Overall, the findings of this study have important insinuations for academics as well as practitioners and regulators. This paper contributes to the already existing literature on tax compliance by documenting that the adoption of an electronic tax system is a partial mediator in the relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance. Government through tax authorities may wish to improve tax compliance by sensitizing taxpayers about the benefits of electronic tax systems which may positively change taxpayers' attitude towards electronic tax system and embrace the system and thus tax compliance. Tax authorities need to focus on increasing electronic tax system usage and ensure that there is further training of taxpayers on the importance of tax compliance as well. SBEs' owners and managers may need to ensure that they comply with tax laws, and this is possible if the necessary infrastructures such as computers and qualified personnel are in place.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of adoption of electronic tax system in the relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance using evidence from small business enterprises (SBEs) of an African developing economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used a quantitative research approach where questionnaires with close-ended questions were used. This study's research design was cross-sectional and correlational. Usable questionnaires were received from 214 managers of SBEs, and data were analysed with the help of SPSS v22 and MedGraph program (Excel version).\nFindings: Adoption of electronic tax system is a partial mediator in the association between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance. Results further indicate that adoption of electronic tax system and attitude towards electronic tax system are significantly associated with tax compliance.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study was cross-sectional, and monitoring changes in behaviour over time was not possible. The study used a quantitative research approach, and this limits respondents from expressing their feelings fully. The study was conducted in Uganda, and it is possible that the results of this study can be generalized to developing countries with environments similar to that of Uganda.\nOriginality/value: Whereas there has been a number of studies on tax compliance, this study provides an initial empirical evidence on the mediation effect of adoption of electronic tax system in the relationship between attitude towards electronic tax system and tax compliance using evidence from SBEs of an African developing economy - Uganda.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Best-before date - food storage temperatures recorded by Swedish students	[ "Sustainable development", "Consumer", "Food safety", "Refrigeration", "Education", "Domestic safety" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to Swedish food legislation, all food packages must specify the temperature range at which food items should be stored (National Food Administration, 2004). A typical recommended storage temperature for perishable food items is max 8degC. An exception to this is, perishable food items such as minced meat, which should be stored at 4degC. Food companies decide the storage temperature and duration and under European food legislation, this information must be written on the packaging. The combination of temperature and time are important factors. For instance, if milk or meat is stored a few degrees colder, the shelf-life increases (Griffiths and Phillips, 1988; Zhang et al., 2011). Appropriate cold storage of perishable food items is important from a health perspective. The incidence of listeriosis remains relatively high or has increased in European countries (Goulet et al., 2008). Listeria monocytogenes is a probiotic bacteria growing over a wide range of temperature from 0 to 42degC (optimum 30-35degC) and in vacuum (Adams and Moss, 1995). Below 5degC it grows extremely slowly with lag times of one to 33 days, but this means that the bacteria can still grow in long-term cold-stored, vacuum-packed ready-to-eat (RTE)-foods such as sliced ham or sausages with a recommended temperature max. of 8degC. Listeriosis largely affects high-risk groups of the population, e.g. pregnant woman, the elderly and immuno-compromised individuals. In Sweden, the incidence of listeriosis has increased, to 9.3 cases-/million inhabitants in 2013 (Public Health Agency of Sweden, 2014).\nMethod: Recruitment process\nResults: Refrigerator shelf temperature\nDiscussion: Methodological considerations\nConclusion: The average temperature was lowest on the middle shelf of the refrigerators studied. However, relatively high proportions of food items were stored at higher temperatures than recommended. The participating students did not always strictly discard food after that had passed its best-before date. A question for further research is whether they understood the concept of best-before date, or whether they were able to correlate colder storage with longer shelf-life. According to the teachers surveyed, the present investigation increased interest and knowledge of date labeling, food hygiene, refrigerator storage and food wastage among their students. The findings might assist consumers, students and educators to improve food safety practices in Sweden.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the food storage temperature in Swedish household refrigerators, to determine whether students use the best-before-date label to determine food edibility, and to examine if the study increased the students' interest and knowledge regarding these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 1,812 students, enrolled at 72 Swedish schools, analysed the temperature on different shelves in their family refrigerator using thermometers (Moller-Therm (+0.5/-0.1 degC) and instructions provided by their teachers. A questionnaire dealing with the issues of date labelling, food safety, refrigerator storage and food wastage was completed by the teachers.\nFindings: The temperature at the back of middle shelves was coldest (average 4.8 degC; SD 3.1). A relatively high proportion of food items were stored at higher temperatures than recommended. The use-by date had been exceeded for 30 per cent of products, but the students did not rate these as inedible. According to the teachers, the investigation increased interest and knowledge among their students of date labelling, food hygiene, refrigerator storage and food waste.\nResearch limitations/implications: Thermometers were used to measure air temperature on different shelves in the family refrigerator. Data collection was not controllable, as the students measured without supervision.\nPractical implications: The teachers reported that the study increased interest and knowledge among their students regarding cold food storage.\nSocial implications: This way of teaching food safety would meet the aim of generally increasing food safety knowledge in society, which might have a positive impact on public health.\nOriginality/value: The use of school-children as data collectors to determine refrigerator temperatures in private homes is a novel approach, which was an efficient way of teaching relevant facts as well as collecting large amounts of data.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
VisualCOBie for facilities management: A BIM integrated, visual search and information management platform for COBie extension	[ "Facilities management", "BIM" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is increasing need to be able to use building information modeling (BIM) data in facilities management (FM) (Parn et al., 2017; Volk et al., 2014; Yalcinkaya and Singh, 2015a). The facility-related information is created by numerous BIM and other FM-related applications throughout the project lifecycle. Several approaches and potential benefits from the use of BIM for FM have been proposed, and more recently, many established commercial applications have extended their solutions to facilitate BIM for FM. Overall, it is claimed that the use of BIM in FM can reduce operational cost, streamline and speed up information access to reduce response time to work-orders, provide the basis for preventive maintenance and provide the integrated platform to bring together various stakeholders including energy experts, building automation experts and building services experts in building lifecycle management. Some of the BIM for FM benefits discussed in the literature include three-dimensional (3D) sisualization of built facility to enhance usability, improved space management and spatial understanding of the built facility (Zhichong and Yaowu, 2009), improved asset information and asset management via BIM data and object attributes (Yu et al., 2000), improved energy management and maintenance of building services (Stumpf et al., 2009), opportunity to leverage emerging technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) in operations and maintenance (Goulding et al., 2014), use of BIM based inventory models for renovation decisions, use of existing BIM models in retrofitting and redesign (Hammond et al., 2014) and integrated access to information from and for various stakeholders (Succar, 2009).\n2. Research approach and methodology: This research is based on the iterative design research and software development process (Dorst and Cross, 2001; Poon and Maher, 1997). As shown in Figure 1, such an iterative process involves:\n3. Implementing and testing the concepts in a working prototype: 3.1 Implementation architecture of visual construction operations building information exchange\n4. External validation of visual construction operations building information exchange platform in use context: The external validation and testing was conducted through:\n5. Limitations of the research: The main objective of this research is eliminating the inefficiencies regarding the comprehension and use of the data structure and its dependencies. Nonetheless, the following limitations of this research need to be considered when reviewing the current findings and implementation.\n6. Conclusions: This research presents VisualCOBie as a framework and platform to enhance the functionality and usability of existing COBie spreadsheet by providing a BIM-integrated and graph-based visualization and data navigation platform. This platform provides BIM-based hierarchical and spatial information views and graph-based relational information view. Each of these views are integrated with each other via the open source BIM and graph-database applications, and their individual APIs in the data integration and process layer. BIM data are obtained from the default database of open source BIMserver, whereas the COBie data and the semantic relationships are represented and saved in a graph form in the database layer with the aid of the converter script written by the researchers. Many of the identified problem statements have been resolved with the proposed functionalities and the VisualCOBie platform. Internal validity of the software implementation has been conducted using publically available COBie data to test the reliability of the developed system. External validity of the usefulness of the approach has been achieved through three case studies in Finland, where VisualCOBie has been implemented on companies' pilot projects. While the primary objectives and successful application of Gestalt principles in the implementation have been validated, several detail-oriented areas of improvement in the implemented prototype have been identified during the validation studies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the technical features, underlying concepts and implementation details of a novel Building Information Modeling (BIM)-integrated, graph-based platform developed to support BIM for facilities management through a usability driven visual representation of the construction operations building information exchange (COBie) spreadsheet data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on the iterative steps of design thinking and agile software development methodology. The conceptual development of the VisualCOBie platform is based on Gestalt's principles of visual perception to facilitate usability and comprehension of the COBie data.\nFindings: The paper demonstrates that Gestalt's principles of visual perception provide a suitable conceptual as well as implementable basis for improving the usability and comprehension of COBie spreadsheets. The implemented BIM-integrated, graph-based VisualCOBie platform supports visual navigation and dynamic search, reducing the cognitive load of large spreadsheets that are common in facilities management software.\nResearch limitations/implications: The usability, visual search and dependencies-based search of VisualCOBie can potentially transform how we implement and use facilities and information management systems in construction, where large spreadsheets are frequently used in conjunction with BIM and other tools. VisualCOBie also provides usability-based step towards BIM for facilities management.\nOriginality/value: The VisualCOBie approach provides a novel user interface and information management platform. This paper may also foster a potential paradigm shift in our approach to the representation and use of information exchange standards such as COBie, which are required to facilitate the research and practice on BIM for facilities management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
BT connects with older workers: Pioneering policies help to attract and retain the over-50s	[ "Age discrimination", "Equal opportunities", "Telecommunication services", "Quality awards" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: If you think that modern information technology and telecommunication companies are mainly interested in employing younger people, think again. More than 30 percent of BT employees are aged over 50.\nTraining programs open to all: The company offers opportunities and programs to help workers to gain new experiences and develop new skills throughout their careers. All its training programs are available to every employee, regardless of age.\"We are keen to ensure that our training programs develop all of our people and to ensure that age is not a barrier to learning about, understanding and providing services to our customers based upon the huge variety of technologies that constantly affect our core business,\" said a company spokesman.The firm holds regular one-to-one meetings between line managers and individual employees, at which individual development plans are discussed. These development plans help line managers to identify areas where people in their team might need additional training to help them to develop their careers.BT's career-life planning tool recognizes that employees' lives outside work, as well as their careers, change over time. It helps individuals and line managers to work together to understand how changes at work and elsewhere in people's lives can be planned for and appropriate development strategies created.The tool could be used, for example, to highlight ways in which an employee's working life may change if his or her partner's circumstances change over time, or if the employee has children or grandchildren, or becomes a carer, or re-enters education.\nFlexible-working arrangements: BT offers a wide variety of flexible-working arrangements to all its employees. The possibilities range from simple part-time working to term-time working, home working, job sharing and compressed hours.Some 75,000 of BT's 112,000 employees have the opportunity to work flexibly, 14,000 of them working from home. \"Flexible working benefits the employee, the employer, the environment and society in general,\" commented the company spokesman. \"It benefits many different elements of our workforce for whom the conventional need to travel to a place of work and work a fixed schedule would make work inaccessible. For our older workers, this flexibility enables them to continue contributing to BT while also adapting their working styles to their changing circumstances.\"BT's own research shows that these people have increased productivity by, on average, around 20 percent, and that they are 7 percent happier at work.Anyone in BT can request flexible-working arrangements as part of their career-life planning discussions with their line manager. Achieving the Balance is BT's portfolio of flexible and agile working policies and practices. It outlines the different options that are available to help people to find the most suitable working arrangements for their circumstances. It also includes separate sections for line managers giving advice and guidance on the approach and process to follow when considering a request for a change to an individual's working arrangements.BT has developed a home-working web site, which equips employees setting up at home with the practical information they need, from mock insurance letters to booking equipment. A web-based support system also exists to ensure that mobile as well as home-workers continue to feel a sense of belonging - to their teams and the BT workforce as a whole.The Achieving the Balance portfolio includes several opportunities that, although available to everyone in BT, are particularly useful to older people. These are:* wind down, which provides employees with the opportunity to work flexibly to ease into retirement, giving them more personal time and making the transition easier while enabling the business to retain their skills;* step down, which enables individuals to move to roles with less responsibility, providing them with the chance to work in a less stressful environment;* time out, which offers individuals the chance to take career breaks for up to two years;* helping hands, a program enabling individuals to undertake a secondment to a charity for up to two years; and* ease down, which gives the opportunity for people gradually to reduce their level of responsibility while continuing to work for BT.\"These options give our older employees, especially, the opportunity to extend their working lives with BT,\" the company spokesman explained.\n\"Normal\" retirement age abolished: \"We had a normal retirement age in the UK of 60 until 2006. Since lifting the retirement age, we have almost 2,000 employees aged over 60.\"We have also been looking at the feasibility of drawing on retired workers to cover peaks in activity and have had an enthusiastic response from many of our retired employees who would welcome returning for short-term employment.\"The wider our age demographic, the greater diversity of knowledge, skills and experience we bring to the organization. Older workers hold a huge amount of intellectual capital and are able to pass on a wealth of experience to their younger colleagues.\"Sandra Done, aged 62, plans to stay at BT for many more years. She works in BT Retail in the directories team and says \"she cannot imagine her day without a job\". She works flexibly through banked time, which means that she can work any time as long as she works the required total number of hours.Glenys Hayers, also 62, is a full-time home worker and says this significantly eases time pressures and helps her productivity. She also recognizes the benefits of working in a mixed-age team and says her colleagues appreciate her experience. She believes that BT made the process of staying on very easy, with good support and minimal paper work.\nNo age limit for graduate and apprenticeship schemes: BT has removed any age limit from its graduate and apprenticeship schemes. Workers aged over 50 make up some 5 percent of BT's new recruits.\"We are very aware of our obligations under the law and the business benefit for recruiting older workers in terms of skills and experience,\" said the company spokesman. \"This will ensure our job advertisements have no age criteria and do not use language that appeals to one particular age group.\"The company often pairs its older employees with recently recruited modern apprentices, in order to transfer the knowledge and experience to a younger workforce.\nRange of policies to promote health and wellbeing: BT's Work Fit program focuses on areas of health and wellbeing that, although they touch all the company's employees, affect people over 50 in increasing numbers. One example of the targeted approach of Work Fit was the campaign to reduce heart disease in older men. Research highlights the correlation between waist size and heart attacks. Work Fit encouraged people to take their waist measurement and, in collaboration with Men's Health, an external organization, helped them to lose weight over time.\"Given the age and gender profile of our workforce, we were seeing an increased number of older male employees who were dying from heart attacks or other age/weight-related illnesses,\" said the company spokesman. \"By explaining the statistics to our workforce and engaging with them by providing the tools and resources to help them to help themselves, and each other, Work Fit was able to encourage many thousands of employees to lose weight and so improve their wellbeing. Following this successful campaign, we were able to use the Work Fit brand to address other health issues, such as mental health, cancer, smoking, kidney disease and diabetes,\" said the spokesman.BT's Open Minds: Head First booklet helps employees and line managers to understand the importance of good mental health and provides guidance on managing the stresses and anxieties of everyday life.\"Many managers or colleagues have difficulty in understanding how to relate to people whose behavior may have changed while they are unwell,\" said the company spokesman. \"They may be unsure about what they can do to help and feel inadequate at a time when their support could prove invaluable.\"Open Minds aims to shatter some of the myths associated with mental health, increase awareness and reassure sufferers that they will be helped back to full health.The \"passport\" is a tool available to employees who believe that their caring responsibilities, disability or poor mental health could, at some stage, harm their ability to work. \"Our employees, particularly our older employees, have told us that they can find it difficult to talk in depth about some of their needs and requirements, especially if this has to be repeated several times to, say, a new manager, the occupational-health doctor or an HR specialist,\" said the company spokesman.The passport is a document that employees can complete at their own pace and in their own style, describing their circumstances and requirements. This might include whom to contact in an emergency, activities that they would prefer not to take part in, possible effects of medications or simplified procedures for reporting that they do not feel able to come into work. The line manager is given this information. He or she does not relinquish responsibility for the individual until the passport has been used to brief and hand over to the new manager. This, in turn, makes it easier for the people to move across the business, without having to keep explaining their circumstances.By providing tools that enable individuals and their line managers to decide if the employee is experiencing stress and, if so, what to do about it, BT creates opportunities to manage and prevent illness and absence. The assessment, known as Stream, converts what can be a complicated set of factors into a simple red/amber/green traffic-light indicator.\"By providing an infrastructure, we facilitate discussions between individuals and their line managers,\" the company spokesman explained. \"Many employees have said that this infrastructure makes the discussion more straightforward, overcoming some of the in-built barriers. For example, line managers may be much younger or older than the individual.\"If the assessment is amber or red a second tool, Stride, enables line managers and individuals to work together to identify practical solutions and agree ways forward.These tools have helped BT to reduce mental-health-related sickness by 35 percent over the last five years and the medical-health retirement rate for mental health by 80 percent. Three-quarters of long-term absentees for both physical and mental health now return to their job. The national figure is 20-25 percent, while BT's rate used to be 30 percent.The company spokesman concluded: \"We are delighted to have won the AARP award and be recognized for leading the field in employee practices for older workers. We pride ourselves on valuing the contributions of people of all ages and actively promote the value of operating in mixed-age teams.\"\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe BT's policies to help its older staff, which made it one of only ten employers worldwide to win last year's AARP International Innovative Employer award, which recognizes non-US-based employers who demonstrate practices to help employees aged 50 or over.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper details initiatives such as flexible-working arrangements, the Workfit program, encouraging people of all ages to improve their mental and physical wellbeing, and the career-life planning tool, which helps employees to develop their careers at every stage of their life.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that all BT's training programs are available to every employee, regardless of age, and that workers aged over 50 make up some 5 percent of BT's new recruits - including graduates in their 50s who are enrolled on the company's graduate scheme.\nPractical implications: - The paper demonstrates how the various \"age neutral\" policies help to ensure that the company always has a bank of intellectual capital on which to draw.\nOriginality/value: - The paper puts forward ideas that other companies could adopt, faced with the so-called \"demographic time-bomb\" - the fact that there will be fewer young people in the workforce of the future.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of public relations on visibility of Croatian non-profits	[ "Croatia", "Public relations", "Democratization", "Non-profit organizations", "Strategic communication campaign", "Foundation “Croatia for Children”" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and purpose of the study: Non-profit organizations play an important role in modern society. Communities build non-profit organizations as vehicles through which people care for vulnerable, demand civil and equal rights, find creative expression, preserve our heritages and struggle for worldwide justice and peace (Cutlip et al., 2006). According to Andreasen and Kotler (2008), the role of non-profits is triple: non-profit organizations provide services which are not often provided by the government (usually governmental services cover the median voter while non-profit organizations provide for the rest); profit organizations cannot sometimes be trusted to fairly and equitably provide goods and services and lastly, non-profit organizations cover a gap that national and international governments create due to their implementation of policies that are not effective in creating faster change.\nLiterature review: Non-profit organizations are defined as organizations whose main aim is to achieve public interest instead of earning the money (Radalj, 2018). They protect different public and private interests of people and can be defined as the agents of social changes and creators of social capital. Salamon and Anheier (1997) note the great range of institutions covered by the concept of \"non-profit organization\" and the great profusion of terms used to depict this range of institutions. An early step towards clarifying these boundaries within the framework of the John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project[3] focused on what is widely considered to be at its core - the set of institutions and associated behaviours known variously as associations, foundations, giving and volunteering; or collectively as non-profit, voluntary and community or civil society organizations and the volunteer activity that they help to mobilize (Salamon, 2010, p. 170).\nMethodology: To respond to these questions, this paper will present a case study of strategic communication campaign \"One small step makes a big difference\" that Foundation \"Croatia for Children\" implemented from January to December 2017. Foundation outsourced public relations services from Croatian public relations agency IMC whose main task was to design and manage the implementation of the before mentioned strategic communication campaign. The profession of public relations understands itself through case studies, whilst both practitioners and educators treat cases as the condensed wisdom of profession (Heath, 2001). Moreover, a case study allows in-depth review of new or unclear phenomena whilst retaining the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events (Yin, 2009).\nResults: The main communication objective was to increase the visibility of Foundation in the national and local Croatian media. Before starting the strategic communication campaign, qualitative and quantitative analysis of media articles regarding Foundation's activities from 2008-2016 was conducted showed that there were only two articles in the media - one article was published in Croatian national daily media and the second in the Croatian local daily media. First article referred to the scholarships that Foundation donates to high school pupils whilst the second article referred to the project of co-financing school nutrition.\nPractical and social implications: The results derived from this case study cannot be generalized, since they are based on a single case. However, they can serve as a starting point for another research about the role and importance that public relations have in enhancing the visibility of non-profit organizations. Moreover, they can serve as an indicator that Croatian public relations scholarships should devote more attention to deeply examine why non-profit organizations need public relations especially in the emerging arena of mainly for-profit oriented news, when actors whose mission is to serve for the children and society as a whole are struggling to get the slightest bit of media attention.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand and show how public relations contributed to enhancing the visibility of Croatian non-profit organization Foundation \"Croatia for Children\" and its activities within its stakeholders, as well as how public relations contributed to the mobilization of target publics in Foundation's activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a single case study approach, data were collected over a 12-month period. Quantitative and qualitative media research was applied in order to compare visibility of Foundation in the period before and after the strategic communication campaign.\nFindings: Strategic communication campaign enhanced the visibility of Foundation \"Croatia for Children\" in national and local Croatian media and positioned it as the primary instance for children without an adequate parental care and children in need. However, local media devoted more attention comparing to the national media. All children wishes (1,000) were fulfilled by mobilizing the target publics.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results derived from this case study cannot be generalized since they are based on a single case in one country.\nPractical implications: This study can serve as a starting point for another research about the role and importance that public relations have in enhancing the visibility of non-profit organizations.\nOriginality/value: The results of this study point to the role and importance public relations have in the non-profit sector in order to proactively communicate with all stakeholders in society.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mapping the intellectual structure of modern leadership studies	[ "Leadership", "Leadership development", "Social networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today's organizations, more than ever, need effective leaders who understand the complexity of the ever-changing global environment; who have the intelligence, sensitivity, and ability to empathize with others; and who can motivate their followers to strive for excellence. Latour (1987) uses scientometrics epistemology to portray the knowledge networks of leadership in terms of its intellectual architects (who), their respective contributions (what), and the time and place in which they published them (when and where) in leadership area. We collected citation data over the ten-year period of 1997-2006 from every issue of leadership quarterly (LQ) and educational leadership (EL). A detailed analysis of 31,232 citations contained in the 2,322 sources articles has been done to trace historical leadership study development and paradigms timeline. The research method used for this study is citation and co-citation analyses. Using citation analysis, the interlinked nodes are discovered. From these nodes, the most influential publications and scholars in the leadership field are identified. And then, co-citation analysis is conducted to map the intellectual structure of leadership studies and to explore the knowledge nodes.The main purpose of this study is to explore and map the intellectual structure of modern leadership studies during 1997-2006. This study provides researchers a systematic and objective means of determining the important publications, the influential scholars, the correlations among these publications, and the relative importance of different knowledge nodes in leadership research.\nLiterature review: Leadership is an important concept in the study of groups. Leaders play an active part in development and maintenance of role structure and goal direction and they influence the existence and efficiency of the group (Stogdill, 1974). Leaders must not only exercise influence, but they must also decide when, where, and how influence will be exercised to bring the attainment of social goals (House and Howell, 1992; Mumford and Haythorn, 1986; Winter, 1991). Over the years, many theories have been proposed describing the behaviors that make effective leadership possible - theories of behavioral styles (Lindell and Rosenqvist, 1992), transformational or charismatic leadership (Bass and Avolio, 1994; Klein et al., 1994) and leader-member exchange (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). These theories all have a focus on certain behavior patterns and the implications of these patterns for leader performance.Knowledge refers to the output of learning process, just as plans are the outputs of the planning process. Gibbons et al. (1994) contended that the terms of science and knowledge are frequently adopted interchangeably to form scientific knowledge. Networks have been extensively applied in engineering and science for managing complex systems (Price, 1965). In engineering and sciences, network commonly refers to a system or a web of inter-linked sub-systems or components, each optimally designed to perform a designated task effectively. Each sub-system is highly specialized and generally draws on high levels of accumulated knowledge and expertise within its expected domain of operations. Theoretically, the system as a whole may not be truly optimal, but it can be effective and flexible enough to perform the task at hand, well beyond the capabilities of its individual components. The two components of a network are the nodes and linkages whereby nodes point out the system resources for knowledge generation with their connections via linkages.Knowledge is complex and invisible, making it very hard to obtain. An effective approach is visualization and representation of knowledge. Chandy and Williams (1994) argued that each localized knowledge network is a part or a sub-system of a broader and more general system. Since the development and diffusion of knowledge of one discipline can be formulated and changed by the nature and objective of relevant journals, one discipline's journals can be regarded as an \"invisible hand\" influencing the focus of development and diffusion of the knowledge network of a given field. The concept of invisible hand reflects our admiration for the elegant and smooth functioning of the market system as a coordinator of autonomous individual choices in an interdependent world.An invisible knowledge network of any given field includes both the knowledge content of its nodes and the inter-linkages of those nodes within its domain and to other fields. The knowledge network of leadership can be considered as a branch of its interacting foundational domains, which are well-established sub-systems of leadership. A knowledge network in the leadership field is composed of sufficiently large number of published articles, active researchers (the intellectual architects) and citations appearing in various media relating to electronic commerce and other fields (Ngai and Wat, 2002; Shaw et al., 1997; Wareham et al., 2005). This knowledge network can depict the developmental and diffusion patterns and processes in the knowledge system of leadership. During the accumulation of cross-field knowledge, key nodes are the most important bridges to connect different or even separate domains. Key nodes gain the main status during the cross-fertilizing process, which facilitates the knowledge communication and transmission among relevant parts of the whole network.Bibliometrics is a research method used in library and information science. It utilizes quantitative analysis and statistics to describe patterns of publication within a given field or body of literature. Researchers may use bibliometrics to determine the influence of a single author, for example, to describe the relationship between the given author and other authors. Citation analysis is based on the hypothesis that authors cite papers they consider to be important to the development of their research. Chandy and Williams (1994) pointed out that citations are viewed as the explicit linkages between articles that have common aspects. Many researchers have studied citations, the \"raw data\" of citation analysis. Cronin (1984) described the citation process as a detailed theoretical scrutiny that includes a review of the role and the content of citations. Small (1999) discussed science mapping in the general context of information visualization and reviews attempts to construct maps of science using citation data, focusing on the use of co-citation clusters. Co-citation analysis records the number of papers that have cited any particular pair of documents and it is interpreted as a measure for similarity of content of the two documents. Co-citation analysis is a bibliometric technique that information scientists use to \"map\" the topical relatedness of clusters of authors, journals or articles, i.e. the intellectual structure of a research field. Co-citation studies compile co-citation counts in a matrix form and statistically scale them to capture \"a snapshot at a distinct point in time of what is actually a changing and evolving structure of knowledge\" (Small, 1993).Several studies have used the bibliometric techniques to study management research. For example, Pilkington and Teichert (2006) investigated the intellectual pillars of the management of technology literature and explored whether these are distinct from those commonly associated with its rival fields; Acedo and Casillas (2005) explored the research paradigms of international management research by applying factorial analysis techniques in an author co-citation study; Ramos-Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro (2004) examined the intellectual structure change of strategic management research by conducting a bibliometric study of the Strategic Management Journal; Ponzi (2002) explored the intellectual structure and interdisciplinary breadth of knowledge management in its early stage of development, using principle component analysis on an author co-citation frequency matrix. No such study has treated the field of leadership; therefore, this study aims to fill a gap in leadership literature by applying bibliometric techniques to a representative collection of research articles to map the structure of this field.\nMethodology: The research methods used for this study are bibliometrics and social network analysis. Bibliometrics is a theory-based citation and co-citation analysis. Using citation analysis, the interlinked invisible nodes are discovered from which the most influential publications and scholars in the leadership field are identified. Further, co-citation analysis is conducted utilizing social network analysis to explore the intellectual structure of the leadership studies and to explore the knowledge nodes that have contributed most to the studies of leadership and their evolution patterns.The general methods of data gathering and analysis in author co-citation analysis have been described by various scholars (White, 1983; White and Griffith, 1981; McCain, 1983, 1984, 1990). Detailed discussion of retrieval strategies and techniques of data manipulation could be found in these publications. The primary data collection of this study are conducted using bibliographic retrieval methods to ascertain the number of papers which contain at least one reference to each of a specified pair of authors' names, each name being a general representation of that author's work. These data are retrieved using Lockheed's DIALOG to search SSCISEARCH - the online version of Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The authors' names are entered in the most general form and linked using the \"Boolean\" and command. The command would retrieve a set of papers, each paper containing at least one reference to a work by A (author name) and one reference to a work by B (author name). The majority, if not all, of the retrieved citing papers identified by this pairing of names would discuss some aspect of rational expectations theory, an area to which both B and A have made important contributions. By using limit command and accession number ranges, the data from SSCI database is transported into successive time periods from 1997 to 2006.The co-citation counts of all author pairings over time period are organized in the form of a matrix. This matrix represents a profile of co-citation for individual author with every author. The value in diagonal cell is scaled to fit the range of co-citation value in the corresponding column (White and Griffith, 1981). With citation and co-citation analysis, this study has three phases, each of which required different approaches to examine the evolution of the leadership studies:1. Selection. Databases and journals as the sources of leadership publications are selected.2. Data collection and analysis. The desired information about topics, authors, and journals on leadership research are collected. The collected data are analyzed and systematized by sorting, summing, sub-totaling, ranking, and screening. Key nodes in the knowledge network of leadership studies are identified and the structures developed.3. Data mapping. The knowledge network of leadership is mapped to describe the knowledge distribution process in leadership field.Selection\nResults: Citation analysis\nConclusion: This study is to explore and map the knowledge network of leadership studies during 1997-2006, by analyzing 31,232 cited references of 2,322 articles from two leadership related journals in SSCI and SCI databases. We are able to identify the important publications (high impact) and the influential scholars as well as the correlations among these publications by analyzing citation, co-citation, and conducting social network analysis. Researchers can also use these methods to explore the knowledge network of their own fields.By using citation analysis, we are able to provide an objective assessment of a large number of publications. Moreover, publications and citation practices provide an empirical basis for understanding and transmitting the norms in a field. Researchers can also benefit from understanding the citing processes and outcomes because they both reveal the evolution of thoughts in a discipline and provide a sense of the future. As an area of research evolves, theories are continuously advanced and competing until paradigms emerge.We present the image of a network - i.e. a collection, or a combination, of knowledge resources in a network of interconnected nodes in terms of the intellectual, conceptual or theoretical linkages - capable of portraying the developmental and diffusion patterns and processes in leadership-centered knowledge. Each part of the knowledge network serves a specific purpose in the study of the leadership research. Epistemological scientometrics methodology was used to disclose some information such as highly cited journal articles and researchers in leadership field.Social network analysis tools can be used to graph the relations in the co-citation matrix and to identify the strongest links and the core areas of interest (Pilkington and Teichert, 2006) in leadership. Co-citation matrix and the grouping of authors (using factor analysis of the correlation between the entries) determined the clusters of authors. According to this, the closeness of author points on such maps is algorithmically related to their similarity as perceived by citers. A factor analysis of the co-citations proposed that the field includes four different concentrations of interest with the ten years:1. effectiveness of leadership style;2. leadership theory and development;3. leadership categorization; and4. the current issues of leadership research.The knowledge network of leadership and the development path discussed above can help researchers as well as the professionals by recognizing the influential publications and scholars of this field. This method also provides researchers a wide spectrum of inter-connected (web-like) nodes laden with ideas, concepts, and theories from where scholars and thinkers can start their own exploring. In other words, our contributions are providing valuable research direction in the leadership area and an objective and systematic means of determining the relative importance of different knowledge nodes in the development of the leadership field.Even though this research has its merit of offering valuable insights into the knowledge network of leadership studies, it also has some limitations: our data-collection criteria exclude some journals that may publish leadership articles and the research method of this study could not exclude the phenomenon of self-citation. In order to overcome the limitations associated with citation analysis, future research is encouraged to combine citation analysis with content analysis, a research tool used to determine the presence of certain words or concepts within texts or sets of texts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore and map the intellectual structure of leadership studies during 1997-2006. This paper also attempts to help researchers identify the important publications and the influential scholars as well as the correlations among these publications using citation and co-citation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this paper, co-citation analysis and social network analysis techniques are used to research knowledge network of the leadership literature by analyzing 31,232 cited references of 2,322 articles from two leadership related journals in social science citation index and science citation index databases.\nFindings: - Four factors emerged in this paper: effectiveness of leadership style, leadership theory and development, leadership categorization, and current issues of leadership research.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides management researchers a tool for evaluating leadership publications and provides a systematic and objective means of determining the relative importance of different knowledge nodes in the development of the leadership research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Predicting event tourists' gambling decision: the cross-level effect of brand equity	[ "Brand equity", "Casino", "MICE", "Multilevel", "Business event" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The prevalence of casinos around the globe has encouraged much research to focus on factors that motivate people to gamble. Yet, a plethora of academic interests in this research stream puts emphasis on gamblers as if their primary goal in staying at a casino were merely for gambling (Cotte, 1997; Marmurek et al., 2007; Prentice and Wong, 2016). This view limits our understanding on why other types of casino clienteles (e.g. MICE attendees) embark on gambling during their stay. Given the scant literature on MICE (i.e. meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) tourists' gambling decision, there is an urgent need to assess how these patrons' gambling decision may unfold. Consequently, several questions pertaining to the inter-relationships among MICE tourists' characteristics, casinos and gambling remain largely unaddressed. These questions include as follows: What are some demographic and participant factors that drive MICE tourists to gamble? What is the role of accommodation in affecting MICE tourists' decision to gamble?\nTheoretical background: For years, research on gambling has commonly explored the static view of gamblers' behaviors, that gambling decisions and behaviors are driven either by gamblers' innate demographic characteristics (e.g. gender orientation, age, culture and place of origin) (Papineau, 2005) or by casino-related attributes such as casino type (McNeal, 2010), services (Prentice and Wong, 2016), promotion (Lucas, 2004), branding (Tsai et al., 2010) and amenities (Johnson et al., 2004). These two streams of work lay the foundation of the proposed research framework, as presented in Figure 1. Yet, despite many research efforts that have been put forth for understanding why people gamble, there remains a lack of knowledge reported in the literature about how non-gambling-oriented special events (e.g. exhibitions and meetings) could promote gambling (Fenich and Hashimoto, 2004). In fact, a shortcoming of the existing literature is the lack of focus on the role of events in enticing participants to partake of this leisure activity. Hence, the framework depicted in Figure 1 also includes event participant-related attributes in an integrative model that bridges the gap among these three aforementioned research areas, to enable better understanding of their roles in inducing people's gambling decision.\nMethods: Sample\nFindings: Table I presents descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations among the variables of interest. Next, we used two empirical tests to explore the proposed relationships in two models, as Table II shows. In the first test, logistic regression was used to examine the individual-level effects leading from the both demographic and event participation characteristics to the dependent variable: gambling behavior. However, the results reveal that none of the predictors are significant. In the second test, hierarchical linear modeling with HLM 6.06 was used due to the multilevel nature of the proposed model. In addition, a multilevel logistic model is used to test the proposed relationships. Model 2 differs from Model 1 in several ways. First, Model 2 takes into account the direct and moderating cross-level effect of casino hotel brand equity on gambling behavior. Second, Model 2 also controls for the type of casino - integrated casino (0 = not integrated or 1 = integrated). In addition, because the dependent variable is dichotomous, multilevel logistic regression is used to estimate the parameters of interest. It is important to note that 346 out of 384 event attendees stayed in casino hotels. The reduced sample created 19 dyadic sets of casino hotels for the multilevel analysis in Model 2. Equations of the multilevel logit model are presented below:\nDiscussion: The primary objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of MICE tourists' gambling propensity in a non-linear approach. It seeks to uncover the factors that drive these clienteles to gamble during their event excursion. By drawing upon research streams germane to branding, event tourism, consumer behaviors and gaming, we have described a multilevel model of gambling behavior based on both direct effects of individuals' demographic and event participant attributes as well as the cross-level moderating effect of casino hotels' brand equity. The empirical analyses indicate that 40 per cent of the gambling behavior could be explained by the proposed framework. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are presented in the following sections.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The scant literature on MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) tourists' gambling behavior calls for a need to explore how their decision to gamble (hereafter, \"gambling decision\") may unfold. Consequently, several questions germane to the inter-relationships among event tourists' characteristics, casinos attributes, and gambling behaviors remain largely unaddressed. This paper aims to address the void in the literature by investigating event participants' gambling decision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected based on two samples, and a multilevel design was used to test the proposed model. Demographic and event-related participant characteristics were examined as antecedents of gambling decision at the individual level. Event goers' accommodation characteristics such as brand equity and type of hotel were explored as cross-level effects on the individual-level factors and relationships.\nFindings: Results of the study illustrate a joint influence - in terms of both direct and moderating effects - of individual-level and organizational-level characteristics on gambling decision. In particular, brand equity moderates the relationships leading from demographic and event-related characteristics to gambling decision.\nPractical implications: The inter-relationships among events, accommodations and casinos present an opportunity for hospitality practitioners to better integrate these three services in a more coherent experiential offering for the ever-demanding MICE attendees. Findings also help practitioners to justify their targeting strategy.\nOriginality/value: The proposed framework presents the dynamic nature of the hospitality industry in which the event, hotel and casino sectors are interdependent, a picture hitherto prevented by the single-level oriented nature of gambling and hospitality research which largely focuses on the individual perspective. Given the dynamic nature of the hospitality industry, the findings elucidate a complex interdependency of customer needs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analyzing abusive school leadership practices through the lens of social justice	[ "Social justice", "Teachers", "Abusive school leadership", "School productivity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Burke (2017) is of the view that the creation of the psychologically healthy workplaces and organizational success rests squarely on the shoulders of leadership. Leadership can break or make the organization through how it conducts itself. School leadership behavior has been a topical issue for decades in educational research and discourses, particularly its effect on organizational productivity. This study was conducted against the backdrop of international systematic studies which consistently point toward the abusive of teachers by school leadership. Confirming this assertion, Blase and Blase (2002, 2007) contend that there is confirming empirical evidence that paint a picture of workplace abuse in countries such Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Australia, and Britain and also the USA. Arguing from the basis of this finding, the researcher assumes that this could be the trend in the majority of the countries of the world.\nMethodology: This is a conceptual, qualitative and constructivist paper, and in an attempt to construct knowledge, recent and extant literature on abusive school leadership was deeply analyzed. Chandra and Shang (2017) describe constructivism as a subjective knowledge constructed from the social reality and co-constructed through human experience. John Ralws' theory of social justice was used as a theoretical framework and a theoretical lens. Abusive school leadership in this paper was explained and contextualized within the theory of social justice. The social justice theory was used to define, analyze, explain and understand the phenomenon of abusive school leadership practices and their effect on variables such as teacher productivity, teacher turnover rate, their health and health of the teacher. The study intended to respond to the following questions: how prevalent is abusive school leadership practices and which behaviors characterize abusive school leadership? Finally, how prevalent is abusive school leadership and what are the implications of such leadership practices on the teachers?\nAbusive leadership behaviors: School leadership is a well-researched topic that often gets complicated when defined by various scholars. Abusive supervision manifests in different forms and understood differently by employees. Priesemuth and Schminke (2017) suggest that the employees' holistic perceptions of fairness in the workplace are very critical. Blase and Blase (2007), citing a number of scholars, use constructs such as mobbing, bullying, harassment, petty tyranny, abusive disrespect, interactional injustice, emotional abuse, mistreatment, aggression and victimization to describe the workplace mistreatment/abusive phenomenon. In addition, Blase and Blase (2007) add the following to their list: humiliating, intimidating, and abusive communication, committed directly or indirectly, to confuse, discredit, intimidate, and isolate an individual, to force the individual into submission or out of the workplace. Burke (2017, p. 10) is of the view that abusive school leadership is characteristic of the following behavior: \"destructive, narcissistic, flawed, derailed, petty tyrants, dysfunctional, abusive, bullying, psychopathic, Machiavellian and stupid.\" Kelloway et al. (2004, p. 91) indicate that \"abusive leadership behaviors can vary widely from leaders degrading their employees by yelling, ridiculing, and name-calling to terrorizing employees by withholding information or threatening employees with job loss and pay cuts.\"\nConclusion: This paper problematized the effect of abusive school leadership on teacher behavior and organizational productivity. The discussions were based on critically reviewed literature. In addition, the theory of social justice from the Rawlsian perspective constituted the conceptual tool. In the chapter, the conceptualization of social justice and its relation to abusive school leadership, attributes embodying school leadership that is not abusive, theorizing abusive school leadership behavior, implications of abusive school leadership behavior on teacher behavior with specific reference on school productivity, teacher turnover and subordinates well-being was discussed. Evidence from this study suggests that to a significant extent, school leadership demonstrate abusive leadership practices. These practices do have negative implications on the performance of the schools as organizations, and, for this reason, it can be concluded that abusive school leaders perpetuates social injustice. The findings of this study have a number of important implications for future practice. It is critical in this study to suggest that in trying to deal with scourge, tougher measures be taken by various education departments to ensure that the problem is dealt with effectively. One of the interventions that are suggested is tougher policy positions on matters related to abusive leadership. In education departments that have legislation regarding consequences regarding abusive school leadership practices, tougher action should be taken against leadership which practice abuse.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The present study contributes to the growing body of research on abusive supervision in school settings, particularly by principals. School leadership (principal) behavior has been a topical issue for decades in educational research. This paper attempts to add to scholarly knowledge in the area of school leadership and specifically the effect of abusive school leadership on organizational productivity and organization citizen behavior. Put succinctly, the purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of abusive school leadership on school performance and teacher behavior. Abusive leadership is attributable to behavior that is deviant, antisocial and counter-productive and that which is uncivil.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In examining abusive school leadership behavior and its effect on school performance and teacher behavior, this conceptual paper draws heavily from an in-depth analysis of extant scholarship and uses Rawls theory of social justice as a conceptual tool. Social justice theorists believe that social institutions are embedded with immense responsibility of dispensing justice, fairness and equity.\nFindings: Building from these relevant literatures and grounding the argument from the Rawlsian perspective of social justice, it can be argued that abusive school leadership perpetuates unfair and unjust practices toward teachers, which negatively affects performance. Literature reviewed convincingly indicates that abusive tendencies are practiced in school by school leadership. Further, these abusive practices negatively impact on the following: teacher productivity, teacher turnover and, finally, staff members' well-being and health. The findings confirm that these practices perpetuate social injustice. Schools are social institutions and have to ensure that justice is served on all members of the organization, and, for this reason, Rawls (1971) argues that justice is the first virtue of social institutions.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study have a number of important implications for future practice. It is critical in this study to suggest that in trying to deal with scourge, tougher measures need to be taken by various education departments to ensure that the problem is dealt with effectively. One of the interventions that is suggested is tougher policy positions on matters related to abusive leadership. In education departments that have legislation regarding consequences regarding abusive school leadership practices, tougher action should be taken against leadership which practice abuse.\nOriginality/value: School leadership is a highly contested research space and this conceptual paper is of great value because it adds to the already existing insights and understanding in abusive leadership in educational settings. This paper is of great significance because it focuses on the effect of abusive school leadership on teachers' behavior and school performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The corporate university: riding the third wave: Knowledge innovation is now the best tool you have	[ "Knowledge management", "Corporate universities", "Innovation", "Competitive advantage" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Since the 1950s it became apparent that a \"third wave\" of knowledge driven economy was emerging, to take the place of industrialized economies around the globe.\nHistory of the waves: The agricultural revolution of over 8,000 years ago changed the familiar system of hunting and gathering. In the eighteenth century an industrial revolution took place, giving society mechanics and mass production. During this second revolution agriculture became secondary to industrialisation, and we can see that pattern emerging again with the information revolution. This third wave meant a focus on the collection and distribution of knowledge, and in particular, the creation of knowledge. This is a distinct move away from the production of goods and services. Means of knowledge transfer and application have grown with (or possibly induced) the hunger for information and as a result we now live in the most information rich society ever known.\nThird wave - what does it mean?: The third wave and technology it came with has caused an information overload, and companies have found they need organised knowledge systems to make sense of the chaos. This change has forced companies to improve their knowledge base and adjust constantly to stay ahead of the game. Knowledge has become a key force to hold over the competition, enabling innovation and development. Literature supports this theory, describing improved quality and productivity as a result of an informed and knowledgeable workforce. To simply exploit existing information is no longer enough, and organizations are feeling the need to renew and explore knowledge can make the difference between success and ultimately, failure. There is a growing feeling in Europe that their companies are falling behind the more information-driven economies of Japan and the USA. The \"new kids on the block\" such as China and India are also causing concern.\nCan knowledge innovation be defined?: Knowledge is not a commodity that can be protected easily; it is not easily traded and as such becomes an important competitive tool. Both 3M and General Electric have managed to maintain the speed of learning, but not without substantial effort. There is also a lack of understanding to be combated, about what the term \"knowledge innovation\" actually means. The idea that innovation could simply mean the invention of new products or services as a result of scientific research or new technology (technology push) has long gone, having suffered extensive criticism. Leaders thinkers in knowledge innovation have produced four major types of knowledge-driven innovation, as follows:1. Product innovation - new product, service, or both;2. Process innovation - new method of producing goods or services, usually better or cheaper;3. Organizational innovation - new method of organizing employees and their responsibilities; and4. Business innovation - new combination of some or all of the above.Not all types of innovation are created in laboratories, and the responsibility for innovation is shifting more towards corporate R&D departments. However, R&D departments are better known for using specialist knowledge, and as such are seen as being offshoots of the \"second wave\". It is now thought that R&D departments are not enough to produce the knowledge innovation now required to stay ahead in business. This awareness is believed to have brought about the \"corporate university\", which is increasingly becoming the domain for market driven economies and organizational innovations to realize their knowledge innovation.\nTypes of corporate university: Corporate universities, responsible for the innovation of knowledge, are traditionally thought of as part of Human Resources, as people are the carriers of knowledge. However those involved in strategy and organization science have also become involved, as they deal with company development. The term \"corporate university\" can be used to describe all types of organizational systems and groups. For example, a simple rebranding of a training department could just about get away with being termed a corporate university. The many different forms of corporate university have been collected into three groups:1. Schools. Acts as a disseminator of knowledge, reactive to strategy, serving the individual by enhancing training programs.2. Colleges. Acts a redistributor of knowledge, serving the organization by aligning organizational goals with individual competencies.3. Academies. Acts as a driver of knowledge innovation, revolving around knowledge transfer, exchange and creation. Serves both the organization and the individual, by forming and realizing strategy.Any of the three types may not function from one building, with one leader and one team, but more likely from groups and chains of all of these. Each university is unique, fitting to the company and the individuals who churn the wheels. There is therefore, no ideal university, and no template that an organization can work towards. Many corporate universities have been established and then disappeared, and it is allegedly two characteristics which the successful universities have in common.First, there is always a direct link between the Dean or university manager and the top management of the university. The university needs support from the management to establish its social space within the organization, and needs to be taken seriously if it is to achieve any goals. The university needs to be allowed to take up substantial financial resources, and kept up-to-date with any strategic changes afoot within the company.Second, the university needs to have a sound mission and aim, inline with company strategy. Following two different paths has often meant the university wandering off course, becoming effectively useless to the organization. They have to think of themselves as a company operating in tumultuous circumstances, rethinking strategy, methods and goals at regular intervals. They must think and operate as strategically as the company they are part of, or affiliated to.\nConclusions: The rise of corporate universities has been steady over the last 20 years, gradually building to a crescendo at the turn of the century. The requirements of the general organization have moved on from the \"second wave\" way of thinking, and have new targets, concentrating on innovating knowledge to stay one step ahead of the competition.Enemies of the corporate university are varied and widespread. Old-fashioned, second-wave thinking threatens its even existence, and the view that innovation can only exist in science and technology creates a serious skills gap in the university. A successful university has representatives from all disciplines, within and between organizations. The different types of university all bring an element of knowledge innovation to the table, be it creation, disseminator or redistributor. They can all link these attributes to corporate strategy. An increasingly knowledge-driven economy has created the corporate university a state of importance, and as such demands the attention of the entire organization. Organizations which ignore the concept of the corporate university are in serious danger of being left behind in the competitive market.\nComment: This is a review of \"Corporate universities: driving force of knowledge innovation\" by Martijn Rademakers. Well-written and easily digested, it identifies four key types of innovation explains the concept of a corporate university. By explaining why they have emerged, the article explains how corporate universities have evolved into a vital method of competition in a knowledge-driven economy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - The rise of corporate universities has been steady over the last 20 years, gradually building to a crescendo at the turn of the century. The requirements of the general organization have moved on from the \"second wave\" way of thinking, and have new targets, concentrating on innovating knowledge to stay one step ahead of the competition.\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Demographic factors and travel motivation among leisure tourists in Tanzania	[ "Demographic factors", "Travel motivation", "Leisure tourists", "Tanzania" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Travel motivation is commonly acknowledged as a crucial concept to most tourism professionals and theorists (Lam and Hsu, 2006). Travel motivation has been known as a driving force behind understanding behavior (Venkatesh, 2006). The concept of travel motivation is not new (Pearce and Caltabiano, 1983). Researchers around the globe have applied travel motivation to determine individual's satisfaction level (Snepenger et al., 2006; Lemmetynen et al., 2016; Celik and Dedeoglu, 2019; Preko et al., 2019), predict leisure participation levels (Yan and Halpenny, 2019), identify travel patterns (Pearce, 1987; Cavagnaro and Staffieri, 2015), understand tourists' travel decisions and consumption behavior (Chang et al., 2015) as well as to develop more effective strategies and policies to increase demand for tourism (Heung et al., 2001; Papatheodorou, 2006). The complex nature of this concept has pushed many researchers to come up with different travel motives. However, the central themes behind it revolved around push and pull factors/motives. Push and pull factors have been extensively employed to assess tourists' travel motivations (Kanagaraj and Bindu, 2013; Michael et al., 2017; Wijaya et al., 2018).In Tanzania, tourism plays a significant role in the country's economy and one among the crucial sectors in generating foreign exchange (Tanzania Tourism Sector Survey, 2018). The sector indirectly offered 1,452,000 jobs in 2017 from 1,389,000 jobs offered in 2016 (WTTC, 2017). Tourism in Tanzania generates about 17.5% of the total country's GDP and 25% of total foreign currency earnings (Tanzania Tourism Sector Report, 2017). Tanzania is famously known for tourist attractions and home to the famous Roof of Africa, the Mount Kilimanjaro. Following these attractions, Tanzania has pulled thousands of international visitors from different parts of the world, thereby making the country be known as one of the competitive tourist destinations in sub-Saharan Africa (Mkumbo, 2010). The WTTC (2017) projects a rising trend by 6.8% in 2027 of 2,267,000 international tourists to Tanzania.On the other hand, the arrivals of domestic tourists to various tourist attractions in the country are not in the same pace as international travel market. Factors such as limited promotion, awareness, low income, inadequate information, media usage, marketing and service quality challenges such as infrastructure and trained staff have been reported to be among the factors affecting the performance of domestic tourism in Tanzania (Wade et al., 2001; Mariki et al., 2011; Mkwizu, 2018a; 2019; Mkwizu et al., 2018). Some of the initiatives were done by the government to boost the travel market including setting preferential rates, establishment of the tourism training college for training purposes and introduction of intensive marketing campaigns to create awareness of tourism attractions. Despite all these efforts, there are more international tourists than locals visiting national parks. In 2018-2019, there were 731,351 international tourists compared to 464,933 locals that visited national parks (Tanzania National Parks, 2019). The differences in tourist numbers can be attributed to the fact that Tanzania is the only country in the world that has allocated 25% of her land for wildlife and game-controlled reserves (Tanzania Tourism Sector Survey, 2018). On the other hand, domestic tourists have been seen traveling mainly to visit their friends or relatives and sometimes they travel for leisure (Mariki et al., 2011). Therefore, there is need for more studies on whether the importance of travel motivations differs among the two groups.Literature on consumer behavior acknowledges that travel motivation and needs are related (Goodall, 1988), and this means that tourists may decide to take a vacation to satisfy their physiological needs such as food, health and learning. However, the decision of choosing a given destination to visit has been closely linked with sociodemographic characteristics. Woodside and Lysonski (1989), Um and Crompton (1990) and Moscardo et al. (1996) are among the earliest studies that examined the role of demographic factors on tourists' destination choice with findings showing a link between demographic factors and visitors' participation in tourism activities. For instance, increasing free time and disposable income have provided people with an opportunity to take part in outdoor activities (Ibrahim and Cordes, 1993). Factors such as age and family structure have an impact on the decision of an individual to participate in leisure activities (Foot, 2004).Demand for leisure is also affected by individuals' age and gender (Mieczkowski, 1990; Collin and Tisdell, 2002). Collin and Tisdell (2002) found that demographic factors have a role to play in influencing visitors' participation in tourism activities as well as the selection of vacation destination. What is not known is the role that demographic factors such as age, gender and family size play in influencing tourists' travel motivation in Tanzania. Studies that examined the influence of demographic factors on travel motivation in Tanzania are limited. Existing literature in Tanzania has mainly examined demographic factors in relation to nature-based tourism and media such as Mariki et al. (2011) and Mkwizu (2018a). Therefore, this study intends to uncover the missing gap by examining demographic factors and travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in Tanzania.Furthermore, this study is important in providing insight information on various demographic factors such as age, gender and marital status in influencing tourists' travel motivation particularly for Tanzania. The information from this study can help tourism stakeholders to segment tourists based on their demographic traits.\nLiterature review: Travel motivation\nMethodology: Research instrument\nResults: Respondents' demographic characteristics\nDiscussions of findings: This study reveals that leisure tourists from Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and United States were motivated to travel to the country with the intention of discovering and learning new things. Furthermore, similar groups of tourists were extremely motivated to visit Tanzania for the sake of relaxing mentally, revealing stress and tensions of their daily routine activities. The results imply that leisure tourists may have more than a single travel motive when visiting a particular destination. These findings support the idea developed by Crompton (1979) that tourists' motivations are multiple and because of that they may have different reasons of taking either domestic or international trips (Mayo and Jarvis, 1981). Researchers also add that some people take trips not only to fulfill their physiological desires (food, climate and health) but also to satisfy their psychological needs.Furthermore, the study also found that tourists from the United Kingdom and United States had strong views that they were motivated to visit the country for social reasons such as building friendship with others. This can be explained by differences in tourists' culture. It has been identified that there are motivational differences between nationalities (Kozak, 2002). Culture associated with nationality has been extensively acknowledged to be one among the crucial factors differentiating individuals' attitudes, beliefs and behaviors (Chen, 2000). National culture can be employed to reveal variations in the social behavior of different nationalities, especially in international settings such as tourism experiences (Kim et al., 2002). The findings of this study confirmed the results reported by Ozdemir and Yolal (2016) that Americans and British people prefer to interact and socialize with other tourists when they travel. Additionally, Kozak (2002) pointed out that British tourists enjoy mixing themselves and having fun with other tourists when they travel. It seems that Tanzania is attracting tourists who have psychocentric personality. Individuals of this nature prefer visiting familiar places, having fun and relaxing when visiting new destinations (Plog, 1974).Surprisingly, this study found that tourists, mainly from Kenya and South Africa, were motivated strongly to travel to the country for the intention of competing and being good at participating in leisure activities. This can be explained by the differences in the level of novelty seeking among tourists. Novelty seeking is one among the key reasons why tourists travel to new destinations (Dayour and Adongo, 2015). The findings of this study show that there is a possibility that tourists from Kenya and South Africa are sensation seekers. Individuals of this nature are risk takers, and this is why they prefer to travel to unfamiliar destinations (Pizam et al., 2004). Generally, tourists are attracted differently to different tourist attractions, and this is because they have different levels of tolerance for tourism experiences. Some people choose destinations where they can unwind their daily routine life while others look for destinations that can offer adventure life. The choice of a destination can sometimes be linked to tourists' personality traits. The findings of this study imply that Kenyans and South Africans may be allocentrics. Individuals of this caliber are usually seeking for arousal from unexpected and surprising stimuli (Ryan, 1997), they are outgoing, confident, relatively anxiety free, like to feel in control, prefer to visit new destinations, desire to explore the world around them and are moderately risk takers (Plog, 1973, 1974).This study found that there was no significant differences in travel motivation among leisure tourists who are single and those who are married. However, a minor difference was revealed on intellectual travel motives to single leisure tourists. It was revealed that single leisure tourists were highly motivated to travel to Tanzania for intellectual purpose. This finding is consistent with a study by Fan et al. (2015) that single people place higher value when it comes to discovering and learning new things compared to married ones. The finding of this study is not surprising since Tanzania is blessed with multiple tourist attractions ranging from game reserves, controlled conservation areas and national parks (URT, 2014). Other attractions include Mount Kilimanjaro, museums, historical sites and buildings. Following these attractions, it is not surprising to see single leisure tourists travel to the country for intellectual reasons.The findings further indicated that married leisure tourists were more motivated to travel to the country, mainly by their desire to unwind their daily life's hustle. This could be due to the fact that married couples spend less time enjoying leisure than singles. In addition, married couples have social and family obligations that limit their time to undertake holidays (Henderson, 1990) or participate in learning activities as singles. For them, escaping travel motive makes sense since they have been experiencing routine hectic daily life; therefore, it is understandable to see them ranking this motive important. This finding somehow corroborates the views of Leonard and Onyx (2009) that relaxation and escape motivations are two key psychological motives that drive people to take overseas trips. The desire to take a vacation is closely associated with the desire to escape (Jarvis and Peel, 2010). Therefore, tourists often choose to take a vacation to a new destination with the intention of breaking from the daily routine life of home and work (Kim and Ritchie, 2012). The break gives people an opportunity to refresh their minds by taking active role in nonroutine leisure activities (Ritchie et al., 2010) as well as offering a platform for them to liberate themselves from tension and anxiety.Furthermore, the study revealed that married leisure tourists traveled to the country for social reasons. This finding is somehow consistent with the study by Passias et al. (2017) that married mothers prefer to spend quality time with their children by engaging themselves in both active and social leisure compared to single mothers. Generally, tourism offers opportunity to bring people of different cultural backgrounds together (Brown and Lehto, 2005), but also offers avenue for them to meet and communicate with others (Dayour, 2013). This study also found that married leisure tourists had higher mean scores for mastery competency travel motives compared to singles. This finding implies that may be Tanzania attracts married leisure tourists who are sensational seekers because tourists differ in the way they consume and obtain novel experience (Lee and Crompton, 1992). Tourists who are high sensational seekers prefer to engage in adventure activities such as scuba diving (Heyman and Rose, 1980) as well as mountain climbing (Robinson, 1985). This group also prefers to travel to new places or meeting new people (Zuckerman, 1979). This finding can be supported by the fact that Tanzania is endowed with more than eight known mountains that attract international tourists from all over the world. Moreover, the country is surrounded with both sandy and clean beaches that offer opportunity for tourists to take part in scuba diving and other water sports activities.Therefore, the discussion of results for this study has theoretical, practical and policy implications, which are further highlighted in the implications section of this paper.\nConclusions: Based on the findings and discussions, this study can conclude that in examining demographic factors and travel motivation among leisure tourists, there are influential factors. The demographic factors that influence travel motivation (intellectual, social, mastery competency and stimulus avoidance) among local and international leisure tourists in the context of Tanzania are age, gender and family size.\nImplications: Theoretical implication\nLimitations and suggestions for further studies: This study examined travel motivation differences among leisure tourists who were married and those who were single. It did not cover widowers and those who were divorced. Focus was on international tourists who traveled to Northern tourist circuit and islands of Zanzibar and Pemba for leisure. Therefore, the results from the study may not be generalized beyond the selected population. This geographically limited survey may produce different results and conclusions in terms of the magnitude and the strength of relationships among variables. Tourists who visited other circuits (Southern tourist circuit) may have different opinion preferences regarding the importance of travel motives. Replication of similar studies in other tourist circuits should be done to see whether similar findings could be generated.Additionally, this study employed nonprobability sampling. Therefore, this may affect the external validity. Other studies should try to adopt probability sampling design so as to avoid this problem. Furthermore, the data collection was done between January and May, which is the low season. Thus, the findings of this study are limited to this particular period. Therefore, the tourists who travel in different seasons, for instance, high peak season, might have different opinions regarding the importance of their travel motives. In tourism, seasonality limits the generalization of the study findings and should always be taken into consideration in the interpretation stage. Future research should conduct similar studies in different seasons to overcome this limitation. The obtained results can then be compared to identify similarities and differences between them. Also, the generated findings can be used to validate the findings of this study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: To examine demographic factors and travel motivations among leisure tourists in Tanzania. Specifically by examining the influence of demographic factors on travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in Tanzania.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Approach is quantitative and applied descriptive statistics, independent t-test and ANOVA.\nFindings: The findings showed that age, gender and family size as demographic factors significantly influenced travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies to consider different approaches including collection of data during the peak season, use qualitative method and conduct studies in other parts of the country to explore demographic factors and travel motivations of tourists.\nPractical implications: To assist tourism stakeholders in their design of promotional tools to market tourism products/services to different tourists as opposed to homogeneous marketing campaigns.\nOriginality/value: Examined the influence of demographic factors and travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in the context of Tanzania.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Research at two NHS A&E departments shows inexperienced temps can negatively impact work of permanent staff	[ "Research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Research at two London hospital A&E departments showed the generally negative effect of using temporary staff on permanent staff. However, the study also revealed that the reaction of permanent staff depended very much on the type of temporary staff. More experienced temps could generally be trusted to get on with the job, whereas the inexperienced ones required mores supervision from permanent employees, distracting them from their own work, and decreasing the quality of care. Other potential problems included the temps' unfamiliarity with procedures that slowed down their work, and sometimes a lack of motivation as they were only there for a short time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The authors wanted to find out if hiring temporary staff at busy A&E departments had a negative impact on the work of permanent staff.\nDesign/methodology/approach: They did semi-structured interviews with managers and permanent staff at two London NHS hospitals with different policies for hiring temps. Hospital A prioritized the use of NHS professions for its bank and agency nurses, as well as doctors and locums. Hospital B focused more on using its own internal bank staff as temps.\nFindings: The findings showed the generally negative effect of using temporary staff on permanent staff. But the reaction of permanent staff depended on the type of temporary staff. More experienced temps could generally be trusted to get on with the job, whereas the inexperienced ones required more supervision.\nOriginality/value: The authors proposed an approach to improved practice beginning with \"macro-level managers\" who could maintain service quality as a higher priority than contracting costs. They could also encourage permanent staff to do occasional temporary shifts. The co-authors also felt that \"meso-level managers\" could be given the role of hiring \"preferred temps\" where possible.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work and depression in economic organizations: the need for action	[ "Depression", "Workplace", "Labour market" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nDefining the situation: Work\nDefining possible solutions: Rethinking the nature of work\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to raise concerns about how depression in the work place is too often overlooked and to identify what needs to be done to benefit individuals and organizations affected.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper defines the contexts, drivers and consequences of depression at work and goes on to identify some of the actions that need to be taken to support individuals and limit the impact on organizations and society.\nFindings: - There is a need for much better identification and care around depressions at work than is the case. Not only should GPs be more aware of depression as a work related issue, but organizations should note that much of their dysfunctionality is caused by depressed workers. It is proposed that serious attention be given to providing systematic and universal support by both employers and the NHS to deal with this great personal and economic matter.\nPractical implications: - The paper should lead to further action by all the players in this aspect of the labor market.\nOriginality/value: - The value of this paper is to raise the profile of an issue, depression, that is not talked about sufficiently but that has huge personal and organizational impacts. The reader is invited to consider the suggestions for action within their own organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Befriending and Re-ablement Service: a better alternative in an age of austerity	[ "Loneliness", "Population ageing", "Research evaluation", "Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton", "Befriending and Re-ablement Service", "Personalised support" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and context: In this paper, the authors assess and evaluate the Befriending and Re-ablement Service (BARS) that has been developed on Merseyside, UK, in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton by Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton (ACLS) and partners. Research was conducted into a range of aspects of BARS via a multi-method approach that included semi-structured and unstructured interviews with stakeholders, street interviews and a cost-benefit analysis of this service. As we shall show below, results were highly promising. But before the main results are presented and discussed it is useful to provide some context in which care provision for older people has become such a major issue across many societies across the globe.\nResearch instruments: The principal research tools in this investigation involved the use of semi-structured and unstructured interviews with key informants in both face to face and telephone settings in 2014. Participants were drawn from a number of stakeholder groups including service users, local council employees, carers and ACLS representatives. The fieldwork was prefaced by a series of meetings, encounters and regulatory matters such as University Ethics Committee approval and Disclosure and Barring Service checks that sought to put the research on a transparent, ethical and agreed footing. The preliminary ground work also sought to reassure potentially vulnerable participants about the research and alleviate fears about house-calls by so-called bogus officials.\nResearch setting: why Sefton?: Independent living was the clear preference of most of the older people contributing to this evaluation, but loneliness and isolation may accompany independence, especially if there are health problems and financial constraints. Fulfilling Lives: Ageing Better (Big Lottery Fund, 2013) presents the findings of Big Lottery commissioned work from Local Futures which examines factors in older people's isolation risk in England. Age, living alone, poor health, disability, poverty and deprivations emerge as markers of isolation risk and Sefton is included within the isolation high risk category. There is deep elder poverty and deprivation in Sefton, but the borough's inclusion within high risk may also reflect the extent of risk across Sefton's relatively high proportion of older people. Sefton's demography measured in the numbers and proportions of older people, including the often frail fourth agers (Lloyd et al., 2014) are projected to increase above national and Merseyside levels.\nEvaluating BARS: The research found that the success of BARS, and of the BROs, is clear and can be illustrated in several ways. For example, a case study of Mr M is given in the case history in Box 1. This shows, for example, that he was referred by his GP to alleviate his symptoms of mental distress. His step daughter works elsewhere, and his brother died the year before. His \"family\" is now the people in the Strand shopping centre, Bootle, who now know him and pet his guide dog. ACLS helped persuade his landlord to replace his boiler to good effect, while he sees his BRO monthly \"and knows that he can always phone his BRO\". He is so pleased with the turnaround to his life that he now publicises ACLS via leaflet distribution, and is evidently much happier with his life situation.\nTheorisation and policy implications: The research clearly shows the value of BARS and its BROs. Strengths include, for example, high levels of local knowledge of BARS employees and volunteers. There is also a high level of awareness of ACLS and BARS within the Borough. Over 40 per cent of street interviewees had knowledge of BARS and ACLS services, from personal experience or from friends and family and 63 per cent of these people thought that they might use ACLS services as they became older and more frail. BARS is highly professional and ethical in its staffing, and respondents felt that they could be trusted with confidences, as well as being \"safe\" to invite into homes. This professionalism is also evident in high standards and also \"intelligent standardisation\". BARS has established common base lines for key areas such as longitudinal assessment of well-being through OPOS, home environment safety checks with the ACLS Home Safety Inventory and the Anticipating Social Care (ASC) system.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to share the findings of a research evaluation into a Befriending and Re-ablement Service (BARS) which offers a host of positive outcomes such as reduced loneliness and keeping as well as possible for a growing segment of the world's population. The recent increase in longevity is one of humanity's great success stories. But ageing comes at a price, and decision takers worry about the stresses and strains of an ageing society.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Following a literature review, this paper presents the findings of an evaluation of an alternative innovative form of support for older people, namely BARS, that has been developed on Merseyside. Semi- and unstructured interviews were carried out with stakeholders including service users and carers. A cost-benefit analysis is also reported. Finally the theoretical and policy implications of this research are explored.\nFindings: Befriending and re-ablement officers is both a socially and economically cost effective means of enhancing independent living among older people, reducing loneliness and isolation that can contribute to ill health. The research shows that funding for the BARS scheme should be sustained and expanded, despite or because of the current era of cutbacks in UK and international service provision.\nOriginality/value: The paper highlights the value, role and importance of both befriending and re-ablement in a time of acute public and voluntary sector funding pressures. The paper is of value to a range of stakeholder groups such as older people, local and central governments and health care commissioners.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The way of WalDorF: fostering creativity in LIS programs	[ "LIS education", "Innovation", "Learner-centred pedagogy", "Creativity", "Carl Rogers", "Graduate assignments" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nDisrupting the foundations to unleash creativity: In an age that makes us revisit definitions, reconsider the past, and reimagine the future, stereotypes are challenged and the routine is disrupted to give way to innovation. The field of information is akin to metafiction. We all have common goals, but we achieve them in a myriad of ways. Inside the unifying frame of information, technology, and people, our paths are \"choose your own adventure.\" The stories of individual professionals, researchers, and entire departments are nonlinear and interlacing, like hypertext, and at times, the inventions and discoveries of the field are so spectacular that they blur the boundaries between reality and fiction. This environment needs creative minds: hence, the ongoing discussion on educating information creatives, not just information professionals. There seems to be little disagreement that critical thinking, creative abilities, the skill for innovation, and the aptitude for lifelong learning are vital for the future of the information field, and there is no doubt that pedagogies supporting these qualities should be an integral part of the curriculum.\nCreativity practical and acquired: The \"field of creativity studies has roots in the 1950s, 1940s, and 1930s\" (Runco and Jaeger, 2012, p. 92), and recently, a greater number of higher education institutions have expanded their offerings of individual courses in creative expression, minors in creativity studies, and degree-granting programs. Buffalo State College (SUNY) hosts the International Centre for Studies in Creativity (http://creativity.buffalostate.edu/about-us), the \"oldest creative studies program\" in the USA, which has \"offered courses in it since 1967\" (Pappano, 2014, para. 5). Saybrook University in California (www.saybrook.edu/academic-affairs/areas/pii/cs) and Drexel University in Pennsylvania (http://drexel.edu/soe/academics/graduate/creativity-and-innovation/) offer master's degrees in creative studies and creativity and innovation, respectively. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada, has an official position of Professor of Creativity and Creative Thinking (www.sheridancollege.ca/academics/faculties/humanities-and-social-sciences/faculty-profiles/michael-j-mcnamara.aspx). The University of Massachusetts, Boston, offers an MA and a Graduate Certificate in Critical and Creative Thinking (www.umb.edu/academics/caps/degree/creative-thinking).\nCarl Rogers: facilitating the freedom to create and be creative: Carl R. Rogers (1902-1987), arguably \"America's most influential psychotherapist\" and \"one of its most prominent psychologists,\" was also a \"leader in the humanistic psychology movement of the later twentieth century\" (Kirschenbaum, 2015, p. 737) and a champion of client-centered therapy. Drawing on his insight and practice as a therapist, Rogers also underwent \"the evolution of his thinking about teaching\" (Zimring, 1999), which culminated in his contributions to the development of the student- or learner-centered approach.\nThe WalDorF model - WalDorF in course assignments: Years of teaching expose educators to student dissatisfaction with the assignments we offer, or at least parts thereof. Criticisms coming from graduate students, especially in professional programs, range from the lack of instruction clarity and guidance to the lack of fit between the nature of assignments and the realities of the practicing field and the job market. A frequent complaint is that assignments appear to be \"busywork\" (Dow, 2011, p. 32; see also McDowell and Sambell, 2003) and prove boring, uninspiring, and un-motivating; that they resemble undergraduate assignments and do not live up to the expectation of graduate-level projects; that they do not make use of students' unique talents, previous educational backgrounds, and personal interests (e.g. Dali et al., 2015). Such assignments perpetuate a situation whereby a real or perceived gap between university education and professional practice becomes pronounced (e.g. Dali and Caidi, 2016; Cherry et al., 2011, 2013; Fisher et al., 2005; Theakston, 2000) and students feel that they have to socialize into the new professional environment at the price of relinquishing their passions and previous education (e.g. Boud, 2000; Dali et al., 2015). Now and then in conversations, students refer to specific elements of assignments and projects as obstacles or barriers that cause writer's block and do not allow them to think freely. They recognize other elements, albeit not particularly exciting, for their utility and usefulness, and they are thrilled with built-in flexibility and options that capitalize on their individual interests (e.g. Dali et al., 2015; Dow, 2011; McDowell and Sambell, 2003, pp. 71-72). These observations, conversations with students, and subsequent analysis point in the direction of the framework termed WalDorF, whereby WalDorF are defined as follows:\nA broader course-related context for individual assignments: Any \"Doors\" for creative expression built into individual assignments should be supported by the two conditions that Rogers mentions as essential:\nExamples of the WalDorF model application to other LIS courses: An example of an assignment from a core \"Foundations\" course has been used in this paper in order to develop and illustrate the WalDorF model. Additional sample applications inspired by the WalDorF principles in other courses are given below.\nOpening \"doors\" - setting students on the creativity track: At the 2016 iConference in Philadelphia, PA, USA (www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/89453), the WalDorF model became part of the session for interactive engagement called \"From Information Professionals to Information Creatives: On Educating Future Generations in iSchools\" (Dali et al., 2016). One group of participants was invited to review a version of the above \"Foundations\" assignment description and to identify the WalDorF based on the proposed definitions. There were physical representations of WalDorF on the table, as well as a doll representing a \"Student.\" Placed in the middle, the \"Student\" was surrounded by all three entities, out of which the most numerous were \"Fences.\" Engaging in a tactile, 3D visual exercise helped to illustrate the concept in the most visceral way: in no time was the \"Student\" fenced in, ending up with very few \"Doors\" that gave him/her an opportunity to escape into the creative landscape.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to call into question the most longstanding pedagogical practices in academia while analyzing their potential to foster student creativity and innovation in the classroom. While some suggestions advanced in this paper may not have the same importance in other fields and disciplines, they are highly relevant in the applied, interdisciplinary, and very fast moving field of Library and Information Science (LIS).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Positioning creativity as a teachable skill and relying on the learner-centered pedagogy of Carl Rogers, the paper presents a model that can serve as a litmus test for the creative potential of graduate-level assignments in LIS programs. The model is called \"Walls,\" \"Doors,\" and \"Fences\" (WalDorF); these terms refer to specific statements in graduate assignment descriptions that are necessary (\"Walls\"); conducive to creative expression (\"Doors\"); or unjustifiably restrictive (\"Fences\"). The paper uses a sample assignment from a \"Foundations of LIS\" course to illustrate the model; it also provides several examples of the WalDorF model application in other LIS courses.\nFindings: Using the WalDorF model, the paper revisits and challenges some of the most common pedagogical practices in graduate LIS teaching, including the prevalence of written papers as course assignments; the implications of equating \"research\" with an overview of secondary literature; the need for professors' approvals of research topics; the meaning of the \"quality of writing;\" the imperative of \"academic\" writing as opposed to other types of writing; the word/page limit; the use of standardized reference styles; the class participation requirement; and the late assignment policies, among others.\nOriginality/value: The real change in education is foundational and goes beyond cosmetic improvements. If we want to develop learning experiences that tap into students' creative potential, the very core of our approaches needs to be scrutinized and questioned, even the centuries-old staples of academic teaching. At the end of the day, we may decide that changing things is not in the best interests of learning. However, a complete critical analytical work must be done to convince and reassure ourselves that tried-and-true methods are the best way to go. The proposed WalDorF model presents one possible frame for critical revision.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The cynical use of marketing to the unwitting consumer	[ "Ethics", "Marketing strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An electronics store might claim that when you've got questions, they've got answers, but the reality is that their sales staff often make it up as they go along. They are the \"experts\", or so the customers believe, and whether fact or fiction, the salesperson's techno-babble has the ring of truth. Maybe they have the answers, and maybe they do not, but they are treading a difficult line between innocuous fallacy and deception as they sell the store's products. If they know what they claim might not be true, they are stepping over that line from error to fraud. The broader problem is that too many marketing \"experts\" abuse and misuse consumer desires to believe.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To show how marketing is accused of having all sorts of powers to control consumers and segmentation itself is often accused of abusing consumers, and yet there are many times when marketing people who should know better unethically abuse consumer targets' naive willingness to believe all sorts of nonsense.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Points out the potential unethical nature of marketing practices that could take advantage of consumers' inability to know or understand the truth of the matter.\nFindings: - A growing number of books and articles describe the limits of human understanding, or how there are many things people believe that are not true. For some people, ignorance is simply a point of view. Yet it is patently unethical when marketing people take materials they know are false and sell to people not able to know better.\nPractical implications: - Marketing is not inherently unethical, but the worst of practices make all others look bad. At best, many marketing decision makers are too often amoral, and do not even consider the morality of what they do. This describes a distinction of clearly immoral approaches to marketing practice.\nOriginality/value: - Stating the difference between simply meeting consumer needs and abusing consumers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Paradigms in business process management specifications: a critical overview	[ "Total quality management", "ISO 9001", "Six sigma", "Business process reengineering", "Business process management", "Standardized management systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Business process management (BPM) has long been established as an important management tool that helps organizations improve and innovate (vom Brocke et al., 2016). According to a generally agreed definition, BPM is a management approach that considers the operation of an organization as a network of interrelated business processes; by managing these processes as a unified system, the effective management of the entire organization prevails (Armistead et al., 1999). By adopting this approach, many organizations - seeking increased agility in an ever-changing environment - have partially or totally replaced traditional hierarchical organizational structures by process-oriented ones pertaining from BPM with interesting results (see Kohlbacher and Gruenwald, 2011).\n2. Framework for analysis: We wish to examine the relation of the dominant management paradigms with BPM and its specifications. The methodology used to approach this problem is based on the analysis of highly cited relevant scholarly publications. For this purpose, a common framework that allows the objective identification of the nature of BPM within each paradigm is needed. Before presenting the framework established for this purpose, as well as the way the scholarly sources analyzed here were selected, it is interesting to present some data regarding the historical evolution of BPM (either related with paradigms or in isolation).\n3. The TQM paradigm: 3.1 Fundamentals\n4. The SMS paradigm: 4.1 Fundamentals\n5. The BPR paradigm: 5.1 Fundamentals\n6. The Six Sigma paradigm: 6.1 Fundamentals\n7. Comparative analysis: This section presents a comparative analysis of BPM specifications as these appear within the four dominant management paradigms. The findings are presented at three levels, following the parameters of the framework developed, namely: the scope and role of BPM, the content of BPM and the structure of BPM. For each paradigm, Table II provides a summary of the paradigm attributes (effectively embedded as BPM specifications) when adopting the particular management paradigm.\n8. Conclusions and further research: The concept of BPM constitutes an integral part of four popular management paradigms; namely: TQM, SMS, BPR and Six Sigma. Although implied in the past, the systematic overview in this paper has revealed that each of these paradigms perceives the concept of BPM in its own way, by practically embedding attributes pertaining from the paradigm into the BPM concept. As a result, the specifications assigned to BPM are paradigm-dependent and, consequently, may differ strongly across paradigms. Based on this result, we then explored the implementability of BPM, as this is conditioned by the particular specifications assigned by each paradigm.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite its popularity, business process management (BPM) is not unequivocally defined, but obtains different forms with varying specifications. This paper presents a critical overview of BPM, as it appears within four dominant management paradigms: total quality management, standardized management systems, business process reengineering and Six Sigma. The purpose of this paper is to explore BPM specifications and compare the BPM implementation potential under each paradigm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is based on the analysis of a large number of highly cited scholarly publications. In order to identify the nature of BPM within each paradigm, a common framework for comparison is first established and then, for each paradigm, BPM is analyzed according to the main parameters of this framework.\nFindings: Many differences among various BPM forms are paradigm driven. So, the approach adopted by each paradigm (i.e. individual-process or systemic approach) affects the scope and role of BPM. The principles of each paradigm directly affect the attributes assigned to BPM. Despite of important differences, the structure of BPM within all paradigms conforms to the stages of the classical BPM lifecycle. However, each paradigm assigns different weights to each stage and also displays different levels of BPM implementability.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents a first systematic comparison of BPM specifications for the dominant management paradigms primarily deployed. It thus explains why many attributes originating from the paradigms have crept into the general BPM specifications. This work can be considered as a step toward defining the core attributes of a paradigm-independent BPM model, thus enhancing its application scope as an invaluable management tool.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Business model innovation: a review and research agenda	[ "Innovation", "Business model", "Value proposition", "Value creation", "Value capture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Firms pursue business model innovation by exploring new ways to define value proposition, create and capture value for customers, suppliers and partners (Gambardella and McGahan, 2010; Teece, 2010; Bock et al., 2012; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu, 2013). An extensive body of the literature asserts that innovation in business models is of vital importance to firm survival, business performance and as a source of competitive advantage (Demil and Lecocq, 2010; Chesbrough, 2010; Amit and Zott, 2012; Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu, 2013). It is starting to attract a growing attention, given the increasing opportunities for new business models enabled by changing customer expectations, technological advances and deregulation (Casadesus-Masanell and Llanes, 2011; Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu, 2013). This is evident from the recent scholarly outputs (Figure 1). Thus, it is essential to comprehend this literature and uncover where alternative business models can be explored.\n2. Scope and method of the literature review: Given the diverse body of business models literature, a systematic literature review was carried out to minimise research bias (Transfield et al., 2003). Compared to the previous business model literature, our review criteria are summarised in Table I. The journal papers considered were published between January 2010 and December 2016. As highlighted in Figure 1, most contributions in this field have been issued within this period since previous developments in the literature were comprehensively reviewed up to the end of 2009 (Zott et al., 2011). Using four databases (EBSCO Business Complete, ABI/INFORM, JSTOR and ScienceDirect), we searched peer-reviewed papers with terms such as business model(s), innovation value proposition, value creation and value capture appearing in the title, abstract or subject terms. As a result, 8,642 peer-reviewed papers were obtained.\n3. Prior conceptualisations of business model innovation: Some scholars have articulated the need to build the business model innovation on a more solid theoretical ground (Sosna et al., 2010; George and Bock, 2011). Although many studies are not explicitly theory-based, some studies partially used well-established theories such as the resource-based view (e.g. Al-Debei and Avison, 2010) and transaction cost economics (e.g. DaSilva and Trkman, 2014) to conceptualise business model innovation. Other theories such as activity systems perspective, dynamic capabilities and practice theory have been used to help answer the question of how firms change their existing business models.\n4. Business model innovation framework: Our framework (Figure 2) integrates all the elements where alternative business models can be explored. This framework does not claim that the listed elements are definitive for high-performing business models, but is an attempt to outline the elements associated with business model innovation. This framework builds on the previous work of Johnson et al. (2008) and Zott and Amit (2010) by signifying the elements associated with business model innovation. Unlike previous frameworks that mainly consider the constituting elements of business models, this framework focuses on areas of innovation where alternative business models can be explored. Moreover, this is not a static view of the constituting elements of a business model, but rather a view enabling firms to explore alternative business models by continually refining these elements. Arrows in the framework indicate the continuous interaction of business model elements. This framework consists of 4 areas of innovation and 16 elements (more details are shown in Table IV). Each will be discussed below.\n5. Ways to change business models: From reviewing the recent developments in the business model literature, alternative business models can be explored through modifying a single business model element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements of a business model.\n6. Discussion and future research directions: From the above synthesis of the recent development in the literature, several gaps remain unfilled. To advance the literature, possible future research directions will be discussed in relation to approaches, degrees and mechanisms of business model innovation.\n7. Conclusions: The aim of this review was to explore how firms approach business model innovation. The current literature suggests that business model innovation approaches can either be evolutionary or revolutionary. However, the evidence reviewed points to a more complex picture beyond the simple binary approach, in that, firms can explore alternative business models through experimentation, open and disruptive innovations. Moreover, the evidence highlights further complexity to these approaches as we find that they are in fact a spectrum of various degrees of innovation ranging from modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously, to changing the interactions between elements of the business model innovation framework. This framework was developed as a navigation map for managers and researchers interested in how to change existing business models. It highlights the key areas of innovation, namely, value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value. Researchers interested in this area can explore and examine the different paths firms can undertake to change their business models. Although this review pinpoints the different avenues for firm to undertake business model innovation, the mechanisms by which firms can change their business models and the external factors associated with such change remain underexplored.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to review and synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic review of business model innovation literature was carried out by analysing 219 papers published between 2010 and 2016.\nFindings: Evidence reviewed suggests that rather than taking either an evolutionary process of continuous revision, adaptation and fine-tuning of the existing business model or a revolutionary process of replacing the existing business model, firms can explore alternative business models through experimentation, open and disruptive innovations. It was also found that changing business models encompasses modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements in four areas of innovation: value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although this review highlights the different avenues to business model innovation, the mechanisms by which firms can change their business models and the external factors associated with such change remain unexplored.\nPractical implications: The business model innovation framework can be used by practitioners as a \"navigation map\" to determine where and how to change their existing business models.\nOriginality/value: Because conflicting approaches exist in the literature on how firms change their business models, the review synthesises these approaches and provides a clear guidance as to the ways through which business model innovation can be undertaken.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Freehold valuations: the relationship between implicit and explicit DCF methods	[ "Discounted cash flow", "Property finance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A valuation is an estimate of price. The accepted international definition of value is market value, and this is a price definition. Market value will be the normal basis for the majority of valuations, and is defined as:The estimated amount for which a property should exchange on the date of valuation between a willing buyer and a willing seller in an arm's-length transaction after proper marketing wherein the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently and without compulsion.This is the agreed international definition of the International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC) and is simply saying what, in your expert opinion, do you think the subject property will sell for in the open market today? It is an estimate of price.To determine the price of the subject property, you will need to assess what the market has been paying for similar properties in the area recently. Your valuation will be based upon comparables, in this case comparables of rent and comparables of yield. The reason we do this is that the comparables provide signposts to the likely price of the subject property. They are not definitive and they are not infallible. They have to be interpreted. That is the art of the valuation - determining the appropriate inputs for the valuation model. The model is the science of the valuation and together they are the process.In a situation where rental income and capital value are expected to increase over time, investors in property are willing to accept initial yields on their investments below the yield they could achieve from a risk-free, no-growth investment such as a government stock. Effectively they accept a lower yield initially in expectation of higher cash flows and/or an increase in capital value in the future. In using the traditional implicit capitalisation model, the valuer is deriving the appropriate initial yield (in the UK this is called the \"all risk yield\") from market evidence of other property transactions. The all risk yield is a convenient measure for the analysis and valuation of similar rack-rented[1] investments. Effectively, the all risk yield states that such investments customarily sell for a certain multiplier of the rental income. Adjustments to the all risk yield to reflect differences between comparables and the subject property are made subjectively. The all risk yield is adapted to reflect differences between comparables and the subject property. It has to reflect a multitude of factors from return on capital, security of income, ease and cost of selling, management costs, depreciation and rental growth.One major problem with the all risk yield is the difficulty of assessing transactional evidence and applying it to other properties, unless the subject and comparable properties are virtually identical. Even a minor difference, such as a rent review for one property being closer than that for another, may make comparison difficult.Where there are sufficient sales transactions on similar properties in the market, it is possible to build up a picture of market sentiment to be reflected in the choice of an appropriate all risk yield for the subject property. However, where comparable evidence is limited, the absence of rational analysis in the all risk yield approach makes it difficult for clients to understand, and therefore the method suffers from an apparent lack of credibility. Although the approach is therefore acceptable as a pricing tool in markets where there is a lot of comparable activity, it can provide misleading answers where there is little comparable evidence. In these situations, in particular, a more rational approach that uses other available market-derived evidence is needed.With the advent of growth in the market place (both inflationary and real growth caused by excess demand over supply), the traditional property valuation methodology of rack rented property moved away from using a yield derived by reference to other investments (the discount rate) and started to rely on initial yields derived from an analysis of recent similar property sales as the benchmark for comparison. Thus, in a market where there are changes in rental value, the traditional ARY method implies a market expectation of growth and has moved away from being a rational model and is now simply a short cut mechanism for estimating market value. That is not to say that the multiplier produced (YP) is not a useful valuation tool; used properly it will produce good estimates of market value.\nImplied and explicit growth: As the use of the initial yield (derived from a rack rented property) in the traditional method implies growth, it must be doing so at a certain level. Similarly, if an investor is requiring a certain overall yield (discount rate) from the property, then there must be a relationship between these three variables (initial yield, overall yield and growth). In simple terms, in one year, if an investor accepts an initial return of 8.00 percent, but requires an overall return of 10.75 percent, then the income must grow by 2.75 percent (return) over the year for the 10.75 percent return to be reached. This growth is equal to the difference between the overall return and the initial return. In practical terms this growth may either be in the form of an increase in the income flow over the period of the investment, and/or an increase in its capital value. Retrospectively this would be viewed as the total return (income return plus capital return over defined investment period).The simple annual growth calculation of deducting the initial yield from the required overall yield is only true where incomes can legally change annually. With property, the rent review pattern means that not only does an investor need a certain level of growth each year, as above, but the investor also needs additional growth to compensate for every year that the income is fixed. The formula presented later calculates this total growth requirement at any given initial yield, overall discount rate (equated) yield and rent review pattern. Thus at 10.75 percent equated yield (e) and 8 percent initial yield or ARY (k), it can be calculated that the annual growth requirement (g) would be 3.2 percent.Effectively, an investor accepting an initial return of 8 percent would require 3.2 percent growth in rental income on average each year (compounded at each rent review) to achieve an overall return (equated yield) of 10.75 percent. This does not mean that this is the growth pattern that will actually happen, it simply indicates the level of consistent growth that is required if the investor is to achieve the required target rate at that price. If growth turns out to be lower that this linear average figure, then the investor has paid too much for the property. If growth turns out to be above 3.2 percent, then the investor will achieve an overall return of above 10.75 percent. In the analysis the expected growth is reflected in the income flow. However, in practice, there may be accompanying changes in the ARY over time, which may lead to an increase or decrease in the capital value at resale.\nDiscounted cash flow: The basis of the discounted cash flow valuation is that the value of the property investment will be equal to the gross present value of the projected rental income flow, at the investor's required rate of return (discount rate). The projected income flow is derived \"explicitly\" by applying the growth figure of 3.2 percent.The discounted cash flow technique (DCF) has evolved due to the need to make valuation more \"transparent\". It makes explicit assumptions on future rental growth, holding period, depreciation, refurbishment, redevelopment, costs of management and transfer, taxation and financing arrangements. The explicit approach facilitates the rational calculation of estimated prices for properties that do not exhibit the same characteristics as a standard rack-rented investment.\nCalculation of annual growth: k e-(SF x P);k (8 percent) initial yield (all risk yield);e (10.75 percent) equated yield;SF annual sinking fund[2] at e for the market rent review period (R/R);P percentage growth over the market rent review period of five years;0.08 0.1075-0.1614xP;P 17.04 percent;(1+g)r/r 1+P;(1+g)5 1+0.1704;g 3.20 percent;g percentage annual growth.With regard to worth, the DCF approach can be used by analysing the likely returns expected from future income and expenditure flows using a variety of different growth factors and other variables. By doing this the potential investor can assess the worth to him of the property against his own estimation of what is likely to happen in the market and the economy as a whole.The DCF technique, as applied to property, has developed in response to the perceived shortcomings of the all risk yield, which, although a useful method of analysis, fails to explain the implicit assumptions contained within it.\nScenario 1 - rack rented: Lease details\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Proposes to elucidate the relationship between implicit and explicit discounted cash flow (DCF) methods in freehold valuations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Sets out a calculation of annual growth with respect to a rack-rented property.\nFindings: - Finds that the advantage of the DCF model is that it makes the assumptions underpinning the valuation explicit.\nOriginality/value: - This shows how the valuer is allowed to analyse the market and to answer not only the question of the price of the property but also the question of whether it is worth that price.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do work-life balance practices mediate in the relationship between female participation and financial performance?	[ "Mediation", "Financial performance", "Female workforce", "Work-life balance", "M540" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to the International Labor Organization report, although the share of women in the labour force, which reaches rates close to 50 per cent, is still lower than the share of men (approximately 76 per cent), this follows an increasing trend that is slowed down by the additional responsibilities that this segment assumes. The working days of women are still longer than those of men, because \"women continue to take on most of the care tasks and unpaid housework, which limits their ability to increase their hours in paid and formal employment\" (International Labor Organization, 2016). All the above give rise to situations in which family interferes with work (FIW), or when they assume more responsibilities in their work, also can be possible that work interferes with family (WIF) (Allen and Finkelstein, 2014).\nBalance between personal and work life: WLB practices are a subject of interest in the management of human resources, as their usefulness for companies has been debated by academics and practitioners. The research conducted about the effects of WLB practices can be classified according to two lines of research (see Figure 1) (Adame-Sanchez and Miquel-Romero, 2012). First, there are studies that analyse the consequences or impact of WLB practices on individual behaviours (such as attitudes of workers). This is the research line that gathers most of the studies of the academic literature about WLB. The changes that the use of WLB practices may produce in the employee (individually) can be physical or psychological. These changes in the employee may have positive consequences for the development of personal and professional life, and finally, they may be the cause of enhancement of employee performance (Adame-Sanchez and Miquel-Romero, 2012). Many studies developed in this line of research confirm that WLB practices increase staff loyalty and commitment, job satisfaction and productivity, as well as a reduction of absenteeism, sick days, tardiness, turnover intentions, or stress at work, among others (Lobel, 1999; Dex and Scheibl, 2000; Glass and Finley, 2002; Carrasquer and Martin, 2005; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007; Albert et al., 2010). This literature on WLB focusses on the improvement of skills or behaviours of employees as a way to enhance organisational results than those obtained before the implementation of WLB practices.\nCan WLB practices be a mediator between women in the workforce and organisational outcomes?: The female participation in the workforce has been considered in academic literature as an important aspect to research about. Academic literature mentions competitive advantages derived from the female participation in the workforce, that in this work have been classified in three epigraphs. First, advantages derived from individual job performance based on a female style. Second, advantages derived from the creation of work teams with greater gender diversity. Finally, advantages derived from what the participation of women in the company represents for other employees and external stakeholders:\nMethodology: The proposed model examines the mediator effect of WLB practices on the relationship between female participation and the profitability of the firms listed in the Spanish Ibex-35 index during the financial crisis period. Mediation models have one independent variable, one mediator and one final outcome variable. In this case, the effect of female participation (X) on financial performance (Y) can be divided into two effects: the indirect effect ab, which is the product of the direct effects a and b, and the direct effect c (see Figure 2).\nResults: These results were computed using the statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics Version19. Table III shows how female participation on workforce has a positive correlation with corporate financial performance, and Table IV shows that female participation is significant at the level of 95 per cent in the regression to explain the financial performance (as dependent variable). Then, the expected relationship between these variables according to the academic literature is corroborated, and it complies with Step 1 of the Sequential analysis.\nDiscussion, conclusion and implications: This research focusses on clarifying whether WLB practices mediates in the relationship between female participation on workforce and financial performance. According to the results obtained, the mediating effect is not confirmed because the relationship between WLB practices and profitability cannot be significant for the period studied. Meyer et al. (2001) analyse the impact of different WLB practices on the profitability of the company, and they concluded that not all practices have a significant positive effect on corporate profitability.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the participation of women in companies with financial performance. However, this relationship does not arise directly. The authors argue that the participation of women in the company's staff has a positive effect on the creation of work-life balance (WLB) practices, due to women have traditionally assumed family responsibilities, and subsequently these practices positively affect financial performance. WLB practices are a tool to balance employees' professional and personal goals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study aims to determine whether WLB practices mediate in the relationship between female participation in the workforce and financial performance on large companies listed in the Spanish Stock Exchange Index during the period from 2008 to 2013.\nFindings: The main finding is that female participation in the workforce positively affects to the availability of WLB practices, but WLB practices are not a mediator to increase financial performance.\nOriginality/value: The study is a new contribution for academics and practitioners, since the WLB has a role of moderating variable; and the positive joint effect of female participation and WLB practices is tested over the company's outcomes, instead of over the individual employee behaviour like in previous literature. In addition, this effect is studied in a country with economic recession where corporate WLB practices have increased in the last decade.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Re-defining careers in education	[ "Career development", "Educational personnel", "Teachers", "Culture (sociology)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper argues that recent attempts to make the teaching career more attractive, by altering the structural conditions, are flawed in that they take little account of the cultural dimensions of careers for teachers working in the twenty-first century. A symbolic interactionist framework was used to examine educationalists' life histories finding that social interactions inside education circles and in society at large were the most significant influences on the their career journeys. This paper aims to demonstrate how these interactions, as part of career cultures, are as influential in shaping teachers' career investment patterns, as structural changes to career.This paper is framed by two research questions.RQ1. What are the key features of the career cultures in the education environment?\nThe structural context of teachers' careers: International policy background\nTheoretical framework: Symbolic interactionism\nMethodology: Life history approach\nFindings and discussion: The participant group's experiences depicted features of investment and secure cultures and these are discussed now.The secure culture\nThe investment culture: The participant group provided details of their idiosyncratic careers as evidence of their adherence to a different career culture. It has been named the investment culture in this paper and although viewed as less predominant, it was gaining support in teacher policy statements. A key trait of the investment culture is the awareness that teaching is part of the bigger picture of education, education is part of the wider society and all are subject to change. All roles in the education service are recognised and valued as part of the teaching and learning process including teaching, administration, innovation, development and many more:I started to see teaching as something which really should just be called education. I think I stopped being a teacher in that sense of it and started being an educationalist.The need for challenge or change was evidenced in a desire to \"make a difference\" as a motivating force for any work or career decisions taken. For many teachers their first challenge could be seen in their involvement in extra-curricular work with their pupils. For others, the focus changed towards working with or influencing other teachers by sharing ideas and engaging in teamwork, describing working together positively. Innovative ways to teach, new curriculum materials and training sessions to disseminate the work with other members of staff were ways to achieve this. \"Making a difference\", \"making an impact\" or \"changing the world\" became recurring themes. This illustrated the diversity investment teachers sought and found in their daily working lives, depicting a more varied and attractive career than is often portrayed. The need to broaden horizons by increasing the sphere of influence outside the classroom, expanding existing skills, working with different people or engaging in a range of development activities was manifest:Each time I do something new, I feel more and more confident about being able to take on new challenges.Each new role marked a transition point when the teacher had become confident in their current role and needed to face a new challenge, taking on challenges in their current posts which took them beyond the direct responsibilities of their remit or finding new posts entirely. All forms of proactively investing in the development of their career for altruistic, intrinsic or extrinsic motivations.A positive and optimistic mindset accompanied the belief that they could make a difference during the course of their work. Their particular brand of making a difference provided a space for the individual teacher to seek extrinsic and intrinsic rewards for their endeavours:You know I've always taken the view that you get these pious statements, \"I do it for the children\". Of course you do, but you do it for yourself as well and that's not often enough stated.This marked a departure as the intrinsic rewards stemmed from the personal satisfaction gained from making an impact and doing something you liked. The investment in the work and career satisfied a drive or \"a strong need for that kind of stimulation, either doing new things or having good input\". The extrinsic rewards in terms of gaining additional qualifications, experience or salary which can further career investment or improve the quality of the education professional's private or public life were considered legitimate and worthy pursuits too:It has to be something which is different from what I experienced in some parts of teaching. \"Well I'll get the next promoted post when it is my turn\", type of approach to things. As opposed to saying, \"I'm really good at this. I'd really like to try this\".The pursuit of challenge and job satisfaction in achieving a purpose or goal can lead this group to take risks that would be unacceptable to those operating within the dominant secure culture. They are even prepared to take financial risks leading potentially to a poorer standard of living or weakened professional status in the eyes of others. They are prepared to take the risk of working in a new school or education site with the uncertainty that brings. These risks or new directions are justified as a way of getting job satisfaction and are perceived as means to find the right fit between the organisation, the work and the individual. There was no failure in trying something new and find it was not right for you:I'm not frightened of failure at all. I can quite easily back out and say that was a complete cock up. I'll have to stop doing this now because I'm not the right person.They believed many career paths were available for those who seek them out or seize the chances as they arise, not having a linear view of career and being aware of the range of choices to be made. As they pursued different challenges, they extended the network of colleagues gaining a greater insight into the requirements and demands of other posts, allowing them to make informed choices about any future career decisions:So there are choices you can make inside teaching as well as making choices to move outside of teaching and I think the people who are most frustrated in teaching are the people who don't make those choices. I think we can make them without leaving teaching.Some considered jobs beyond the traditional confines of a teacher's career path with moves into business, consultancy, voluntary work and publishing choices being made whilst others pursued directions inside the school or education system to develop their own interests. They were not tied to an organisational pathway nor were they constrained by length of experience or formal qualifications. This group invested in career using quality experiences, knowledge, skills and interests and the extended networks accumulated through participation in the wider education field:It's about the satisfaction in what actually has been delivered and what's been achieved. When I left primary teaching, I actually took a drop in salary and gave up my teacher superannuation. I did it on the basis that it might be something which leads me off in a different direction in my life and I don't see it as a loss.There was no apparent career plan only a better understanding of the bigger picture and higher levels of interactions to facilitate individuals in determining if a specific career investment would be appealing both professionally and personally.Cultural comparisons\nImplications for policy and practice: The life histories have provided some evidence of two career cultures operating within the education system. Each culture dominated to varying degrees at different times, in different schools and different environments according to the views of colleagues, the school ethos or education policy adhered to in any particular location, as well as the particular beliefs of the individual telling the story. Often the two cultures co-existed simultaneously causing a conflict for the individual trying to determine the best career decision or action to take. The stories suggest that the career decisions of most teachers are influenced by the dominant secure culture. This culture is most powerful having survived for the longest time in the images portrayed in society at large and passed on through the socialisation processes in the education system. This is an issue for different education systems trying to modernise their teaching careers as it creates the conditions of a negative career environment for teachers who are keen to invest in an education career, rather than commit to a classroom career. The secure culture perpetuates concepts of vocation or paid employment and a static, non-challenging environment which excludes those who do not support this culture. The investment culture is more conducive to the modernising agenda proposed for all teachers in the 21st century.Lynn (2002) argued that a nurturing career environment provided the optimum conditions for teachers to invest in their career. This study provides some evidence to suggest that a nurturing career environment in education includes a supportive career culture. The dominance of the secure culture and the introduction of the pathway career model only supports those engaged in a vocation or a public service career. It is concluded that the way to modernise careers is to promote the more inclusive investment culture outlined above. This paper makes recommendations for promoting aspects of the investment culture within the structural boundaries of the current education career.Redefining the modern career\nConclusion: This paper concludes that two career cultures operate in education environments and these are the secure and investment cultures. The secure culture is a dominant force currently and it reinforces cultural images of what a teaching career is as it interacts with structural career determinants. Whilst international teacher policy has made an attempt to modernise the career structure, it has done this without trying to update this career culture. The promotion of a static, secure and exclusive culture means that the teaching career remains unattractive to some and does not depict an accurate image of the work of teachers in most modern schools. The profession should become engaged in debate about how to promote the dynamic investment culture already existing by re-defining the career, career motivations and the vehicles for professional development in a genuine attempt at modernisation. It is argued that the promotion of this culture provides a mechanism for beginning the social reconstruction of a modern education career.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To introduce the concept of diverse career cultures in the education system and to consider how these impact on individual career investment and attempts to modernise the teaching profession internationally.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A life history approach was used to determine the career environment of teachers, setting career theories and career policy against the lived experiences of a group of educationalists. The interaction of the structural, cultural and individual dimensions of career has been analysed using grounded theory to determine the emerging cultural themes.\nFindings: - Two distinct career cultures have emerged over time influencing how teachers perceive their work. Each career culture determines the career investment pattern of individuals regardless of the structural career promoted. For most teachers, a secure career culture is the dominant influence on career decision-making despite the existence of a subordinate investment culture, more common to careers outside the education field.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The concept of career culture should be explored with larger groups of teachers internationally and compared against other major occupational groups.\nPractical implications: - An investment career culture should be encouraged by re-defining the modern career, the motivations of its members and the career sites open to them to promote diverse models of career investment.\nOriginality/value: - This paper challenges the assumptions in current education policy that current structural changes will modernise the teaching career by looking at the subjective dimension of careers with potential recruits, existing educationalists and policy-makers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Business model analytics: technically review business model research domain	[ "Business model", "Research trend", "Text mining", "Knowledge structure" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the mid-1990s, with the advent of Internet technology and the growth of electronic businesses such as Amazon and E-bay, business logic has changed dramatically. The development of new information and communication technologies alongside with the establishment of open global trading structures meant that customers were in a position to choose from many available product manufacturers and service providers; therefore, businesses were forced to make fundamental and radical changes in their proposed value to their clients (Teece, 2010). Many scholars consider this period as the beginning time of due attention of both scientists and practitioners' communities to the subject of business model (Demil and Lecocq, 2010; Hong and Jinho, 2017; Massa et al., 2017). During this period, businesses and their operation structures became complex and diverse, products' life-cycle started to shorten and also competition among the businesses became more intense (Osterwalder, 2004). Therefore, achieving success in business was no more solely dependent on innovation in the design of product, service or brand; rather innovation in the business model was also considered as a key factor in business success (Li et al., 2017). The business model concept based on a widely accepted definition is described as the dominant logic of business in creating value, the way of delivering that value to customers and the structure of costs associated with the value (Teece, 2010).\n2. Literature review: Some notable and noticeable factors have led the researchers to review the literature of business model field of study over time. First, there is deviation in the type of perception and understanding of business model concept between both people with business-oriented and technology-oriented perspectives due to the twofold nature of business model notion, i.e. business and technology (Osterwalder et al., 2005). Also, an increasing number of papers in the field of business model (George and Bock, 2011) between academicians and practitioners (Zott et al., 2011), popularity and at the same time criticisms against the concept of business model (Klang et al., 2014) and the interdisciplinary nature of this field (Wirtz et al., 2016) make business model research field increasingly controversial.\n3. Research method: Considering the research aims, various methods have been used in this study. Generally, these methods include some common text mining techniques that have been applied to process the main textual attributes of business model-related research documents. In this section, in addition to describing the implementation process of the study, specific descriptions are presented about each of the applied methods. The descriptions mainly include the introduction of the method and its main rationale for analyzing the data, a brief reference to the history of the method, the reasons for the employment of the method and the tools used to implement it. Table I illustrates an overview of these descriptions in a summary representing the techniques, approach, aims, results and the related applied tools.\n4. Research results: 4.1 Keywords co-occurrence network\n5. Conclusion: The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge structure and research trends of business model field of study. To this end, four different quantitative methods (i.e. co-word analysis, burst analysis, timeline analysis and topic modeling) were used on the title, abstract and keywords of the business model-related scholarly documents that have been indexed in the WoS database until June 26, 2018.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although the business model field of study has been a focus of attention for both researchers and practitioners within the past two decades, it still suffers from concern about its identity. Accordingly, this paper aims to clarify the intellectual structure of business model through identifying the research clusters and their sub-clusters, the prominent relations and the dominant research trends.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses some common text mining methods including co-word analysis, burst analysis, timeline analysis and topic modeling to analyze and mine the title, abstract and keywords of 14,081 research documents related to the domain of business model.\nFindings: The results revealed that the business model field of study consists of three main research areas including electronic business model, business model innovation and sustainable business model, each of which has some sub-areas and has been more evident in some particular industries. Additionally, from the time perspective, research issues in the domain of sustainable development are considered as the hot and emerging topics in this field. In addition, the results confirmed that information technology has been one of the most important drivers, influencing the appearance of different study topics in the various periods.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this study is to quantitatively uncover the dominant knowledge structure and prominent research trends in the business model field of study, considering a broad range of scholarly publications and using some promising and reliable text mining techniques.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How does leader communication style promote employees' commitment at times of change?	[ "Organizational change", "Affective commitment to change", "Leader communication style", "Supervisor-subordinate communication" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Among leadership scholars and practitioners, interpersonal communication between supervisors and subordinates has been consistently viewed as a central component of the leadership process (Awamleh and Gardner, 1999; Bennis and Nanus, 2003; Den Hartog and Verburg, 1997; De Vries et al., 2010; Shamir et al., 1994). What's more, some researchers define leadership as a group of behaviors that are communicative in nature (De Vries et al., 2010; Yukl, 2010). Thus, developing a communication perspective of leadership theory (Hackman and Johnson, 2013) is necessary. Despite the close association between leadership and communication, it is surprising that little research has been done to operationalize supervisor-subordinate communication - specifically in a leadership context (De Vries et al., 2010; Penley and Hawkins, 1985) - except for studies looking at the delivery skills and speech content of presidents or prestigious business leaders (Bligh and Robinson, 2010; Emrich et al., 2001).\nTheory and hypotheses: Leader communication style\nMethod: Sample and procedures\nResults: Exploratory factor analysis\nDiscussion: Given the increasing need to implement change in organizations, leaders are confronted more and more with the task of communicating organizational change to subordinates. In the present study, we specifically examine the structure and effects of leader communication style in the context of organizational change. Prior to these analyses, we developed a conceptual model on the basis of the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions (Ellsworth and Scherer, 2003). This conceptual model provides us with an emotional approach to understanding why leader communication style could influence subordinates' affective commitment to change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the structure of leader communication style in the context of organizational change. In doing so, the authors intend to shed more light on how leaders can effectively communicate change projects to their subordinates, which is viewed as the key to implementing change initiatives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper builds an integrated conceptual model for understanding leader's communication style and subordinates' commitment to change. By analyzing subordinates' different fears of change, the paper further proposes a multidimensional structure of leader communication style in the context of change. The authors then develop a scale to measure these different dimensions and test the relationship between the proposed communication style and subordinates' affective commitment to change.\nFindings: Leader communication style in the context of change is found to be composed of five dimensions: hope orientation, reality orientation, subordinate orientation, support orientation, and enforcement orientation. A cross-level field study of 31 teams and 194 members shows that hope orientation, subordinate orientation, and support orientation are positively associated with subordinates' affective commitment to change.\nOriginality/value: This paper identifies a new structure of leader communication style that will lead to a richer understanding of how leaders communicate to their subordinates in the context of change. It also contributes to the leadership literature by implying effective ways of communicating change projects.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
When more is less: The role of cross-functional integration, knowledge complexity and product innovation in firm performance	[ "Product innovation", "Firm performance", "Knowledge complexity", "Cross-functional integration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Product innovation, defined as the introduction of a new product or service to meet an external user need (Damanpour, 1991, 2017), is crucial for the long-term competitive survival of organizations (Perez-Luno et al., 2014). Although some studies have associated product innovation with positive firm-level outcomes (Tung, 2012; Song et al., 2011), others have shown that innovation does not always lead to superior performance (Freel and Robson, 2004; Damanpour, 2017; Duran et al., 2017). Therefore, the relationship between product innovation and firm performance remains unclear. Researchers have addressed this ambiguity by adopting a contingency approach, applying diverse factors to better specify the context in question, and, thus, clarify the innovation-performance relationship (Gopalakrishnan and Damanpour, 2000; Perez-Luno et al., 2014). Among contingency factors that have been shown to influence this relationship are the firm's external connectedness (Li et al., 2018; Trantopoulus et al., 2017), its market dynamism (Perez-Luno et al., 2014), its networking ability (internal and external) (Mitrega et al., 2017) and the degree of internal connectedness (Nakata and Im, 2010).\n2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses: As discussed in the previous section, recent studies have adopted a contingency approach to resolve the inconsistencies in the product innovation-firm performance relationship and to better specify the context and understand this relationship (Gopalakrishnan and Damanpour, 2000; Perez-Luno et al., 2014; Li et al., 2018). A contingency approach assumes that there is no single \"best way\" to structure or strategise, nor is there a single best size for the firm; everything depends on alignment among a number of factors. When the factors are aligned, firms achieve superior performance than when they are not (Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan, 2001). Taking into account previous literature on product innovation, we identify two relevant contingent factors: the role of CFI and knowledge complexity. We then examine how these factors moderate the innovation-performance relationship. Our study hypotheses are developed in two steps. First, we examine the moderating role of CFI on the relationship between product innovation and firm performance. Then, we consider how knowledge complexity moderates the relationship between CFI, product innovation and firm performance.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and research design\n4. Analysis and results: Table I shows the descriptive statistics obtained and the correlations for the variables included in our empirical analysis.\n5. Discussion, limitations and future lines of research: The aim of this study is to achieve a better understanding of the innovation-performance relation, doing so by analyzing the influence of two moderators - CFI and knowledge complexity - that act as contingency factors and better specify the context of the relationship (Perez-Luno et al., 2014; Li et al., 2018). The first main result obtained is that, contrary to our hypothesis, the breadth of CFI has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between product innovation and performance. This suggests that the role played by CFI in the relationship between product innovation and performance may be industry specific, which challenges the commonly accepted theme of lean manufacturing, for example, in the automobile industry, regarding the generally positive effect of CFI on innovation and on certain measures of performance (Hayati et al., 2017; Rauniar et al., 2008). However, firms in the automobile industry and in other manufacturing industries where CFI has been used tend to be significantly larger than those in the wine industry. Moreover, the mechanisms through which CFI can be achieved differ greatly between these two situations, and this is also relevant to our findings (Rauniar et al., 2008; Hayati et al., 2017).\n6. Conclusions: Our paper contributes in four essential areas to researchers and practitioners interested in understanding innovation and firm performance. First, previous studies of the role of CFI in new product development have focused mainly on project performance (Olson et al., 2001; Song and Xie, 2000) and, with few exceptions (e.g. De Visser et al., 2010), they have ignored innovation performance at the firm level. This is important because the implications of CFI for innovation at the organizational level may differ from those at the project level. Our findings support the premise that CFI exerts two contrasting effects: a direct positive influence on firm performance and a negative indirect one when it interacts with product innovation. In general, our results at the organizational level are similar to those reported previously for projects or products. Furthermore, our study extends empirical testing of the model proposed by Turkulainen and Ketokivi (2012), who showed that CFI is positively and directly related to various dimensions of subjective operational performance (except product innovativeness) and may also be associated with overall business performance. Our results indicate that CFI is positively related to both objective and subjective measures of overall business performance. For the wine industry in particular, and taking into account our other results, this finding suggests that CFI may be beneficial to the winery's overall performance, but not specifically to its innovation performance. In other words, the CFI of the oenologist in areas such as marketing or general management could help wineries enhance their performance, but not specifically through the development of product innovations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of a specific mechanism for cross-functional integration (CFI) in the relationship between product innovation and firm performance. It takes a contingency perspective, accounting for how these relationships vary depending on the degree of organizational knowledge complexity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Hypotheses are tested via regression analysis with interaction effects in a sample of 105 wineries from Spain, using both objective and subjective firm performance data.\nFindings: The results obtained confirm the existence of significant triple interaction effect of CFI, knowledge complexity and product innovation on firm performance. CFI has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between product innovation and performance and this effect varies according to the degree of organizational knowledge complexity.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper looks at variables that have been hitherto studied at the project or product level, at the firm level, in an attempt to untangle the relationship between innovation, CFI, knowledge complexity and firm performance. Study's main limitations lie in the use of a cross-functional design and its focus on a single industry.\nPractical implications: Firms dealing with complex organizational knowledge could use this CFI mechanism in the development of new products when their size and resources do not allow the creation of more formal temporal structures, such as cross-functional teams. However, unless the winery has to deal with a high degree of knowledge complexity, involving the oenologist in several functional areas for the purpose of coordination, may detract resources from product innovation effort and lead to a poorer performance.\nOriginality/value: This study showcases a mechanism of CFI not explored in previous research, but used in practice at many firms, i.e. the cross-pollination of ideas across different functional areas through the participation of the responsible for the product development, and tests its role in the relationship between product innovation and different types of firm performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Perception of sustainability competencies amongst Spanish pre-service secondary school teachers	[ "Teacher education", "Assessment", "Competencies", "Teacher education", "Sustainability", "Evaluation", "Higher education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Education has been widely recognised as a major agent to transform current society into a more sustainable, equitable and socially just one (UNESCO, 2005; United Nations, 2012). Over the past two decades, several international and national strategies and policy frameworks have been adopted, for example the Declaration of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD, 2005-2014) in 2005, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in 2011 and the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in 2015. The Declaration of the UNDESD in 2005 acted as a catalyst to the processes of integrating the principles of ESD into all levels of education (UNESCO, 2005). ESD is based on processes of collaboration, systems thinking, innovation and active and participatory learning (Tilbury, 2011). Higher education (HE) is a principal agent for addressing the current sustainability challenge that society is facing because of its key mission of knowledge generation and transfer through research and teaching (UNESCO, 2005; United Nations, 2012).\nSustainability competencies' frameworks: Emergent research in the field of sustainability in HE has explored the learning outcomes and competencies that educational programmes need to seek to develop in students for them to become change agents towards sustainability (Cebrian and Junyent, 2015; Mochizuki and Fadeeva, 2010; Sipos et al., 2008; Wiek et al., 2011). However, it is not possible to describe a mandatory set of competencies for sustainability because of the different definitions and conceptions of the terms sustainability and competence in educational settings (Mochizuki and Fadeeva, 2010).\nMeasurement of sustainability conceptions, attitudes, knowledge, competencies and consciousness: Over the past years, there has been a rapid increase on the number of publications regarding the measurement of outcomes of different sustainability initiatives in terms of change in students' perceptions, behaviours and attitudes towards sustainability using different tools, in diverse subject areas and contexts (Cebrian et al., 2019).\nMethod: Sample\nResults: The data analysis was performed using SPSS version 22.0. Previous to data exploration assumption of normality was checked by Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) and Shapiro-Wilk test. According to the results, non-parametric statistics were used for the data analysis. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) of the four main competencies, items along with levels of acquisition are shown in Table III.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The existing literature in the area of ESD shows the efforts made by universities and academics over the last decades to conceptualise and embed sustainability competencies within higher education (Lozano et al., 2017). As the findings of this study indicate, teacher students positioned themselves for the different units of the four sustainability competencies studied in a medium level of competence. This indicates that students consider themselves to have a medium level of sustainability competence, knowledge and practical skills to tackle sustainability challenges in their future workplace. The findings also demonstrate that there are no statistically significant differences between the different subject areas - disciplines of former university degree - and their level of sustainability competence. This differs from the findings of other studies (Uitto and Saloranta, 2017) that found differences in the perceived ESD competences of secondary school subject teachers and their subject area.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present the results from a questionnaire distributed to a group of Spanish postgraduate teacher students pursuing a Master's Degree in Secondary School Education. The aims of the administered questionnaire were to identify students' perceptions of the development of sustainability competencies; to analyse the relationship between students' perceived level of competence and the subject area, previous teaching experience and previous participation in sustainability projects; and to explore the strengths and limitations of the assessment tool used.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An ad hoc questionnaire of 18 items was designed to analyse students' self-conception of the development of four sustainability competencies. A set of six units of competence were identified and three levels of acquisition for each unit Knowledge (referred to conceptual learning), Knowhow (related to practical skills) and Do (linked to the demonstration in action and its transferability to real-life situations). The sample included 183 postgraduate secondary teacher students from different disciplines and subject areas.\nFindings: The findings of this study show that students positioned themselves for the four sustainability competencies in a medium level of competence. No statistical significant differences exist between the subject areas and the level of sustainability competence. A statistically significant difference was found between previous teaching experience and participation in sustainability projects in relation to their perceived level of sustainability competencies. Participation in sustainability projects is clearly shown as a differentiating factor in the levels of sustainability competencies.\nOriginality/value: An empirical study has been conducted to investigate preservice teachers' perceptions on the self-development of four sustainability competencies, considering three levels of acquisition (Know, Knowhow and Do). This study provides insights into ESD teaching and learning approaches and the assessment of Education for Sustainable Development outcomes. It also points out the importance of conceptualising sustainability competencies and operationalising these competencies in assessment tools that can help measure sustainability competencies' development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Board gender diversity, corporate governance and bank efficiency in Ghana: a two stage data envelope analysis (DEA) approach	[ "Ghana", "Bank efficiency", "Corporate governance", "Board gender diversity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The company's board is the single most significant internal control mechanism aimed at controlling management and serves as a deterrent to opportunistic behavior of managers (Oba and Fodio, 2013). Board diversity has taken a center stage in corporate governance literature. Board diversity involves a set of gender diversity, ethnic or demographical diversity and educational diversity (Zhang, 2012). Proponents of board gender diversity argue on two grounds: ethics and economics. On the ethical debate, Campbell and Minguez-Vera (2008) argue that it is ethically wrong to exclude women from boards' directorship just because they are women. On the economic front, prior studies suggest that the firm's performance and competitive advantage suffer a great deal if the female talent pool is ignored. This proposition makes it all important for firms to harness this great talent with that of their male counterpart in today's dynamic and complex business environment. In other studies, two or more female directors on a company's board contribute to revenue generation and profit maximization six years later (Brown et al., 2002). Thus, there are calls for firms to promote gender diversity to ensure economic empowerment and societal good.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: This section discusses the resource dependency theory, which underpins the paper and testable hypotheses.\n3. Methodology: In this section, we discuss the source of data for the analysis and formulate models used for the analysis of data collected.\n4. Empirical results and discussions: 4.1 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix\n5. Summary, conclusion, implications and future research: This paper aims to evaluate bank efficiency under board gender diversity among Ghanaian banks. We follow a two-stage approach as proposed by Banker and Natarajan (2008). The novel feature of the efficiency model used is that it incorporates board gender diversity as an additional input variable in line with the proposition of proponent of the resource dependency theory.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to analyze the efficiency of banks under board gender diversity and to examine the determinants of bank efficiency.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for analysis were sourced from annual reports of 21 banks for the period from 2009 to 2017. A two-step framework was used: first, an examination of efficiency scores with and without board gender diversity computed using data envelopment analysis; and second, a regression of board gender diversity as a determinant of bank efficiency using panel estimation on an unbalanced panel data.\nFindings: The results reveal that gender diversity promotes bank efficiency up to a maximum of two female directors on a nine-member board of directors, suggesting a threshold effect on bank efficiency. Board size improves bank efficiency. Board independence is negatively related to bank efficiency. Also, powerful chief executive officers are detrimental for bank efficiency. Finally, the authors find that ownership structure, bank size, bank age and loan-to-deposit ratio are important factors affecting bank efficiency.\nResearch limitations/implications: All bank-year observations with no female representation on the board were excluded. As such, this paper is limited to 21 banks. Future research should look at a larger data set and account for dynamic endogeneity.\nPractical implications: The paper contributes to bank governance structure, namely, gender composition of boards, and provides an insight for regulators and shareholders to estimate the role of men and women on boards.\nOriginality/value: The novel feature of the efficiency model used is that it incorporates board gender diversity as an additional input variable, in line with the preposition of proponent of resource dependency theory.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Barriers to use open government data in private sector and NGOs in Pakistan	[ "Pakistan", "NGOs", "Private sector", "Open government data", "Open data", "Usage" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: \"Open government data (OGD) refers to making public sector information freely available in open formats and ways that enable public access and facilitate exploitation\" (Kalampokis et al., 2011a, p. 266). OGD implies a more proactive approach to disseminate public-sector information (Borglund and Engvall, 2014), and it includes the data held by the government across different sectors such as transport, health, education, industry, tourism, social work and climate change. Government is the main provider of data which is linked with information about the citizens, organizations or the transactions in the course of providing public services (Alexopoulos et al., 2014). With the emergence of information and communications technology (ICT), governments across the world have been transforming themselves into e-governments (Mpinganjira, 2015), and encouraging participation of users in government processes and OGD is one of the extensions of e-government initiatives (Jetzek et al., 2014). With the aim of bringing about transparency and public accountability in public services, governments have spearheaded their OGD initiatives (Adu et al., 2016; Huijboom and Van den Broek, 2011; Meijer et al., 2012; Thornton and Thornton, 2013; Zuiderwijk and Janssen, 2014a). It has been underlined in research that OGD initiatives of government facilitate policy-making besides bringing about efficiency in administration (Janssen, 2012; Kassen, 2013; Tough, 2011). OGD helps in boosting the economy of a country and has potential for private and non-profit sectors (Jung and Park, 2015). Despite these advantages, there are impediments for OGD usage on the side of the users who find drawbacks in the online information released by the government in terms of non-availability or lack of complete data sets. Likewise, there are barriers on the part of the government to open their data sets owing to cultural constraints or issues of privacy and confidentiality regarding sensitive information. Finally, the technological readiness of the country also impacts the extent of OGD initiatives of the government (Gunnlaugsdottir, 2015).\n2. Literature review: Broadly, there are two classes of OGD research. The first class pertains to the OGD research based on conceptual and theoretical aspects. The second class relates to the contextual studies which are undertaken in different countries and are conducted to appreciate the OGD initiatives at the national, state or local levels. Our study falls in the second category. In this section, we will summarize the two classes of OGD-focused research and derive our research question.\n3. Research methodology: In this section, we will provide a brief background about Pakistan followed by the research design description. For our study, we deployed documentary analysis for drawing evidences regarding the extent to which the OGD portal of Pakistan (http://data.org.pk/) and other government websites facilitate \"usage\" of open data available via these sources. Documentary analysis seeks to produce evidences for substantiating the research claims. Specifically, documentary analysis is defined as \"a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents-both printed and electronic (computer-based and internet-transmitted) material\" (Bowen, 2009, p. 27). Furthermore, documentary analysis facilitates one to \"categorize, investigate and identify [...] written documents, whether in the private or public domain (personal papers, commercial records, or state archives, communications or legislation)\" (Payne and Payne, 2004, p. 60). Given that we tapped both online and offline records to investigate the nature and scope of OGD, documentary analysis fitted our research purpose. Besides documentary analysis, we conducted interviews. Interviews are regarded as the primary tools of data collection in a qualitative research (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998). Given the human idiosyncrasies associated with humans, interviews are a good means of soliciting perspectives regarding a particular phenomenon.\n4. Conclusion: The main purport of this paper was to investigate the OGD initiative of Pakistan and to underline how OGD may be re-used for different purposes for innovating upon professional activities. Specifically, the paper underlined how OGD may be tapped by a section of stakeholders (that is, the private professionals and the NGO sector professionals). While the paper showed that OGD was being tapped by the professionals for diverse ends, there is a need for a more developed OGD initiative on the part of the government. Previous research showed that OGD was being tapped by stakeholders like academics, private sector professionals, public sector professionals and the like. However, previous research did not investigate about the exact purposes for which OGD is being used by different stakeholders. Our study underlined that besides re-using government information for preparing financial reports and day-to-day operations, socio-demographic statistics is of immense value for NGO professionals. It may be added, however, that with more involvement of government departments in Pakistan, the OGD initiative may witness enhanced usage by the stakeholders concerned.\n5. Limitations of the study and future research directions: Our study is limited in the sense that we solicited views from senior professionals working in private sector and NGOs, but we cannot claim that all the sectors are covered in our research. Further research is solicited to ascertain views from a more multi-pronged angle wherein views of software developers, and other intermediaries are also taken into account. Conceding that user-focused research is limited in OGD theme, more research is required to understand the hindrances in tapping OGD for professional purposes by working professionals across different domains. Second, empirical investigation is required to appreciate if there are differences in developed and developing economies as far as the utility of OGD is concerned. Likewise, future research should be conducted to probe the role of culture on the usage patterns of OGD among different working professionals. Finally, a comparative study may be undertaken to investigate the differences between OGD usage in public and private sector.\n6. Social and practitioner implications: Two major motivations for undertaking OGD initiatives by governments relate to furthering democracy and enabling the re-use of data sets for generating economic value among businesses (Bertot et al., 2014). Co-creation of public value is an important target of an OGD initiative. Innovations may be spearheaded in different economic sectors with the usage of open data sets. Pakistan government should bolster its OGD initiatives and chalk out a roadmap for furthering its \"Open Government Partnership\" at the international level besides allowing the institutionalization of OGD policies across all the government levels. With the need for bringing about efficiency, transparency and participation in government, OGD initiative should be institutionalized and government ministries and departments should be encouraged for furthering the process of OGD initiatives. Finally, a political will can usher an OGD-friendly climate in the country. Therefore, the necessary resources should be matched with technological infrastructure and human resource planning to achieve the OGD goals of a developing country.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Open government data (OGD) is making available data freely to all by the government with the aim to ensure accountability and transparency in government besides generating public value by its usage. OGD is an emerging government initiative in Pakistan, and there is a lot of potential for harnessing OGD for spearheading innovation and improvising services in different economic sectors. This paper aims to seek to investigate the usage of OGD in private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Documentary analysis is conducted to review the national OGD portal of Pakistan. Besides, structured interviews were conducted with 49 senior management representatives from private sector and NGOs to solicit their perspectives regarding the usage of OGD for professional purposes. Also, questions were posed regarding the challenges in harnessing OGD for professional purposes.\nFindings: OGD has immense usage for private sector and NGOs; however, more initiatives are required on the part of the government to open their data sets. Further, involvement of stakeholders from the private sector and NGOs and other interested partners is required for an optimum usage of OGD in different economic sectors of Pakistan.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the research focuses on private sector and NGOs in Pakistan, the study requires a more broad-based approach to take into account the perspectives of different users. Further research is required to appreciate the role of contextual factors in determining the usage of OGD in Pakistan.\nPractical implications: Government should be more forthcoming in its OGD initiatives and encourage collaboration from citizens, businesses, voluntary organizations and the like.\nSocial implications: Working professionals from different economic sectors should tap OGD for generating value by improvising their services.\nOriginality/value: The study is the first one to be conducted in Pakistan about the OGD initiatives of the country. Soliciting views from the key management representatives in the private sector and NGOs, the paper contributed to the extant OGD literature which is more supply-focused and not demand-driven. While conceding that there are ample usages of OGD for the different economic sectors, the paper underlines the need for refining the OGD initiatives of Pakistan.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cultural distance and entry modes: implications for global expansion strategy	[ "Cultural distance", "Carrefour", "Global strategy", "GLOBE dimensions", "Kogut-Singh index", "Retail sector" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In our globalized world, more and more companies are international in scope. To conquer new markets, companies have to choose an entry mode: e.g., greenfield investment, acquisition, joint ventures or looser forms such as franchising and licensing. These entry mode strategies are often placed on a continuum going from relatively low resource commitment (licensing, franchising, joint venture) to high resource commitment (acquisition, greenfield investment) strategies (e.g. Anderson and Gatignon, 1986; Hill et al., 1990).\nStrategic alignement in the retail sector: When conquering new markets, one of the major strategic decision facing MNEs is to choose between a global integration strategy and a national responsiveness strategy. The latter signifies that the strategy itself and its implementation are mainly tailored to the host country, whereas the former refers to aligning operations across cultures (Doz, 1980; Prahalad and Doz, 1987).\nThe role of cultural distance: Prior research has often emphasized that the internationalization processes for retailers were challenging and complex in comparison to those facing manufacturers (Burt, 1993; Burt and Carralero-Encinas, 2000; Dawson, 1994, 2000). Retailers cannot rely on a traditional exporting strategy, but have to build new stores in a new environment, develop a new distribution system and emphasize cultural differences as they interact on a daily basis with local customers (Jonsson and Elg, 2006). Because of these differences, there is some question as to whether internationalization theories (very often developed for manufacturing firms) can even be applied to the retail sector (Sternquist, 1997; Vida and Reardon, 2000).\nHypothesis development: As noted in the previous sections, strategic alignment is important. in our view, cultural distance plays an important role in the retail sector and poses significant challenges for retail firms. Prior research on cultural distance and entry mode (mainly from the manufacturing industry) has yielded mixed results.\nCarrefour: Carrefour is a French retailer operating in more than 30 countries throughout the world. It got underway in 1959 in France and quickly expanded to Europe, Latin America, Asia and, recently, the Middle East. Carrefour has become the second largest retailer in the world with partners and stores throughout the world. The reason for its phenomenal success stems from its \"hypermarche\" concept, that is, it offers one-stop shopping at low prices and product freshness, as well as self-service and free parking (Dupuis and Prime, 1996). Compared to its main competitor Wal-Mart, it is much more globalized and therefore represents a sufficient data source for this study.\nMethodology: Data collection and variables\nDiscussion: The results of the analysis are reported in Tables III and IV.\nConclusion and limitations: One of the critical challenge facing MNEs expanding into new markets is to choose the right entry mode strategy to ensure high profit returns and efficiency.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to take a strategic perspective on how MNEs in the retail sector decide to enter a new market. Drawing on transaction cost theory, the contingency approach and resource-based theory, the implications of the interplay between global strategy, cultural distance and entry mode strategies are examined by means of an analysis of Carrefour's global expansion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To account for the shortcomings of prior research, a hypothesis in the relationship between entry modes and cultural distance is tested empirically using a sample of 44 foreign market entries by Carrefour over the 40 last years. The paper uses a quantitative approach, i.e., logistic regressions. To measure cultural distance, the authors rely on the GLOBE dimensions and the Kogut-Singh Index.\nFindings: The findings suggest a positive relationship between a resource commitment, entry mode strategy and cultural distance for Carrefour. However, these findings are contrary to the mainstream argument that high cultural distance is related to entry strategies based on relatively low resource commitment. The authors explain these findings by integrating a cultural distance perspective with Carrefour's overall global expansion strategy.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability.\nPractical implications: The paper provides insights into why prior research on cultural distance and entry modes has yielded mixed results. From a strategic viewpoint, the paper stresses the particularities of the retail sector and how retailers try to account for cultural distance in their entry mode decisions.\nOriginality/value: By focussing on a single company instead of a meta-analysis, the analysis demonstrates how the search for strategic consistency and the particularities of the retail sector reverse a well-investigated theoretical assumption. The main originality of the paper is that it shows the implications of the interplay between cultural distance and entry mode as being part of the retail firm's overall global expansion strategy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effect of brand identity-cognitive style fit and social influence on consumer-based brand equity	[ "Brand identity", "Brand image", "Cognitive style", "Social influence", "Consumer brand equity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Understanding the key management issues and consumer associations of a brand is critical to creating better and more productive branding plans to increase a company's revenue. Brands not only serve to identify products, but they are also concepts that develop connections with customers in the form of images (Nandan, 2005), relationships (Fournier, 1998) and experiences (Brakus et al., 2009). Past research has shown that strong brands enjoy a vast array of benefits (Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994; Buchanan et al., 1999; Glynn et al., 2012; Leone et al., 2006; Roy and Banerjee, 2014) such as increased levels of brand loyalty (Aurier and Gilles Sere, 2012; Oliver, 1999; Pappu and Quester, 2016) and the ability to charge price premiums (Steenkamp et al., 2010) and negotiate increased shelf-space from retailers (Ailawadi and Harlam, 2004). In other words, strong brands benefit from an increased marketing effectiveness (Keller, 2009). Moreover, the power of a brand relies on what customers think and feel about it (Keller, 2013), which is what ultimately gives value to a brand (Keller and Lehmann, 2006). What customers do in response to their thoughts and feelings builds a brand's reputation, which affects brand equity (Baalbaki and Guzman, 2016; Cowan and Guzman, 2018; Heinberg et al., 2018) and, ultimately, the financial market (Keller and Lehmann, 2006). This provides the business justification for branding and an explanation as to why it is important for firms to build brands that are congruent with what consumers want and need.\nBackground: Nandan (2005) claims that brand identity and brand image are two different but related concepts. A \"brand message is 'packaged' or 'wrapped' in terms of brand identity, and it is 'unpackaged' or 'unwrapped' by the consumer in the form of brand image\" (p. 268). In other words, brand identity relates to companies' actions, whereas brand image relates to what consumers think and feel about a brand. Furthermore, brand identity and brand image are essential ingredients of strong brands that must be \"in harmony\" to build and maintain brand loyalty (Nandan, 2005). Furthermore, de Chernatony and Dall'Olmo Riley (1998) posit that brands are multidimensional, and their success requires matching customers' performance and psychological needs with the functional and emotional values of a brand. Brand performance thus profoundly depends on the congruence between consumer perceptions about the brand (i.e. brand image) and the firm's brand message (i.e. brand identity) (Park et al., 1986).\nHypotheses development: Past research has identified attitude toward the message or ad to mediate the relationship between brand messages and attitude toward the brand (Batra and Ray, 1986; Gardner, 1985; Holbrook and Batra, 1987; Lutz et al., 1983; MacKenzie et al., 1986; Park and Young, 1986; Shimp, 1981). Based on these studies, Holbrook and Batra (1987) developed a communication model that identifies the role of consumer emotions in brand messaging, as well as the rational and emotional content of the message, to build an attitude toward the brand. Brand messages, as a vehicle to communicate a brand's identity, serve as one of the most essential tools to build brand equity. Brand messages try to elicit both rational and emotional associations given their importance for building strong brands (Keller, 2001). Effective brand messaging leads to consumers developing a brand image consistent with the firm's brand identity.\nResearch method: An experiment comprised of two steps was developed to test the hypotheses. Step 1 examined the effect that brand identity-CS fit has on CBBE. Step 2 evaluated the effect that the three elements of social influence-compliance, identification and internalization-have on CBBE. Following the recommendations of Good and Hardin (2012), and with the objective of avoiding confounding variables, an international brand unknown to the US market-Nutri-milk-was used to create the stimuli and conditions: an emotional brand identity and a rational brand identity. The use of a milk brand was considered appropriate given that it is a mass-consumed commodity and, as such, more difficult to create brand differentiation, loyalty and value (Punniyamoorthy et al., 2011), enhancing the value of this experiment. Two similar advertisements and press releases that included either emotional elements of the brand or rational elements of a brand were created to manipulate brand identity. Given the experimental nature of this study, a student sample was used with the objective of increasing its internal validity (Brinberg and McGrath, 1985; Hanel and Vione, 2016).\nResults: Before testing the hypotheses, all scale items measuring social influence dimensions and perceived CBBE were first subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA). All factors were examined for internal consistency. The results of the EFA (factor structure with varimax rotation) of the final items are presented in Table II. The scale items for the dimensions of social influence and all items of CBBE were next studied for internal consistency (using alpha scores) and convergent and discriminant validity using inter-item correlation scores (Tables III and IV). All inter-factor correlations within factors were higher than the correlations across factors, satisfying the essential criteria for discriminant validity (Churchill, 1979). Additionally, most of the alpha scores were above 0.75, demonstrating acceptable levels of internal consistency (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1978).\nDiscussion: This paper aimed to empirically test the effect of BI-CS fit on creating a stronger brand image to increase the perceived value of a brand, and to understand the effect of social influence on the perceived value of a brand. The study contributes to the branding literature by introducing the CS concept to better understand the influence of emotional and rational brand identities on consumers with either rational or intuitive cognitive thinking styles, and reinforce the importance of the brand duality concept (Keller, 2001).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Brand identities have a dual nature that appeals to the head (rational appeal) and to the heart (emotional appeal) of their consumers. Furthermore, consumers can process information in a predominately analytic or intuitive cognitive style (CS) manner. This study aims to analyze the influence of brand identity-cognitive style (BI-CS) fit on the perceived value of a brand. It also analyzes how different forms of social influence affect the perceived value of the brand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a two-step experimental design, Step 1 examines the effect that BI-CS fit has on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE); Step 2 evaluates the effect that the three elements of social influence-compliance, identification and internalization-have on CBBE.\nFindings: Both the BI-CS fit, and the identification and internalization forms of social influence have a significant and positive effect over the perceived value of the brand. A rational brand identity is given a higher perceived brand value by analytic CS consumers than intuitive CS consumers. Conversely, an emotional brand identity is given a higher perceived brand value by intuitive CS consumers than analytic CS consumers. However, whether the brand identity is more emotional or rational is less important than the values and beliefs that the brand communicates to create social influence.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study contributes to the branding literature by introducing the CS concept to better understand the influence of emotional and rational brand identities on consumers with either rational or intuitive cognitive thinking styles and reinforce the importance of the brand duality concept.\nPractical implications: The results demonstrate the importance of brand duality and show how firms could present emotional or rational brand identities depending on their consumers' CS to increase the effectiveness of their messaging to build stronger brand images that increase the perceived value of the brand. These findings could have important implications for market segmentation.\nOriginality/value: Brand identities can be emotional or rational, and this creates more or less value depending on the consumers' CS, but what is more important is that consumers internalize the brand's message or identify with what the brand represents. Although this has been discussed in prior literature, the original contribution of this paper is tying all these concepts together.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An examination of the information disclosure behavior of infertility bloggers: Patterns of self-disclosure and anonymity	[ "Information behavior", "Blogging", "Infertility", "Self-disclosure", "Self-presentation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the last decade, personal blogs have become an important venue of self-expression on the internet because they offer a platform for information sharing, entertainment, self-expression and social interaction for diverse communities. This study examines the information disclosure behavior of a specific class of blogs, written by women struggling with infertility. Information disclosure behavior relates to the revelation of personal or intimate information through self-presentation and self-disclosure facilitated by the Internet as well as the avoidance or suppression of disclosure of information. (Bortree, 2005; Bronstein, 2012; Papacharissi, 2004; Trammell et al., 2006; Viegas, 2005). The present study explores the information disclosure behavior of women blogging about infertility through an online survey that measured their self-disclosure patterns as they relate to the degree of anonymity adopted in their blog as a self-presentation strategy. Self-disclosure refers to the process by which one person verbally reveals information about the self, including demographic information, thoughts, feelings, and experiences to another person (Derlega et al., 1993). It is the act of making yourself manifest, showing yourself so others can perceive you (Jourard, 1971). Self-disclosure is one of the most basic forms of human encounter. As we communicate with other people, we reveal ourselves to others in various ways and to varied degrees. Self-disclosure is an introspective and self-focused form of communication that plays an important role in the individual's personal development and relationship formation (Wu, 2009). Identity is also an important element of this form of communication. Knowing the sender's identity can be equally important to the message content in supplying credibility and motivations in the communication process. According to Marx (1999), anonymity refers to a state where a person is not identifiable. The degree of anonymity can range from being totally anonymous to lacking anonymity all together, being totally identifiable.\nLiterature review: Blogs\nMethodology: Data collection\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: The present study investigated two elements of the information disclosure behavior of women bloggers suffering from infertility, anonymity and self-disclosure patterns. Findings of our study show that infertility bloggers reported high levels of self-disclosure that resulted in bloggers revealing intimate details of their lives, relationships, marriages, letting their defences down thus showing their more sensitive side. Two concepts are relevant when analyzing and discussing the results regarding the information disclosure behavior of the bloggers, blogs as \"public spaces\" and blogs as \"protected spaces\". At first sight it may seem paradoxical to publish highly intimate content in a public space like the Internet for all to see, for these kinds of writings are usually kept secretly in a one's drawer in the form of a written diary. The online spaces created by the bloggers in this study reflect Youngs's (2007, p. 3) assertion that characterized the internet as \"an international public (as well as private) space or series of spaces\" and reflects that as a result of the Internet as an enabling technology, \"women are more public beings than they have ever been, and it could be argued that this is a radical development\", (Youngs, 2007, p. 3). Leggatt-Cook and Chamberlain (2012) asserted that the balance between what to retain as private and what to disclosed to express authenticity and build community relationships requires constant negotiation.\nConclusion: This study has shown that the blogosphere offers the infertile a place to chronicle their personal stories, seek support, and share information about their condition. The high levels of personal self-disclosure reported by the participants show that blogs have given infertile women a voice, drawing from Mitra's (2001, p. 459) metaphor used to show that the internet could give marginalized groups a place to be heard. She explained that when a person creates a blog \"a voice has been placed in the cybernetic space where the traditional limits of real life could be irrelevant\". The duality inherent in blogs is reflected in the bloggers' perception of their blogs both as a \"protected space\" that allows them an anonymous outlet for their emotions and a \"public sphere\" in which openly discuss their experiences and struggles with infertility, defying the privacy of these treatments. Thus, the unsolicited and interactive features of blogging uniquely position blogs as distinct from other personal expressions of the personal experience. This study identified two distinct blogging behaviors regarding self-disclosure. Bloggers who concealed their identity reported lower levels of self-disclosure whereas bloggers who identified themselves tended to self-disclose more. In other words, bloggers in this study managed their online identity and their level of self-disclosure influenced by the desired degree of engagement with their online audiences and with their offline social connections as well as by different motivational needs such as self-expression or information sharing.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The study aimed to investigate the information disclosure behavior of women bloggers who suffer from infertility by examining their self-disclosure as it relates to the anonymity patterns they adopted.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was distributed to approximately 300 authors of infertility blogs, 135 bloggers answered the request to take part in the study. The survey gathered basic demographic and blogging practice data, and measured different elements of the bloggers' discursive and visual anonymity as well as their patters of self-disclosure.\nFindings: Findings reveal that the majority of respondents identify themselves on their blogs and only a small percentage decided to be totally anonymous, and about half of the bloggers post actual photos of themselves and their lives. The participants reported a high rate of self-disclosure, revealing sensitive information, letting their defenses down, disclosing highly intimate details about their lives, writing openly about their infertility treatments on their blog. No significant correlation was observed between visual and discursive anonymity and the perceived self-disclosure of participants. Results show that the more anonymous the bloggers are, the more afraid they become that their blog may be read by people they know offline. On the other hand, the more identifiable the bloggers are, the more willingness they show to share the content of their journal with people they know offline. The majority of participants expressed concerns that blogging could negatively impact their lives.\nOriginality/value: This study explores an alternate explanation through the examination of the bloggers' self-disclosure patterns as they relate to the degree of anonymity adopted.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Adding value to clients: learning from four case-studies	[ "Facilities", "Relationship marketing", "Value added", "Trust" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Background: This paper is concerned with how to add value to customers and evaluate the quality of facilities management (FM) delivery, both from an operational and strategic perspective. It has emerged as one major FM supplier in the UK set out to establish what customers perceive as added-value throughout the life-cycle of an FM contract. They intended to increase the number of customers, as a result of this investigation. For confidentiality reasons, they will be referred to ABC FM Ltd.There is little evidence in the form of academic research within the FM sector on what is customer value and how organisations can understand and continually improve this added-value across all dimensions of the business-to-business (B2B) relationship.An extensive literature search highlighted key issues related to customer value across the sectors.\n2 Key issues in customer value: The term customer value is defined and re-defined by many different authors. Many of the articles reviewed provided definitions for customer value linking it to expectations and perceptions. Smith and Wheeler (2002) believes that consumers are looking for a service that goes beyond the basics to meet their unique needs and exceed their expectations. In his work, this is referred to the \"branded customer experience\". This experience should be intentional, consistent, differentiated and valuable.Rather than attempt to define value, this section explores key issues related to customer value management for B2B service providers. It provides a summary of:* key elements, which contribute to quality of service;* reinforces the fact that the concept of quality is not absolute, but based on perceptions;* it proposes an equation for customer value; and* finally it reviews the results of two surveys on the importance of different elements of service quality.While most customers do not care about the details of how a service is designed, they are aware of the process quality that they can observe in the purchase of a service. According to work by Parasuraman et al. (1988) five universal dimensions of service process quality can be identified. They are:1. Dependability (did the service provider do what was promised?).2. Responsiveness (was the service provided in a timely manner?).3. Authority (did the service provider elicit a feeling of confidence in the customer during the service delivery process?).4. Empathy (was the service provider able to take the customer's point of view?).5. Tangible evidence (was evidence left that the service was indeed performed?).Parasuraman et al. (1988) has developed a tool entitled SERVQUAL for the measurement of customer value.Miller (1977) and Zeithaml et al. (1990) have both established that customer's views of service process quality depend primarily on the relationship between what was actually delivered (and in what manner) and what was actually expected by the customer. This has the following profound implications for service providers:* service quality is relative, not absolute;* service quality is determined by the customer, not by the service provider;* service quality varies from one customer to another; and* service quality can be enhanced both by meeting or exceeding customers' expectations, or taking steps to control such expectations.Continuous quality improvement has been pursued by many major organisations in order to improve service quality. However, these improvements should not be at the risk of ignoring results to customers. Taking a holistic approach to value creation is key to its success; quality is only one dimension of this strategy. There are examples of major companies who have pursued extensive quality improvements, at the expense of understanding customer needs and linking improvements to these needs. These examples demonstrate that there can be a backlash against ignoring customer results.Heskett et al. (1994) has moved further and proposed an equation for customer value, namely: Equation 1 Heskett et al.'s (1994) customer value equation helps put into perspective each of its elements. For example, the rush to improve service and product quality or continuous quality improvement initiatives are important. But these represent only one element in the value equation. Other dimensions are results, price and cost of acquisition to the customer.Bearing these issues of customer value in mind, some researchers have tried to survey key issues which add value to customers. Smith and Wheeler (2002) reports on a Gallup's survey of 6,000 customers across industries. In this survey, the most important attributes of value were:* people;* product and/or service delivery;* place/convenience;* product features/services on offer;* price;* policies and procedures; and* promotion and advertising.These results contradict survey results conducted in the FM sector. i-FM (2005) reported and ranked their top five priorities for 2005/2006 from the FM perspective. Their findings suggest there has been little change since 2002 FM audit. Key attributes for the FM industry include:* reducing cost of FM;* creating an environment to attract staff;* improving on key performance indicators (KPI) and service level agreements (SLA);* building internal FM team and skills; and* risk management.In the Gallup survey price was ranked fifth, yet this was considered the number one cost in the i-FM survey. Gallup's survey was focused on support services as a whole, where as i-FM was concentrating on FM services, where the strategic importance of the service is largely unexplored. This is largely because the FM industry has failed to adequately demonstrate the added value of services though performance indicators focused on the core operations of the client organisation.In understanding how to improve customer value, there is a body of knowledge, from the marketing domain, which is in the area of \"relationship marketing\". During the past decade, there has been widespread concern about the validity of traditional marketing approaches. There is growing recognition that relationships are becoming ever more important in increasingly complex and mature markets. These led to a broader view of relationship marketing as summarised by Christopher et al. (2006):* a move from functionally based marketing to cross-functionally based process-based marketing;* an approach which addresses major stakeholder domains, not just the traditional customer domain;* a shift from marketing activities which emphasise customer acquisition to marketing activities which equally emphasise customer retention; and* focus switched from volume growth to profit growth, building and nurturing relationships with the most profitable customers.Smith and Wheeler (2002) and Christopher et al. (2006) highlight three key issues to consider when identifying customer value:1. Segmentation. Firms must differentiate between customers in terms of profitability. Largest customers are often not the most profitable ones. Segmentation is usually by:* industry type;* type of service; or* value sought by customers.2. Retention. Customer retention is a lot cheaper than obtaining new customers.3. Creating loyalty. When customers are highly satisfied they become loyal. These customers bring in other customers through \"word of mouth\" (Woodruff, 1997; Reichheld, 1996).From the perspective of \"customer retention\" many studies demonstrate that retaining customers is more profitable than acquiring new customers. Management consultants Bain & Co. Smith and Wheeler (2002) have summarised the following reasons for improved profitability:* The cost of acquiring new customers can be substantial. A higher retention rate implies that fewer customers need to be acquired more cheaply.* Established customers tend to buy more.* Regular customers place frequent, consistent orders and, therefore usually cost less to serve.* Satisfied customers often refer new customers to the supplier at virtually no cost.* Satisfied customers are often willing to pay premium prices for a supplier they know and trust.* Retaining customers makes market entry or share gain difficult for competitors.There is a perception within the service industry that clients are unfaithful, willing to re-tender at the end of each contract, however the research has uncovered otherwise. It is possible to turn satisfied customers into loyal customers. It is, therefore, important to spend a balanced effort between acquiring new customers and maintaining existing relationships. About 80 per cent of organisations reviewed by Christopher et al. (2006) were classed as acquirers; spending too much on acquisition activities at the cost of their customer retention activities.Jones and Sasser (1995) has found that, except in rare cases, total or complete customer satisfaction is key to securing customer loyalty, and that there is a tremendous difference between the loyalty of merely satisfied customers and completely satisfied customers.2.1 Customer value is dynamic\n3 Methodology: Semi-structured interview questions were designed, based on the improved understanding from the literature. The questions were formulated around the headings of:* business strategy; and* outsourcing directions and strategies, management and expectations.They were not targeted specifically at FM services. Rather they cross-examined general attitudes and beliefs. Table I provides a short sample of the questions. A total of 27 questions were posed although the constraints of this paper do not permit an analysis of all questions.The questions were piloted with one large FM client in order to ensure that they were well understood and relevant to the clients. Minor changes were made after this piloting.Four major client organisations in the UK participated in the interviews. They were all clients of ABC FM Ltd Three organisations were major UK companies, which have branches on high streets, while the fourth was a global company. A Senior Manager and an operational FM Manager from each organisation were interviewed. Each interview lasted approximately 1.5 hours. The interviews were recorded on tape and scripts were produced afterwards.In order to identify any gaps between the client perceptions and that of ABC FM Ltd, four senior managers, and two operational managers from ABC FM Ltd were interviewed in a similar manner.The interview scripts were inputted into a qualitative analysis software (NVivo). They were structured into nodes based on key issues for the interviewees. Key issues emerged as: trust, strategies, provision of business solutions, provision of management information, costs, impact of FM on clients' customers, relationships and sustainability and green issues. Reports were generated and comparisons were made between:* senior client view;* operational client view;* senior supplier view; and* operational supplier view.\n4 Key findings: The following findings are based on the qualitative analysis nodes.4.1 Trust\n5 Discussion - comparison of results with current knowledge: The results generally support the academic literature recommendations.The literature indicates that service quality is relative and varies from one customer to another. The interview results support this view. They also support the view that clients at different levels of the same organisation have different views and requirements.The literature points out that satisfied customers will become loyal customers. The interviews support this view. Most client organisations have specific guidelines for re-tendering every three-five years. However, the clients can and do act differently with their exceptional suppliers. Loyalty produces a deterrent to switching, and is probably the highest form of creating a soft switching cost.Issues related to service process quality came out firmly in client interviews. Many of the comments about trust relate to trust in service process quality.The literature suggests that if acquisition costs are reduced for the client (i.e. tendering costs), suppliers can potentially charge higher prices for the duration of the contract. The interview results did not support this view. None of the clients raised issues about the time and effort in the tendering process. Tendering seems to be seen as a routine part of running business operations.Risk management has not featured highly in any of the customer interviews, whereas it has come out as an important item in the i-FM (2005) survey. This may be due to the fact that either ABC FM Ltd have been competent at managing risk, or alternatively that the four client organisations which were interviewed did not have high-risk FM services.\n6 Summary and conclusions: ABC FM Ltd initially intended to increase the number of clients. This investigation demonstrated that in order for FM suppliers to improve their turn over and profitability, they need to focus on the existing clients rather than the acquisition of new clients. Creating loyalty in existing clients increases their volume of business and is more profitable than acquiring new customers. In addition, retaining the exisiting customer base creates a solid reputation in the market place and will act as a catalyst to new relationships and contracts.Enquiring about clients' business strategies enabled ABC FM Ltd to expand their business with one client (Client 1). As a result of this knowledge they collaborated with the client to expand their EU presence. They also managed to sell their new energy service, which cut energy costs for the client. This strategic awareness of client's directions goes beyond the majority of existing client satisfaction surveys and KPIs and is qualitative in nature.The high level of knowledge of business strategies is often unknown to FM operational managers in client organisations. Therefore, building relationships with people responsible for FM in the client organisation will not yield this level of strategic awareness. FM suppliers need to develop periodic high-level review of client directions, which goes beyond existing measurement systems. Client satisfaction surveys need to move towards 360 degree client perception management systems.Review of client requirements requires both qualitative and quantitative data. Most existing benchmarking and client surveys are quantitative in nature, missing out on important strategic issues.Findings on the importance of management information for both operational and senior client managers indicate that there is a need for industry benchmarks both from a cost and a qualitative perspective. This is in line with the work by Wauters (2005).Findings on provisions of business solutions demonstrate that both client and supplier senior managers will benefit from guidelines on how to share best practice. Currently, there is little work in FM literature which provide guidelines.Clients want innovations that not only do not cost them, but potentially reduce their FM operations cost. Technologies such as remote monitoring are mentioned as potential technologies which can reduce operational costs. The introduction of any new technologies will initially cost the suppliers, however, in longer term these technologies can offer value. The findings indicate that the suppliers will need to absorb and manage these initial setup costs.Sustainability issues have not become mainstream business requirements for most clients. However, legislations and societal requirements in this area are changing fast. Suppliers need to be one-step ahead, with planning for future sustainable solutions, in order to respond to near future market requirements.In the end, however, FM is primarily about people and it is the people of the FM organisations that make or break customer relationships. Without the key staff with the key skills to deliver the required solutions the FM organisation will fail to thrive. The White Book guide to FM which is due to be published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 2009 is aimed at ensuring that even the least skilled practitioner is able to deliver FM services to a basic level. However, FM requires a combination of business acumen and bespoke skills to be delivered at a world class level and it is this unique point that will keep the very best staff in high demand.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore how facilities management (FM) suppliers can add value to their clients. It investigates client perceptions as well as the supplier perceptions, and searches for gaps between the two.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A literature search on client value sheds light onto key issues. The literature search is used to design semi-structured interviews for four large clients' organisations and one major FM supplier, both at operational and strategic levels. A total of eight client managers and six supplier managers participated in 1.5 hours interviews.\nFindings: - There is a difference in perception between operational managers and senior managers, both at the clients' organisations and the FM supplier. There are areas which are more significant for clients than suppliers. These include the issues such as: trust and provision of timely management information and management reporting.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As with any case study the sample size is limited. The clients' organisations were all trading organisations, and may not represent the views of the blue chip clients.\nPractical implications: - Suppliers need to spend more effort on creating loyalty in existing clients, rather than generating new clients. Suppliers need to focus on finding solutions for client's business problems, rather than merely delivering a contract. Client satisfaction and assessment tools need to take a 360 degree perspective, rather than the usual survey of end-users, or facilities managers.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a case study of how client value is dynamic and dependant upon the role of the client in their own organisation. There is no single concept of value for any client. The detailed findings highlight specific areas where there are gaps between suppliers' and clients' perceptions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Is Africa the land of the future? It is not a given!	[ "Africa", "Emerging markets", "Economic development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The majority of African countries will celebrate their 50th independence anniversary before the end of this decade. Many have already marked this milestone. Despite the special significance of crossing the half-century milestone, it is difficult to find examples of organized and widespread dialogue among the nations' populations to critically reflect on the prospects for the future. Fewer yet are continent-wide efforts to think about the significance of the milestone for Africa and its future: where are we coming from, where are we, what are the possibilities of the future, which is our preferred future, and how do we get there given the emerging global realities? Regardless, those that have marked the milestone so far have done so with elaborate celebratory parties and pageantries even though many of their citizens may not see a reason for celebration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This editorial aims to summarize the outcome of the Special Issue exploration on the theme \"Is Africa the land of the future?\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper contextualises and synthesizes the set of Africa-themed foresight papers included in the journal issue.\nFindings: - The exploration concludes that Africa faces a range of internal and external opportunities and challenges. These are historical, geopolitical, economic, demographic, psychological, and intellectual. Key drivers and analyses identified by seven authors are briefly presented.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The restricted number of papers that could be included in the single issue required a narrow selection from a large set of good papers and subject coverage. The issue and editorial therefore only address a few of the key drivers, in addition to some broad, foundational issues.\nPractical implications: - Neither mere optimism nor pessimism will determine Africa's ultimate trajectory. Concerted ownership, foresight and collective action by Africa's leaders and followers are the key to positive futures for the continent.\nOriginality/value: - The Special Issue is a unique contemporary African foresight contribution, which aims to provide a deeper understanding of the emerging challenges and opportunities for the continent.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
University presidents' conceptualizations of sustainability in higher education	[ "Sustainable development", "Higher education", "Universities", "Educational personnel", "Canada" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Sustainability in higher education (SHE) is a relatively new and emergent area of inquiry. As such, SHE researchers and practitioners have called for more documentation of university sustainability initiatives (Wright, 2007), in-depth research and evaluation of SHE through the development of comprehensive case studies (Corcoran et al., 2004), problem-based research into the role higher education can play in developing a sustainable society (Ubuntu Declaration, 2002), and interdisciplinary sustainability research with real world application (Clugston and Caldar, 1999; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2002).The study of SHE is an emerging field that has been dominated by studies of sustainability education, the greening of physical operations, university policy analysis, and descriptive case-studies, and is predominantly descriptive and often atheoretical (Fien, 2002; Wright and Pullen, 2007). While those who engage in the scholarship of SHE have a reasonably common conceptual idea of the attributes of sustainable development and what constitutes a \"sustainable university\" (Wright, 2007), there are few studies to date that investigate the level of sustainability knowledge of the major stakeholders within the university, or examine what stakeholders feel is the role of the university in creating a sustainable future. This represents a significant gap in the literature. If the university is tasked with responsibilities for creating a sustainable future, it is essential that all university stakeholders have a common understanding of the term sustainable development (Wals and Jickling, 2002). While research has shown that all levels of stakeholders within the university (administrators, students, staff, and faculty) must be engaged in sustainability initiatives and decision-making process in order to ensure their long-term success (Filho, 2005; Newman and Abrams, 2005), the literature also demonstrates that leadership is pivotal to institutional change (Clugston and Caldar, 1999; Hammond Creighton, 2001; Riggs, 1997), as well as a common barrier (Jahiel and Harper, 2004). This study examines how a cohort of university presidents and vice-presidents in Canadian universities conceptualize sustainable development, sustainable universities, the role universities play in achieving a sustainable future, key issues facing the university over the next decade, and the barriers to implementing sustainability initiatives on campus.\n2. Methods: The population for the study was limited to all Canadian university presidents and vice-presidents in Canadian universities who's institutions are signatories to the Talloires Declaration (N=29). Potential participants were contacted by e-mail and telephone by the primary investigator and asked to take part in a one hour interview about universities and sustainability. A total of 21 participants representing 17 universities agreed to be interviewed as part of the study. In the case of institutions where there were multiple respondents (in one case the university president and two vice-presidents participated in the interview together, and in another both the president and vice-president responded), responses were aggregated into one transcript to represent the university (N=17).Each participant was interviewed once. The majority of the interviews were conducted in a face-to-face setting, although geography and time required some of the interviews to be completed over the telephone. Interviews included questions about sustainable development and sustainable universities, and the administration of two checklists (contact author for copies). The checklists were developed after a thorough review of the academic literature and popular print media coverage pertaining to sustainable development and sustainable universities. The items in the checklists include both current thinking on the terms and what are often considered misconceptions about the terms. In all cases, participants were invited to add their own items should they feel something was missing from each list.All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed with the permission of the participant. Each participant was given a respondent number in order to assure confidentiality and participants were assured that their names would not be used in the publication of the results, nor would their individual institutions. This allowed participants to be candid about their university situations without fear of being judged or negatively impacted through publications.Data coding and analysis took place once all of the interviews were complete. The data were analyzed through the identification of respondent themes. The data were then grouped based on these themes, and then the groups combined into themes (McCracken, 1998). QDA Miner (Provalis Research) was used to generate codes and aggregate statistics.\n3. Results and discussion: The following sections report on the analysis of the data and are organized in order of question asked in the interview process. Frequency of responses are reported by institution (N=17).3.1 Question: what are the key issues facing your university in the next ten years?\n4. Conclusions: While focused geographically on Canada, this study offers insight into key issues facing Canadian universities, the role universities can play in achieving a sustainable future, and the barriers to implementing sustainability initiatives on campus, from the perspective of an often overlooked stakeholder group in SHE research. The findings reveal that this cohort of Canadian university presidents and vice-presidents have, at the very least, thought about sustainable development, and that most have contemplated the role the university can play in the broader sustainability movement. The cohort's conceptualizations of sustainable development tended to be more focused on the environmental aspects of sustainability rather than the social and economic. This was echoed in their understandings of a sustainable university where participants emphasized the greening of physical operations on campus as the paramount indicator. While teaching and research were mentioned as possible contributions that the university could make in creating sustainable societies, none of the participants called for the major restructuring of the disciplines or of pedagogy that many SHE scholars insist is essential to move forward. Conversely, while not a formal focus of the study, the interviews revealed that most presidents and vice-presidents were unaware of the emerging field of SHE. Finally, the cohort revealed that as administrators they were dedicated to their universities playing a role in creating a sustainable future. This result was not surprising given their institution's commitments to the Talloires declaration, but encouraging given critiques of such international sustainability declarations as merely \"greenwashing\" exercises rather than actual commitments to change.The results of this study have utility for both scholars and practitioners. First, the results provide a glimpse into the world of university administrators. The results provide context to SHE initiatives, and are helpful in understanding the plethora of issues facing presidents and vice-presidents when developing and promoting sustainability on campus. Second, the study makes a contribution to the evolving body of SHE literature by investigating the level of sustainability knowledge and understandings of the role the university can play in creating a sustainable future with a major university stakeholder group overlooked to date. However, a caveat should be offered regarding the generalizability of the results. By limiting the study to presidents and vice-presidents at Talloires signatory universities, the results may be skewed toward a sustainability way of thinking. Future studies should include all Canadian universities for a more comprehensive understanding of the Canadian university context. Further studies could also include a repetition of the study with other major stakeholders including faculty, staff, students, and the Board of Governors. Finally, a global comparison of major stakeholders' conceptualizations of sustainability and the university would be helpful to the SHE field.While the results of this research are valuable in themselves, the process of this study was equally beneficial to the goals and objectives of SHE. Upon reflection of the process, the study design proved an excellent catalyst to engage administrators in reflection and discussion about sustainability and the university. Catalytic validity demonstrates the degree to which those being studied come to understand their own reality in order to prepare them to transform it, and is a concept that can be appropriately applied in this study. Many of the study participants reported to have thought about the issues of sustainability peripherally in the past, but had never had the opportunity to engage in a focused discussion on the matter, or the opportunity to think deeply about the specifics of universities and sustainability. For example, respondents were invited to explore why their university had not yet managed to fully implement the tenets of the Talloires Declaration on their campus. This gave participants the opportunity to gain insight into the challenges and barriers of SHE. By offering assurances that individual names or institutions would not be used in the publication of the results, and designing the interview to be a conversation rather than a test of the administrators knowledge or an assessment of their institution (i.e. assessment of sustainability initiatives on campus), respondents were able to speak candidly about sustainability and engage in deeper level conversations about the role universities can play. Finally, offering the results of the study to all participants as well as the academic community opens the door to more conversations amongst university administrators and potential collaboration and collective development of future plans.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cohort of university presidents and vice-presidents in Canadian universities conceptualize sustainable development, sustainable universities, the role universities play in achieving a sustainable future, key issues facing the university, and the barriers to implementing sustainability initiatives on campus.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research comprises in-depth interviews with university presidents (rectors) and vice-presidents from Talloires Declaration signatory universities in Canada. Interviews include both closed and open-ended questions and two checklists focused on sustainable development and sustainable universities. Interview transcripts are analyzed through the identification of respondent themes.\nFindings: - The majority of participants are well versed in the concept of sustainable development, but less familiar with the concept of a sustainable university. The majority are dedicated to having their university become more sustainable. The most significant constraints to moving toward sustainability reported are financial predicaments, lack of understanding and awareness of sustainability issues amongst the university population, and a resistance to change.\nOriginality/value: - While higher education scholars have a reasonably common conceptualization of sustainable development and what constitutes a \"sustainable university\", there are few studies to date that investigate the level of sustainability knowledge of the major stakeholders within the university, or that examine what stakeholders feel is the role of the university in creating a sustainable future. If the university is tasked with responsibilities for creating a sustainable future, it is essential that all university stakeholders have a common understanding of the term sustainable development. This paper attempts to make a contribution to this significant gap in the literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The bidirectional mistrust: Callers' online discussions about their experiences of using the national telephone advice service	[ "Consumer attitudes", "Nursing", "Distrust", "Internet forums", "Antagonistic effects", "Cyber nursing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Telephone advice nursing (TAN) is one way of steering patient flows through the limited resources of health care organizations. Each caller is triaged by a registered nurse and, if appropriate, referred to the correct level of care. TAN is common within several countries such as the UK, Canada, the USA and the Netherlands (Knowles et al., 2014: Snooks et al., 2008). NHS (2018) 111 in the UK answered 1,564,236 calls in March, with an average of 50.5 thousand calls per day (NHS 111). However, the way it is performed and organized varies depending on the country's healthcare organizations (Hansen and Hunskaar, 2011; Knowles et al., 2014; Rutenberg and Greenberg, 2012). The Swedish TAN service, Swedish Healthcare Direct (SHD), was launched in 2003 and was inspired by NHS 111 in the UK. SHD is one of Sweden's largest healthcare providers, receiving 5.5 million calls (i.e. patient contacts) each year. It is reachable 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and access is free of charge. TAN in Sweden is regulated in the same way as other forms of Swedish healthcare. SHD's mission is to produce \"good health and healthcare on equal terms for the entire population\" and to work to \"prevent ill health\" (HSL, 1982/1999, p. 763; Patient Act, 2014, p. 821).\nLiterature review: Callers' perceptions of TAN\nMethod: A descriptive research design (Patton, 1990) was chosen in order to gain an in-depth understanding of a specific social phenomenon. A review of the existing literature revealed a lack of studies investigating communication among people who visit an internet-based forum to discuss their experiences of and attitudes to using the TAN service. In studying social phenomena, it is not possible to capture an absolute truth, although the phenomenon of study can be captured and described in one of many plausible ways. Thus, the descriptions must take into account the fact that the callers' experiences and attitudes are influenced and colored by their social, historical, and cultural context (see for example Glaser and Strauss, 2017; Miles, 1994). In the past, cultures and interest groups were located geographically in the same area. However, with the development of computer-mediated communication, cultures are no longer bound to a spatial spot, and thus cyber cultures have developed (Boyd and Ellison, 2008; Kozinets, 1998). The present study's epistemological approach is in line with Halford and Leonard (2003): \"Not only do people make spaces, but spaces may be used to make people\" (p. 202). Thus, online communications not only translocate sites of the social into a cyber-culture (Kozinets, 2015), but also form, construct, and reconstruct the identities, attitudes, values and norms of posters (i.e. the authors of electronic posts in a forum). A very concrete example of the extraordinary power that online communication has to launch groundbreaking changes is the Arab Spring of 2011. People used Twitter and other computer-mediated communication tools and platforms to tell stories, thus spreading ideas of freedom and democratic values (Howard and Hussain, 2013). There are numerous examples in the literature of research that adopts the basic principles of qualitative and quantitative approaches to study online communication. Several different terminologies are used for this, including internet studies (Wellman, 2004), digital anthropology (Miller and Horst, 2013), cyber-ethnography (Lee, 2017), virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000) and netnography (Kozinets, 2015). Kozinets criticized the blunt and analog use of netnography in relation to Hines' (2000) virtual ethnography, with the main critique being that netnographic studies aspire to a depth of inquiry into the cyber cultures, whereas the epistemology in Hines' method is superficial. Previous scholars have highlighted the potential usefulness of netnographic studies. For example, the tourism researchers Zhang and Hitchcock (2017) analyzed blogs written by Chinese female tourists while traveling in Macao and concluded that a gendered gaze is a socially contingent phenomenon. In addition, market researchers have also used netnography to map the identity of people who engaged in online discussion using a specific hashtag (Cuomo et al., 2016). In the present field of research, nursing science, Salzmann-Erikson (2015) conducted a netnography called \"Space Invaders\" to analyze how artifacts in nursing home environments exercise disciplining structures over the elderly. The netnographic approach was considered suitable for this study for two reasons. First, as stated by Langer and Beckman (2005), netnography is a suitable method when it is difficult to recruit participants to a study. The availability of web-based discussions provides immediate access to data without disturbing the presumptive participants. Second, conducting an observational netnographic study makes it possible to access the \"naturally occurring setting\" (Brewer, 2000), and hence to study posters' behavior in an everyday context which was not influenced by the researchers. Hence, it was also possible to engage in an analysis of the data that gave meaning to the actions as ascribed by the posters (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007). The main principles and steps of a netnographic study were used with the guidance of Kozinets (2002). The suggested steps involve the following: definition of the research field, research ethics, community identification and selection, community observation and data collection, data analysis, presentation of the results, and interpretation and discussion of the results.\nFindings: Callers who had contacted SHD used the service for a number of reasons; for example, a suspected tick bite, high fever, headache, or stomach pain. In some situations, they had called for help with their own problems, while on other occasions, they had called concerning problems related to their children's or spouse's health. Taken together, the findings of this study present an analytic description of the callers' different experiences of seeking advice and communicating with SHD. Most posters seemed to be familiar with how to get in contact with SHD, as the service is the first contact with the healthcare system. However, they had different attitudes and preconceptions toward the service. The callers seemingly wanted to receive credible and qualified support and professional advice from the nurses, but many of the forum posts bore witness to the opposite. Hence, even though the data revealed experiences of high-quality healthcare advice in the phone calls, many postings were about mistrust and complaints about indifferent nurses. A complex and bidirectional struggle was evident throughout the analysis. The results are presented in three themes due to their similarities and differences: expectancy and performativity of the nurses, absurdity in accessibility, and the scrutinizing game.\nDiscussion: The objective of the present study was to explore the ways in which callers visiting internet-based forums discuss and communicate their experiences of SHD. The most prominent finding that this study revealed was the scrutinizing game, which included aspects of bidirectional mistrust from both the nurses and the callers. Another important finding was the attitudes that callers held toward nurses who used a technique that was interpreted as \"passing the buck.\" Hence, this study provides new insights into the theoretical body of knowledge regarding TAN that have not been described in earlier research.\nLimitations and recommendations for future research: The present study used data from several internet forums. This methodological approach proved to be highly valuable for adding new insights which have not been reported in previous studies. However, it also has limitations. For example, demographic data for the posters are not available. It is also likely that posters who have engaged in forum discussions are not representative of the general population of callers; the sample might represent a population that has a certain interest in the field, which might explain the negative attitudes toward SHD. However, the present sample also included several posts that were both positive and neutral in character. Another limitation that is inherent with the qualitative approach is that we cannot present to what extent the callers are positive or negative toward TAN. Hence, future research can use Sentiment Analysis and Advanced Emotion Analysis which is available in social intelligence platforms (Sanchez-Rada and Iglesias, 2016; Thelwall, 2016).\nPractical implications: As shown in the present study, monitoring virtual discussions regarding the healthcare system may provide a new dimension of users' perceptions of the services, since the anonymity provided by the internet might help users to express their opinions more freely than in face-to-face encounters (Cipolletta and Mocellin, 2016). Healthcare providers, politicians, and researchers should account for the power and availability of virtual discussions when seeking consumers' opinions and evaluating the quality of the care provided.\nConclusions: Bidirectional distrust is an extraordinarily important issue which needs to be acknowledged by TAN services since these issues might damage the services on a fundamental level. Trust should therefore be a matter of priority in future development work among leaders and managers. Previous research has pinpointed the inherent limitation of tele-healthcare consultations, namely the absence of bodily communication, which may cause problems of bidirectional credibility/distrust (Holmstrom and Hoglund, 2007; Purc-Stephenson and Thrasher, 2010). However, with existing technology, healthcare providers increasingly offer video calls upon consultations. One way to overcome the bidirectional trust would be to add the dimension of visualization into TAN.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe online communication about the experiences and attitudes toward Swedish Healthcare Direct, a national telephone advice nursing (TAN) service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A descriptive research design was adopted using a six-step netnographic method. Three Swedish forums were purposefully selected and data from the virtual discussions were collected.\nFindings: Three themes emerged: expectancy and performativity of the nurses, absurdity in accessibility and the scrutinizing game. The most prominent finding was the scrutinizing game, which included aspects of bidirectional mistrust from both nurses and callers. Another salient finding was the attitudes that callers held toward nurses who used a technique interpreted as \"passing the buck.\"\nResearch limitations/implications: The use of a nethnographic method is novel in this area of research. Consequently, the body of knowledge has regarding telephone advise nursing service has significantly been broadened. A limitation in this study is that demographic data for the posters are not available.\nPractical implications: Bidirectional distrust is an important issue that must be acknowledged by TAN services, since it might damage the service on a fundamental level. Healthcare providers, politicians, and researchers should account for the power and availability of virtual discussions when seeking consumers' opinions and evaluating the quality of the care provided.\nOriginality/value: This analysis of the ongoing discussions that take place on the internet provides insight into callers' perceptions of a national TAN service. The bidirectional mistrust found from both the nurses and the callers might be a threat to callers' compliance with the advice given and their care-seeking behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sustainable business-and-industry foodservice: Consumers' perception and willingness to pay a premium in South Korea	[ "Sustainable development", "Price premium", "Corporate social responsibility", "Business-and-Industry (B&I) foodservice", "Institutional foodservice", "Sustainable foodservice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With growing concerns over global environmental crisis, sustainable development (SD) has been brought into the mainstream agenda across the world over the past 20 years. SD was first conceptualized when it was defined as, \"the development that meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs\", in the Brundtland Report by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987). Although debate over the concept of SD continues unabated, SD is generally regarded to ensure balance of economic growth, social equity and environmental protection.\nLiterature review: Sustainable foodservice\nMethod: Questionnaire\nResults: General characteristics of the respondents\nDiscussion and implications: This study, to the best of our knowledge, is one of the few attempts to determine consumers' general perception on sustainability issues in B&I foodservice and their WTPP for SBIFS in South Korea. The result revealed that sustainability in B&I foodservice was not clearly understood by consumers. Consumers' answers to the question regarding the perceived concept of sustainability in B&I foodservice were almost evenly diverged into the four answer choices. A total of 60 per cent of the respondents were found to perceive \"sustainability\" as being equivalent to being green or eco-friendly. In line with findings from earlier studies on perceptions of SD and sustainability (Kagawa, 2007; Summers et al., 2004; Choi et al., 2010), this result implies that more than a half of the respondents perceived the concept of SD uni-dimensionally as being predominantly associated with the environmental aspect rather than embracing the holistic nature of incorporating economic and social aspects as proposed by those organizations dedicated to sustainable foodservice.\nConclusions: Compared to cases in other industries, sustainable development in the foodservice industry can carry more significance owing to both the critical role of food consumption in human life, and the close interrelatedness of the foodservice industry with the environment through its supply chain. Baldwin (2009) also argued that managing sustainability issues in the foodservice industry will ultimately lead us to contribute to the balanced development of economy, society and environment. The current study revealed consumers' general perception of and willingness to pay a premium for sustainable B&I foodservice, and showed how the general perception and willingness to pay a premium were likely to be affected by their demographics and food-related lifestyles. Overall, the study's results suggested the potential of introducing sustainable B&I foodservice in South Korea and offered several insights in realizing sustainable B&I foodservice. Although foodservice companies cannot build strategies to achieve sustainable development solely on the basis of patron's viewpoint, knowledge of the current level of consumers' general perception and their willingness to pay a premium in regard to sustainable B&I foodservice will help the companies make strategic decisions to optimize the impact of sustainability initiatives in the foodservice industry in South Korea and beyond. Also, this study, as one of few attempts in South Korea, will lay a cornerstone for future research on sustainability issues in the foodservice industry with a more holistic approach embracing economic and social dimensions as well as an environmental one.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aimed to investigate consumers' perception on sustainable business-and-industry (B&I) foodservice and their willingness to pay a premium for it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online survey was conducted. Among the 978 respondents, a total of 548 respondents who used B&I foodservice equal to or more than five times a month on an average were included for analyses.\nFindings: The result revealed that consumers tended to perceive the concept of sustainability as \"equivalent to (32 per cent) or beyond (28 per cent) being green or eco-friendly\". Consumers appeared to perceive the need for and the quality of sustainable B&I foodservice highly, but their awareness was comparatively low. Consumers' awareness was significantly different across all demographic and food-related lifestyle variables. However, significant differences in the need and perceived quality were found only among food-related lifestyle variables. The result also indicated that 66 per cent of consumers were willing to pay a premium average of USD 0.72, 21 per cent of the reference meal price (USD 3.53) proposed in the survey. Consumers' gender and eco-friendly dietary lifestyles were the significant determinants in predicting consumers' willingness to pay a premium.\nOriginality/value: With concerns over environmental crisis, sustainable development has been a mainstream agenda across the world. However, the issue of sustainable development appears to be relatively overlooked in the field of foodservice research. This study is meaningful, in that it calls attention to the importance and potential of realizing sustainable foodservice and provides a starting point in relevant researches.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The dynamics of commissioning across organisational and clinical boundaries	[ "United Kingdom", "Contracts", "National Health Service", "Primary care", "Secondary care", "Control" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study uses principal-agent theory to explore inter- and intra-organisational relations in the commissioning of secondary care services in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Whilst commissioning by primary care organisations has featured in a number of evaluations, many detailed studies have focused on internal aspects of primary care budgets and incentives (Baxter et al., 2000; Dusheiko et al., 2000; Street et al., 2001), leaving a gap in our understanding of how primary and secondary care organisations interact with each other in relation to commissioning.Commissioning is defined as the process by which primary care trusts (PCTs) identify the health needs of their populations and make prioritised decisions to secure care to meet those needs within available resources (NHS Modernisation Agency, 2004). It includes long and medium term planning as well as the shorter-term agreement and management of service level agreements (SLAs). However, it is not only PCTs that are involved in commissioning. The many different organisations, managers and clinicians involved in commissioning and providing services in the NHS form a complex web of relationships, based on a mix of managerial and contractual systems.In this research, we have assumed a hierarchical chain of relations and placed PCTs above NHS Trusts in that chain. We have also placed NHS trust managers above consultants. This is one view of current policy, in which PCTs obtain their power through holding budgets from which they decide the quantity and type of services to commission. The recent introduction of choice (Department of Health, 2004a) has increased this power. There are alternative views. One is that the patient is the focal point and the hospital doctor acts as their agent. The hospital doctor should then work on behalf of the patient to ensure that the hospital allows provision of appropriate services for that patient. In turn, the hospital should ensure that the commissioners fund those treatments. In a further complication, both PCTs and NHS trusts are assessed on their performance by their strategic health authorities (SHAs) and the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection. In this respect they are equals, both acting on behalf of the government. For a fuller discussion of these relationships from the viewpoint of principal-agent theory, see Propper (1995) and Smith et al. (1997) and see Shortell et al. (1998) for a discussion of the dual nature of a doctor's role as agent.It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider all possible constructions of principal-agent relations surrounding commissioning. We focus instead on two sets of relations that are of direct relevance to the agreement and delivery of commissioned services: the contractual relationship between commissioners and NHS trust providers; and the managerial relationship between NHS trust management and consultant teams. For the purposes of this paper, each of these sets of relations is labelled as a \"tier\" of governance. Hence, tier 1 denotes the level at which commissioning negotiations take place and tier 2 that at which agreed services are delivered. The governance arrangements are different in each tier: in tier 1 they are contractual and in tier 2 managerial.Previous research has suggested that local government managers who take an \"active\" role in strategic decision-making are more enthusiastic and successful in implementing these strategies than their counterparts who choose to play a pure management role and have strategy decisions imposed upon them (Coleman Selden et al., 1999). If this were the case in the NHS, NHS trust managers and clinicians that are active in the health community's decision-making, in both managerial and contractual relationships, should be more successful in the implementation of agreements than those who are less involved. Indeed, in their study of total purchasing pilots, Robison et al. (1998) suggest that NHS trusts became more active over time, as they and the pilots began to trust each other and work collaboratively rather than confrontationally. As a result, the contracting process itself became less important, and dialogue more important, in delivering change.However, where management styles and cultures are different, active involvement in decision-making may not be sufficient to agree or implement change. Themed editions of the British Medical Journal (22 March 2003) and the UK-based Health Service Journal (27 March 2003) highlighted the different perspectives on management held by doctors and managers in primary and secondary care. The potential conflict between the strong management styles perceived as necessary to achieve change and the negative effect these can have on clinical freedom has also been recognised (Marshall et al., 2003). Whilst some tensions can help the different sections in organisations to learn from one another (Lamb and Cox, 1999), there is a tendency for senior managers to focus on organisational aspects and health professionals to focus on clinical issues (Crilly and Le Grand, 2004; Hills and Gulliver, 2000).This paper explores these and other commissioning-related interactions between PCT and NHS trust managers and clinicians. The remainder of the paper gives an overview of the theory of principals and agents, presents the methods and findings from the empirical work, and finishes with a discussion of the main findings and a brief conclusion.The principal-agent framework\nMethods: This paper reports one part of a larger study to investigate the role of PCTs as commissioners of secondary care services in England (Baxter, 2004; Baxter et al., 2002). The structure of the NHS in other parts of the UK is different.Three case studies were selected purposively to reflect characteristics considered important to both commissioning and principal-agent theory. Each case study comprised an NHS trust, a lead commissioning PCT and up to three other local PCT commissioners. The case studies were selected according to a sampling frame which included the following items: the number of practices in the PCT, the percentage of patients classified as rural, the difference between the actual and target allocation of funds to the PCT, the number of potential providers, and the number of PCTs commissioning services from the NHS trust. The sampling frame was informed by a survey of PCGs and PCTs undertaken in 2001 (Baxter et al., 2001; Baxter et al., 2002). The National Database for Primary Care Trusts (available at: www.primary-care-db.org.uk/) provided data for primary care organisations in 1999/2000 for the first three items listed. The latter two were estimated from information given on PCTs' web sites; this information was taken into account only for those PCTs considered in the final selection process. Table I gives the characteristics of each case study.The case studies were analysed qualitatively using observation, interviews and documentary evidence. In total, 13 commissioning-related meetings were observed in order to gain an understanding of the ways in which PCTs and NHS trusts acted as principals and agents, and how these relations were managed. These were followed by interviews with key players and analysis of Service and Financial Framework and Service Level Agreements. This method of \"triangulation\" was used in order to capture as wide as possible a view of the commissioning process and to increase the validity of the findings through comparison within and across case studies of the different sources of data (Barbour, 2001; Mays and Pope, 1995; Yin, 1994). The results given in this paper are derived principally from the interviews with managers and clinicians.A total of 34 interviews were conducted. Of these 21 were with managers: 11 were with PCT managers, eight with NHS trust managers and two from health authorities. A total of 13 clinicians were interviewed: seven were general practitioners and six were consultant surgeons (including three directorate managers). All of the interviews took place between March 2002 and January 2003. The management interviewees were selected in part to represent the leaders of the organisations (for example, the chief executives of PCTs and NHS trusts) and in part to capture the views of the main players in the commissioning process as determined by the observations of meetings (for example, a PCT waiting list manager and an NHS trust director of operations). Consultant surgeons rather than physicians were selected for interview because discussions about surgical waiting times dominated many of the observed commissioning meetings.The interviews were conducted using a topic guide to ensure that all the areas of interest were covered in each interview. Questions were open-ended and the order of questioning varied according to the interviewees' responses. The topic guides covered five broad areas of interest based on fundamental elements of principal-agent theory. In addition to general background information and respondents' understanding of commissioning, the interviewees were asked about their organisation's objectives and those of the PCT/NHS trust they were working with, as well as how the different organisations tried to ensure their own objectives were met. It is assumed in principal-agent theory that the agent has objectives that are different to the principal. The purpose of this section was to determine how, if at all, the objectives of the PCTs and NHS trusts differed and how any differences were reconciled. The next section asked about information, in particular the extent to which commissioning-related information and decisions were shared between organisations. The purpose of this section was to explore the assumption in principal-agent theory that the agent has access to information not available to the principal, and uses that information to gain advantages. The penultimate section of the topic guide arose from the political science and sociological concepts of agency. It probed for respondents' perceptions of the roles that their organisations were playing within the system, and how they felt about those roles. The final section covered the issues of monitoring and external influences on commissioning. Agency theory assumes that the principal is indifferent to the way in which an agent carries out a task, as long as it is carried out in a diligent manner. The principal is concerned only with outcome. However, the principal may monitor the agent's actions more closely where, as is the case in the NHS, incentives are not well used and outcomes not easily measured.All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed in full. KB coded the transcripts with the aid of the qualitative data management software Atlas.ti. Sections of transcripts and codes were reviewed and discussed with MW and JL at project meetings. Codes and quotations derived from interview transcripts were compared with those from observational data and documents to compare and contrast meanings.Ethical approval was obtained and all interviewees were assured that their views would be reported anonymously. Quotes given in this paper are labelled with the case study letter, transcript number and respondent type (for example, A24 PCT manager).\nCase study findings: The organisations acting as principals and agents in tier 1 were different in the different case studies. In A, the PCT played virtually no role in the commissioning of services; the SHA negotiated directly with the NHS trust. In B and C, the PCTs met and discussed service provision and finances with their respective NHS trust providers. In all three case studies, however, the commissioning process was contractual, resulting in an SLA between the commissioner and the provider stating the level of service provision and associated costs. The findings are arranged by case study and by tier.Case study A, tier 1\nDiscussion: Summary of findings\nConclusion: At whichever level creeping commissioning is dominant, strong control is important. The NHS is a service in which resources are limited and the commissioning process is intended to be led by need, strengthened recently with the introduction of payment by results and patient choice, with money following the patient. The challenge is to prevent inappropriate initiatives whilst still allowing appropriate ones to be discussed and developed through the proper channels. As one NHS trust manager commented, PCTs have a right to ask what services are being delivered by NHS Trusts, but they have no right to ask how they are being delivered.The findings from this study suggest that if either contractual or managerial governance systems are too strong and perceived as excessively controlling, they can lead to creeping commissioning and demoralisation among clinicians and managers. Allowing greater scope for local innovation within national targets, and thus local ownership, is one solution to this problem. Incentives to encourage compliance with commissioning agreements should promote yet control freedom in decision-making. If government targets and frameworks are to be met through commissioning, it may be advantageous to concentrate efforts on developing \"robust\" incentives that align clinician with NHS trust objectives as well as NHS trust with PCT and government objectives (Le Grand, 2003). Indeed, people from different disciplinary backgrounds or cultures, in any system, that are tasked with working towards a common aim will recognise these findings and may be encouraged to take a new look at the effects of their local incentive structures. Incentives within organisations are as important as those between organisations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to investigate the inter- and intra-organisational relationships in the commissioning of secondary care by primary care trusts in England, using a principal-agent framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology is a qualitative study of three case studies. A total of 13 commissioning-related meetings were observed. In total, 21 managers and six consultant surgeons were interviewed.\nFindings: - There are a number of different levels at which contractual and managerial control take place. Different strengths of control at one level can affect willingness to comply with agreements at other levels. Agreements at one level do not necessarily result in appropriate or expected action at another.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The system for commissioning in the National Health Service (NHS) has changed with the introduction of payment by results and practice-based commissioning. However, the dynamics of the inter- and intra-organisational relationships studied remain.\nPractical implications: - Incentives within organisations are as important as those between organisations. Within a chain of principal-agent relations, it is important that a strong link in the chain does not result in the exploitation of weaknesses in other links. If government targets and frameworks are to be met through commissioning, it may be advantageous to concentrate efforts on developing incentives that align clinician with NHS trust objectives as well as NHS trust with primary care trust (PCT) and government objectives.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is based on original empirical work. It uses a principal-agent framework to understand the relationships between PCTs and NHS trusts and highlights the importance of internal NHS trust governance systems in the fulfilment of commissioning agreements.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Diversity and inclusion by design: best practices from six global companies	[ "Globalization", "Best practices", "Diversity and inclusion" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Faced with major demographic shifts and globalization, organizations must adapt to new customer demands and how they attract, retain and develop talent. The diversity and inclusion (D&I) function has been a fixture in many large American corporations since the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It began with affirmative action legislation designed to remedy discrimination. Over time, the concept of D&I has evolved, from a compliance focus to a much broader definition that incorporates many aspects of diversity (such as race, ethnicity, cultural background, gender, age, sexual identity and preference, physical abilities, values, etc.), that emphasizes an inclusive environment in which all employees are respected, valued and able to fully contribute.\nEssential to success: Global organizations must understand the differences in D&I in the regions, countries and communities in which they operate, requiring a thoughtful approach that balances consistency with flexibility to respond to local priorities. For BASF, the world's leading chemical company, \"Diversity and inclusion is a priority,\" says Rossman. \"We understand that having a diverse and inclusive culture drives innovation and helps us meet our customers' needs by bringing a broad range of the best ideas, thoughts and solutions to solve some of the world's biggest challenges through chemistry. We think of this as having the right chemistry for growth.\"\nUSA vs other geographies: Given its roots as an immigrant nation, the USA is often viewed as being highly diverse, but all countries have diversity of some kind. Even in seemingly homogeneous countries, such as Japan, for example, age, disability, and gender are present.\nApproach has evolved: Many of these organizations have employee resource groups (ERGs), also known as affinity groups or business resource groups; such networks were initially established to promote a welcoming environment for minority or underrepresented groups (such as employees with disabilities, women, people of color, etc.), serving this important purpose well. Research has also demonstrated that these groups can have a positive impact on employee engagement and retention.\nIntegration of D&I into processes and practices: To ensure that D&I is sustainable over time requires accountability and meaningful measures that can be tracked (see the following list).\nMultiplying impact through partnerships: Many of these organizations partner closely with non-profits, their suppliers and others to expand the reach of their D&I efforts.\nUsing D&I as a source for new ideas/innovation: Moving beyond the status quo to leverage new perspectives and ideas is essential to promote innovation. Diverse viewpoints, welcomed in an inclusive culture, can promote cross-pollination of ideas and yield new insights that would otherwise not occur.\nKey priorities going forward: With a strong foundation in place, these organizations are focused on sustaining D&I success and continuing to adapt to a changing world. \"We are focused on this as a long-term change initiative,\" says Williams of Volkswagen, \"We want to focus on bring in diverse people early and be purposeful in creating cross-functional experiences to prepare them for leadership roles.\"\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to share best practices for diversity and inclusion from six global companies and to make the business case for its importance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were conducted with diversity and inclusion leaders in the USA from Volkswagen, Sodexo Health Care and Government Services, Sanofi, L'Oreal, BASF North America, and China Merchants Bank New York.\nFindings: Key findings related to the importance of tailoring global diversity and inclusion strategies and programs to local needs; embedding practices throughout the organization; multiplying impact through external partnerships and leveraging this as a source of innovation.\nResearch limitations/implications: The article provides a range of diversity and inclusion best practices that can be adapted by different organizations, as multiple industries (including pharmaceuticals, banking, automotive, etc.) are included. However, the findings do not represent a comprehensive picture of all global diversity and inclusion best practices.\nPractical implications: The article provides a range of diversity and inclusion best practices that can be used to benchmark other organizational practices and to add new programs and initiatives for better D&I impact.\nOriginality/value: This is a fully original paper which combines secondary research with illustrative quotes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Heavy work investment, personality and organizational climate	[ "Personality", "Work engagement", "Organizational climate" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Some employees allocate more time and energy to their work than others. Is this so-called workaholic heavy work investment (Astakhova and Hogue, 2013) associated with a particular organizational climate or with certain personality traits, or with both? On the one hand, organizations may unintentionally act as the \"pushers\" or \"enablers\" that encourage heavy work investment of their employees (Holland, 2008). In other words, a particular organizational climate may induce heavy work investment. On the other hand, a case can also be made that heavy work investment is related to the employee's personality; that is, personality characteristics may predispose employees to invest heavily in their work. Conceptual frameworks have been proposed that conceive heavy work investment as the combined result of organizational climate and dispositional traits (e.g. Ng et al., 2007; Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010). Basically, these are general, heuristic frameworks that do not specify particular interactions or joint effects. So far the intriguing question what makes employees work hard, a seductive organizational environment or personal inclination has not been studied. This paper seeks to answer this question for two forms of heavy work investment: workaholism and work engagement, a \"bad\" and \"good\" kind of heavy work investment, respectively (Taris et al., 2015). More specifically, the current study investigates the simultaneous, independent impact of the Big Five personality factors and organizational climate (i.e. overwork and personal growth climate) on workaholism and work engagement.\nPersonality and heavy work investment: Accumulating evidence exists that almost all personality characteristics can be incorporated in the Big Five personality model, consisting of: neuroticism (i.e. emotional instability, stress-proneness, insecurity, and depression); extraversion (i.e. sociability, ambition, energy, and assertiveness); agreeableness (i.e. being cooperative, caring, and likeable); consciousness (i.e. persistence, dependability, and being organized); and openness (i.e. sensitivity, being intellectual and imaginative, curious, and broadminded) (McCrae and John, 1992).\nOrganizational climate and heavy work investment: Organizational climate refers to the shared perceptions of employees and the meaning they attach to the policies, practices, and procedures they experience in their workplace, as well as to the behaviors they observe being rewarded, supported, and expected (Schneider et al., 2013). In line Schneider (1975), who argued that the content of organizational climate should depend on the outcome of interest, two specific climates (i.e. overwork climate and employee growth climate) are investigated which are related to two specific outcomes (i.e. workaholism and work engagement, respectively). It is plausible that organizational climate is associated with heavy work investment because a working environment that embraces rather than condones heavy work investment will reinforce such behavior.\nMethod: Sample\nResults: As can be seen from Table III, a-coefficients of all scales exceed the value of 0.70, which is generally considered to reflect sufficient internal consistency.\nDiscussion: The current study set out to investigate the relative contribution of work environment (i.e. psychological climate) and personality (i.e. Big Five personality traits) in explaining two forms of heavy work investment (i.e. workaholism and work engagement). More specifically, it was expected and found that: an overwork climate that expects employees to work beyond scheduled hours, engage in unpaid overwork, and take work home, is exclusively related to workaholism - a \"bad\" form of heavy work investment; an employee growth climate that emphasizes employee's growth and development by fostering learning, encouraging them to take responsibility, and stimulating their creativity, is exclusively related to work engagement - a \"good\" form of heavy work investment. Tellingly, the positive impact of both climate measures on both forms of heavy work investment was about equally strong. Furthermore, organizational climate is related to heavy work investment, irrespective of employee's personality characteristics.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative importance of personality and organizational climate for two forms of heavy work investment; workaholism, a \"bad\" and work engagement, which represents a \"good\" kind of heavy work investment. More specifically, it is hypothesized that workaholism is positively related to neuroticism (H1) and that work engagement is negatively related to neuroticism and positively to the remaining Big Five personality traits (H2). In addition it is hypothesized that workaholism is positively related to an overwork climate (H3), whereas work engagement is positively related to an employee growth climate (H4).\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online survey was conducted among a sample of the Dutch workforce (n=1,973) and the research model was tested using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: It appeared that, in accordance to H1 and H2, particularly neuroticism is related to workaholism, while all personality traits are related to work engagement (predominantly openness to experience and neuroticism). Moreover, and also in accordance with the hypotheses, workaholism is exclusively related to an overwork climate (and not to a growth climate), whereas work engagement is exclusively related to an employee growth climate (and not to an overwork climate).\nOriginality/value: For the first time the simultaneous impact of personality and organizational climate on two different forms of heavy work investment is investigated. Since no interaction effects have been observed it means that of personality and organizational climate have an independent but also specific impact on both forms of heavy work investment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Towards "metacognitively aware" IR systems: an initial user study	[ "Worldwide web", "Information retrieval", "Cognition" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Much research has focused on building \"smartness\" into search engines. Techniques include automatic query expansion, faceted browsing, recommender mechanisms and intelligent agents (Adomavicius and Tuzhilin, 2005; Carpineto et al., 2001; Glitho et al., 2002; Hunt, 2006). Semantic web developments (Pan, 2007) offer the prospect of generally available direct question answering to complement more traditional forms of web-based retrieval.Machines can add great value to help the searcher based on powers not available to the human - resulting, for example, from the complex analysis of multiple documents and past interactions with users, and the harvesting of collective intelligence.Clearly, search effectiveness may be affected by many factors specific to topic and task. Cognitive factors relating to individual searchers have also been found to be influential in affecting searching, such as level of search experience, domain knowledge and cognitive style (Chen et al., 1998; Ford et al., 2005; Holscher and Strube, 2000; Jenkins et al., 2003).The development of robust models linking cognitive features with search behaviour and effectiveness offers the potential to develop adaptive search mechanisms and interfaces capable of offering personalised support to - for example, by compensating for cognitive weaknesses on the part of - individual searchers.There has also been growing interest in the potential role of metacognition in this process. Metacognition, or \"thinking about thinking\", describes an awareness of one's own mental processes. It includes not only knowing what one is thinking, but also evaluating a thought process and possibly choosing to change it. It is an especially human ability, with a strong association with self-awareness, a term which some use interchangeably with metacognition (Fisher, 1998; Silven, 1992), though research has shown evidence of metacognition in other animals (Smith et al., 2003). It might be thought of as \"second-order thinking\", with its connotations of an exponential increase in flexibility. Research has shown that metacognition is a powerful tool in a range of learning tasks (Hill and Hannafin, 1997; Alexander and Judy, 1988; Brown et al., 1983).Despite the power of the concept, it has only in recent decades become a focus for research interest. Definitional problems abound (Moore, 1995), but the general consensus seems to be that the concept covers awareness, control and also factual knowledge regarding one's own cognition, that of others and aspects of the task. Flavell (1979) suggests that \"metacognitive knowledge consists primarily of knowledge or beliefs about what factors or variables act and interact in what ways to affect the course and outcome of cognitive enterprises\". Osman and Hannafin (1992) suggest that \"metacognition generally refers to awareness of one's own knowledge and the ability to understand, control, and manipulate individual cognitive processes\".In recent times, there has been an emergence of interest in metacognition in the context of web search and online enquiry. Quintana et al. (2005) refer to the growing amount of information available online and the increased attention being paid to on online inquiry. They focus specifically on metacognition in online inquiry, highlighting the importance of metacognitive skills in the domain of online enquiry, and point out that these skills are weak in novice learners. Cole et al. (2000) have also focused specifically on metacognition in the context of information seeking to support academic work. Overall, however, there has not been a great deal of empirical research into the actual and potential role of metacognition in searching.This paper reports the results of the first stage of an AHRC-funded project exploring the role of metacognition in web searching. The long-term aim of the project is to contribute to a user model capable of driving information retrieval (IR) mechanisms and interfaces which are able to offer adaptive personalised support to the individual searcher. This might be through a variety of means, including, for example, metacognitive prompting and scaffolding to compensate for weaknesses in individual searchers' metacognitive skills.The objectives of the first stage of the research reported here were:* To review existing conceptions of metacognition found in the research literature (which has concentrated predominantly on learning), and abstract key concepts, and build a taxonomy of metacognition applicable to web searching.* On the basis of this taxonomy, to construct and test a questionnaire designed to measure perceptions of usage of metacognition in order to enable these constructs to be included in empirical studies of web searching.\n2 Metacognition: 2.1 Definition and subdivision\n3 A taxonomy of metacognitive skills for web searching: The review above shows an accepted need to subdivide metacognition into a set of more specific skills, since the concept is a broad one. However, some confusion remains, with researchers choosing from a range of precedents. Some accepted concepts do not seem to fit with each other, though all appear relevant. Furthermore, the existing set of constructs does not cover everything that seems necessary in a new domain. In this section, we try to rationalise some of the existing concepts into a framework that is extensible to the online searching task.Osman and Hannafin (1992) describe metamemory (Brown, 1975; Flavell and Wellman, 1977) and metacomprehension (Brown, 1975) as subareas of metacognition. They also define self-regulation, schema training and transfer. Concepts of planning, monitoring and evaluation are established in the literature (Quintana et al., 2005). Here, we have chosen not to use self-regulation, because it is a broad concept arguably consisting of several others that we are using. We have chosen a core set of metacognitive skills, comprising schema training, planning, monitoring, evaluation and transfer.Metamemory and metacomprehension might instead be considered areas of application of metacognitive skills, i.e. to memory and comprehension, so here we have moved memory and comprehension to a separate dimension, within which the subskills of schema training, planning, monitoring, evaluation and transfer are applied. Table I provides an overview of this schema, with examples taken from the domain of online information seeking.Memory and comprehension are important areas in any learning task. However, for a task such as online information seeking, they are not the whole story. Here, we propose subdividing the remainder of the skills required into two sections; task and technology. This division is inspired by Wallace and Kupperman (1997) who also investigated web searching. \"Task\" describes aspects of the work related to achieving the goals of the learning exercise. For example, finding the answer to a question would be an achievement that demonstrates task competency. \"Technology\" describes aspects of the work related to mastery of the technology. In web searching, mastery of the technology is important in a number of ways and is critical to task success. Table II summarises the metacognitive skills as they relate to these two new areas.The two tables combine to create a classification tailored to the web search task. Any significantly new task will require an extension in the second dimension. In other words, the core metacognitive tasks are defined to be schema-training, planning, monitoring, evaluation and transfer, and that these are applicable across domains, and that metamemory and metacognition are not considered to be core metacognitive skills, but areas of application of metacognition.The other significant departure from earlier literature is the exclusion of self-regulation. Self-regulation is a complicated concept, though a powerful one. Self-regulation describes a person's ability to take control of their metacognition. It includes monitoring and evaluation, and the process of implementing the decision to do things differently, so the three skills of planning, monitoring and evaluation effectively cover it, though self-regulation implies a faster cycle, i.e. the ability to tune the process whilst the task is underway. The resulting schema is a compromise, aiming to cover metacognition using five well-defined concepts and allow for extensibility through the addition of a second dimension.\n4 Building and testing a metacognition inventory: 4.1 Method\n5 Discussion: Older people reported greater use of metacognition overall, as well as within most of the subareas of metacognitive skill that we identified, indicating that older people see themselves as using metacognitive skills to a greater extent (age correlates both with Factor 1 and overall questionnaire score). Older people also score lower on Factor 2 items. Factor 2 presents a picture of a speedy and confident searcher, perhaps disinclined to plan. Women did not score significantly higher overall, but did report higher use of metacognition in the subareas of task and monitoring. Furthermore, women, like older people, score significantly lower on Factor 2. Pure scientists scored higher than those in the arts on Factor 2. Perhaps, this is partially explained by the fact that the arts are dominated by women in our sample.It is important in this context, however, to note that lack of planning by no means necessarily implies ineffective searching. On the contrary, high levels of planfulness may, for certain types of need, inhibit effective retrieval, in that they may militate against a searcher taking advantage of the creative potential of the web's essentially associationist nature. It may often be productive for information seekers to follow ad hoc and unanticipated links encountered \"on the fly\" during searching. This type of relatively unplanned search behaviour may result in the retrieval of the type of unanticipated information conducive in certain circumstances to generating relatively creative thought (Ford, 1999).However, both the high-Cronbach alpha scores and the strong Factor 1 suggest that metacognition, as presented to subjects via the MILK inventory, was regarded as largely unidimensional. The scores reveal a lack of differentiation on the part of respondents between the detailed subcategories of metacognitive skills presented in the inventory. This may indicate that for this sample use of metacognitive strategies is largely unidimensional, i.e. levels of strategy usage do not vary greatly across different components of metacognition. Alternatively, it may indicate low awareness of metacognition on the part of the subjects, and/or difficulty in interpreting the inventory items as they were intended by the researchers. The inventory did present them with a moderately high number of items featuring subtle differentiations.Clearly, further research is needed, and indeed planned, to clarify these issues. In particular, it is planned to collect objective data in order to compare with data from the self-report inventory. This will include observation of actual usage of metacognitive strategies by participants during searching activity.5.1 Summary and conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe: a new taxonomy of metacognitive skills designed to support the study of metacognition in the context of web searching; a data collection instrument based on the taxonomy; and the results of testing the instrument on a sample of university students and staff.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The taxonomy is based on a review of the literature, and is extended to cover web searching. This forms the basis for the design of the data collection instrument, which is tested with 405 students and staff of Sheffield University.\nFindings: - Subjects regard the range of metacognitive skills focused on as broadly similar. However, a number of significant differences in reported metacognition usage relating to age, gender and discipline.\nPractical implications: - These findings contribute to the long-term aims of the research which are to: develop a model of the actual and potential role of metacognition in web searching, and identify strategic \"metacognitive interventions\" that can be built into an intelligent information retrieval system, driven by the model, capable of enhancing retrieval effectiveness by compensating for metacognitive weaknesses on the part of the searcher.\nOriginality/value: - The value of the paper lies in: the consideration of metacognition in the context of web searching, the presentation of an extensible taxonomy of metacognitive skills, development and testing of a prototype metacognitive inventory, finding of significant differences in reported metacognition usage according to age, gender and discipline, and reflection of the implications of the results for future research into web searching.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer ethics: insights from business professionals	[ "Consumer ethics", "Business ethics", "Digital communication", "Consumer education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One in five British shoppers have admitted to regularly stealing when using self-checkout counters (Taylor, 2018). More disturbingly, a doctoral student from China assaulted an Air France worker after being denied boarding due to late arrival (Li, 2017). Anecdotal evidence clearly points to consumer ethics--with many covert and overt manifestations across geographic and socioeconomic lines--as an important factor in today's business environment.A quarter century has elapsed since the pioneering works on consumer ethics by Scott Vitell and his colleagues (e.g. Vitell and Muncy, 1992; Vitell et al., 1991), but consumer ethics remains a nascent field of investigation (Swaidan, 2012). Much of the previous research has taken the consumer's perspective to address various issues concerning how consumers perceive, are motivated by, and act according to ethical considerations (Barnett et al., 2005; Giesler and Veresiu, 2014; Harrison et al., 2005). Arguably, consumer ethics is not a standalone phenomenon, but rather situated in a business context. As such, it should be heavily influenced by the prevailing business culture and ongoing business practices. Indeed, some recent research has already linked (e.g. Deng and Xu, 2017) or integrated (e.g. Caruana and Chatzidakis, 2014) consumer ethics with corporate social responsibility.We build on these recent developments to study consumer ethics from the business practitioners' perspective. After all, business practitioners are likely the ones who have the most experience--positive and negative--with consumer ethical issues. By qualitatively tapping into the first-hand experiences of senior business executives, this research illuminates the dynamic and interactive relationships between business and consumer ethics, and offers contextualized insights into the multidimensionality of consumers' (un)ethical behaviors. Overall, it enriches theoretical understanding of consumer ethics and points to many promising directions for future research.The remainder of this article is organized as follows. First, we identify several knowledge gaps based on a review of consumer ethics literature before outlining the research purpose. Second, we describe a discovery-oriented methodology for data collection and analysis. Third, we present the findings of three semi-structured focus groups in a thematic framework. Fourth, we close the article with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications.\n2. Research background: 2.1 Research motivation\n3. Research method: 3.1 Research design\n4. Research findings: The verbatim data revealed manifold incidents of (un)ethical consumer behavior as perceived by the focus group participants. Four major themes emerged from the aforementioned thematic analysis. Figure 1 below summarizes the four major themes and their respective subthemes identified by the research team. 4.1 Theme 1: interaction between business and consumer ethics\n5. Research implications: In the following discussion, we elaborate on the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings before proposing specific research directions for future research. Figure 3 is a graphical representation integrating the themes and subthemes identified above. 5.1 Mutual influence of business and consumer ethics\n6. Contributions, limitations, and conclusion: In a rare attempt to derive new insights into consumer ethics from the lived experiences of business practitioners, we reveal (1) the interactivity of business and consumer ethics and (2) the diversity of (un)ethical consumer behaviors. They point to many promising research directions such as an enriched definition of consumer ethics and a more nuanced categorical structure of consumers' (un)ethical practices.Although many new insights have been derived from the focus group data, our research was limited by the small and judgmental sample. Future investigations may seek generalizations of our initial findings with a larger, more inclusive sample, or by employing a multi-stage, mixed-method approach (Nacar and Burnaz, 2011; Sharp et al., 2012).In closing, two major insights of our research merit special mention. First, businesses apparently have the power to positively influence consumer ethics by taking the lead in ethical practices. Consumers, on the other hand, seem to have the upper hand in making their voice heard (with the new social media greatly amplifying their ability to help or hurt a company). As far as consumer ethics is concerned, the power dynamics between businesses and consumers should present many opportunities for research and strategic maneuvering. Second, our research yields a preliminary hierarchical structure of (un)ethical consumer behaviors. This effort corroborates attempts in the literature toward illuminating \"gray area\" activities that are \"questionable, but generally legal\" (Vitell and Muncy, 1992, 2005) and \"unethical yet justifiable\" (Punj, 2017). There is clearly much room left for conceptualization and validation of the multidimensional manifestations of consumer ethics. In light of the growing interest in broadening and deepening understanding of consumer ethics (Chang et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2019), this article is one step toward a more comprehensive framework that spans the full range of (un)ethical consumer behaviors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research aims to generate new insights into consumer ethics by tapping into business executives' first-hand experience. The overarching goal of this novel, discovery-oriented approach is to illuminate the interactive relationships between business and consumer ethics, and to offer contextualized insights into consumers' (un)ethical behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three focus group interviews were conducted with senior business executives representing nine different industry sectors. Thematic analysis was performed to identify key themes for an integrative model.\nFindings: Four key themes emerged, highlighting: (1) the mutual influence between business and consumer ethics, (2) the nature and intensity of consumer ethics, (3) the dual influence of digital communication, and (4) the partial influence of consumer education. The themes gave rise to an integrative conceptual model.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research was limited somewhat by the small and judgmental sample.\nPractical implications: Consumers' growing demands for business ethics underscore the need for companies to elevate ethical considerations. The amplified consumer voice on social media is dreaded by business practitioners and is regarded as unethical consumer behavior to be actively managed.\nSocial implications: Business and consumer ethics can mutually influence each other in a benign or vicious circle. Consumer education is effective in some but not all domains.\nOriginality/value: Business practitioners' insights reveal (1) the interactivity of business and consumer ethics and (2) the diversity of (un)ethical consumer behaviors. They point to the need for an enriched definition of consumer ethics and an expansion on the categorical structure of consumers' (un)ethical practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effects of a tax dividend cut on payout policies: Canadian evidence	[ "Dividend payout", "Dividend tax rate change", "Payout policy", "Share repurchase", "Tax clientele" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the USA, dividends have been disappearing since 1978 as firms become dramatically less inclined to pay them (Fama and French, 2001). At the same time, open market repurchases are increasingly popular (Grullon and Michaely, 2002), a trend that is expected to grow as more countries adopt enabling regulations. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether this trend can be generalized to other markets or whether the taxation system, more specifically dividend taxation, contributes to explain it. In this paper, we examine whether the significant dividend tax rate reduction for individual investors in Canada in 2006 affected firms' payout policies from 2003 to 2008. The 2006 tax cut reduced the dividend tax rate by more than 5 per cent.\n2. Taxation of payout distributions in Canada: We focus on the effect of the dividend tax disadvantage on payout policies in Canada. We begin by discussing the taxation of dividend income and capital gains in Canada. As in the USA, taxpayers are required to pay taxes based on their sources of income and their status. Whereas individuals are subject to taxes on all income sources (e.g. dividends and capital gains), several Canadian institutional investors may be either exempt from taxes on all income sources (e.g. pension funds) or not taxed on dividend income (e.g. Canadian corporations). Income earned by mutual funds is either taxed to the mutual funds or to the underlying shareholders. Similarly, income generated on shares (e.g. dividends or capital gains) held by independent investment advisors (e.g. brokers) is also taxed to the underlying shareholders. If these underlying shareholders are more likely to be subject to individual income tax rates, as assumed by Moser (2007) and Blouin et al. (2011), mutual funds and brokers should be more sensitive than other institutional investors to changes in the dividend tax rate. For individual Canadian taxpayers, the top marginal tax rate on dividend income decreased from 32.3 to 24 per cent between 2000 and 2008[3],[4]. The largest reduction was in 2006, from 31.3 to 25.1 per cent. Since 2000, capital gains have been taxed at lower rates than dividend income[5]. At the start of 2000, the top marginal tax rate on capital gains was 36.6 per cent. At the end of 2000, it was 23.2 per cent, where it has remained since. Hence, the tax disadvantage of dividends compared to capital gains was 8 per cent up to 2005, but only 2 per cent in 2006 and 2007, and merely 1 per cent in 2008.\n3. Related literature and hypothesis development: Previous studies concur that investors show a strong preference for cash dividends, and that this preference reflects individual behavioural biases (Shefrin and Statman, 1984). Tax clientele theory posits that tax-advantaged shareholders should prefer investing in high dividend-paying firms, whereas tax-disadvantaged shareholders should prefer investing in low (or non-) dividend-paying firms (Miller and Modigliani, 1961). Furthermore, DeAngelo et al. (2008) suggest that individuals' behavioural biases could reasonably be classified as clientele theories, and that firms should tailor their payout policies to accommodate shareholders' demands. Consequently, a dividend tax cut should influence firms' payout policies. However, the results are mixed on the ability of tax clientele theory to explain payout policy.\n4. Data and methodology: Data\n5. Empirical results: Descriptive analysis\n6. Discussion: Open market repurchases have become increasingly popular in the USA, a trend that is expected to grow as more countries adopt enabling regulations. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether this trend can be generalized to other markets or whether the tax system, more specifically the dividend tax system, helps explain it. In this paper, we examine payout policies in Canada from 2003 to 2008 in relation to the significant reduction (6.2 per cent) in the dividend tax rate for individuals in 2006.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the significant dividend tax rate reduction for individual investors in Canada in 2006 affected firms' payout policies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using regression models, the authors examine the impact of the 2006 dividend tax cut on dividends and share repurchases in Canadian listed firms from 2003 to 2008. The authors also ran a multinomial logit regression to examine choices between payout policies.\nFindings: Following the tax cut, firms increased their dividend payouts, with larger increases for firms in which shareholders benefited from the reduced tax rate. However, the 2006 tax cut appears to have had no negative effect on distributions through share repurchases. After the 2006 dividend tax cut, firms owned by shareholders subject to dividend taxes were more likely to use a combination of distribution mechanisms than share repurchases only, dividends only, or no payouts.\nPractical implications: Shareholders' tax preferences are an important factor for firms to consider when designing payout distribution policies. Following the 2006 dividend tax cut, firms increased their dividend payouts.\nSocial implications: The findings provide tax regulators with insight into how firms react to tax reform. They suggest that firms adapt their payout policy in the face of: a noteworthy dividend tax cut (6.2 per cent); a dividend tax cut that does not encourage tax arbitrage; and a dividend tax cut that does not economically favour dividend payment over share repurchases.\nOriginality/value: The paper considers the 2006 dividend tax rate cut in Canada, which presents a number of significant features that allow capturing the effect of a tax cut on payout policies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A grey-based DEMATEL model for building collaborative resilience in supply chain	[ "DEMATEL", "Collaborative", "Resilience", "Modelling", "Supply chain" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Supply chain management (SCM) emerged as a discipline around 30 years ago. Most of the theories and models of SCM had been developed when there was comparatively more stability in the environment (Christopher and Holweg, 2011). The main aim of supply chain managers had been to reduce cost and increase efficiency; therefore, practices such as Just-In-Time (JIT), lean, chasing low-cost suppliers, etc., were being adopted. Supply chains operating on such practices are fragile and vulnerable (Christopher and Peck, 2004; Sheffi and Rice, 2005; Peck, 2006; Ponomarov and Holcomb, 2009). Moreover, supply chains of today are exposed to new trends like increased information technology dependence, outsourcing, volatility of demand, decreasing product life cycles, etc. (Peck, 2005) - further becoming more risky and prone to disruptions.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Literature review on resilience\n3. Collaborative resilience: critical success factors: A complete list of research papers with topics such as supply chain resilience, supply chain risk management, supply chain disruption management, supplies chain collaboration, collaborative capabilities, etc., was complied. Through extensive review of the literature on these topics, we identified following eight critical success factors for building collaborative resilience in supply chain.\n4. Methodology: grey-based DEMATEL: Before elaborating on the methodology used in this research, we first review the quantitative methods or tools used by researchers in the past for modelling supply chain resilience.\n5. Discussion and implications: 5.1 Discussion\n6. Conclusion: Supply chain practices were developed during a period of higher stability and less environmental volatility. The practices like lean, JIT, etc. - while increasing profitability and performance - have also rendered supply chains vulnerable and fragile. This had led to increase in supply chain disruptions more than ever. Since supply chain disruptions by their very nature are such that the disruption may happen at one point in supply chain, its impact is borne by other supply chain members as well. In such a scenario, we endeavoured to explore and analyse the concept of collaborative resilience in supply chain. Through our research we identified eight critical success factors that are required to build collaborative resilience in supply chains. This analysis culminated into the model of collaborative research in supply chains, which we believe is the unique contribution of this research. The concept of \"collaborative resilience\" which has been studied in community resilience has been introduced to the area of SCM through this research. Through our survey and quantitative analysis, we found that organizations must first build individual resilience within their organizations before making collaborative efforts and investments with supply chain partners. Although we believe that introduction of the novel concept of collaborative resilience is a contribution to the literature of SCM, there are certain limitations, which may pave way for future research. First of all, the survey data are limited to few companies. Collection of more data from diverse industries and geographies would help in investigation of the model. Insights could be drawn on whether the relationships between factors hold the same for larger number of organizations. Second, this research is based on quantitative methodology. Since the concept of collaborative resilience is new to the domain of supply chain, we believe a qualitative investigation of the phenomenon through in-depth interviews or case study methodology seeking more insights on the critical success factors would be valuable to the literature.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of collaborative resilience through in-depth case study research in India. This study endeavours to identify and model the critical success factors of collaborative resilience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Eight critical success factors of collaborative resilience were identified through literature search. Modelling and analysis of these factors was conducted using grey-based DEMATEL method. Data were collected from supply chain experts in Indian industries.\nFindings: It was found that organizational factors like top management commitment and resilience system design exhibit highest causality on the entire system. Also, co-adaptive transformation and resilience goal alignment are most important for managers. Overall, this research provides a guideline and mechanism to build collaborative resilience in supply chains.\nPractical implications: Through the identification of eight critical success factors, this research has related and grounded the concept of collaborative resilience into pre-exiting supply chain practices and concepts. Through rigorous quantitative modelling and analysis of these factors, this research provides a guideline to managers for building collaborative resilience in supply chains.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that has proposed the concept of collaborative resilience in supply chain and has conducted empirical research on the phenomenon in India.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysis of introducing e-services: a case study of Health Insurance Fund of Macedonia	[ "Information systems", "E-services", "Healthcare", "Macedonia", "Health services", "Health Insurance Fund", "Electronic health card", "Web portal", "Insured people" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The budgets of patients and hospitals are rising as the cost for treating the diseases is growing. The increased costs in the overall healthcare system are imposing the need for savings. But this savings must not be at the expense and loss of quality of the healthcare, reducing the medication and treatments. One of the possible ways to save financial resources is to use electronic communication instead of paper communication between the involved parties (Bria et al., 2012).\nRelated work (literature review): The implementation of computer-based healthcare information system may oversimplify complex issues in healthcare system if the implementation is treated as a necessity and urgency. According to Bria et al. (2012) implementation of healthcare information systems has been a significant focus over the past decade but now is the time for IT professionals to collaborate with technology, quality and evidence-base practice. In this way, Paulin (2011) describes new electronic interface (Secure SQL Server) which allows the public read and write data in remote relational databases using digitally signed standardized SQL statements. While, using of a web health portal can be employed not only for reducing health costs but also to view patients' latest medical information in real time and carry out physician messaging to enhance the information exchange (Chowdhury et al., 2011).\nArchitecture of the IT system in the HIF: One of the basic problems in the e-services and e-documents flow in public administration is authentication of documents and fulfilling related legal and technical requirements (Kutylowski and Kubiak, 2011). The acceptance of the concept of electronic identity (eID) is a crucial for various internet-based services (Leitold and Zwattendorfer, 2011). Many European countries (like Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Italy and Finland) had started planning and developing their eID systems many years ago. Other countries provide eID via authentication portals using username and passwords (UK and Netherlands) and some countries rely on PKI software certificates and/or base their eID on banking authentication systems (Swedish).\nRealization of e-services (case study): As an example of introducing administrative relief, in this paper, we are consider three cases. The first case is for the services and administrative relief for the companies, the second for healthcare workers and third for insured people. A brief description of each example is given in the text below.\nEvaluation and discussion: In section \"Realization of e-services (case study)\" we gave a brief description of three e-services offered by the HIF of Macedonia (e-services for insured people, healthcare providers and companies). In this section we will make a comparison of performance between using the e-services and the services based on conventional paper. Within the evaluation of the proposed new e-services we will determine the advantages of e-services vs conventional paper-based services.\nConclusion: In this paper, we have described the architecture of HIF's web portal and presented some e-services which are implemented in HIF of Macedonia. We have made an evaluation of the benefit of these e-services by calculating the savings. By using the HIF's web portal insured people, health professionals and healthcare providers and companies have the opportunity to achieve the rights of health insurance, access to some e-services and personalized healthcare information. In each e-service EHC is used as identification card for digital signing of documents.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Information systems play a significant role in the improving of health and healthcare, as well as in the planning and financing of health services. Fund's Information System is an essential component of the information infrastructure that allows assessment of the impact of changes in health insurance and healthcare for the population. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief overview of the affection of e-services and electronic data exchange (between Fund's information systems and other IT systems) at the quality of service for insured people and savings funds.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors opted for an exploratory study using the e-services implemented in Health Insurance Fund (HIF) of Macedonia and data which were complemented by documentary analysis, including brand documents and descriptions of internal processes. In this paper is presented an analysis of the financial aspects of some e-services in HIF of Macedonia by using computer-based information systems and calculating the financial implications on insured people, companies and healthcare providers.\nFindings: The analysis conducted in this paper shows that the HIF's e-services would have a positive impact for the insured people, healthcare providers and companies when fulfilling their administrative obligations and exercising their rights.\nOriginality/value: The analysis presented in this paper can serve as a valuable input for the healthcare authorities in making decisions related to introducing e-services in healthcare. These enhanced e-services will improve the quality service of the HIF.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The rainbow sign: climate change and corporate reputation	[ "Sustainability", "Climate change", "Corporate reputation", "Global warming", "2 per cent goal", "Fire next time" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The litany of apocalyptic anecdotes to highlight discussions of the coming ecological disaster has grown wearyingly familiar: references to Pompeii; the year without a summer of 1816, Biblical quotations about God's next judgment coming not by flood but by fire appear in the media on an almost daily basis. Learned articles debating how much the world's temperature will rise by 2050 or just how far under water New York will be by then proliferate, lending themselves to feverish headlines in the mainstream media about the disaster that is befalling human civilization. In spite of this, actual disasters, such as the disappearance of the monarch butterfly and the melting of the polar ice caps, are already occurring has done little to motivate the legions of climate change deniers to recognize that the risks are far from theoretical or in the distant future. Recently, however, one group of people, paid to think ahead, has started to ask public companies questions about their climate change preparedness. Investors and investment analysts comical from a certain perspective as this sounds, investors and investment analysts, having woken up to the potential financial consequences (positive and negative) of the coming apocalypse, want to know what companies are doing to manage the operational risks of climate change today and are rating them on the answers they are getting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to highlight the increasing importance corporate responses to climate change will play in corporate reputation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Review of the relevant secondary literature\nFindings: Companies that develop active responses to climate change will see positive impact on their corporate reputation.\nResearch limitations/implications: The review of the secondary literature is not comprehensive and subject to the author's qualitative interpretation of it.\nPractical implications: Companies that follow the recommendations will see a benefit in stakeholder appreciation.\nSocial implications: The more companies embrace a proactive stance on climate change, the more likely society is to meet the 2 per cent goal.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first treatment of climate change from the perspective of corporate reputation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information technology networked system for student mobility support	[ "Information systems", "Campus smart card", "International student exchange", "Personal data security" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The aim of the Bologna Process is to create a European Higher Education Area based on international cooperation and academic exchange of students and staff[1]. This idea is strongly supported by the Erasmus program, which is a part of European Union's Lifelong Learning Program[2]. The program, established in 1987, offers students and universities' staff an opportunity to study or work in another European country for a period of minimum three and maximum 12 months. The program includes financial support for studying and working abroad, foreign language preparation, multilateral projects, and university cooperation. The number of students and academics benefited from the Erasmus grants increases year by year. For example, in the 2011/2012 academic year, more than 250,000 students from 33 countries spent part of their studies abroad at around 4,000 colleges and universities.\n2. Related works/research: The problem of standardization of the trans-national learning documents and certifications has been addressed by the European Parliament, and the Europass initiative was established in 2004 to increase mobility of citizens[4]. Within the initiative, a paper form of the Mobility Certificate has been standardized; the document certifies knowledge and skills acquired during study or work in another country. Another product of the initiative was a prototype system to exchange the electronic documents between the higher education institutions. However, that system did not support the management of student mobility process in any way - it was focused only on secure exchange of the final data concerning mobility, namely Transcript of Records and Skills and Competences acquired, necessary to issue the Europass Mobility document (Athanassios and Philippe, 2006).\n3. System architecture: System architectures with a centralized database were not considered because most European countries do not permit personal data storage and processing on the territory of another country. We proposed a peer-to-peer architecture with a network of applications and databases located at the individual universities. Each of the databases contains the information concerning only the home outgoing students but not the incoming students. Each of the applications processes only the local data but can have an indirect, read-only access to the strictly defined data of the peer databases, and can remotely trigger the strictly defined group of functions and procedures at the peer sites. The actual data processing is always performed locally and the selected results can be presented to the authorized users at the cooperating institutions.\n4. Compatibility and interoperation issues: In the target peer-to-peer system, the cooperating SCMs communicate with each other using Internet infrastructure. The communication protocol is based on a widely accepted and stable remote procedure call technology named web services, which allow for integrating diverse systems using independently developed software.\n5. Conformance with student mobility standards: The student exchange model was derived from the Erasmus program rules and regulations. The model was further expanded in cooperation with international exchange office at the TUL to include national and university procedures. The following student exchange procedures are consistent with the Erasmus standards:\n6. Security and mutual trust: Security issues are very important in any public peer-to-peer network. Ideally, the node's security level should be controlled exclusively by that node and cannot be affected by any other node. In practice, this goal can be achieved to a certain extent.\n7. Testing, validation and trials: Because of the practical context of the project, the system testing and validation were being performed constantly by all the consortium members. The cooperation within the consortium in this area can be summarized as follows. The research teams were producing the project's deliverables to a specified quality level, within the acceptance criteria formally defined in the project documentation. The enterprise parties were responsible for the final acceptance of all deliverables and then took up and exploited the results to their own advantage.\n8. Summary and conclusions: The SCM has been designed as a part the EECS system to support the international student exchange process. The system architecture is a combination of an original network of nodes cooperating using WS, and the existing network of certification authorities working within the trusted and commonly used Public Key Infrastructure. This approach solves the technical and legal problems identified during the first phase of the project. The peer-to-peer distributed database structure ensures that the information protection rules being in force in many European countries are obeyed. The SCM software, run at the educational institutions, enables their cooperation across the Internet. The built-in interfaces allow for communication with any AIS. The use of the trusted PKI solution along with strong cryptographic algorithms delivers a high level of security and mutual trust. Lastly, the system architecture along with the database connection pooler, mitigate considerably the system scalability issues.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper presents an IT system - Student Connectivity Module (SCM) - designed to support administration of student exchange between universities in different countries, developed under the EU seventh Framework Program. The purpose of this paper is to share the acquired knowledge on existing difficulties in mobility management, propose solutions to those problems, and present results of system validation using its prototype deployed at two universities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Prior to the system design, the needs, plans and expectations concerning the academic IT services were surveyed among 100 universities. On this basis, in close with prospective system users, an original peer-to-peer system was developed using top-down model-driven and agile software development techniques.\nFindings: The barriers to effective interoperation of academic information systems (AIS) were revealed: first, diversity and heterogeneity of campus IT solutions; second, differences in patterns of international student mobility flow; third, diversity in national personal data protection policies; and fourth, lack of standards for e-data exchange. The SCM system overcomes these problems by adopting platform-independent IT solutions, web-services, a network of trusted authority servers, and a novel \"quasi-standard\" solution for e-data exchange, with the use of home university campus cards to access facilities at host institutions.\nOriginality/value: The management of foreign student exchange is a complicated process. It involves students, faculty, administrative staff and external institutions. To the authors knowledge, there is no other comprehensive networked IT system available to facilitate administration of student mobility, make it better controlled, less laborious and faster, in a secure way. The IT solution contributes to overcoming the current barriers to academic mobility within Europe and elsewhere.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A framework for developing employer's disability confidence	[ "Discrimination", "Social inclusion", "Diversity", "Disabilities", "Disabled workers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although people with disabilities are often willing and capable of working they continue to experience low employment rates, which can negatively impact their health and quality of life (Barnes and Mercer, 2005; Lindsay, 2011b; Ruhindwa et al., 2016). Common barriers to finding meaningful employment for people with disabilities are linked to stigma, discrimination and inaccessible environments (Edwards and Imrie, 2003; Fevre et al., 2013; Lindsay, 2011a; Lindsay and Yantzi, 2014). It is often challenging for people with disabilities to find employment because many jobs are often designed around an ideal abled-bodied worker, creating further disadvantages to those with disabilities who do not fit the image sought by employers (Edwards and Imrie, 2003; Foster and Wass, 2013; Lindsay et al., 2014).\nMethods: Our objective was to explore the concept of disability confidence from the perspectives of employers who hire young people with a disability and employees with a disability. Specifically, a qualitative design was used that involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with youth who have disabilities and employers who hire youth with disabilities. Ethical approval was received from a rehabilitation hospital and a local university. All participants provided written consent prior to conducting the interviews.\nResults: The demographic characteristics of the sample are outlined, then each of the main themes related to disability confidence are described (see Figure 1). First, this paper explains how disability discomfort involves stigma and discrimination. Second, \"reaching beyond your comfort zone\" involves disability awareness training and gaining knowledge, shared lived experiences, and the business case for hiring people with disabilities. Third, the paper discusses how employers \"broadened perspectives,\" which involved challenging stereotypes, minimizing bias and focusing on abilities. In the final stage, disability confidence comprised a supportive and inclusive work culture, where employers are leading and modeling social change. Although each of the stages are described sequentially, the development of disability confidence is an ongoing process.\nDiscussion: This study addressed an important gap in the literature by exploring the concept of disability confidence from the perspectives of employers who hire people with disabilities and employees with a disability. Unraveling how employer's disability confidence develops can help to better promote the meaningful inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace. Many people without disabilities, including employers, are often uncomfortable around those who have a disability (Fichten et al., 2005; Lindsay and Cancelliere, 2018). Finding ways to minimize disability discomfort is critical because having discomfort can lead to stigma and discrimination toward people with disabilities (Fichten et al., 2005; Lindsay, 2011a; Lindsay and Cancelliere, 2018). Negative attitudes toward people with disabilities are often a significant barrier to successful social inclusion and rehabilitation (Morgan and Alexander, 2005). Therefore, understanding the components of disability confidence and how it develops among employers who hire people with disabilities is important for enhancing attitudes and behaviors toward people with disabilities in the workplace (Lindsay and Cancelliere, 2018). Persistent negative attitudes and behaviors toward people with disabilities is a barrier to successfully integrating into the workplace and the community (Morgan and Alexander, 2005). By developing an understanding of how disability confidence develops within the workplace, we can aim to improve attitudes and ultimately, the social inclusion of people with disabilities (Lindsay and Cancelliere, 2018).\nConclusion: Our results highlight that the development of disability confidence among employers is critical for enhancing the social inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce. Our study found four main themes in the development of disability confidence among employers. First, disability discomfort included a lack of experience and knowledge in working with people with disabilities, resulting in stigma and discrimination. The second theme involved \"reaching beyond comfort zone\" which referred to disability awareness training, the business case for hiring people with disabilities and shared lived experiences. Third, broadened perspectives included challenging stigma and stereotypes, minimizing bias and focusing on abilities. The fourth theme, disability confidence referred to having a supportive and inclusive work culture, leading and modeling social change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Many employers lack disability confidence regarding how to include people with disabilities in the workforce, which can lead to stigma and discrimination. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of disability confidence from two perspectives, employers who hire people with a disability and employees with a disability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted using 35 semi-structured interviews (18 employers who hire people with disabilities; 17 employees with a disability).\nFindings: Themes included the following categories: disability discomfort (i.e. lack of experience, stigma and discrimination); reaching beyond comfort zone (i.e. disability awareness training, business case, shared lived experiences); broadened perspectives (i.e. challenging stigma and stereotypes, minimizing bias and focusing on abilities); and disability confidence (i.e. supportive and inclusive culture and leading and modeling social change). The results highlight that disability confidence among employers is critical for enhancing the social inclusion of people with disabilities.\nOriginality/value: The study addresses an important gap in the literature by developing a better understanding of the concept of disability from the perspectives of employers who hire people with disabilities and also employees with a disability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Online social networks and leadership : Implications of a new online working environment for leadership	[ "Online social networks", "E-Leadership", "Situational leadership", "Authentic leadership", "Virtual teams", "New generation of leaders", "LinkedIn" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nSocial networks and leadership: Many approaches have been used to study online networking. According to the economic sociologists and organizational scholars, networks influence market outcomes in two different ways. The first view, termed by Podolny as \"the pipes view,\" points out that networks are conduits which transfer credible information about exchange opportunities, goods and resources between interested parties (Burt, 1992; Podolny, 1993). We can find references to this term in the research conducted by Granovetter on the role of networks in job search and career management (Granovetter, 1974; Caliendo et al., 2011). Prescriptively, the view of networks as pipes suggests that actors (companies or individuals), occupy structural holes or put themselves in positions of power (Casciaro and Piskorski, 2005). The second view, often called the \"prisms view,\" states that a network tie between two actors has implications not only for the two actors involved, but also for the third parties not involved in the exchange (Podolny, 1993).\nLeadership theories: Several theoretical approaches have been proposed to study leadership. To review the activities leaders use while undertaking human capital management in the organization, we used the theory of situational leadership and the theory of authentic leadership.\nSummary of hypotheses: According to the above, five (explanatory and exploratory) hypotheses were formulated:\nMethod: Sample characteristics\nResults: Descriptive analysis\nDiscussion: The purpose of the study was to examine how the importance of online social networks changes over time, which leadership styles (directive, consultative or participative) are more useful for leaders on the online networking platforms, how barriers and risks influence a leader's online activities and what are the predictors of usefulness of online social networks as a tool supporting authentic leadership.\nLimitations and future research: First, an important limitation of the study is the number of participants. Because online social networks have not been studied in association with leadership, and this topic is new for many leaders, participation in the study was not high. It is very likely that those executives who agreed to take part in the leadership networking survey show more interest in online networking compared to other executives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of online social networks in experiencing a change in working environment of today's leaders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study's participants were managers, directors and CEOs working in different organizations (including Fortune 500 companies) in the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Russian Federation, Australia and China. The data were collected through structured surveys delivered through LinkedIn to the managers, directors and CEOs. A total of 115 matched questionnaires were returned. Statistical analysis, using STATA software, was conducted to assess the research results.\nFindings: The results indicate that the importance of online social networking environment is growing. Furthermore the study shows that online social networks are more useful for participative and consultative leadership style on social networking platforms than for directive leadership style. A higher number of activities on social networks by leaders is positively associated with the higher number of platforms used by leaders for business purposes. It is also correlated with a lower percentage of people from the same organization in the leader's contacts. Finally, the findings also show that the usefulness of online social networks as a tool supporting leadership, depends on the number of activities, number of platforms and size of the company. Surprisingly, age is not a predictor of the usefulness of online social networks.\nPractical implications: Leaders that seek ways in which to foster their leadership, need to recognize the importance of online social networking environment and the possibilities of using online relations in various aspects of authentic and situational leadership.\nOriginality/value: This research provides knowledge regarding the usage of online social networks by many different leaders all over the world and suggests that a new generation of leaders will have to adjust to new working environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Two dimensions of trust in physicians in OECD-countries	[ "Healthcare", "Comparative research", "Trust", "Citizen", "Physician", "OECD countries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although trust is multifaceted and ambiguous, it plays a key role in all social relations. For example, trust in fellow citizens makes our daily lives easier and helps us achieve goals more efficiently as there is no need to constantly monitor one another (Putnam, 2000). Additionally, those individuals who report higher trust are usually happier and healthier than others, and nations reporting high trust seem to perform better regarding social equality, corruption levels and economic growth (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009; Rothstein, 2005). Trust in our fellow citizens and public institutions are also important factors on micro and macro society levels (Brehm and Rahn, 1997; Rothstein and Stolle, 2003).\nTrust in physicians and different healthcare systems: Trust is commonly studied in social sciences (Coleman, 1988; Mollering, 2006; Rothstein, 2005). Some studies focus on examining country-level variables and the individual-level factors' explanatory power when explaining institutional and generalised trust among Europeans (Kouvo et al., 2012; Kaariainen and Lehtonen, 2006; Rothstein, 2005). Previous research on different healthcare aspects has been conducted (Bambra, 2011, 2012; Immergut, 1992); e.g., social scientists studied physicians and their interests in different healthcare systems (Immergut, 1992; Saarinen, 2010). In this paper, these two research fields are combined.\nResearch hypotheses: Our study's purpose was to analyse citizen trust in physicians in 22 OECD countries representing different healthcare models: Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, USA, Israel, Chile, Australia, Finland, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. We use generalised and particularised trust as outcome measures. We assume that both associate similarly with our independent measures. In previous studies, demographic characteristics have not emerged as significant trust predictors; e.g., only some studies found that age has a weak positive connection with trust (Calnan and Sanford, 2004; Hall et al., 2001). However, earlier studies show that self-reported health crucially predicts people's trust in physicians (Calnan and Sanford, 2004; Mohseni and Lindstrom, 2007; Waikeung, 2012). Based on these findings, our main micro-level hypothesis is that low self-reported health is strongly associated with lower trust in physicians. We also assume that personal encounters with medical professionals increase trust. Our second micro-level hypothesis is that frequent meetings with physicians result in higher trust. This effect is arguably stronger when examining particularised trust but is also significant when examining generalised trust. The third micro-level hypothesis deals with age, gender and education effects. Here, we assume that males, older and better educated express higher trust compared to others. Earlier research shows that institutional trust among citizens is stronger in universal-based welfare states than in conservative or liberal models (Kouvo et al., 2012; Kaariainen and Lehtonen, 2006). Based on these findings, the first macro-level hypothesis is that lower income inequality leads to higher the trust in physicians. The second macro-level hypothesis is that greater physician density leads to higher trust in physicians.\nData and methods: Individual-level data were received from the ISSP Research Group (2011), which covers nearly 30 countries and represents citizens over 18 years. Data have been gathered every year since 1984 and in 2011-2012, healthcare was the main topic. We selected 22 comparable OECD countries. Based on OECD criteria, Bulgaria and Croatia were not included in our sample. There were between 1,000 and 1,800 respondents from each country. We use two trust in healthcare professional indicators as our dependent measures: generalised and particularised trust in physicians. Spearman's correlation between these two variables is 0.314 (p\nResults: Descriptive analysis\nConclusion: Our aim was to study how individual characteristics and macro-level indicators influence physician trust in 22 OECD countries. We differentiated two trust in physician dimensions: generalised and particularised. Generalised trust enables us to address an attitude towards physicians as a profession, whereas particularised trust addresses perceived skills among physicians. Drawing on preceding research, we suggested three micro-level hypotheses and two macro-level hypotheses for our study. In the empirical analyses, we found that individual and macro-level characteristic influence varies between trust types. Results indicate that both types are clearly associated with individual-level determinants. However, only general trust in physicians has weak associations with macro-level indicators and therefore to institutional cross-country differences. It seems that particularised trust in physician skills is more restricted to individual health and experiences with doctors, whereas general trust likely reflects attitudes towards the profession prevalent in the country.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse citizens' trust in physicians in 22 OECD countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors measure trust in physicians using items on generalised and particularised trust. Individual-level data are received from the ISSP Research Group (2011). The authors also utilise macro variables drawn from different data banks. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and xtlogit regression models. The main micro-level hypothesis is that low self-reported health is strongly associated with lower trust in physicians. The second micro-level hypothesis is that frequent meetings with physicians result in higher trust. The third micro-level hypothesis assumes that males, and older and better educated respondents, express higher trust compared to others. The first macro-level hypothesis is that lower income inequality leads to higher trust in physicians. The second macro-level hypothesis is that greater physician density leads to higher trust in physicians.\nFindings: The authors found that the influence of individual and macro-level characteristics varies between trust types. Results indicate that both trust types are clearly associated with individual-level determinants. However, only general trust in physicians has weak associations with macro-level indicators (mainly physician density) and therefore on institutional cross-country differences. It seems that particularised trust in a physician's skills is more restricted to the individuals' health and their own experiences meeting doctors, whereas general trust likely reflects attitudes towards the prevalent profession in the country.\nOriginality/value: The findings hold significance for healthcare systems research and for research concerning social trust generally.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigating sales approaches and gender in customer relationships	[ "Gender", "Relationship marketing", "Purchasing", "Accounts management", "Organizational buying behaviour", "Sales" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nTheoretical framework: In the broad literature on long-term relationships and relationship quality, there exists a specific interest in selling behaviors and their influence on the relationship (Crosby et al., 1990). While some of this research has examined an individual salesperson's activities, often the consequences measured were at the buying firm level (Doney and Cannon, 1997). Other researchers have expanded the literature to include customer responsiveness to selling firm activities (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999). Salesperson characteristics such as gender and race also have been examined as antecedent to customer decisions (Jones et al., 1998). Finally, research has shown that at the individual buyer level, the customer's perceptions of salesperson interpersonal behaviors influences relationship outcomes such as satisfaction and intentions towards future interactions (Ramsey and Sohi, 1997). This stream of literature suggests that, while relationship outcomes are dependent upon individual buyers' perceptions of their salespeople's influence activities, the judgments and decisions about those activities are differentially dependent upon the gender of the buyer.\nMethods and results: The sample is based on US-based business customers of a telecommunication company that provides long-distance and data services. Responses came from a self-report mailed survey from a random sample of the customers of the selling firm. Out of the original list of 2,068 customers, 840 usable questionnaires were returned for an overall response rate of 40 percent. Their average annual purchase from the selling firm was approximately $50,000. A cross-section of industries are represented among the purchasing firms (21 percent manufacturing, 21 percent distribution, 8 percent retail, 36 percent service industry, and 14 percent others). Three hundred and forty-nine buyers were female and 491 were male. Every buyer taking part in the study was responsible for the purchase of the business service being purchased. Respondents agreed that they were primarily responsible for the purchase of the service and felt they were their firm's primary contact with the salesperson.\nDiscussion: For salespeople and marketing managers a clear conclusion is that from the buyer's perception, a provocation-based sales approach is not effective, as it increases conflict and decreases perceptions of trustworthiness. These shortcomings of a provocation-based sales approach held for both men and women. Uncertain economic environments can create uncertainty on both the seller and buyer sides of the dyad. In addition, while additional research is needed, uncertainty alone does not seem a wise rationale for attempting high-risk provocation-based sales activities. Study results indicate caution is necessary when using provocative sales approaches. Highlighting or drawing attention to flaws or issues in the customer's business model or processes entails substantial risk.\nLimitations and future research: As with any cross-sectional study, this study is limited by not measuring the changes that occur between buyers and salespeople over time. It is clear that the study, while it was a pragmatic necessity of the data collection effort, is limited by the failure to sample a variety of selling firms. In addition, despite the detailed analysis of common method bias, the results indicating that CMV is not a problem in this study is suggestive only and does not mean the validity threat was completely eliminated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this research is an examination of three different types of sales approaches (product-, solution- and provocation-based) on relational outcomes. The type of sales approach influences buyer's assessments about the trustworthiness of the salesperson and the conflict with the salesperson. These outcomes of the sales approach affect the customer's economic and non-economic satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 840 organizational buyers, a structural equation model measures the path coefficients of the proposed model and tests the differences in the magnitude based on gender.\nFindings: The results indicate that sales approaches will differentially influence assessments of trustworthiness and conflict. The magnitude of the influence of the sales approach on outcomes is different between genders.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study to examine the impact of sales approaches on both genders of organizational buyers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Statistical tolerance design to minimize dual-responses of APFA height deviations with tolerance cost-quality loss model	[ "APFA", "Concurrent design", "Design for quality", "Quality loss", "Statistical tolerancing", "Tolerance synthesis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This research proposed and presented a methodology to analyze, and synthesize the tolerances of the hard disk drive (HDD) components called arm-pivot-flex-assembly actuator (APFA) in order to minimize the APFA arm height deviation from target. The APFA is an assembled product of an arm-coiled actuator (ACA), a pivot bearing, a tolerance ring, and circuit components. The APFA is manufactured by a second tier level of an APFA manufacturing company in Thailand. The information on the APFA product, assembling parts, and the required tolerances were given by the first tier, the HDD manufacturer. Different models of APFA/ACA have different numbers of arms for holding different numbers of disks. This research considered the APFA/ACA with three arms. The heights of APFA at each arm level must be reported and controlled within specifications/tolerances given by the first tier.\n2. Relationship between APFA height and GD&T of components, and the decision variables: This section explains how the tolerances of the responses are related to the GD&T characteristic of the components, and the insertion process. Consider the drawing of APFA and ACA consisting of three arms in Figure 1. The ACA is assembled with the pivot bearing. The assembly process starts with placing an ACA, that has a tolerance ring inserted, on a fixture. The pivot bearing shown in Figure 2 isinserted into the ACA bore hole through datum B defined the Figure 1(b). The APFA heights measured from the datum A to the datum points X1R, X2R, X1L, X2L on the swage pad area in Figure 3 are defined asthe ACA arm heights whereas the heights measured from the datum K to those same datum points are defined as the APFA arm heights. The APFA height deviations are measured with respect to (w.r.t.) these datum points.\n3. Measuring the responses: APFA height deviations: The height deviations of the APFA product is measured as an orthogonal projected distance from the measured Ac_H_Xij_ACA w.r.t. the Xij datum points onto the assembly reference datum axis. Recall that the actual APFA height (Ac_H) and the dual responses Y\n4. Tolerance cost assembly modeling: The typical objective function of the cost-based tolerance allocation is the sum of manufacturing/assembly and the quality losses with constraints on first, the bounds of the individual component cost/tolerances and second, the final assembly tolerance. The quality loss of the nominal-the-best type has been widely adopted mostly even though different functional type can also be applied. This research has also adopted the same notion of the tolerance cost-based function with the combined cost of manufacturing and the quality loss. The goal is to assign the Tol=[Tol\n5. Numerical results: In order to search for the feasible solutions, direct search method was conducted over the possible (full factorial) combinations of the Tol\n6. Conclusion: This research analyzed the dual responses of the APFA height deviations by considering the geometric dimension and tolerances of the components, and the orientation with respect to the next assembly process. This analysis accounted for the required product characteristic at the current and the next process. This concept results in tolerance analysis and allocation that are very efficient in controlling the product quality at the current and the next process. The assembly functions must be derived under different orientation of the APFA with respect to the assembly reference datum frame of the next process. In this research there are two different functions relating the responses with the input variables, the geometric dimensions and tolerances of the APFA components and the bearing insertion process. With 1D analysis, orientation of APFA with respect to next assembly process may not be exactly represented especially when the GD&T characteristics are considered. Hence this research defined the assembly functions based on the visualization of part in three dimensions. This gives more refined and relevant computation than the 1D tolerance analysis.\n7. Discussion: This research applied the statistical tolerancing technique to analyze the dual responses of APFA arm height deviations with respect to the next stage of disk assembly process; and simultaneously optimize and allocate the required tolerance of the responses onto its components at minimum combined cost of tolerance and the quality loss. This concept of controlling the quality of product at the current and the next process leads to an efficient concurrent product design for quality. This guarantees that the final product quality characteristics can be achieved with minimum cost. In order to implement this concept, the process knowledge between two connected processes must be apprehended. In this research, the dual responses of APFA height deviations were analyzed w.r.t. the next stage assembly process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply the statistical tolerancing technique to analyze the dual responses of APFA arm height deviation with respect to next stage of disk assembly process and simultaneously optimize and allocate the required tolerance of the responses onto its components at minimum cost of manufacturing and the quality loss.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The relationships between the dual responses of APFA heights and the geometric dimensions and tolerances of APFA components, and orientation of the assembled part with respect to disk assembly were first defined. The effects of the APFA orientation, and the component tolerances on the distributions and variations of the responses were derived and investigated in terms of resultant product/process performance, quality loss, and the cost of assembly. The tolerance cost-based objective function is then formulated as the combined manufacturing/assembly cost and the quality loss. Direct search method was used to find the best feasible tolerance solutions satisfying the required product performance at minimum cost.\nFindings: The constructed relationship or transfer functions of the dual responses were probabilistic depending on the orientation of part with respect to the next assembly process. The Monte Carlo simulation is empirically suitable for the computation of the conditional distributions of the responses against the first-order linear approximation of component variances. The proposed solution of tolerance control plan increases the product performances, C\nPractical implications: This proposed methodology to design and allocate component tolerances is suitable and applicable to the APFA assembly process. The derived assembly functions of probabilistic type relating the responses to the process and component characteristics can represent the actual dynamic of assembled part better than a traditional single deterministic function developed under static concept. This presented methodology can be applied to other assembly cases where quality characteristic depends on the part dynamic.\nOriginality/value: This research simultaneously optimized the dual APFA height deviation responses with minimum cost of tolerance and quality loss using two different conditional distributions and transfer functions of the resultant deviations generated from dynamic of APFA with respect to disk.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An assessment of gender differences in the operational efficiency of businesses run by persons with disabilities	[ "Entrepreneurship", "Economic empowerment", "Factorial ANOVA", "Persons with disabilities", "Turnover" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Revised Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) (equal opportunities, protection of rights and full participation) Act of 2011, categorizes disabled persons as those suffering from locomotor disability, autism spectrum disorder, blindness, cerebral palsy, deafness and speech impaired, hemophilia, thalassemia, chronic neurological conditions, intellectual disability, specific learning disabilities, speech and learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, multiple dystrophy and cured from leprosy. WHO has taken a more comprehensive outlook about the term to include physical impairment or deformity of body limiting its functioning and complicating its capacity to execute its duties and chores, constraining the person from participating in routine affairs of life. Hence, disability is a subjective term, symbolizing an interface between characteristics of physique of an individual and the environment (s)he is a part of (source: www.who.int). If the term is perceived as a physical phenomenon, it pertains to person's anatomy while it takes a social dimension if disabled persons are denied inclusion leading to them being disadvantaged on social, political, cultural and economic fronts. Owing to the difference in interpretation of the term of disability, the perspective with which disability has been viewed has also changed drastically to take social, ethical, human rights and medical dimensions. Such evolution has led to explanation of the term under two models of impairment perspective or medical model and social and human rights model (Newell, 1998). A clear understanding of different perspectives of disability contributes enormously to the formulation and designing of suitable plans and policies for rehabilitating PWDs through employment generation (Nagi, 1965).\nReview of literature: Entrepreneurship plays a significant role in the inclusive economic growth of any nation through industrialization, leading to it being referred to as the fourth factor of production. The rapid growth of entrepreneurship has resulted in drastic growth in the global economy. Innovation is indispensable for the economic prosperity of any nation (Spengler, 1960) while strong link exists between cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship intensity (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Study, 2000). Higher rate of opportunity entrepreneurship prevails in economically developed nations while necessity entrepreneurship prevalence diminishes with higher economic growth (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Study, 2001). India stands second in entrepreneurial activity index of the 37 countries surveyed, next to Thailand (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2002), which is a positive sign for India.\nStudies on various issues related to disabled: The economic development of any nation shall be complete only if it is inclusive, covering all sections, especially PWDs.\nData analysis: It can be inferred from Table III that 175 male disabled entrepreneurs and 26 female disabled entrepreneurs have been part of the study; 3 per cent of the disabled entrepreneurs (6) are earning less than Rs. 2,000 as monthly profits from their entrepreneurship, while 12.4 per cent (25) are earning Rs. 2,000-4,000, 23.9 per cent (48) are earning Rs. 4,000-6,000 and 60.7 per cent (122) are earning more than Rs. 6,000 per month; 19.9 per cent (40) are engaged in business for a period of less than 2 years, 32.8 per cent (66) are in business for 2-5 years, 30.3 per cent (61) for 5-10 years while 15.9 per cent (32) are in business for 10-15 years and a couple of them are in business for a period of more than 15 years; 5.0 per cent (10) are illiterates, 17.9 per cent (36) are educated up to HSE, 27.9 per cent (56) are graduates 41.8 per cent (84) are post-graduates and 7.5 per cent (15) are diploma-holders; 73.6 per cent of the disabled entrepreneurs (148) are using the sole proprietorship form of business organization, 16.4 per cent (33) are using partnership form, 5 per cent (10) are using company form and 5 per cent (10) are using the SHG model of organization; 71.1 per cent (143) are first generation entrepreneurs while the rest 28.9 per cent (58) are not first generation entrepreneurs.\nInferences from the study: First and foremost, the study has exposed the weak prevalence rate of entrepreneurship among disabled women as a mere 26 of the 201 disabled entrepreneurs surveyed happen to be women. This depicts the sorry state of affairs in India wherein environmental and attitudinal barriers are disabling PWDs from discharging routine activities and limiting their mobility. This condition is more profound among women with disabilities. They are denied access to training institutions and basic education, pushing them to take shelter in their homes under the protection of their guardians. This has been reflected in this study through the weak prevalence rate of entrepreneurship among women with disabilities.\nConclusion: Economic empowerment of PWDs through self or paid employment will contribute significantly to providing the feeling of confidence and inclusion in not only their family network but also amidst the society at large. This will provide them with opportunities to participate with other people and this interface will play a pivotal role in enhancing their overall security and welfare. With more and more disabled coming out and interacting with the society, negative attitude toward them will slowly disappear and the society will slowly but surely, march toward a better one for disabled to live in with much more dignity and assurance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Progress accomplished by the disabled entrepreneurs on the fronts of profits, turnover, return on investment (ROI), employees engaged, capital employed and diversification shall be studied and prevalence of gender differences in such progress shall be assessed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed research is descriptive in nature, based on primary data, collected by personally administering a well-structured interview schedule to 201 disabled entrepreneurs in Puducherry selected using a snowball sampling technique. Data collected has been analyzed using SPSS 21, using the tools of mean, one-way ANOVA, factorial ANOVA and chi-square (kh2) analysis.\nFindings: The prevalence rate of entrepreneurship among female disabled is very low. Female disabled entrepreneurs manage higher turnover than their male counterparts and manage insignificantly higher progress in terms of capital employed, while male disabled entrepreneurs have managed insignificantly higher progress in terms of profits, diversification and ROI. Illiterate disabled, both men and women, struggle to manage decent turnover while the better educated manage better turnover.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper has highlighted the low prevalence rate of entrepreneurship among women disabled though the fewer women disabled entrepreneurs are performing better than their male counterparts in operating their business.\nOriginality/value: The findings of this paper may be taken as base for formulation of effective government policies in empowering disabled persons in general and women disabled in particular.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Employee involvement in decision-making: the more the better?	[ "Organizational performance", "Organizational learning", "Exclusive participative decision-making", "Inclusive participative decision-making" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of participative decision-making (hereafter PDM) emerged in the nineteenth century, and became a focus of research in recent decades (Lam et al., 2002; Cox et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2015; Salas-Vallina and Fernandez, 2017). Scholars in human resource management (hereafter HRM) have made significant effort to investigate whether and how PDM helps improve employee satisfaction and performance, and produced inconclusive or even conflicting findings (Miller and Monge, 1986; Wagner and Gooding, 1987a, b; Wagner, 1994; Cox et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2015; Salas-Vallina and Fernandez, 2017). They correctly noted that the inconsistency in empirical findings was partly due to the \"absence (or presence) of other moderating variables\" (Lam et al., 2002, p. 905), and started to include a variety of moderating variables in theoretical modeling and empirical investigation (Lam et al., 2002; Cox et al., 2006; Salas-Vallina and Fernandez, 2017). This moderation approach has been adopted in recent research on PDM in an emerging economy like China. Zhu and colleagues (2015) examined, for instance, the relationship between employee involvement in decision-making and the job satisfaction of the \"new generation\" of Chinese employees, and found that employees' willingness to participate (participation intention) moderated the relationship.\nTheoretical framework and hypotheses: PDM is defined as the participation of employees in making organizational decisions (Miller and Monge, 1986; Probst, 2005). In order to have a focused discussion, we confine this study to PDM at the corporate level. PDM is referred to as the participation of employees in making decisions at the corporate level hereafter unless noted otherwise. We first draw on the RBT and organizational learning theory to discuss the performance impact of PDM, and then explain why employee decision-making (hereinafter EDM) in which decisions are completely in the hands of employees may fail to enhance firm performance.\nMethodology: Data source\nResults: Hypothesis test\nDiscussion: Theoretical contribution\nConclusion: Previous research focused on the role of PDM in motivating individual employees and individual performance, and argued that the more the employees are involved in decision-making the better. The argument neglected the role of PDM in engaging both employees and managers in collective learning, and the importance of such collective learning to organizational performance. Integrating the RBT and organizational learning theory, this paper suggests that PDM in which decisions are made jointly by employees and the management helps enhance firm performance in productivity-based profit gains, whereas EDM in which decisions are completely in the hands of employees fails in this regard. Greater involvement of employees in decision-making is not always a good thing. Firms need to design PDM as a strategy to engage employees and managers in collective learning, and leverage the valuable K&E of both employees and managers to enhance firm performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to relate participative decision-making (PDM) to organizational learning, and examine the impact of PDM on organizational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper integrates the resource-based theory with organizational learning theory to develop a framework, and distinguishes PDM in which decisions are jointly made by employees and managers from employee decision-making (EDM) in which decisions are completely in the hands of employees. The paper incorporates an augmented Cobb-Douglass production function into a structural equation model to estimate the performance impact of PDM and EDM.\nFindings: The paper tests the framework against firm-level data form China, and finds that PDM provides an opportunity for collective learning, and has a positive relationship with productivity-based profit gains; the positive relationship is stronger in firms whose management has greater accumulated knowledge and experience; EDM fails to provide an opportunity for collective learning, and has a negative relationship with productivity-based profit gains.\nOriginality/value: Prior research focused on the role of PDM in enhancing the motivation and performance of individual employees, considered the degree of employee involvement as a continuum with the highest being decision-making \"completely in the hands of employees,\" and concluded that the more involved are employees in decision-making the better. This paper relates PDM to organizational performance, and challenges this conventional view from an organizational learning perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Extending the brand: controllable drivers of feedback effects	[ "Brand extensions", "Brand image", "Advertising", "Brand management", "Corporate strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Launching new products under the same brand name, which is known as brand extensions, has become a common strategy to leverage the brand equity previously developed (Keller, 2003; Taylor and Bearden, 2003). Nowadays, more than 80 per cent of new products are introduced as extensions (Keller, 2003).Even though short-time results are favourable, brand extensions may entail negative effects such as the cannibalisation of other products and, what is worse, the brand image dilution (Desai and Hoyer, 1993; John et al., 1998). Thus, extensions could dilute brand image creating new associations or questioning current beliefs (Tauber, 1988; John et al., 1998; Martinez and de Chernatony, 2004).The purpose of the present work is to examine the potential of communication strategies and brand policies to improve the consumers' attitude to the extended brands. These variables are in the firms' control, contrary to other variables such as consumer's motivation, and have not been sufficiently studied in literature.As regards communication, we intend to assess the influence of different types of advertisements, centred either on the brand or on the extended product, on brand image. This research line was initiated by Aaker and Keller (1990) and no clear consensus exists today about the most advisable advertising strategy. We will also study the differences that arise from the consumer's assessment of broad brand extensions, offering a portfolio of diverse products, or narrow brand extensions, associated with a very limited offer (Boush and Loken, 1991; DelVecchio, 2000). Finally, we will study how the influence of extensions and advertising strategy may vary depending on the extension's closeness or distance to the brand's products (DelVecchio, 2000; Lane, 2000).Accordingly, our work is structured as follows: first, the theoretical context and the proposed hypotheses are presented. Second, we explain the methodology used to contrast the hypotheses, continuing with the description of the results obtained. Finally, the conclusions, implications and limitations are drawn.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Direct effects of advertising, brand breadth and fit\n3. Methodology: In order to test the hypotheses, we performed a 3 (advertisement type: brand-centred vs extension-centred vs. no advertisement) x2 (brand type: broad vs non-broad) x2 (extension type: high fit vs low fit) between subjects factorial experiment.3.1 Pre-tests\n4. Results: 4.1 Scales validation and manipulation checks\n5. Discussion and managerial implications: The present work has explained the influence of brand extensions on the extended brand image according to communication policy, brand breadth (the degree of association to different products) and extension-brand fit. By managing these variables, companies can avoid brand equity exhaustion due to over-extension.In coherence with the cited works, we found that brand image improves when the firm resorts to advertising (H1). Although the estimated coefficient proved to be non-significant, the overall results of our experiment suggest that the use of extension-centred rather than brand-centred advertising is more advisable (H2). As well as reinforcing consumer beliefs, these actions may lead to buy other products associated to the brand. Balachander and Ghose (2003) verified that extension advertising may increase the preference for the parent brand, although the impact of brand advertising is less obvious for the acceptance of the extension.Contrary to H3, we found that brand extensions have a more negative effect on the broad brand (Pascual) than on the narrow one (Celta). In accordance with Kardes and Allen (1991), the negative effects of extensions on the parent brand will be higher for umbrella brands that market different products. According to these authors, broad brands run the risk of being perceived as brands that are not clearly associated to a specific market, deteriorating their image with new launches. Meyvis and Janiszewski (2004) state that the variety of previous extensions produces a more diffuse brand image, but entails a higher acceptance of the extensions. Thus, brand breadth may have a positive effect on perceived quality and purchase intention of the new product, but it can be detrimental to brand image.The contrast of H4 revealed that image dilution was remarkable for those extensions that are not very related to the brand, whereas related extensions can improve that image. Therefore, firms have to strive to reach some coherence with brand image in their different markets.Finally, the use of advertisements proved to be especially positive when the firm attempts to introduce a product that is scarcely related to their current market (H5). Consequently, communication policy for brand extensions may make not very relevant fit associations more perceptible for individuals (Chakravarti et al., 1990), associating the new product to the brand. The results indicate that this favourable effect will only occur when using extension-centred advertisements, having a deeper impact on brand image than brand-centred advertising. The results also reveal that, providing fit is high, the use of advertising could be unnecessary. In this situation, it will be preferable to allocate the resources to other activities.In future work, it would be interesting to confirm the supported relationships with real advertisements. Moreover, further studies may consider brand equity after the extension as an explanatory variable. Brand equity is not only formed by brand image but also by elements like brand awareness and brand loyalty (Aaker, 1996). As a holistic element, this construct can be more resistant to the extension information than its parts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to understand how companies can leverage brand image through brand extensions without harming their image. It specifically seeks to analyse the influence of three variables: communication policy, brand breadth and extension-brand fit.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were obtained from 599 individuals who took part in an experiment. The proposed hypotheses were tested by means of ANOVA methodology.\nFindings: - The results show that brand extensions far from the current markets damage the brand associations, although the use of advertising focused on the new product can reduce this negative effect. Moreover, feedback effects are less negative when the brand has not been over-extended in the past.\nResearch limitations/implications: - With the aim of increasing the external validity of results, non-fictitious products and ads should be analysed. Moreover, the conceptual framework does not consider other communication tools like sponsorship or publicity.\nPractical implications: - The results suggest how to manage the launching of brand extensions in order to protect the extended brand image. It shows what kind of advertising is more appropriate for marketing extensions as well as role of brand breadth and perceived fit.\nOriginality/value: - The paper examines the effect of different strategies in the consumer response toward extended brands. It focuses on variables that can be controlled by companies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Safe in their hands: A national survey to explore the management of the safety alert broadcast system in the UK	[ "Patient care", "Risk management", "Health services", "Clinical governance", "National health service", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The safety alert broadcast system (SABS) is an electronic system developed by the UK Department of Health to disseminate to the NHS in England alerts written by three distinct bodies: the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which issues notices about actual and possible risks in medical and scientific equipment; the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) which requires organizations to reduce risks by the design and introduction of safer ways of working and NHS Estates which warns of defective non-medical equipment and the risks inherent in the physical environment. The Department of Health requires that there is one named person in each Trust, the SABS liaison officer (SLO) who receives the alerts electronically, is responsible for disseminating them to the most appropriate people and who notifies the DH when the required action is taken.Such is the primacy of the issue in the current administration that patient safety constitutes the first domain in the core standards against which each NHS organisation assesses itself annually. Standard C1 (b) states:Health care organisations protect patients through systems that:(b) ensure that patient safety notices, alerts and other communications concerning patient safety which require action are acted upon within required timescales (Department of Health, 2006).In 2006-2007, all NHS organisations declared themselves to be compliant with this standard with the exception of one mental health trust and three PCTs that believed that they had insufficient evidence to judge themselves compliant, and another three PCTs that either believed they did not meet the standard (1) or who had their rating changed by the Healthcare Commission as a result of external evidence (2) (HCSU, 2007).In 2005, a team of researchers from the York Health Economics Consortium and from Cardiff University were commissioned by the Patient Safety Research Programme to carry out a multi-method study which included a survey of all SLOs and visits to 40 NHS organisations to interview managers and front line staff and to conduct an audit of action in response to tracker alerts. This paper reports on the results of the survey, carried out between June and September 2006, and provides a picture of these key individuals, how they interpret their responsibilities and how they view the system. Other papers by the same authors will assess the effectiveness of the system.\nMethod: A draft questionnaire was devised after careful consideration of the stated aims of the SABS system and a discussion with key individuals. After piloting and subsequent redrafting, the resulting electronic questionnaire was sent to every trust SLO (n=561) in England using the DH database. Two reminders were subsequently issued to non-respondents and finally 343 completed questionnaires were electronically returned, a response rate of 62 per cent. Data from these questionnaires were entered into an access database, and analysis was undertaken in SPSS. Table I shows the breakdown by trust type.\nFindings: SLO roles and responsibilities\nDiscussion: Safety alerts issued through the SABS system cover a wide spectrum. In numerical terms, the vast majority stem from the MHRA, and deal with near-patient medical devices which may be rare and easy to trace but are more usually spread across the organisation or community (blood glucose meters). The action is normally straightforward, frequently entailing the identification of batch numbers and the withdrawal of stock. Those from the NPSA tend to be more complex, requiring changes to behaviour of doctors and nurses and leading to the development of organisational policies or procedures. It is incumbent on the SLO and the system in which they operate to ensure that the alerts reach all those who need to put the alerts into action, and confirm to the DH that the organisation has indeed taken the necessary steps.It is sobering to discover that the vast majority of SLOs are making decisions about relevance of an individual alert to the organisation and that they decide to whom in the organisation it should be sent. The argument for this is that the more relevant the alerts received by a manager, the more likely they are to read and digest them. However, it may be a case for some concern that 22 per cent of organisations in which respondents worked were said not to have a policy or procedure for the management of alerts and that 58 per cent of these respondents distributed alerts based on their personal knowledge of the organisation. We are reassured by the number who suggested that their decisions were scrutinised by a committee, but would wish to be reassured that this is actively considered by members rather than passively received.From the creation of the SABS system up to 31 March 2007, 221 alerts were issued by the MHRA, 26 by the NPSA and 39 by Estates and Facilities. The range of backgrounds of those dealing with the alerts is of interest, with some organisations believing the role should be undertaken by someone with a clinical background. Of course, the named SLO may simply be a designated administrator who undertakes the electronic dissemination with the decisions being taken by more senior others, and we may speculate, although we do not know, that the personal assistants who responded may have fitted into this category. Certainly, those with a clinical background felt themselves to be at an advantage in making the required decisions.SLOs are key communicators of vital information that affects the safety of patients, NHS staff and the general public visiting NHS premises. It is of concern that so many of them feel that their role is undervalued and that they feel unsupported. If patient safety is the priority that the government claims, it may be time to recognise the key role SLOs play in the system. The survey demonstrates that 52 per cent of respondents are neither on the trust board nor do they report to someone who is. Does this aspect matter? We would argue that it may be relevant for some alerts. We are all aware of the different priorities accorded to e-mails based on the status of the sender. Will a divisional manager or a consultant afford the same importance to a missive from a junior administrator as they would to one from the chief executive or medical director?The lack of regular audit of action of alerts is the finding that will most concern the Department of Health. The SLOs sign off alerts on the basis of trust that managers have done what they say they will do or have done. Bearing in mind the actions taken against trusts for giving false information to the DH on such subjects as waiting lists, the SLOs are hardly paranoid in their concerns.The strength of the SABS system (that it brings all alerts together) is simultaneously its weakness. It may be unreasonable to expect that one person can make the correct decision regarding the relevance of the subject to every individual within the organisation. Of course, most will consult, but in order to make accurate decisions about appropriate consultations, knowledge of the subject is a pre-requisite. Another important variable relates to the mixing of simple and complex alerts which require very different actions and timescales. The action arising from the alerts varies from simple transmission to one person who can remove a faulty device from stock to many months of complex negotiation which must result in a change in the knowledge and behaviour of hundreds of staff. It may be that some grading of alerts would help all concerned to manage these important documents appropriately.\nConclusions: From these data, we conclude that overall, the system works well as a dissemination system. Particular features singled out for praise were the electronic dissemination, the single named recipient and the auditable responses - together, these components of the system were deemed to make it more robust than alternative systems.SLOs, many of whom devoted a very small proportion of their time to the role, expressed frustration at the lack of recognition of their workload and its importance to the organisation.The main complaint about the system related to the overall number of alerts, closely linked to complaints about their targeting, with mental health trusts and PCTs being particularly voluble in this regard. However, in contrast, there was an equally vociferous call for SABS to incorporate drugs (and other) alerts which would have the effect of increasing the number of alerts.The most worrying message from these data was a lack of clarity as to when an alert could be signed off as complete. For many, the receipt of emails from managers containing a promise of action was all the evidence needed to sign off the alerts and whilst some respondents were clearly uncomfortable about this, had no resources to investigate further. We suggest that trusts might wish to protect themselves against making inaccurate statements by seeking more robust evidence of alert implementation.There was a specific issue for PCTs in sending out alerts to independent contractors, some of whom complained about the number of alerts and failed to give any information about implementation. There was a general call for fewer alerts, better targeted and with clear action points.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the management of the safety alert broadcast system (SABS) in England.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This survey was part of a multi-method study which was undertaken over an 18-month period. The questionnaire was sent to every trust SABS liaison officer (SLO) (n=561) in England using the DH database. In total, 343 completed questionnaires were electronically returned, a response rate of 62 per cent.\nFindings: - SABS is the means by which safety alerts from key agencies are electronically distributed to the NHS in England. Each organisation is required to have a named SLO who is required to acknowledge receipt on the Department of Health web site, indicate whether action is under way and finally confirm that action is complete. It offers a profile of this important segment of the workforce, over half of whom work in risk management, and 65 per cent of whom have no clinical background. Most spend very little of their working week managing the system itself, and are entirely dependent on the word of other managers to indicate that the trust has completed all action. Whilst the system is liked by the SLOs, concerns are expressed about the level of responsibility they are expected to assume.\nPractical implications: - Trusts may wish to consider the role in the light of the increasing number and complexity of the alerts being managed.\nOriginality/value: - The paper offers a unique insight into the role and profile of those managing the interface between trusts and the patient safety team at the Department of Health.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A DMAIC Six Sigma approach to quality improvement in the anodising stage of the amplifier production process	[ "Six Sigma", "DMAIC methodology", "Quality improvement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The \"Make in India\" programme, launched in India in September 2014 focusses on growth of the manufacturing sector in the country. Currently, manufacturing in India accounts for 16 per cent of the GDP (Shiralashetti, 2012). The programme envisions, increasing the GDP contribution of the manufacturing sector to 25 per cent by the year 2025, create huge pool of employment and self-employment opportunities; and thereby improving the economic health of the country. One of the important step manufacturers are following under this initiative is investment in methodologies and tools for process reengineering and quality improvement. India has a large micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSME) base and accounts for 45 per cent industrial output (Javalgi and Todd, 2011; Katyal and Xaviour, 2015). The major challenges faced by these units are competition from national and global players and limited availability of monetary, personnel, technological and other recourses. In the demand-driven economy, the path of growth for the MSME units also relates to the adoption of practices that facilitate production of reliable and quality products. Several MSME's have realised the situation and have started adopting quality management practices. This research presents an application of Six Sigma define-measure-analyse-improve-control (DMAIC) approach for improving the process quality of anodising stage of an amplifier production process. The case study presented here is based on real-life data of an amplifier production unit.\n2. Research methodology: This research attempts to implements DMAIC model of Six Sigma to reduce the defects in the anodising stage of a portable amplifier. The results presented in the study are based on the analysis conducted on the anodising process shop floor of the firm under consideration. Before the project is executed, detailed review of literature is conducted to study the basic framework of Six Sigma approach for MSMEs (Kumar et al., 2011) and the various tools that can be used in each stage of the DMAIC model. DMAIC is a sequential model consisting of five stages (define, measure, analyse, improve and control) wherein each stage has a well-defined objective, requires inputs and using the appropriate tools output of that stage is generated following a plan-do-check-act (PDCA) framework. Based on the review of the literature and a brainstorming session between the members of the project team quality management tools to be used in each stage of the study are selected. In this study methods and tools such as SIPOC analysis, Pareto analysis, control charts, C&E diagrams and current reality tree (CRT) are used in the different stages of the DMAIC model.\n3. Case study: The implementation of the DMAIC Six Sigma quality improvement programme on anodising process of amplifier production is presented in this section. Each phase of the DMAIC model is discussed with data analysis, results and discussion.\n4. Conclusions, limitations and future scope of work: This study discusses analysis and results of a Six Sigma project for improving the productivity of anodising stage of an amplifier production process. The DMAIC Six Sigma methodology is adopted to investigate the causes of non-conformities and conceive the improvement measures. Pitting and BSP were found to be the two main types of defects in the process. From the twofold analysis using C&E diagrams and CRT, it was identified that the contractual employees, hard water supply in taps, temperature variations in the facility's atmosphere and the poor quality of non-etching alkaline detergent used in pre-treatment step are root causes of non-conformities in this process. The feasible improvement measures are devised and implemented to eliminate the root causes. The study resulted in improving the sigma level of the anodising process to 3.91 compared to base sigma level 3.62 in the short term. Hiring of permanent employees and development of comprehensive training programmes could be important steps towards the sustainable quality improvement efforts for this process. The firm has started considering the remaining suggestions and are likely to be realized in future based on the second phase of the study. The findings of the study are limited to eliminate only two of defects that were leading to 69.46 per cent of defects. Future study could also consider the two defects still remaining to be analysed for further improvement of the process. Future study will focus on next stage of the production process and will also explore other statistical and managerial quality improvement tools.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the anodising process of a portable amplifier production process to identify and eliminate the sources of variations, in order to improve the process productivity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employs the define-measure-analyse-improve-control (DMAIC) Six Sigma methodology. Within the DMAIC framework various tools of quality management such as SIPOC analysis, cause and effect diagram, current reality tree, etc., are used in different stages.\nFindings: High rejection rate was found to be the main problem leading to lower productivity of the process. Four types of defects were identified as main cause of rejections in the baseline process. Pareto analysis resulted in detection of the top defects, which were then analysed in details to find the root cause of the problem. Further study resulted in finding improvement measures that were discussed with the management before implementation. The process is sampled again to check the improvements, and control measures were established.\nPractical implications: The study provides a framework for implementation of DMAIC Six Sigma methodology for a manufacturing firm. The results presented are based on the data collected from the shop floor. Results and findings of the study were implemented for quality improvement of the process.\nOriginality/value: The study is based on an original research conducted with the objective of quality improvement in the anodising process of the production process. Besides presenting an approach to DMAIC Six Sigma methodology, an application of the current reality tree tool for root cause analysis is presented, a tool used limitedly in the Six Sigma studies. The tool finds its uniqueness in its ability to address problems relating multiple factors than isolated factors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of servant leadership on an organization's serving-driven capabilities in a Kuwaiti bank environment	[ "Capabilities", "Servant leadership", "Leadership", "Service orientation", "Service-dominant logic", "Operationalize" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the introduction of the Service-Dominant logic (SDL) that regards service as the core reasons for exchange enabled by organizational skills and capabilities (Vargo and Lusch, 2004), academics have sought to operationalize the \"service is everything\" concept (Duncan and Moriarty (2006). Following that motivation, Karpen et al. (2012) identified and subsequently validated (Karpen et al., 2015) a set of six interaction capabilities (individuated, relational, ethical, developmental, empowered and concerted interaction) that, in combination, form a higher-order co-creation capability named, in this study, Serving-driven capabilities (S-DC). These capabilities are manifested in organizational practices or behaviors that create value for an organization. Notwithstanding this development, a critical question remains: how to create S-DC within an organization in a way that transpires to all employees (collectively) so that they, individually, deploy capabilities to genuinely serve customers and their own colleagues?\nLiterature review: A leadership style that genuinely shows a concern for employees, customers, the community and other stakeholders should particularly be effective in developing organizational S-DC. The SL style would be appropriate for at least three reasons: First, it is because the core value of this type of leadership is the desire to serve, and does it with a focus on the welfare of others over their own interest (Greenleaf, 1970). Second, Gulf societies, of which Kuwait is a part, endorses collective values and preferences for personalized relationships. Third, the Arab culture is based on tribal traditions where managers tend to play the role of tribe leaders (Abdalla and Al-Homoud, 2001). Recently, using the Conscious Capitalism paradigm Grewal et al. (2017) highlighted the importance of leadership with a genuine desire to serve rather than command others, to create and maintain a conscious corporate culture that promotes strong team and service orientations in the retailing sector context.\nTheoretical background: The theoretical model is illustrated in Figure 1. It draws mainly on SLT and social norm of reciprocity theory to explain the relationships between the SL style, an organization's S-DC and their outcomes. The model suggests that SL is positively related to an organization's S-DC. Furthermore, the dotted line suggests that SL has an indirect influence on individual customer-service behaviors and an employee's identification with the company and that such effect is mediated by the organization's service-driven capabilities. The model also predicts positive associations between an organization's S-DC and customer-service behaviors as well as employee identification (EI) with the company. In the following section, a brief conceptualization of an organization's S-DC is described. Subsequently, theoretical and empirical justifications for associating SL style with the S-DC are explained. Furthermore, a discussion into the indirect effects of SL on EI and customer-service behaviors is discussed.\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Measurement model assessment\nDiscussion and future research: This study responds to the strategic need of developing services capability as a new business paradigm (Vargo and Lusch, 2006). An operationalization of the SDL (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) was tested, namely the S-DC, and demonstrates how servant leader behaviors contribute to the co-creation of interactional service capabilities, thus answering the question how can managers develop organization's S-DC? Previous research focused on organization's serving culture (Liden et al., 2014), service climate (Hunter et al., 2013; Walumbwa et al., 2010) and organizational learning (Choudhary et al., 2013) as mediators of SL and individual outcomes such as customer-service behaviors. This study adds to these conversations by providing a focus on the development of interactional capabilities at the organizational level such as relational interaction, empowered interaction, developmental interaction, concerted interaction, ethical interaction and individuated interactions. Each of these capabilities facilitate and enhance collaboration with internal and external customers to better integrate resources and interdependently influence customer-service behaviors and EI with the organization, both reported crucial in the service industry (Wieseke et al., 2007). Among the interactional capabilities, the one with most weight appears to be the concerted interactional capability followed by the relational interactional capability. The former is the ability to facilitate coordinated and integrated service processes with individual actors within the service system, and the latter relates to the skill of connecting with partners to support an environment conducive to relationship building (Karpen et al., 2015). This research study provides a continuity to the theoretical premise that SL promotes organizational learning (Choudhary et al., 2013; Bass, 2000) and extends the knowledge to specific capabilities customers and managers can observe and assess. The organization's S-DC is directly influenced by the interaction of the servant leader's behaviors: acting ethically, showing sensitivity to others' personal concerns, putting subordinates first, helping them grow and succeed, empowering others, creating value for the community, having the conceptual skills. The mechanism through which the capabilities becomes part of the organization is not only through imitation process as suggested elsewhere (Lusch et al., 2007), but also reciprocity. Employees within an organization observe, interact and create good relationships with their leaders and develop their own interactional capabilities to deal with clients. That is, good acts and relationships between servant leaders and employees beget good deeds and relationships with the employees and their customers. It has been assumed that reciprocity on the part of the employees is a motivator to adapt interaction capabilities within an organization, however, it is not known whether these reciprocal acts are because they expect future rewards, i.e., reciprocal altruism, or a total unselfish act, pure reciprocity (Trivers, 1971). Perhaps future study may clarify this nuance. This study may complement the empirical evidence that shows when employees work in a supportive organizational environment (Hunter et al., 2013) serve customers better (Neubert et al., 2016), so far they are provided with the relevant S-DC. In this vein, a serving culture or serving climate may not suffice to create customer-service behaviors or in-role performance (engagement in their work). Rather, a serving climate must be combined with other essential ingredients, namely interaction capabilities. This could be a matter of further study.\nLimitations: While this research has attempted to be rigorous, there are shortcomings that need to be mentioned. First, the study is of a cross-sectional nature therefore a causal effect of SL on service orientation cannot be determined. Second, the study is limited to one bank although several branches were randomly sampled. Third, the evaluations of the service-driven capabilities have been done by the employees rather than customers therefore there is a potential self-serving bias. Given that the survey was done in an Arab country, collectivist in nature, it is possible the self-serving bias may be less pronounced than if it had been conducted in a western country, which is more individualistic in its orientation (Mezulis et al., 2004). The theory used to justify the development of a S-DC was mainly the SLT. However, since the leaders' behaviors extend beyond their own interest, leaders are perceived as genuine and worth not only of imitation, as SLT suggests, but also reciprocity. It is assumed followers are motivated to take the leaders' values as theirs based on the reciprocity norm. A SL style contributes to followers' capabilities by empowering followers, acting fairly with them, developing them and showing genuine interest in them. These contributions enhance the social and emotional connections between individual employees and develop a sense of gratitude in followers. Future studies could test the two theories namely, role modeling and reciprocity norms, suggested here. Another opportunity to extend this research is to include the interactional capabilities together with either serving culture or service climate.\nConclusion: Servant leader's behaviors influence followers to adopt the six interactional S-DC. These capabilities, in turn, are propagated to serve their colleagues and customers, as they have been served by their leader. The study is opportune giving the increasing skepticism and decrease in trust in corporate leaders and the resurgence of developing capabilities enacted in the SDL. Interaction capabilities can complement previous studies on serving culture and serving climate, after all, unless employees possess the skills and capabilities to deliver good service through their interactions, a mere climate or culture of service will not suffice. Further study could explore both these constructs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to test the direct influence of servant leadership (SL) on an organization's serving-driven capabilities (S-DC). Second, to test the indirect effect of SL on employee customer-service behaviors and identification with their branch. Third, to determine the direct effect of an organization's S-DC on employee customer-service behaviors and identification with the branch. Thus, the authors provide evidence of how SL influence serving-driven interaction capabilities that are later deployed to execute customer-oriented behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data were obtained from a sample of 36 bank branches of one bank in the Middle East. Employees evaluated their manager's SL behaviors, the six S-DC and their identification with the organization. In turn, managers assessed their employees on customer-service behaviors. Partial least squares path analysis was used to model the relationships.\nFindings: Results indicate servant leaders' behaviors are example, motivator and determinant of an organization's S-DC. Employees not only adopt the S-DC by imitation but also as a mean to reciprocate the leader: serve your customers like the leader serves you. Other results and implications for managers are presented.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is of a cross-sectional nature therefore a causal effect of SL on S-DC cannot be determined. Second, the study is limited to one bank although several branches were randomly sampled. Third, the evaluations of the S-DC have been done by the employees rather than customers.\nPractical implications: The S-DC concept provides ample opportunities for managers to enhance their interactions with employees and customers to improve their performance by identifying which capabilities to develop. Specifically, interactions that promote ethical, empowering, developmental relationships and that encourage genuine two-way communication and responds to individual needs.\nOriginality/value: The study is original in testing the mediating effect of a S-DC. The focus on individual and organizational capabilities is relevant because they have been touted as among the most important factors to explain the differences of company performances and competitive advantages\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Transnational mergers and acquisitions: how to beat the odds of disaster	[ "Corporate strategy", "Acquisitions and mergers", "International marketing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity is booming. In 2005, Europe saw a 58 percent surge in transnational deals; in Japan, cross-border M&A jumped 21 percent, and in India the rise was a staggering 68 percent.\n1. Start with a clear and compelling strategy: The most successful cross-border acquirers begin with a clear view of both the role that cross-border acquisitions will play in their strategy and the type of companies best equipped to fill that role.This clear strategic logic is well demonstrated by Heineken, one of the world's leading brewers. Beer drinking in the USA and Western Europe, the Dutch company's traditional markets, is declining as the population ages. However, in much of Eastern Europe and Asia, younger people constitute a large and growing proportion of the population - hence Heineken's recent spate of local brand, brewery and distribution network acquisitions east of the Elbe and in China. The company, moreover, buys only strong local brands and businesses that can support Heineken's desired positioning as a premium brand in these markets.Exel, a global provider of logistics solutions, offers another example of a company with a clear strategy for transnational acquisitions. As manufacturers increasingly operate on a global basis, they need suppliers with operations in all the places they do business, from production through sales. Between 1998 and 2004, Exel made more than 40 acquisitions in markets from Italy to Japan. These not only strengthened the company's ability to offer integrated global logistics to its largest customers, but it also gave Exel access to new customers, which could then be offered more comprehensive global service.Overcoming barriers to entry and leapfrogging to a position of market strength was the driving logic for BP's 2002 acquisition of Veba Oel and its Aral chain of gas stations across Germany and Eastern Europe. In addition to giving BP a leading position in this rapidly growing region, the deal also allowed the company to roll out its premium product and strengthen its brand position throughout Europe.\n2. Understand the markets and their environments: The greatest risks in cross-border transactions arise from the failure to understand the culture, regulatory structure or competitive environment - and sometimes all three considerations - in the target market. These oversights can lead to overly optimistic assumptions about revenue growth or cost-savings opportunities. In many cases, acquiring companies assume that their detailed knowledge of their own market will translate directly to the target market, and they therefore see little reason to invest in upfront fact-finding. In other cases, where a market is undergoing rapid development, acquirers may decide that there is too much uncertainty for a detailed investigation of the current state of play to be relevant. Or if an acquirer feels pressure to act because a herd mentality takes over, it may decide there simply is not time to do its homework.Whatever the reason, the failure to do homework on an acquisition can lead to costly mistakes. For example, when North American buyers fail to understand Europe's different labor laws, they make overly optimistic savings projections from headcount reductions at the acquired company. Naive reliance on the protection offered by contract or intellectual property law in some of the more chaotic developing markets can lead to significant write-offs or even the inadvertent creation of low-cost competitors that benefit from a company's proprietary knowledge.Assuming that customers in new markets are fundamentally the same as those at home is another classic mistake. A key driver in the 1998 acquisition of US carmaker Chrysler by Daimler-Benz of Germany was the assumption that product development costs for the joint company could be slashed by developing common models for both markets - an assumption that failed to recognize fundamental differences in road infrastructure, driving habits and customer preferences between Europe and North America.Proper due diligence can expose these challenges and ensure that they are accurately reflected in synergy estimates and integration plans. The right level of investment in due diligence needs to be tailored to the specific situation. A straightforward investigation of local rules and regulations may be all that is required. But for more complex situations, local advisors who can help explain critical differences in customer needs, competitive behavior or cultural factors will typically repay the investment in their services many times over.\n3. Convey respect for employees of acquired company: Regardless of the rationale for the acquisition, a key asset - many would argue the most important one - in a cross-border acquisition is people. Local market knowledge, customer and supplier relationships, technical capabilities, and the influence and reputation of management with employees are all essential levers for extracting value from an acquisition.The successful integration of an acquired management team requires sensitivity and careful attention to the cultural gaps that exist between acquirer and target, or between merging partners in a cross-border deal. Tolerance for uncertainty, attitudes toward power, cultural biases toward individualism versus collectivism, and preferences for how decisions, are made differ widely across national boundaries. Companies that fail to recognize these differences can make costly mistakes that result in the loss of essential skills critical to future success.Companies that get it right can accelerate the benefits resulting from cross-border acquisitions. Fans of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, for example, feared that the culture of their favorite ice cream maker would be overwhelmed when Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever bought the company in 2000. But to the surprise of skeptics, Unilever very successfully blended its own culture with that of the boutique ice cream producer. The company maintained the smaller organization's tradition of quirky new flavors (including Fossil Fuel Original, the Gobfather and Karamel Sutra), expanded distribution and launched new projects dear to the hearts of Ben & Jerry's traditional customers, including an agricultural program in The Netherlands focused on establishing sustainable dairy farming practices.The need to protect value in the acquisition has implications for the speed and degree of integration. In general, cross-border acquisitions offer fewer opportunities for cost reduction than national acquisitions, since they are not undertaken to achieve dramatic headcount reductions. Instead, the acquisitions are driven by an interest in gaining market access. Therefore, a light touch to integration, leaving the existing management team to get on with business as usual, may be the safest approach. However, if the acquisition is expected to provide an essential link in the delivery of global services, a faster and more comprehensive approach is needed. In these cases, high-quality execution is essential to minimize attrition in the integration process.\n4. Execution, execution, execution: Successful execution begins early - in some cases, long before the deal is done. For example, Exel's acquisition strategy has depended on the company's ability to identify and court attractive smaller regional players, many of which were privately owned and whose criteria for selling were much broader than price alone. By entering early into a dialogue with these players, Exel has been able to shape deals that have met those criteria, improving the chances of retaining key management at the acquired companies and avoiding an expensive public sale.Once a deal has been agreed to in principle, integration planning should begin as early as possible. It is easy to underestimate the effort involved in any acquisition. Management from both sides are expected to guide a complex integration process in addition to carrying out their continued responsibilities for day-to-day operations. Without careful attention, critical sources of value, like existing customer relationships and distribution channels, are bound to fall through the cracks, with negative consequences for both the integration process and the day-to-day business of the merging companies.Much hinges on the structuring of the teams tasked with merger integration. When BP bought Veba, an Integration Directorate team designed the overall program, planned all integration-related activities and then tracked their implementation across every relevant business. The challenge was to merge what were effectively three business cultures: Veba and Aral, which had only recently merged themselves; BP Germany; and the BP Group culture, which was to define the ethos of the new organization.The team had to ensure that BP took operational control of Veba and its subsidiaries within two years, at the same time maintaining day-to-day business continuity and applying BP financial and operational policies across the new organization. The directorate then had to actually implement new business practices. This involved monthly integration manager meetings and regular face-to-face reviews, which helped keep the program on schedule and deliver performance objectives while continuing to identify and pursue additional synergy opportunities. Remarkably, BP met all its major integration targets on or ahead of schedule, and the synergies delivered during the first year of combined operations exceeded expectations.A cross-border merger also offers the opportunity to institute changes that might otherwise be difficult to implement. Spanish oil company Repsol saw its 1999 merger with YPF of Argentina as a mandate for dramatic change. The company's goal was to transform its management and culture from an operation based in one country to a multi-national entity with the flexibility to adapt to different markets. Repsol YPF designed and implemented a comprehensive new management model that resulted in a transformed organization with updated business processes. The upshot: a more strategically competitive, culturally unified, efficient and client-focused operation, which is also the largest private energy company in Latin America in terms of assets and among the ten largest such companies in the world.Finally, to stay ahead of the game, the most successful players invest in distilling and institutionalizing the lessons learned from the process. Cross-border acquisitions are like potato chips - you rarely want just one. By creating repeatable processes and identifying internal experts, subsequent acquisitions can be closed faster and integrated quicker and with a higher likelihood of success.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to discuss the trend towards cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and review best practices for successful cross-border M&A transactions (and how they differ from executing national deals).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The objectives are achieved through a review of four best practices for successful planning, implementation and execution of cross-border deals. Also, a March 2006 Accenture/Economist Intelligence Unit survey is used which highlights trends towards cross-border deals and common pitfalls in the successful execution of deals - in particular the difficulties in addressing cultural issues and local due diligence.\nFindings: - The paper finds that executives believe in their M&A strategy but doubt their organizational ability to successfully implement and execute and to realize financial gains and cross-border deals offer a different mix of opportunities and risks, which need to be understood and managed if the deals are to be successful. The key to success lies in understanding exactly what makes cross-border deal making different, and in developing the skills needed to create value.\nPractical implications: - There are four key drivers of success in cross-border M&A: start with a clear and compelling strategy - the most successful cross-border acquirers begin with a clear view of both the role that cross-border acquisitions will play in their strategy and the type of companies best equipped to fill that role; do your homework - the greatest risks in cross-border transactions arise from the failure to understand the culture, regulatory structure or competitive environment - and sometimes all three considerations - in the target market; value your new people - regardless of the rationale for the acquisition, a key asset - many would argue the most important one - in a cross-border acquisition is people; and execution, execution, execution - successful execution begins early - in some cases, long before the deal is done.\nOriginality/value: - A recent survey (Accenture/Economist Intelligence Unit, March 2006) shows for the first time that among global M&A deals, cross-border transactions now exceed domestic transactions - and this trend is likely to continue. Yet for many c-level executives, the prospect of acquiring or merging with a company in an unfamiliar market is daunting - and cross-border M&A is considered more difficult than executing on domestic deals. This paper is intended to give c-level executives practical, hands-on advice for conducting cross-border M&A as well as publicizing survey results specifically on the cross-border M&A trend.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Alternative publications: library resources guide	[ "Publications", "Resources", "Collections management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Alternative publications are a unique library resource for social science research. Usually referred to as publications issued outside the publishing mainstream, they have their own indexes with specific finding guides that are not included in conventional periodical indexes or databases. Some libraries keep them in special collections, especially when they include a variety of document types, such as journals, newspapers, transcripts, pamphlets, conference minutes and other manuscripts and media materials. Scholars and researchers interested in studies of political, cultural and social activities find alternative publications a significant source of understanding their subjects. As James Danky (1974) once said \"any attempt to write the history of the US in the 1960s and 1970s would be defective if it failed to make note of the 'underground' press\".This article is intended to be an overview of major library resources of alternative publications, focusing on the period starting from the 1960s to the present. It serves as a guide to library reference collections including resources in print, microfilms and online databases. It will discuss various definitions, introduce the background and review collection development in this area, providing an annotated list of reference books and tools along with a selection of libraries and organizations that are committed to the collection and reference services.\nDefinition: In the review of literature, there are no two definitions that are the same in approaching alternative publications. There is not a single term that can sufficiently describe them. The term \"alternative publication\" is currently considered more accurate in comparison with others such as anti-establishment, dissident press, underground press, independent magazines, advocacy press, and many others. In fact, these terms reflect the viewpoints of the publications against the mainstream media and the way they are managed for non-commercial purposes. Underground papers are alternative publications but not all alternative publications are necessarily underground publications. This is also the case with the labels for radical and dissident press.Librarians use \"non-standard\" or \"non-mainstream\" as practical terms in referring to the publications in their library collection development and reference services. This author will use a narrower definition for the purpose of this article: an alternative publication deals with the opinions of small minorities, expresses attitudes \"hostile to widely-held beliefs\", and espouses views or deals with subjects not given regular coverage by publications generally available at newsagents (Royal Commission on the Press, 1977). Taken under historical and cultural contexts, what is regarded as an alternative publication in one country may be a mainstream view in another. This article focuses on alternative publications in the US.\nBackground: Non-mainstream papers are nothing new in American history. As early as 1690, America's first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, started by Benjamin Harris, was prohibited by officials who found it too critical (Leamer, 1972). In the early nineteenth century, when America's leading newspapers catered to the merchant capitalists, the laborers formed the country's first trade unions and, in the fledgling labor movement in the US, founded an early instance of the dissident press (Streitmatter, 2001). Mechanic's Free Press, Free Enquirer and Working Man's Advocate were among the earliest and the most significant ones. Another wave came before and during the civil war, when dozens of abolitionist papers were published against generations of the slavery system. The best known and most influential was The Liberator (Streitmatter, 2001).The early twentieth century saw an immense growth of the radical press in America as the country was undergoing rapid social change - labor strikes, women's rights, and the socialist movement, followed by the great depression in the 1930s. The Masses, started in 1910, is considered the earliest precursor of the underground press and was the first socialist periodical to unite cultural and political radicalism ((Leamer, 1972). Women Rebel created such an outrageous response from the mainstream papers in 1914 that its editor, Margaret Sanger, was forced to live in exile in Europe. Also, with a great increase of the immigrant population, a large number of foreign language papers emerged when the existing English-language press did not suit their needs (Kessler, 1984).These early anti-establishment papers, though increasing in number with social development and improved printing technology, were never recognized as a distinctive category in the publication world of the country. They appeared and disappeared with their respective contemporary social issues and conflicts, but showed little influence upon each other. In the library catalog, some of them may be listed under \"Series: Journals of dissent and social change,\" but the subject headings have no indication of their non-mainstream status as their later counterparts do. The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) \"Underground press\" did not appear until after the 1960s.Indeed, the 1960s were the heyday of the alternative press. In the eventful decade of the civil rights movement, Vietnam war, feminist movement, and protests against the existing education system, the political and cultural upheaval that spread over the US produced a generation of young people who challenged the accepted order of life and started the counter-institution movement. In response to the fact that the major mass media were shaped by mainstream writers and editors, an underground press sprang up \"to mirror, spark, express, organize, advocate, and hype the strands of protest\" (Peck, 1991). With such precursors as The Village Voice and Realist started in the 1950s, the first wave came in 1964 with the Los Angeles Free Press, the first and the biggest underground paper in America. Both the offset printing method and the development of radical politics and a rebellious culture made it inevitable that a paper serve a particular community in need of news and its own views. Other well-known underground papers in this period include the Berkeley Barb and East Village Other.These papers had no restraints on language and content (Leamer, 1972). As censorship was loosening, they did not have to be \"underground\" in the traditional sense. They were the outright voice of political and counter-cultural activists. Unlike any anti-establishment publication before, these papers eventually joined together and coordinated under the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) in 1966 and later under another service organization, Liberation News Service (LNS), when the second wave of underground press started in 1967. The significant papers include Oracle, Rat, Guardian and Seed. In these papers, there was a combination of political concerns and cultural radicalism: the New Left, Marxism, racism, Hippies, and other alternative lifestyles.There is not an official statistic of alternative publications in its most productive time. One study found that the LNS Collective estimated the number of underground newspapers at more than 360 in 1967 (Lewes, 2000) and another study showed that by 1969, the high water mark of protest, at least 500 papers served communities and constituencies worldwide, with 500 to 1,000 more dissenting papers in high schools alone (Peck, 1991).It is these underground papers that have attracted the attention of social scientists and students interested in American society in that period of time. Although most of the papers were short-lived and the underground press movement died by the early 1970s, their success and failure are a reflection of a social phenomenon. It is also from this time on that alternative publications are recognized in their important roles of filling a gap left by the establishment press (Ellis, 1971). As mentioned above, the subject term \"Underground press\" appeared in the library catalog after the 1960s. In WorldCat, the world's largest bibliographic database, a search by the subject \"Underground press - United States\" retrieved 122 book records and 211 serials as of July 2005. All the books except one (no publication date is available) were published between 1969 and 2004. These books are major studies and research on alternative publications, bibliographies of titles and guides or directories to indexes and other sources. Among the 211 serials, 96 percent of the publications were dated between 1956 and 2002.The 1970s and 1980s gave rise to another type of underground publications called \"zines\", which have recently been \"discovered\" by the mainstream press as a new authentic voice of youths (Chu, 1997). Zines are noncommercial, nonprofessional, small-circulation magazines that their creators produce, publish, and distribute by themselves (Duncombe, 1997). They are scattered around in bars, on restaurant tables and anywhere possible for distribution. Many of them come out as quickly as they disappear and most publish on an irregular schedule. Yet the value of zines as a great source of alternative points-of-view and insight into today's modern popular culture (Stoddart and Kiser, 2004) is undisputable.With today's easy access to desktop-publishing technology and low cost photocopy machines, there is a widespread operation of independent journals and zines both in print and online. They cover all kinds of topics and points-of-view. In the past having one's work printed was very limited, and people's hand written diaries, letters and journals were regarded as a great treasure of primary sources. Today, in the modern age of information technology, many of the equally valuable primary sources exist in sheet papers, e-journals, e-zines and even in e-mails and on-line chat rooms. Therefore, we can hardly ignore these alternative publications, but at the same time we face a challenge to acquire and keep them in a user-friendly way.\nLibrary and association collections: Early in the 1960s and 1970s, many libraries and individuals started to actively collect works outside the mainstream press. These included periodicals, newspapers, newsletters, books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera such as leaflets, flyers, and position papers (Case, 1982). A significant contribution to this pioneering work was the production and distribution by University of Michigan International (UMI) of microfilm collections comprised of hundreds of alternative press titles from the 1800s to the 1990s. Some library collections are housed in their own space, and some together with the libraries' general collections.In recent years, there have been discussions and programs about adding zines to libraries. Because of their short-lived nature and their nontraditional way of distribution, there are concerns about the difficulties of cataloging and preserving these materials by applying normal library rules (Davis, 1995). The New York State Library acquired more than 10,000 zines in the 1990s from the donation of Mike Gunderloy, the former editor of the Factsheet Five collection, and is currently the biggest and most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world (New York State Library News, 1997). However, there are not many libraries that collect zines and make them as part of library resources.Although we have seen improved access to library collections with indexes both in print and online databases, there are still challenges to provide users with reference services to alternative publications. First of all, many students and researchers do not know of their existence. Second, research in this collection is similar to archival research in that much of the material is not indexed (Liberty, 1993). Mainstream publications are mostly indexed in multiple sources and databases, but alternative publications, if they are indexed, can be located in only one or a limited number of special publications. The following sections are intended to be a guide to the major resources that will help locate the alternative press within library collections.\nIndexes: Alternative Press Index (1969-current), Alternative Press Centre, College Park, MD\nPeriodical and ephemera collections: Alternative Press Collection (Microfilm) (1986-)\nBibliographies: Danky, J.P. (1974), Undergrounds: A Union List of Alternative Periodicals in Libraries of the United States and Canada, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI\nAgencies and associations: The guide book Subject Collections: A Guide to Special Book Collections and Subject Emphases as Reported by University, College, Public, and Special Libraries and Museums in the United states and Canada is a good source for finding agencies that contain alternative collections. The entries under \"alternative lifestyles,\" \"alternative press,\" \"alternative theatre,\" \"newspapers, underground,\" and \"underground literature\" provide the names of the agencies, their addresses and a brief summary of their collection contents.Alternative Press Center (www.altpress.org/)\nBooks/reviews: Bartel, J. (2004), From A to Zine: Building a Winning Zine Collection in Your Library, American Library Association, Chicago, IL\nConclusion: Time and history have proven that alternative publications are a valuable source of information for social studies. Many libraries and organizations have established collections of alternative publications, maintained either in their special collection or regular collection. With today's information technology that makes online publishing an easy task, alternative publications have increased in number, covering a large variety of social issues and life styles. Zines' rapid growth has attracted the attention of researchers and libraries.This is both an encouraging and challenging phenomenon to librarians interested in acquiring and organizing alternative publications. There is a wealth of publications available to enrich the collection in various formats. On the other hand, reference services for effective access to the resources involve multiple issues such as cataloging and indexing, and limited budgets are creating collection gaps. As a minority group in the publishing world, the alternative press still does not get as much attention as mainstream publications; hence, it is common to see that a periodical may not be indexed or, if indexed, may not be held widely enough to be readily available (Marinko and Gerhard, 1998). Due to the ephemeral nature of most alternative publications, there is not a single resource that lists the core journals or newspapers in the area, which makes it difficult to establish a stable library acquisition and balanced collection development program.In spite of these problems, alternative publications are a unique source of research for a record of dissent, social change and contemporary culture. Recognizing the fact that many difficulties arise in handling them (Chepesiuk, 1997), librarians should continue to create ways of making them a visible and accessible resource to the public.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This article is intended to be an overview of major library resources of alternative publications, focusing on the period starting from the 1960s to the present. It serves as a guide to library reference collections including resources in print, microfilms and online databases.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The annotated bibliography is divided into five sections: indexes, periodical and ephemera collections, bibliographies, agencies and associations, and books/reviews.\nFindings: - This overview of major library resources of alternative publications focuses on the period starting from the 1960s to the present. It serves as a guide to library reference collections including resources in print, microfilms and online databases.\nOriginality/value: - Alternative publications are a unique library resource for social science research. They are usually referred to as non-standard and non-establishment publications, and they have their own indexes with specific finding guides that are not included in conventional periodical indexes or databases. It will be of interest to social science librarians and to reference librarians who work with researchers and students in social studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The dynamic response of the rand real exchange rate to fundamental shocks	[ "Exchange rates", "Fundamentals", "Sign-restricted TVP-VAR" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The exchange rate is an important macroeconomic variable that reflects South Africa's internal and external balances. It plays a crucial role for inflation targeting countries that functions as a shock absorber in bringing the economy back to equilibrium[1]. We analyse the dynamic relationship between the real rand-dollar exchange rate and with fundamental shocks. We argue that the response of the exchange rate to prices and output has weakened since inflation targeting, but has remained relatively stable since 2005. Furthermore, exchange rate volatility relative to price and output volatility has also increased over time suggesting that news and non-fundamental shocks have become important drivers of the rand exchange rate. An important result shows that the impact of interest rate shocks on the exchange rate has weakened since the 2008/2009 financial crisis. This has implications for standard DSGE models used by central banks to model policy scenarios as well as for policy makers regarding currency intervention.\n2. Literature review: This study is not the first to analyse the behaviour of the rand to structural shocks, but is the first, as far as we know, that tries to understand it from a time-varying perspective. One further justification for using a time-varying parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) is that behavioural exchange rate models (as is often the case in trying to identify equilibrium exchange rates) are poor forecast performers over the short-run; something that Meese and Rogoff (1983) show: they fail to out-predict a random walk at. This also seems to be the case for South Africa (see Egert, 2012; Fattouh et al., 2008).\n3. A simple model of the exchange rate: Clarida and Gali (2004) serve as background to our empirical model. All variables, except interest rates, are in logs and are specified as deviations of the home country from foreign country. In the short-run prices adjust sluggishly to demand, supply and nominal shocks. The long-run characterises the equilibrium when prices adjust fully to all shocks. The model consists of an IS equation, a price-setting equation, an interest parity equation and money equation:\n4. Methodology: We use quarterly data from 1981Q1 to 2013Q4. The data are sourced from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the International Monetary Fund. We use the difference between South Africa's and the USA's short-term treasury bill for our interest rate differential (deflated using consumer price inflation), we use the difference between South Africa's and the USA's consumer price inflation for price differentials, and for growth differentials we use the difference between South Africa's and the USA's real GDP seasonally adjusted and annualised data[2].\n5. Results: Volatility\n6. Conclusion: The relationship between the exchange rate and fundamental shocks has changed over time. Regime shifts play an important role in changing and describing the interactions between economic variables. We analyse this change by using a time-varying parameter VAR model. Our analyses rely on results obtained from volatility, joint dependence over business cycle frequencies and impulse responses over time. The relationship between the exchange rate and fundamental shocks has decreased since 1995 leading up to the 2008/2009 financial crisis. The time-varying dynamic responses of the exchange rate to fundamental shocks emphasise that regime shifts can change economic interactions and that policy should be cautious of these shifts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The authors analyse the relationship between the South African real exchange rate and economic fundamentals - demand, supply and nominal shocks. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use a time-varying parameter VAR to study the coherence, conditional volatility and impulse responses of the exchange rate over specific periods and policy regimes. The model is identified using sign-restrictions that allow for some neutrality of impulse responses over contemporaneous and long horizons.\nFindings: The results suggest that the importance of fundamental shocks on the exchange rate is time dependent. Hence there is a loss in information when using standard linear models that average out effects over time. The response of the exchange rate to demand and supply shocks have weakened over the 1994-2010 period.\nResearch limitations/implications: The period following financial crisis has strengthened the relationship between supply and demand shocks to the exchange rate, but has weakened the relationship between interest rate shocks and the exchange rate response.\nPractical implications: This paper provides deeper insight as to how the exchange rate responds to fundamental shocks. This should help monetary policy understand the consequences of interest rate decisions on the exchange rate and the indirect effect of inflation on the exchange rate.\nOriginality/value: This application is new to the South African literature. The authors propose that the use of interest rates is limited in affecting the value of the rand exchange rate over particular periods. Isolating fundamental shocks to exchange rates over time helps policy makers make clearer and more informed decisions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intellectual capital, organisational climate, innovation culture, and SME performance: Evidence from Croatia	[ "Business performance", "SMEs", "Croatia", "Innovation culture", "Organizational culture", "Intellectual capital", "Organizational climate" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Innovation has increasingly become recognised as a key influence on the competitiveness of businesses, regions, cities, and nation states (Asheim et al., 2011), but it is also source of conflicting demands, multiple pathways, and ambidexterity (Bledow et al., 2009). Together with entrepreneurship, innovation finds its meaning in the creation of value. Although innovation is widely considered a part of the route to competitiveness, our knowledge of the main influences on innovation capacity and performance is limited. In order to unpack the factors that have an impact on the innovation capacity and business performance (BP) of a company, this paper aims to increase our understanding of innovation processes at an enterprising level. In this context, our empirical study brings evidence from Croatia, an interesting and understudied country, in which major interest is twofold: first, Croatia is a country on the borderline between a modest and moderate innovator according to the latest European Innovation Scoreboard; and second, Croatia is a post-socialist economy and a relatively new member state of the UE.\nInnovation as the source of companies' performance: Entrepreneurship is associated with the identification of an opportunity for products and services in society, and the realisation of that opportunity through the organisation of resources with which to make a product or service available. In this regard, entrepreneurship and innovation have a symbiotic connection, which together results in the creation of value (Van der Borgh et al., 2012; Roos, 2017). Innovation is at the core of BP as it \"drives growth and helps address social challenges\" (Gault, 2018, p. 617). It is a complex phenomenon that can be defined in different ways, as an idea, process, product, practice, or service, with market potentials and commercial applications (Edison et al., 2013). Innovation is also associated with great uncertainty and risk, and yet it is simultaneously linked to high growth prospects (Bessant et al., 2005, p. 1366).\nThe importance of intellectual capital, organisational climate, and innovation culture for successful SMEs: During the industrial era, the critical factors in creating a firm's value were physical assets such as land, capital, and labour. In contrast, BP today focusses much more on the ability of a business to develop intangible capital, which involves hidden or tacit assets or knowledge resources (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Sveiby, 1997; Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005; Gonzalez-Loureiro and Pita Castelo, 2012).\nConceptual research model: The conceptual framework used in this study incorporated four main influences on the innovative capacity and performance of Croatian SMEs. Our conceptual model (Figure 2) begins with the assumption that all four concepts under investigation (IC, OC, innovation culture, and BP) are positively related. Strong BP is linked to a higher level of IC, high levels of innovation culture, and a positive OC.\nMethodology and data sources: Data sources\nTesting the hypotheses and discussion: According to the results shown in Table VI, there are strong correlations between all four dimensions: IC, OC, innovation culture, and firm performance. The higher correlation coefficient of IC with other companies' characteristics is demonstrative of the key role of IC in OCs.\nConclusion: This paper sets out to identify the factors influencing innovation culture and BP at an enterprise level, focussing on the application of resource-based and knowledge-based theories on the firm. The purpose of the research reported in this paper was to analyse the relationship between the three components of IC (human, structural, and relational) and OC and innovation culture, together with their influence on innovativeness and BP. Based on a survey of 253 SMEs in Croatia, the analysis shows that the two key dimensions of IC and innovation culture are important for companies' success. Two proposed hypotheses, based on our model, have been confirmed. More specifically, higher BP has been shown to be positively related to higher levels of IC (H1), and higher levels of innovation culture (H3). The regression analysis revealed that larger companies have better innovation culture and BP, while the age and type of industry do not influence firm performance significantly.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the three components of intellectual capital (IC) (human, structural, and relational), and contextual factors relating to organisational climate (OC) and innovation culture, together with their influence on business performance (BP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This empirical research is based on an online questionnaire, which collected data from a non-probability quota sample consisting of 253 Croatian SMEs. The scales for IC, OC, and innovation culture were constructed to test the relationship between these dimensions and assess the BP of the SMEs.\nFindings: Based on a survey on 253 SMEs in Croatia, the analysis shows that the key dimensions of IC, innovation culture, and OC are vital to a company's success and are strongly inter-correlated. Higher BP is positively related to higher levels of both IC and innovation culture.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of the research is the subjective aspect of the study. The data used in the study were self-reported where respondents in a survey gave their assessment of firm performance. Although this was necessary because of the absence of other data, it is an issue that must be taken into account when interpreting the findings in the study.\nPractical implications: Understanding the role of IC, OC, and innovation culture in relation to BP, particularly in former transition countries, can have important implications for managers and enterprise owners, as well as policy makers and the academic community.\nSocial implications: The findings emphasise the important role of tacit knowledge in the innovation process, of which IC and OC are good examples.\nOriginality/value: This empirical study brings evidence from the understudied country of Croatia. Croatia is a post-transitional country and the last accessed member of the EU, on the dividing line between a modest and a moderate innovator. This is the first empirical study conducted in Croatia that explores the association between three concepts that are typically investigated separately (IC, OC, and innovation culture).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managers' and employees' contradictory argumentations of spatial change	[ "Rhetoric", "Employee talk", "Managerial talk", "Spatial change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The brave new workplace (Bean and Eisenberg, 2006; Gephart, 2002) represents the changes that have been taking place in working life along with the electronic age. Although the technological developments projected a decade ago may not be considered new any longer, changes that can be seen as reflecting this development trajectory are still taking place in organizations, and organizational action is perpetually in a stage of adjustment. Related to this, organizations are increasingly altering their physical environments to non-territorial work spaces where individuals do not have dedicated desks. This nomad (Bean and Eisenberg, 2006; Hirst, 2011) or hot-desking (Elsbach, 2003) trend has already been adopted in high-technology firms, but it is also being increasingly adopted in the more traditional industries and government agencies. While previous research has discussed employee behavior in open office settings (McElroy and Morrow, 2010) and non-territorial work spaces (Hirst, 2011), we still lack understanding of the discursive processes through which changes in the material environment are supported, resisted and justified by organizational actors. This is, however, important, because during change processes, controversial issues emerge and compete with each other (e.g. Buchanan and Dawson, 2007; Grant and Marshak, 2011; Lewis, 2000), which may result in unnecessary tensions in organizations and hinder the execution of transformations. Studies have, e.g., identified an array of discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change (Engestrom and Sannino, 2011), and illustrated how the rigid construction of competing temporal hierarchies may create inertia in change processes (Nasanen and Vanharanta, 2016). In this paper, we focus on a transformation from a traditional single-room office to an open, multi-space office, and how it is rhetorically constructed in interviews with the responsible managers and employees. Instead of rhetoric being considered as manipulating truths or a persuasion technique, it is considered as a practice of sensemaking (see Holt and Macpherson, 2010; Weick, 1995) that brings arguments and counter-arguments into focus (Billig, 1996; Holt and Macpherson, 2010). In the practice of sensemaking, individuals construct a particular version of social reality and take stances either to support or contest a particular view. By using the approach of rhetorical social psychology (Billig, 1996), the paper analyzes the ambiguity of change rhetoric taking place during change The approach makes it possible to identify the various constructions of the transformation and how they are used to support or contest the transformation by different actors of an organization. In particular, the study explores how various organizational actors talk about, support and contest the change and how they employ rhetorical strategies to construct the spatial change as justified or as unjustified, and how this is related to the speakers' organizational positions. The findings show how the shared values, beliefs, assumptions, etc., are used for opposite purposes by speakers with different organizational positions. The study contributes to the extant research that has identified various rhetorical strategies and narratives employed by different employee groups in the legitimization of change (Erkama and Vaara, 2010; Landau et al., 2014; Symon, 2008; Whittle et al., 2010) and resistance to it (Symon, 2005), as well as discursive antecedents of resistance (Pieterse et al., 2012) during organizational change. The contribution augments understanding of the ambiguity of change rhetoric by revealing the contradictory nature of argumentation, both within the talk of specific employee groups and between groups. Furthermore, the paper adds to the understanding of spatial change by discussing how the immaterial dimensions related to spatial change are evaluated in different ways by different organizational actors. The rhetorical analysis employed in this study facilitates the management of the process of transformation by emphasizing the importance of identifying the ambiguity of argumentation related to change and the differing symbolic meanings subscribed to, instead of constructing unnecessary polarizations between those who resist change and its supporters.\nRhetorical approach: Rhetoric dates back to ancient Greece. Aristotle analyzed the nature of argumentation and identified three modes of persuasion: logos, ethos and pathos. Logos refers to the argument itself, ethos relates to how persuasive a speaker is and pathos means a speaker's ability to appeal to the emotions of the audience (Aristotle and Barnes, 1984). Aristotle's rhetoric was not about manipulating truths but it essentially focused on understanding alternate argumentative possibilities (Holt and Macpherson, 2010). Although the ancient tradition had long been neglected especially among European academics, a reincarnation of rhetoric took place, for example through the work of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1971). In their book \"The New Rhetoric\", the speaker's relationship to the audience was emphasized. They argued that speakers always communicated directly to a specific audience, which can also be an ideal universal audience. McCloskey (1998), in her book The Rhetoric of Economics, showed how the classic texts of economics were rhetorical constructions, in spite of their intention to \"scientific neutrality.\" She follows Aristotelian definition of rhetoric by emphasizing \"available means of persuasion\" (McCloskey, 1994, p. xiii). Similarly to McCloskey, Klamer, as an economist, views economics as a rhetorical activity in which economists persuade each other by deploying authorities, stories and metaphors (Klamer and McCloskey, 1989). They both stress rhetoric as dialogical and as an art of having a clear conversation instead of seeing rhetoric as flowery or deceptive speech (Klamer et al., 1989).\nMethodology: This study is part of an ongoing research study concerning an organization-wide strategic transformation process at Media Inc. (a pseudonym). Media Inc. is a broadcasting company that operates television and radio channels and provides online content including news as well as television and radio programs. The firm employs 3,100 people permanently. In addition, the company has approximately the same number of freelancers and around 400 people with fixed-term contracts. The average age of the employees is 46 years and their average tenure was 17.2 years. The company was chosen as the site for this study as it provided an opportunity to explore a large-scale organizational transformation from a traditional office to a multi-space office, from its planning phase to implementation and use. In 2011, Media Inc. started a five-year strategic initiative to reduce office space by 50 percent and to significantly alter the firm's physical, social and virtual work environments. The focal strategic objective of the change program was to alter the culture and space of the company in order to meet the requirements that the organization is expected to face in the future. The change of office space involves an effort to reduce costs by making the use of the facilities more efficient, to increase interaction and synergies between units and to enhance innovativeness through increased interaction between employees. Furthermore, collaboration with external partners is intensified by renting out premises to smaller companies operating in the same field. This is also considered to increase valuable encounters and spark innovations as well as strengthen the organization's position in the media field. The reduction of office space requires the organization of smaller premises to accommodate a larger number of employees in a so-called multifunctional office setting, which means that instead of having their own dedicated rooms or desks, individuals must reserve a workstation on a daily basis and remove their personal belongings at the end of the day. In a multifunctional office, the space is divided into different types of areas that are considered to support different kinds of tasks. The office layout thus contains an open area with work desks and separate areas for teamwork and quiet work. Furthermore, the change aims at increasing mobility by supporting remote work and working in multiple locations.\nFindings: drawing from the same commonplaces in supporting and contesting the change: Responsible managers support change by invoking benefits and forces\nConclusion, discussion and recommendations: This paper has taken a rhetorical perspective to illuminate how the actors of the organization speak about, support and contest a transformation from a traditional single-room office to an open, multi-space office. Furthermore, the study has shown how the same commonplaces (e.g. shared values, beliefs, assumptions, etc.) are used for opposite purposes and how this is related to the speaker's organizational position. The responsible managers supported the change and evaluated it positively, whereas the employees contested the change and predominantly evaluated it negatively, even in those cases where positive aspects of the change were brought up. The responsible managers constructed the objectives of the change as being coupled with current and future work practices and needs, whereas the employees constructed the objectives of change as being decoupled from current real-work practices. Thus, the responsible managers and employees had not only different temporal orientations but also different ways to speak about what \"real\" work is like and what the change will result in. In addition to the contradictory rhetorical resources between the employee groups, the responsible managers justified the change through two simultaneous but completely different rhetorical resources: desired change and coercive change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a qualitative study concerning managers' and employees' rhetorical evaluations of a spatial organizational change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach of rhetorical social psychology is applied to study how the actors of an organization speak about a transformation from a single-room office setting to an open, multi-space office. The material consists of 36 interviews.\nFindings: It was found that the responsible managers and employees used contradictory argumentation of what \"real work\" is like and what the change will result in as rhetorical resources when supporting and contesting the transformation. Although their set of arguments and counter-arguments drew from the same beliefs and values, they were used for opposite purposes.\nPractical implications: The results of this research advance awareness of the multidimensional and contradictory nature of change rhetoric and this understanding can be utilized in supporting more effective change programs. For example, instead of constructing unnecessary polarizations between those who resist change and its supporters, the study facilitates to identify the ambiguity of argumentation related to change and the differing symbolic meanings subscribed to.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the organizational change literature by showing the ambiguity of change rhetoric and the contradictory nature of argumentation, both within the talk of specific employee groups and between groups.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
State-of-the-art and adoption of artificial intelligence in retailing	[ "Retail", "Trade", "Retailing", "Artificial intelligence", "Machine learning", "Wholesaling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Wholesaling and retailing\n2. Artificial intelligence for value-adding core tasks in retailing: 2.1 Managing goods\n3. Market adoption of artificial intelligence within retailing: To investigate the pioneers in the application of AI technologies, we studied the current and past AI initiatives of the ten largest retail companies ranked by their turnover in 2016 (EHI Retail Institute, 2016). To categorize the different types of companies, we followed the long-established research method, \"the Magic Quadrant\" (Figure 2), of the US market research company Gartner (2017). Here, the objects of research are mapped on a two-dimensional matrix with four quadrants. Each quadrant represents a type of company in the market. Starting clockwise from the bottom left, these are niche players, challengers, leaders and visionaries. The market research version of the quadrant classes the objects based on the \"completeness of vision\" (X-axis) and the \"ability to execute\" (Y-axis). Gartner summarizes the former as variables such as the financial health of the supplier, market responsiveness, research and development, target markets and client base. In addition, the latter as the reflection of the innovation of the vendor: whether the vendor drives or follows the market or whether the vendor's view of how the market will develop is consistent with Gartner's viewpoint (Black and Thomas, 2014). Due to keeping the competitive advantage the company does not reveal the actual metrics behind the placement of a vendor or technology within a specific quadrant.\n4. Conclusion: In conclusion, there is a vast number of possible applications of AI in all areas of retail and wholesale. Within the different value-added core tasks, the numbers of conceivable applications (scientifically) and practical applications vary greatly (Table I).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In the most abstract way, artificial intelligence (AI) allows human work to be shifted toward technological systems that are currently not fully capable. Following this, the domain of retail can be sketched as a natural fit for the application of AI tools, which are known for their high proportion of human work and concurrent low profit margins. This paper aims to explore the current dissemination of the application of AI within the industry. The value-added core tasks of retail companies are examined to determine the possible utilization and the market adoption within the globally largest retail companies is given.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses two different approaches to identify the scientific state-of-the-art: a search on the major scientific databases and an empirical study of the ten largest international retail companies and their adoption of AI technologies in the domains of wholesale and retail.\nFindings: The application within the different value-added core tasks varies greatly depending on the area. In summary, there are numerous possible applications in all areas. Especially, in areas where future forecasts are needed within the task areas (such as marketing or replenishment), the use of AI, today, is both scientifically and practically highly developed. In contrast, the market adoption of AI is highly variable. The pioneers have integrated extensive applications into everyday business, while the challengers are investing heavily in new initiatives. Some others, however, show neither active use nor any effort to adopt such technology.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, this is one of the first research contributions to analyze the areas of application and the impact of AI structured along the value-added core processes of retail companies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The performance measurement perspectives and causal relationship for ISO-certified companies: A case of opto-electronic industry	[ "Balanced scorecard", "Performance measures", "International standards", "Electronics industry", "Taiwan" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When enterprises attempt to enhance operational efficiency and improve business performance, product quality is a key factor that cannot be overlooked. According to Garvin (1984), the enhancement of product quality is beneficial to market expansion and cost reduction and can boost an enterprise's confidence for their products and customer satisfaction. Good quality control allows enterprises to create a positive reputation and increase their market share. These benefits are contributive to profit and performance. Gotzamani and Tsiotras (2001) found a significant influence of ISO certification on total quality management (TQM); thus, many enterprises have attempted to increase their TQM through the promotion and implementation of the ISO system. This implementation was expected to help execute various operations in each stage and enhance total business performance. However, for enterprises that have passed ISO certification, the issues of enhancing total quality performance and measuring this enhancement are topics worthy of further discussion. This study's purposes are thereby the determination of reliable performance measurement indicators for ISO-certified industries, and the construction of a relationship model for these performance measurement indicators.Most previous studies on operational performance have been based on financial figures (Booth, 1996; Maisel, 1992). However, financial indicators are not highly correlated with the long-term strategic goals of an enterprise, and cannot help enterprises obtain a greater competitive advantage in highly-competitive environments. Thus, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants suggested in 1994 that financial statements include forward-looking non-financial information and overall performance information, which may reflect the importance of intellectual property and social responsibility. The balanced scorecard is an all-round performance evaluation system, and is one of the emerging tools of strategic management (Pineno, 2002). Kaplan and Norton (1996b, 2004) proposed the balanced scorecard to review the total performance of a company from various perspectives. Both financial and non-financial indicators are incorporated, and the business is analyzed from four perspectives, including: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. In turn, the indicators help management to gain an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the company's overall performance. These four perspectives aid the connection of long-term goals with short-term activities, the translation of these goals into visions, and the achievement of strategic objectives. The balanced scorecard therefore coincides with this study's goal, which is the assessment of an enterprise's total performance.The theoretical basis of the balanced scorecard will be employed, and through qualitative and quantitative methods performance measurement indicators will be designed and the relationship amongst them assessed.In-depth interviews and a quantitative study of questionnaire survey will be applied in this empirical study. The research's subject is Taiwan's opto-electronic industry, specifically those firms certified by ISO 9000. Opto-electronics is one of the most important industries in Taiwan, is international competitive, and almost all firms in this industry have passed the ISO certification. The research objectives can be summarized as follows:* Use the balanced scorecard to establish reliable perspectives and indicators to measure the opto-electronic industry's organizational performance for those firms which have passed ISO certification.* To analyze the effect of passing ISO certification on company performance in the opto-electronic industry.* To construct a performance relationship model for those companies which have passed the ISO certification and to analyze relationships among the performance perspectives.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Motivations and benefits of promoting the ISO certification\nResearch design: Research framework\nResults analysis: Test of measurement models\nConclusions and suggestions: Conclusions and implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Using opto-electronic industries as the example, the purpose of this paper is to include: designing reliable performance perspectives and indicators for evaluating ISO-certified industries; and constructing a performance relationship model of those ISO-certified industries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper introduces the concept of the balanced scorecard as the performance measurement for ISO-certified industries, and adopts structural equation modelling to verify the causal relationship amongst the performance perspectives. The paper takes three opto-electronic companies in Taiwan as evidence cases. The valid response numbers to the survey are 177.\nFindings: - The research results indicate that the performance measurement indicators developed by this paper are effective in the ISO-certified opto-electronic industries. The evaluation indicators are comprised of five perspectives: finance, customer, internal process, learning and growing, and corporate mission. A causal relationship is found to exist among the five perspectives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper uses only the opto-electronic industry as the research case. However, different industry types can have different research findings and this will lead to different results.\nPractical implications: - Applying the proposed measurement indicators and model would aid enterprises to effectively measure the effect of being ISO-certified, and understanding the causal relationships amongst performance perspectives. Thus, enterprises could identify all determining items of performance and use these results as a basis for further improvement.\nOriginality/value: - This paper aims to establish performance measurement indicators and a relationship model for the manufacturing industry certified by ISO. A set of performance measurement indicators and a relationship model are derived. This paper has made a contribution to the academic and practical areas.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Contesting digital finance for the poor	[ "Innovation", "Risk", "Technology", "Digital finance", "Microfinance", "Financial inclusion", "Financial development", "Poor people", "Financial technology", "Blockchain", "Fintech", "E5", "G2", "O16" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Today, digital finance has been endorsed by the international development finance community as a success factor to achieve global financial inclusion (Banks, 2001; Gabor and Brooks, 2017; Figueiredo et al., 2012). But what is digital finance? Digital finance is financial services delivered through mobile phones and computer networks linked to a reliable payment system (Gabor and Brooks, 2017; Ozili, 2018). In recent years, big corporations and technologists lobby governments to formulate policies that compel economic agents to use digital finance products and digital platforms to make payments such as the payment of employee salaries and other large transactions, and they also lobby for lower digital tax payments. These corporate lobbyists influence policymakers to formulate and enforce policies that encourage the use of digital payment channels [1], [2], such as imposing fees for large cash withdrawals to discourage cash transactions which will compel individuals and poor households to use available digital finance products to perform day-to-day transactions and large transactions rather than using physical cash, which they claim will help to achieve financial inclusion. These practices show that policymakers can be easily swayed by private interests which also creates a business opportunity for technologists and financial institutions - it creates an opportunity for them to make profit from serving customers including poor customers.\n2. The transition to digital finance: 2.1 Microfinance after the global financial crisis\n3. Digital finance and development outcomes: 3.1 Review of some reports\n4. Risks to poor people in a digital financial system: Here, I argue that the poor, who are economically vulnerable, should not be brought into the digital finance ecosystem until the digital finance ecosystem has been de-risked and is safe for the poor to be brought in. Bringing the poorest people into the risky digital financial system can have unintended consequences. Below are some consequences.\n5. Digital finance and good business sense: Digital finance is a viable business worth pursuing in its own right. Financial technology companies such as Stripe, Verve and MasterCard have signaled their interest in digital finance as a business opportunity and welfare-enhancing tool. For digital finance to make a good business sense, the technologists, bankers and financial sector players must succeed at offering quality services at affordable prices to make profit in ways that encourage clients to use them. Although most companies are succeeding in this area, there is still the problem of selective clientele in offering digital finance as a business. Most private sector companies that offer digital finance often cherry-pick their offering of digital financial services to selected clientele. They target urban locations with a high number of employed and educated population (Mader, 2018). Moreover, the selective offering of digital financial services has led to suggestions that the government control or should be directly and actively involved in the digital financial services ecosystem to prevent private players from isolating the poor. However, there is no guarantee that the selective clientele problem will be eliminated if the government becomes a major player in the digital finance ecosystem.\n6. De-risking digital finance: Some studies show that people can withdraw from using digital finance products if it is too risky. Also, providers of digital finance products can refuse to deliver financial services in high-risk communities. For instance, Ozili (2018) shows that providers of digital financial services can withdraw or discontinue the provision of specific digital finance services to high-risk rural areas. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2015) state that the largest insolvency risk and liquidity risk associated with digital payments is the risk that a \"run on the telco\" or \"run on the agent network\" may occur and consumers will be unable to access their funds through their mobile phones, bank cards or bank apps and that such an event would likely be country-specific or may have cross-border dimensions. Also, Konigsheim et al. (2017) show that lack of financial knowledge and risk intolerance reduces the likelihood to use digital financial services. Also, RFF (2017) shows that digital finance creates cybersecurity risks that can lead to loss of consumer data and identify theft which can inflict financial harm to customers including poor customers, in addition, it can put providers at risk and can undermine public confidence in the digital finance ecosystem.\n7. Possible alternatives to digital finance and microfinance architecture: If the digital financial system cannot be de-risked, then we need to find other alternatives that pose little or no risk to poor people. One possible alternative is to strengthen the existing informal systems and networks of finance which poor people rely on for food and subsistence, especially poor people in remote communities who are outside the formal financial sector. The microfinance era attempted to either:\n8. Conclusion: This paper examined the delivery of digital finance to poor people and contest the claim that digital finance is pro-poor and pro-development. It argues that the transition from microfinance to digital finance has benefits but the risks are significant for poor people. It debunks the claim that technology is neutral for everybody and argues that technology is not neutral for everybody, especially poor people. It shows that digital finance reinforces the existing inequality in the financial system which worsens the state of poor people. It also showed that the assumption of poor people benefiting directly from digital finance is weak. Apart from improved money management through digital finance apps, there are no other positive effects of digital finance to the poorest people. The paper also showed that bringing the poorest into the financial system will expose them to risks in the formal financial system. And, of course, digital finance makes a good business case only with government support. Some risk facing poor people include fraud risk, lack of access to internet connectivity, systematic risks, technology and infrastructure risks, loss of trust, no clarity on who protects the poor from digital risk, transferring old risks to new customers. Finally, the paper suggests ways to de-risk the digital finance infrastructure.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to critically assess digital finance as a pro-poor intervention in the development finance space.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using critical policy discourse analysis, this paper explains the turn from microfinance to digital finance, and thereafter discusses four issues: the lack of evidence that digital finance for poor people actually promotes socioeconomic development; the risks that poor people are exposed to, which arises from their exposure to digital finance technology; the lack of evidence that digital finance actually brings poor people immediate benefits; and the weak business rationale for digital finance.\nFindings: The expectation for digital finance serving as a major pro-poor private sector intervention lacks justification.\nOriginality/value: The paper reflects on the effect of digital finance for poor people.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring technological process innovation from a lifecycle perspective	[ "Case study", "Large companies", "Process development", "Process implementation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovative operations are recognized as critical determinants of economic recovery and sustained competitiveness by scholars, practitioners, and policy makers (Pisano and Shih, 2012; BMBF, 2013; SMLC, 2014). A central domain of innovative operations is technological process innovation (TPI) (Dodgson et al., 2008; Schallock, 2010). TPI can enable increased production yield, lower production costs (Browning and Heath, 2009), improved product and service quality (Reichstein and Salter, 2006), operational flexibility (Upton, 1997), controllability (Zelbst et al., 2012; Gerwin, 1988), environmental sustainability (Kleindorfer et al., 2005), and accelerated time-to-market (Hayes et al., 2005).\n2. Theoretical background and framework: The theoretical background of our study is informed by operations management (OM) and innovation management (IM) literature. The purpose of the framework is to establish categories in which to explore the content of key TPI components across the ILC.\n3. Methodology: We adopt an exploratory case-based research design due to the nascent state of existing theory, our focus on answering a \"how-question\", and our ambition to capture the content of and relationships between TPI components at different ILC stages. Such objectives are best addressed by case-based research (Yin, 2003). We use multiple cases to corroborate findings and dissociate emerging patterns from company-specific circumstances, thus generating more analytically generalizable theory (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Eisenhardt, 1989).\n4. Results: This section documents cross-case patterns relating to the TPI components at different ILC stages. Figure 2 provides an overview of the key results across the ILC.\n5. Discussion: 5.1. Adaptation prior to process implementation\n6. Conclusions: 6.1. Theoretical contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Technological process innovation (TPI) is a distinctive organizational phenomenon characterized by a firm-internal locus and underlying components such as mutual adaptation of new technology and existing organization, technological change, organizational change, and systemic impact. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the management of these components at different stages of the innovation lifecycle (ILC) in large manufacturing companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopt an exploratory case-based research design and conduct a multiple case study of five large successful manufacturing companies operating in different industries in Germany. The authors build the study on 55 semi-structured interviews, which yielded 91.5 hours of recorded interview data. The authors apply cross-case synthesis and replication logic to identify patterns of how companies address process innovation components at different ILC stages.\nFindings: The study uncovers the content of four central TPI components across the ILC and identifies differences between the development of core and non-core processes. Based on the findings the authors describe asymmetric adaptation as a theoretical construct and propose that companies seek different levels of process standardization depending on the type of process they develop, which in turn affects whether there is a greater extent of technological or organizational change.\nPractical implications: Awareness of existing structures, processes, and technologies, as well as their value in relation to the company's core and non-core operations is imperative to determining the adequate structure of mutual adaptation.\nOriginality/value: The authors provide detailed insight on the management of mutual adaptation, technological, and organizational change, as well as systemic impact at the different stages of the ILC. The authors extend prior research by adopting an ILC perspective for the investigation of these four TPI components and by proposing a construct of asymmetric adaptation to capture key mechanisms of process development and implementation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The talent deal and journey: Understanding how employees respond to talent identification over time	[ "Employee attitudes", "Employee behaviour", "Career development", "Human resource management", "Psychological contracts" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Emerging recently as a sub-field of strategic human resource management (SHRM), and of strategic relevance to CEOs and executive management today (Axelrod et al., 2001; Cappelli, 2008), strategic talent management (STM) considers the management of a firm's talent; the workforce segment expected to contribute disproportionately to organisational performance and to which many organisations already allocate disproportionate resources (Becker et al., 2009; Collings and Mellahi, 2013; Huselid and Becker, 2011). Talent management is an example of workforce differentiation used to create and leverage human capital (HC) (Becker et al. 2009; Huselid and Becker, 2011). Talented employees are high-performing employees recognised as having high potential for future performance (Collings and Mellahi, 2009b; Huselid et al., 2005; Lewis and Heckman, 2006).\n2. The talented employee: seen as a central character, but are they heard?: Significant literature exists examining the employee organisation relationship (EOR) and employee attitudes such that the work-attitude-behaviour link has explained much of the exchange-based responses of employees in the workplace (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2000), which in turn influences firm performance (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004; Boxall and Purcell, 2000). Employees who believe their PC exchange is not balanced with their organisation adjust their contribution through reducing commitment and citizenship behaviours (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2000). In the context of talent, such adjustment may limit expected value from HC. While business undertakes STM to achieve competitive performance (Cappelli and Keller, 2014; Stahl et al., 2012), individual goals also require consideration (Farndale et al., 2014) as incongruence of organisational and employee goals may undermine STM effectiveness. This section examines limitations of literature and argues the need to understand the employee response to STM through three lenses: employee views of their individual \"deal\", their supervisor and organisation and their EOR.\n3. STM: an activity, an event, a process: 3.1. Talent management: a strategic business activity\n4. Conceptualising the employee response to STM: the talent deal and talent journey: This section introduces \"the talent deal\", which theorises the employee response to STM and the \"talent journey\" which illustrates the talented employee experience of the relationship over time. Specifically, talent identification is argued to modify the PC and exchange expectations establishing the \"talent deal\" which consequently impacts three realms of employee attitudes: individual expectations, attitudes towards the organisation and the relationship over time. The talent deal and talent journey are illustrated by Figures 1 and 2, respectively. Research propositions are theorised in the subsequent section.\n5. Research propositions: the talent deal: The \"Talent Deal\" is expected to modify the PC of talented employees including changed expectations of social and economic exchange, and association with a set of employee attitudes as detailed below.\n6. Discussion: 6.1. Empirical testing of the model: multi-level, multi-source, multi-time intervals\n7. Conclusion: Understanding the employee response to STM is a business imperative if talent is to contribute sustainable value as a strategic resource for the firm. The talent deal and talent journey illustrate the dynamic context within which employees experience STM and make sense of organisational signals. The research model advances our understanding of the mechanism by which STM impacts the talented employee, deepening our understanding of how HC is engaged and deployed through SHRM practices and also draws attention to possible risk of increased employee expectations of exchange.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: An organisation's management of talent is central to its opportunity to benefit from human capital (HC). Closer examination of the impact of strategic talent management (STM) on the psychological contract (PC) and employee organisation relationship of talented employees is imperative if STM is to achieve intended organisational performance outcomes. Conceptualising the talented-employee perception of exchange as the \"talent deal\" and experience of STM over time as the \"talent journey\", an empirical research model is introduced. The paper aims to discuss these issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The model examines employee perceptions of STM, locating the employee response to STM within the wider SHRM-performance linkage.\nFindings: The research model theorises the PC of talented employees is modified by talent identification and STM is experienced through a series of significant career events.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further developing theory within the emerging field of STM, the paper extends STM, SHRM and organisational behaviour literatures by considering the employee's psychological response to STM. Empirical study considerations are presented.\nPractical implications: The \"talent deal\" and \"talent journey\" illustrate the employee experience of STM, drawing management attention to the consequences of talent identification including potential risk of altered expectations.\nOriginality/value: Considering the employee centrally in STM, the model theorises the impact of STM on the talented employee's PC and their relationship. Introducing the talent deal and talent journey provides a lens to examine the attitudes of talented employees relative to the broader workforce. The model frames future multi-level research of the association between the \"Talent Deal\" and performance outcomes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A critical review of relationship between corporate governance and firm performance: GCC banking sector perspective	[ "Financial performance", "Corporate governance", "Board of directors", "Shareholders", "Audit committees", "Chairmen" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The global financial crisis of 2007 had created ripples in the faith of banking sector. The reason for this crisis was attributed to financial sectors self - interest behavior. According to Howard (1997), the term \"tragedy of maximisation\" was introduced when the firms act in their self-interest and eventually lead to misuse of shareholder funds. For free markets to work efficiently, it is important to have elements of accountability, ethics, responsibility and transparency (Friedman and Friedman, 2010).\nImportance of corporate governance mechanisms: Corporate governance is a regulatory activity that is enforced through different internal and external agencies to resolve the agency conflicts and protect the stakeholder interests of organisations. Corporate governance ensures that firms are run in a responsible and accountable manner that enhances the overall performance.\nExisting studies of corporate governance around the world: There are several studies made around the world which are country-specific or cross-boarder to examine the impact of corporate governance on firm performance. These research studies make valuable contributions to the literature of corporate governance, as they given an insight on the impact of firm performance. It also encourages future developments in the topic of corporate governance and increases regulatory pressures on firms for successful compliance.\nExisting studies of corporate governance for the GCC sector: There has been some research on corporate governance for the GCC sector which are analysed in this section. The research of corporate governance has either been done country-specific or cross-country. Both types of research have been useful to gain some insight on the practices of corporate governance in this region.\nCritical analysis of the existing studies on corporate governance practices of GCC countries: Table I analyzes the existing studies of corporate governance practices in the GCC countries. It is found that most of the existing studies suffer from various limitations that suggest a need for a detailed empirical analysis. The GCC banks have very recently adopted the corporate governance practices over the past decade. Empirical studies in the field of corporate governance practices in the GCC region would support policymakers with suggestions on making improvements and increasing its compliance as well.\nConclusion: This paper is an attempt to identify the literature gaps in the study of corporate governance and its impact on firm performance of GCC financial sector. The existing research studies has reflected several limitations that accentuates the problem that relates to the regulatory setup, compliance and identification of any developments in the corporate governance practices. Because of the global financial crisis, it was identified that banks faced crisis because of option-based compensation (Bebchuk and Spamann, 2010). When the corporate governance practices were unable to protect the stakeholders of the financial sector during the crisis, there was an emerging need to improve the regulations. Subsequent to the crisis, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision revisited the principles of corporate governance of banking sector and revised the principles in 2010. Thereby, regulations adjusted to consider the microprudential issues along with macroprudential issues as well.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate existing studies on the relationship of corporate governance with firm performance in different regions and address the need for similar analysis for the Gulf Coperation Council (GCC) sector. The banking sector comprises the conventional and Islamic banks in the GCC sector and is important due to their ability to bring stability to this region. Existing studies that measure the relationship of GCC sector conventional banks and firm performance are limited. This study proposes a need for future research on corporate governance in the GCC region.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper will review and analyze the different empirical and theoretical contributions in establishing the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance.\nFindings: This paper will create a focus for future research of measuring the impact of corporate governance mechanism on firm performance. The regulators will be encouraged to focus on more research studies for the GCC sector development in the field of corporate governance of the banking sector.\nResearch limitations/implications: The existing studies are valid and practicable for the region under study, and the results need not be applicable for other business environments. In addition, the evolving business and economic environment have always brought about inconsistent conclusions; thus, the period of study can always give varied results.\nPractical implications: The analysis undertaken in this paper will address the literature gaps for the GCC banking sector and play an instrumental role for future studies by theoreticians and regulators.\nOriginality/value: This paper identifies the literature gaps for the GCC region and analyses the most applicable existing studies that can be useful for the banking sector corporate governance improvement. This paper will create opportunities for the future researchers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Roles for unilateral action in networks	[ "Social networks", "Decision making units", "Hierarchical organizations", "Strategic choices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many decisions in the public sector have to be made in networks. Networks consist of various actors that are mutually dependent and have diverging interests (Kickert et al., 1997, p. 9; McGuire, 2002; Koppenjan and Klijn, 2004). Ideal-typically, we can contrast a network with a hierarchy. In a hierarchy, an actor can unilaterally define problems and aims, make decisions and have them implemented (Bennet et al., 1989). In a network, identifying problems and aims and making decisions will result from a process of interaction and cooperation (consultation, negotiation) between stakeholders (Lindblom, 1968). All sorts of decision-making models based upon this observation have been developed: decision making in a network is, or should be, interactive (Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000), participatory (Webler et al., 2001; Halvoresen, 2001), dialogic (Giddens, 1994), stakeholder-oriented (Poncelet, 2001) or network-managerial (de Bruijn et al., 2002; O'Toole, 1997). We will use the term \"interactive decision making\" in the rest of this article.Interactive decision making has many advantages: it leads to support, better substantive decisions and more learning opportunities. Support, because the actors involved become the owners of the decision during the interaction process (de Bruijn et al., 2002; Provan and Brinton Milward, 2001); better substantive decision making, because the actors can contribute their various kinds of expertise (Fischer, 2000); more learning opportunities, because interaction between actors forces them to exchange information and induces social reflectiveness (Giddens, 1994; Fiorino, 2001).This article addresses an intriguing question. If a decision has to be reached in a network, and therefore in a process of interaction, is there nevertheless room for unilateral action by a government? Unilateral action implies that a government defines problems and aims and makes decisions, which it then unilaterally imposes on the other actors in the network. In other words, can an intervention mechanism that fits a hierarchy model of decision making be an effective form of management in networks?We will answer this question by first discussing briefly a number of theoretical notions about decision making in networks. We will then mention six strategies for using unilateral action in a network. Each of these strategies typically uses unilateralism while taking the characteristics of decision making in networks into account. The government that makes unilateral decisions plays the standard, interaction-based game of decision making in a network. However, at certain times and under particular circumstances, this government can intervene unilaterally, creating a blend of hierarchical and network-type decision making. The article finally presents a number of conclusions.\nDecision making in networks: What are the main characteristics of decision making in a network? In this section, we will discuss these characteristics briefly and then deal with the effects of unilateral action in networks.Characteristics\nUnilateral action as game playing in a network: The above conclusions about unilateral action require additional observations, because unilateralism may also be an effective strategy in networks. In that case, the government using unilateral action does not aim to impose its will on the other actors. It aims to strengthen its position in the network. This section mentions six such strategies.Strategy 1: threatening unilateral action to influence other actors' perception of the win-win game\nConclusion: In this article, we have described a number of unilateral strategies in networks. Two generic patterns emerge from their description.The first is that unilateral action is an incentive for a process of interaction. Threatening unilateral intervention (strategy 1), changing interdependencies through unilateral action (strategy 2) offering room along with such action (strategy 4) and unilateral action to de-hierarchize decision making (strategy 6) may create favourable conditions for the subsequent process of interactive decision making.The second pattern is that unilateral action results from a process of interaction. During the process, government and other actors can learn either that interaction is fruitless (strategy 3) or that it creates a win-win package for a critical mass of actors (strategy 5). The process will teach a government whether, and how, unilateral action is likely to succeed. The six strategies are thus embedded in the characteristics of interactive decision making in a network rather than being in conflict with them.There are two themes in the recent network literature that are relevant to this discourse and that are mentioned here to conclude this article.First, recent literature pays a great deal of attention to the dynamic of decision making in networks. The actors in a network anticipate and react to the actions of other actors (Koppenjan and Klijn, 2004). Actors learn what strategies others use and try to neutralize them. Because actors learn, the effectiveness of every strategy will decrease in the course of time: there is a Law of Decreasing Effectiveness (de Bruijn et al., 2002, p. 76). In such a dynamic context, an actor that only uses network strategies will become predictable, and thus vulnerable, in the course of time. An actor that alternates between hierarchy and network makes itself less predictable and is therefore less vulnerable. Giving attention to strategies on the interface of hierarchy and network may therefore enhance the potential of governments to influence societal developments, as long as they do not conflict with network-type, interactive decision making but are embedded in it.Second, the literature also pays considerable attention to the theme of \"trust\" (Borzel, 1998; Hindmoor, 1998). Trust is crucial in a network: an actor distrusted by others limits the potential for cooperation with the others. One risk of the strategies presented may be that they lessen actors' trust in a government, because a sudden hierarchical intervention may be perceived as an abrupt interruption of the interaction process and harm trust in a government. For this reason, too, it is very important that hierarchical interventions should be embedded in the process of interactive decision making. The more embedded they are in interactive decision making, the more they will be perceived as a natural part of network-type decision making and the more likely it is for them to be effective.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Decision making in networks is multilateral and interaction-based and is often contrasted with unilateral decision making in a hierarchy. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether unilateral interventions can nevertheless be functional in networks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A large number of empirical studies into decision making in networks were consulted to examine whether they featured unilateral interventions and, if so, what the roles of these interventions were. Prior to this, the author outlines theories on decision making in networks and the dysfunctions of unilateral interventions.\nFindings: - Six strategies were found in which unilateral interventions proved effective in network-like decision making. Unilateral action may be used to influence other actors' perceptions of the win-win game, to change the pattern of interdependencies, as a follow-up to failed interaction, if room is offered simultaneously, if there is a critical mass of winners and to de-hierarchize decision making. These unilateral strategies were found to be embedded in interaction-based, network-like decision making. In some cases, they stimulated a process of interaction; in other cases, they resulted from a process of interaction.\nPractical implications: - The strategies show that decision making in networks benefits from the intelligent use of unilateral action.\nOriginality/value: - The paper goes beyond the dichotomy between network and hierarchy and demonstrates that, on the interface of networks and hierarchies, there are many possibilities of developing strategies that - although unilateral - are network-contingent.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comprehensive framework for Internet of Things development: A grounded theory study of requirements	[ "Internet of Things (IoT)", "IoT development", "Requirements for IoT development", "Grounded theory", "Qualitative research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the rapid advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) in the recent decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) is bringing fundamental changes in economic, environmental and social realms, and it is becoming increasingly prevalent in our daily life (Gubbi et al., 2013). This stems from the capabilities by which a considerable number of devices and things are connected (Dutton, 2014; Lu et al., 2018). Although the definition of IoT is still in its infancy, it is generally agreed that IoT is the interconnection of objects or things for various purposes including identification, communication, sensing and data collection at any time within any place (Caputo et al., 2018). There are several fields of application for IoT such as healthcare, transportation, smart industry, logistics, energy, personal life domain, smart cities, agriculture and emergency management (Atzori et al., 2010; Borgia, 2014; Lee and Lee, 2015; Mishra et al., 2016). Based on the scientific reports, IoT is identified as one of the top fastest growing trends, which is expected to shape business opportunities by having $14bn economic impact by 2022. Hence, governments and industry are investing to develop IoT as a vital strategy for innovative and sustainable development (Kim and Kim, 2016). Accordingly, large-scale initiatives are underway in China, Japan, the USA, India, South Korea and European countries where industry, associated organizations and government are collaborating on diversified programs toward IoT (Shin, 2014). Similarly, Iran has also shown increasing interest in IoT. In accordance with 1404 Outlook, Iran has planned to enhance its competitive position globally (Zarei et al., 2016). To achieve this, Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC), as the main institute for IoT development, has recently initiated to make a remarkable effort to support IoT development by investigating it in terms of governance, technology, market, network, security and usability. Therefore, IoT development is being planned increasingly as a priority in national ICT strategies globally. Moreover, academics and research centers have also embarked on initiatives and increasingly placed emphasis on several issues within a range of research fields to foster the development of IoT. Among the studies on soft aspects of IoT development, the majority of them have been dedicated to issues such as basic concepts, applications and challenges of IoT (Mishra et al., 2016; Lee and Lee, 2015; Gubbi et al., 2013; Atzori et al., 2010; Borgia, 2014). On the contrary, fewer studies have investigated how IoT should be developed, managed and evolved to overcome the existing challenges. In other words, little is known about comprehensive requirements and essentials of IoT development. It should be notified that the current study has been initiated by concentrating on IoT development analysis, as a whole phenomenon, mostly to explore its various aspects and dimensions, in which requirements for IoT development is only one of them. Indeed, this paper explains the comprehensive requirements for IoT development, as a part of a broad-range research study on IoT development phenomenon. To ensure a successful IoT development, therefore, a variety of common questions should be answered: What is going on in the IoT development area in terms of requirements? What should be different requirements for IoT development? Finding the best answers to these general questions requires substantive data and appropriate research methodology. These were the main questions that motivated the authors to undertake a qualitative empirical research study.\n2. Background: To date, many studies have been conducted to investigate IoT development, and its related soft issues have been widely discussed in academic fields. Nevertheless, most of them have conceptually addressed overview descriptions, concepts, applications, challenges and opportunities (Borgia, 2014; Ng and Wakenshaw, 2017; Atzori et al., 2010; Dutton, 2014; Lee and Lee, 2015; Gubbi et al., 2013; Lu et al., 2018; Mishra et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2017). Regarding the overview descriptions of IoT, Atzori et al. (2010) and Gubbi et al. (2013) are among the first scholars who made an effort to theorize IoT concept and its basic related issues. Similarly, Borgia (2014) further explained the challenges and open issues accompanied by IoT development from a technological point of view. Furthermore, a number of studies investigated different challenges and barriers accompanied by IoT development (Mohammadzadeh et al., 2018; Valmohammadi, 2016; Luthra et al., 2018; Dutton, 2014). With respect to challenges, security and privacy risks of IoT development have been exclusively examined by authors such as Kouicem et al. (2018), Lopez et al. (2017), Sicari et al. (2015), Caron et al. (2016) and Li et al. (2016). In this regard, few authors have paid attention to legal sides of developing IoT (Weber, 2009; Weber, 2010; Weber, 2015; Weber and Studer, 2016; Janeek, 2018; Millard et al., 2017). From another perspective, prior research consists of two main groups. The first group is related to those studies in which IoT development is exclusively investigated from a user/consumer side (Caputo et al., 2018; Hsu and Lin, 2016; Hsu and Lin, 2018; Weinberg et al., 2015; Gao and Bai, 2014; Zhou and Piramuthu, 2015). These studies have gained insight into the adoption factors of IoT, which is a post-development issue put forward after IoT development. Conversely, the second group is dedicated to the studies by which the business aspects of IoT development are clarified (Lu et al., 2018; Saarikko et al., 2017; Krotov, 2017; Andersson and Mattsson, 2015; Metallo et al., 2018). Apart from the aforementioned works, few studies have developed a conceptual framework for IoT development, considering it as a multifaceted phenomenon (Shin, 2014; Shin and Park, 2017; Kshetri, 2017; Krotov, 2017; Hristov, 2017; Papert and Pflaum, 2017; Wirtz et al., 2019). In the first study of Shin (2014), a case application of a socio-technical framework was presented to assess development of IoT in Korea. Additionally, challenges in designing diverse components of IoT were described, and a snapshot of Korea's approach to meet the challenges was proposed using interviews and content analysis. Shin's further research, with the help of his colleague, appertains to the understanding IoT ecosystem by applying a multi-level socio-technical framework of users, society and ecology. In their study, the authors employed a mixed method to conceptualize how IoT can be designed and situated within human-centered contexts (Shin and Park, 2017). Moreover, Krotov (2017) presented a socio-technical analysis of IoT development conceptually. He reported three separated environments for IoT, namely technological, physical and socio-economic environments. In another study, Kshetri (2017) investigated the evolution of IoT using a case study in China, by which IoT development was discussed as an interplay of institutional, demand-side and supply-side factors. Besides the above studies, Hristov (2017) examined IoT development in terms of the required resources and competencies by using two theories, namely resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theory, to determine a set of policy recommendations. He analyzed how IoT can bring economic growth for China through a cooperative collaboration among academia, startups and policymakers. Some authors also investigated the requirements for IoT development, specifically in one sector. In this regard, Papert and Pflaum (2017) presented an ecosystem model for the realization of IoT development in the supply chain management (SCM) area. Having applied a grounded theory (GT) approach, their data analysis resulted in designing a model consisting of 19 different roles; their relationships and value contributions emerged during the research process. In addition, a recent publication by Wirtz et al. (2019) has proposed an integrative public IoT framework for smart government area, extracting insights from the relevant IoT literature. Highlighting an amalgam of technology perspective and business-related aspects, Wirtz and his colleagues' model is comprised of four layers, namely public strategic layer, public value creation layer, public demand layer and technology infrastructure layer.\n3. Methodology: This empirical study was carried out by applying pure GT, known as Glaser version. GT is a suitable method for qualitative researchers to answer questions like \"what is going on in an area?\" by generating formal or substantive theory (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). GT was selected as the most appropriate research methodology for conducting this empirical study for multiple reasons. First, IoT development is considered as a socio-technical phenomenon, and GT is best fitted for studying issues with a socio-technical nature. Second, GT is very helpful in investigating a phenomenon in detail. Besides, it is very helpful to study a relatively novel area or when researchers try to get a fresh perspective on a well-known area (Stern and Morse, 1994). In some works, only a few conceptual frameworks have been proposed on exploring the requirements for IoT development with support from real environments and different perspectives. Third, GT is suitable when researchers have no hypothesis up-front and they are looking for a conceptual framework grounded in data (Glaser and Holton, 2004), exactly what we were looking for. Although GT has been initially used in social studies, it is also a useful method for a wide range of topics in the information systems field, especially those related to novel multifaceted phenomena (Wiesche et al., 2017). Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, using GT in the IoT development area has not received much attention yet, and it could be considered as a contribution to this study.\n4. Results: In this research, 5 categories, 14 concepts and 412 primary codes were extracted. Considering Glaser's type family, the obtained categories were organized as different types of requirements for the realization of IoT development. The five extracted categories are listed as follows: strategic requirements, interactive requirements, institutional requirements, market-oriented requirements and ICT infrastructure requirements. Figure 1 depicts the presented framework of requirements for IoT development in the form of Glaser's type family.\n5. Evaluating the results: In this study, two rigor approaches, namely Glaser's approach and Lincoln and Guba's (1985) criteria (including member checking, data triangulation and peer debriefing) were applied to evaluate the research process and ensure the rigor of emerged theory. These made the authors confident of the trustworthiness of the findings. Due to the limited space, only the first rigor approach (Glaser's approach) has been reported.\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Comparison with related works\n7. Conclusion: This paper presented a GT study of IoT development by means of semi-structured interviews with 25 experienced experts of the IoT field in Iran. One of the most salient contributions of this study was from the methodology aspect and using a GT approach. The main advantage of the applied method was considering a variety of detailed multifaceted aspects associated with IoT development. Other major contributions of this study were demonstrated earlier in Section 6.2. Based on the requirements gleaned from the case of Iranian IoT development, this study presented practical recommendations, which may also be generalized to fit international contexts. Despite the mentioned contributions, similar to other qualitative research studies, this study suffers from some limitations, which provide avenues for future research. Since all the codes, concepts and categories were collected directly from the real environments, all the findings of the current study are enough grounded in the substantive data (Glaser, 2008). Nevertheless, this research does not claim that its findings are universal, because its access to appropriate resources was limited to those participants who had voluntarily attended to this research. Additionally, the small sample size and the non-random selection of participants necessitated by the qualitative research also limit the findings from being generalized. In fact, the inherent limitation of GT is that the emerged theory is mostly grounded in the particular contexts investigated in the research (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Nevertheless, as explained in detail in Section 5, it is claimed that this research's findings describe and characterize the area under study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the availability of prior studies on the Internet of Things (IoT) development, they have largely focused on challenges associated with evolving IoT. Hence, identifying requirements for IoT development, as a multifaceted phenomenon, whereby the challenges would be tackled remains a less-explored valuable line of inquiry. The purpose of this paper is to present a holistic view of crucial building blocks of IoT development, in order to fill this gap.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper conducts empirical research using a grounded theory (GT), centering on semi-structured interviews with 25 experts involved in the Iranian IoT development effort. Data were analyzed by using MAXQDA software.\nFindings: This study presents a conceptual framework of requirements for IoT development, consisting of 14 concepts and 5 categories. The findings reveal that strategic, interactive, institutional, market-oriented and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure requirements play a salient role in facilitating IoT development.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study shed some light on the momentous aspects of IoT development. Practitioners including governmental policymakers, industry and private sectors could benefit from the policy recommendations offered in this study in terms of strategic viewpoint, legal issues, business perspective and technological readiness.\nOriginality/value: From the methodological aspect, the present research is among the first studies on utilizing GT for exploration of requirements for IoT development. From the theoretical perspective, a remarkable achievement of this study is to profoundly discover some less-explored concepts of IoT development such as commercialization, feasibility study, futurology and institutional aspects. Furthermore, findings of this study highlight the contribution of innovation systems theory for the IoT development area in terms of alignment of the emerged requirements for IoT development with the functions of this theory.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of technological innovation efficiency on firm growth: The moderating role of family involvement in management	[ "Resource-based view", "Firm growth", "Resource orchestration", "Family involvement in management", "Technological innovation efficiency" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the current environment where businesses operate, characterised by the continuous introduction of innovations and the shortening of products' life cycles, technological innovation (hereafter, TI) allows companies to grow, evolve and reinvent themselves for the future. TI is defined as the set of activities through which a firm conceives, designs, manufactures and introduces a new product, service or technique (Freeman, 1976). Even though most previous innovation research has been inclined to examine innovation inputs (e.g. Verbano and Nosella, 2010), innovation activities (e.g. Serrano-Bedia et al., 2012) and innovation outputs (e.g. Tavassoli, 2018); the potential significance of TI efficiency has been widely unrecognised (Cruz-Cazares et al., 2013). Nevertheless, TI efficiency is gaining increasing momentum in the innovation area (Dieguez-Soto, Garrido-Moreno and Manzaneque, 2018; Lin et al., 2018; Manzaneque, Dieguez-Soto and Garrido-Moreno, 2018).\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 Technological innovation efficiency and firm growth\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data and sample\n4. Data analysis and results: The means, standard deviations and others descriptive statistics are shown in Table II. On average, our sampled firms have an ln_size of 17.13 (or about 115.90m) and are on average 41.18 years old. In this sense, ln_size ranges from 13.35 to 21.60 (or the amount from 624.9 thousands to 2.4bn) and firm age varies between 5 and 120 years old.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: TI activities and processes have been the subject of a growing number of studies in the management field (e.g. Ozturk, 2018), and particularly in the family firm area (e.g. Calabro et al., 2018). Family firms have realised that whether they want to remain competitive, even in crisis periods, they must increase their TI development (Manzaneque, Dieguez-Soto and Garrido-Moreno, 2018). Unfortunately, innovation research has overlooked the impact of TI efficiency on firm performance, as well as, the moderating effect of family management on such relationship (Dieguez-Soto, Garrido-Moreno and Manzaneque, 2018; Martinez-Alonso et al., 2018). Our paper substantially contributes to clarify this debate and it is the first empirical attempt to shed light on these issues. Specifically, we checked the influence of TI efficiency on firm growth and, by drawing on the RBV and resource orchestration, we examined when and to what extent family involvement in management moderates the ability to transform TI efficiency into firm growth. To address this issue, we carried out an OLS regression analysis to a sample of 152 Spanish manufacturing firms.\n6. Conclusion: In conclusion, this study reveals that TI efficiency positively influences firm growth and that this relationship is strengthened as family involvement in management increases. Thus, our study reveals that family managers have a substantial influence on the way in which TI efficiency is managed and how that efficiency is translated into firm growth. Besides the recent findings in both TI and family firm literature, our study provides valuable insights into theory and practice, as well as enlightening future researchers on some promising research avenues.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer new insights regarding an issue that has attracted the interest of multitude academics and practitioners in business management and family firm literature: technological innovation (TI). Specifically, this study brings new knowledge regarding both the impact of TI efficiency on firm growth and the moderating role of family involvement in management on such relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use a matched-pairs design and an ordinary least squares regression analysis to examine a sample of 152 Spanish manufacturing firms.\nFindings: First, the authors show that firms obtaining higher TI efficiency are also those that achieve superior growth. Second, the authors reveal that as family involvement in management increases, the positive effect that TI efficiency exerts on firm growth is strengthened.\nPractical implications: This study suggests that family managers should essentially consider various aspects such as tacit knowledge, social capital and long-standing collaborations with stakeholders to reinforce the relationship between TI efficiency and firm growth.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the effect of TI efficiency on firm growth, as well as, when and to what extent family involvement in management influences the TI efficiency-growth relationship. Thus, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the importance that family managers could have on firm growth deriving from TI efficiency.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Opportunities and challenges for NGOs amid competing institutional logics	[ "Governance", "Organizational learning", "Policy", "Market forces", "Educational policy", "Charter schools" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Over the last several decades, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have taken a significant role in the national effort to turn around the most chronically underperforming schools. For example, organizations like Success for All, Reading Recovery and Core Knowledge gained national attention by demonstrating effectiveness in raising student outcomes and building networks of hundreds and even thousands of schools (Kolleck, 2019; Trujillo and Woulfin, 2014). The last several years, however, have witnessed a new development in this trend. Spurred by pressure from the federal government (Peurach and Neumerski, 2015), and consistent with larger global trends that value an enhanced NGO role in public education (Kolleck and Yemini, 2019; Tamir et al., 2019), an increasing number of states are turning to NGOs - frequently charter management organizations - to assume operational control of existing schools (Glazer et al., 2019). Unlike typical charter schools that operate schools of choice and unlike the above-mentioned NGOs that collaborate with schools, these private organizations have assumed operational control of traditional neighborhood schools.\nLiterature review: Traditional institutional analyses of US education posited that a combination of a weak technical environment (i.e. a tenuous connection between teaching and learning), a dense but incoherent regulatory environment and deeply embedded cultural norms about schooling contributed to educational organizations whose structure mirrored the social environment but was loosely connected to the technical work of instruction. Schools obtained legitimacy from practices that resonated with cultural norms - certified teachers, subject areas, textbooks, report cards, graduation - while evading public inspection of their technical performance, and delegating the management of instruction to individual teachers (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Meyer and Scott, 1983).\nInstitutional logic: The institutional logic framework is well suited for highlighting the multiple ideologies and ideas vying for influence in contemporary educational environments, uncovering their underlying value systems and showing the implications for organizations that operate within their mix. Institutional logic depicts society as comprised of multiple, socially constructed institutions, referred to as the \"interinstitutional system,\" that constitute the cultural and material context for differing patterns of organizational and individual behavior (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012). The interinstitutional system includes the major social pillars of contemporary society: state, family, religion, market, community, profession and corporation. Each pillar, or institution, consists of its own cultural symbols, material practices, control mechanisms, conception of rationality and sources of legitimacy. Friedland and Alford (1991), widely credited with ushering in this perspective, offer the following definition:Each of the most important institutional orders of contemporary Western societies has a central logic [...]. The institutional logic of capitalism is accumulation and commodification of human activity. That of the state is rationalization and the regulation of human activity by legal and bureaucratic hierarchies. That of democracy is participation and the extension of popular control over human activity. That of the family is the motivation of human activity by unconditional loyalty to its members and their reproductive needs (pp. 247-248).\nStudy context: The Tennessee ASD represents a mix of regulation, competition, NGOs, performance standards and aggressive state policy that would have been unimaginable only a few decades ago. Indeed, the ASD's very existence is compelling evidence that the \"one best system\" is no longer an apt metaphor by which to describe US education. It also provides a potent opportunity to examine the interdependence between divergent and contested institutional environments and the educational organizations that operate within them.\nMethods[1]: The data that inform this paper come from a longitudinal case study of the Tennessee ASD spanning across four of the ASD's five first years of operations. The study's overarching research questions focused on the ASD's strategies and underlying belief system, the roles of social actors and institutions in the ASD's environment and the different ways that ASD operators interpreted and reacted to the mix of influences and incentives. A primary focus was the way in which operators' theories of improvement and design strategies evolved over time. 181 interviews were conducted with 93 individuals, including ASD leaders and staff, leaders of six ASD operators, local and state officials, neighborhood residents and leaders of community organizations. Interview and observation protocols were developed to guide and standardize data collection among a six-person research team. An extensive coding system was devised iteratively over the first year of the project, and then used to code the more than 1,000 pages of transcripts generated by interviews and observations. An iterative process of memo writing, discussion and revision guided the analytic process.\nOperator background and strategies: Keller Schools\nChallenges: After the first few years in the ASD, both operators had experienced growth and setbacks. EP had succeeded in expanding its operations to multiple school campuses, while Keller continued to manage a single high school. Both organizations, and many of the others operating in the ASD, experienced challenges common to any high-needs urban school whereas others were more tied to the high-stakes and contentious environment of the ASD. Two key types of challenges included \"inward-facing\" challenges of designing a system that could meet the performance demands of the state and \"outward-facing\" demands of community engagement, building trust, establishing relationships and securing broad-based support[2].\nAdaptations: Both Keller and EP leaders reported areas of success and concern in the early years of operating their schools. Keller leaders pointed to an improved school climate and increases in graduation and college-going rates, but admitted to struggles in translating those changes to improved state assessment scores. EP leaders similarly noted areas of improvement, such as declining expulsion and suspension rates, and positive parent feedback, yet lagging standardized test scores from the 2015-2016 school year, under enrollment, and an ongoing need to bolster public awareness and support revealed areas of concern. In response to these challenges, both organizations made extensive adaptations to their models and organizational strategies that better aligned them to the ASD's ambitious achievement goals and the demands of the local community. Among the array of changes the organizations made, two key types of adaptations emerged: modifications to their instructional and professional learning systems and to their external outreach strategies.\nDiscussion: Both Keller and EP arrived at the ASD with significant, albeit different, organizational resources and experiences that seemingly positioned them for success. Keller leaders had years of hands-on experience in local schools, a deep knowledge of the community and its needs, and a network of connections and potential partners. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine an operator with greater local knowledge than Keller. EP lacked the same degree of local knowledge but it brought more than a decade of hard-earned experienced in working with high poverty schools, and a school-level model that had evolved over that time and proven effective elsewhere.\nConclusion: In some ways, the ASD is a highly unusual, perhaps unique environment within the larger US education system. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find this precise combination of state, market, community and non-profit forces anywhere else. At the same time, the ASD brings to the fore several key characteristics of the current era in US education, and in doing so sheds light on the role and dynamics of non-government organizations operating and improving traditional neighborhood schools. Toward this end, we offer three observations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper considers the implications of reform efforts that rely on charter management organizations to assume operational control of underperforming neighborhood schools. The purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which changes to the education sector place enormous pressure on these organizations to both manage instruction and their social environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research presents the results from a longitudinal case study of two organizations operating within the Tennessee Achievement School District (ASD). Interviews, observations and document analysis provided insight into the perspectives of school operators, state officials and community leaders. The study design allowed researchers to observe the influence of the environment on school operators over a four-year period.\nFindings: Results show that the environment that included a muscular state, market pressures, NGOs and local communities placed an extreme and contradictory set of demands on organizations operating schools, pressing them to develop robust systems of instruction, leadership and teacher development while actively working to ensure social legitimacy in the community. Neither a national network nor a small local startup began with a strategy aligned to these environmental demands, and both needed to make substantial revisions.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research into contemporary educational reform should account for rapidly evolving environments that feature a complex mix of resources and incentives. Careful examination of the consequences of these environments for educational organizations will further our understanding of how markets, communities and governments are shaping the education sector.\nPractical implications: The extraordinary challenges that confront organizations that operate in crowded and contested environments preclude fast or dramatic results. Policymakers and the public should assume an incremental process of organizational learning and improvement. Setting unrealistic expectations and focusing exclusively on impact risks delegitimizing organizations and policy initiatives before they have time to adapt.\nOriginality/value: This research reported here is among the few studies that have explored the experiences and implications of NGOs that have attempted to assume operational control of underperforming neighborhood schools. The popularity of this approach among a growing number of states highlights the importance of this topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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