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Academic video lectures over named data networking	[ "Mobility", "Video lectures", "Future internet", "ICN", "Information-centric networking", "Named data networking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Video is superior for learning complex skills, as it can expose learners to events that cannot be easily demonstrated (Overbaugh, 1995). Zhang et al. (2006, p. 17) hold the view that \"video allows students to view actual objects and realistic scenes, to see sequences in motion, and to listen to narration.\" Teachers can present, teach and internalize information by using video lectures (Brecht and Ogilby, 2008). Such lectures are also excellent venues for focusing the students' attention on specific details based on the prepared material itself. Video lectures are a helpful method to enhance bibliographic instruction or online tutorials (Crook and Schofield, 2017). They also allow librarians to make instruction sessions available online, which students may access at their convenience. With no doubt, the technological involvement of a library significantly improves student technology-based learning skills (Rafi et al., 2019). Consequently, academic librarians must have diverse skills to provide aspiring academics and professionals with access to video lectures using mobile information communication devices (Allen and Taylor, 2017). The use of academic video lectures has enriched the educational curriculum in a range of teaching fields that are based on science, such as human anatomy and physiology (Constantinou and Papadouris, 2004). Lents and Cifuentes (2009) demonstrated that students using proper video lectures perform as well as the students attending the traditional lectures. Scagnoli et al. (2019) found that video lectures can enhance a feeling of engagement with content because of learners' control of the media and instructors' presence. They also investigated the effectiveness of video lectures in college learning in online course design. They showed that students' satisfaction with video lectures has a strong relationship with positive overall learning experience and perception of impact of video on learning. Students can also benefit their new knowledge construction from the increased interactivity of interactive video lectures (Ronchetti, 2010). Currently, interactive video lectures are increasingly being adopted in digital learning contexts for increasing interactivity (Hung and Chen, 2018).\n2. The information-centric networking paradigm: The emerging ICN paradigm (Jacobson et al., 2009; Xylomenos et al., 2014) is the future internet with respect to information sharing that can confront the above challenges. In general, ICN is a fresh solution to conventional IP-based networking issues/challenges.\n3. A potential named data networking architecture for academic video lectures consumption: In this section, we explain and analyze NDN technologies in terms of their usability to academic video lectures. We show how academic video lectures can become independent of location, application, storage and means of transportation, allowing for inexpensive and ubiquitous in-network caching and replication. In our NDN architecture for academic video lectures, e-learners will constitute data consumers and generate the requests for academic video lectures. For example, an e-learner puts the name: \"/lecture/2035@Prof.James_Wang\" into an Interest packet and sends it to the network. The name \"/lecture/2035@Prof.James_Wang\" identifies the video lecture (numbered 2035) that has been published by the mobile device of the user named \"Prof.James_Wang.\" This architecture can be implemented on top of CCNx to offer both real-time and no real-time video lectures. CCNx (CCNx, 2018) is the CCN software created by Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). CCNx software addresses the problems of seamless content distribution, mobility, security and scalability. CCNx source code can be downloaded at no charge (http://ccnx.org).\n4. Existing information-centric networking architectures for video services: Kanellopoulos (2014) provided an overview of which technologies are being used broadly in networking scenarios of digital video libraries. Piro et al. (2014b) reviewed the state-of-the-art works on mature ICN-based multimedia systems. They also provided a comprehensive framework to classify these works and the available tools. In fact, various multimedia streaming applications supported by ICN have been developed. Majeed et al. (2017) surveyed the recent advancements on multimedia streaming in ICN architectures. Li et al. (2011) designed the MERTS platform to handle, at the same time, real-time and non-real-time flows in NDN. The MERTS platform classifies the TOS to which each packet belongs to when it passes through a given NDN node. MERTS can limit the impact of network latency by issuing multiple requests at the same time and adapt the caching policy to the TOS associated to the received Data packet. Xu et al. (2012) designed the NDN live streaming architecture that enables simple HTTP live streaming services in an NDN network. The remote server breaks the video stream into a sequence of segments (i.e. video chunks) and stores them within a local repository. Moreover, to describe the structure and the properties of that media content, it generates a proper index file, called playlist. The playlist is the first data that the client has to retrieve before starting to the download of the video. Han et al. (2013b) proposed an adaptive retransmission scheme for video streaming over content-centric wireless networks. This novel and efficient retransmission scheme of Interest packets has been conceived to reduce video packet losses in an NDN network. Han et al. (2013a) proposed the adaptive mobile video streaming in wireless NDN (AMVS-NDN). AMVS-NDN was designed to offer video streaming services through the emerging Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) scheme (Sodagar, 2011). AMVS-NDN was evaluated in a heterogeneous wireless environment in which a number of devices are equipped with both 3G and Wi-Fi network interfaces. The former one provides the internet connectivity, whereas the latter one can be used to form an ad hoc wireless network. The performance of DASH in NDN has also been evaluated in Lederer et al. (2013), Liu et al. (2013) and Awiphan et al. (2013). Li and Simon (2011) introduced a cooperative caching strategy for large video streams in on-demand services. Authors have focused their attention on time-shifted TV services that allow viewers to watch their favorite broadcast TV programs within an expanded time window. Detti et al. (2012) evaluated the performance of video-on-demand streaming applications handled through the NDN paradigm in a heterogeneous wireless network. The investigated scenario is composed by a group of users that are interested in watching, at the same time, a given video content available at the remote streaming server. Park et al. (2013) presented an efficient scheme enabling streaming services in an NDN network. This scheme requires the modification of the normal behavior of an NDN router. Real experiments demonstrated that the proposed approach can reduce the delay jitter and increase the aggregate throughput achieved by video flows.\n5. Findings and future research directions: The main findings of our study are the following ones:\n6. Conclusion: In the past decade, content-based systems such as video streaming and sharing, social media and internet protocol TV (IPTV) have become popular and emerged as the predominant traffic generators within the internet. However, in the existing internet architecture, a content object such as a video lecture is retrieved by its storage location (IP address). The ICN paradigm is a new paradigm that addresses IP network limitations in supporting content distribution and information access by decoupling content from hosts and providing the ability to retrieve a content object by its identifier (name).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Information-centric networking (ICN) is an innovative paradigm for the future internet architecture. This paper aims to provide a view on how academic video lectures can exploit the ICN paradigm. It discusses the design of academic video lectures over named data networking (NDN) (an ICN architecture) and speculates their future development. To the best of author's knowledge, a similar study has not been presented.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is a visionary essay that introduces the background, elaborates the basic concepts and presents the author's views and insights into academic video lectures that exploit the latest development of NDN approach and its applications.\nFindings: The ICN paradigm is closely related to the levels of automation and large-scale uptake of multimedia applications that provide video lectures. Academic video lectures over NDN have: improved efficiency, better scalability with respect to information/bandwidth demand and better robustness in challenging communication scenarios. A framework of academic video lectures over NDN must take into account various key issues such as naming (name resolution), optimized routing, resource control, congestion control, security and privacy. The size of the network in which academic video lectures are distributed, the content location dynamics and the popularity of the stored video lectures will determine which routing scheme must be selected. If semantic information is included into academic video lectures, the network dynamically may assist video (streaming) lecture service by permitting the network to locate the proper version of the requested video lecture that can be better delivered to e-learners and/or select the appropriate network paths.\nPractical implications: The paper helps researchers already working on video lectures in finding a direction for designing and deploying platforms that will provide content-centric academic video lectures.\nOriginality/value: The paper pioneers the investigation of academic video lecture distribution in ICN and presents an in-depth view to its potentials and research trends.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A theoretical framework of organizational change	[ "Organizational change", "Contingency analysis", "Culture", "Leadership", "Environmental scan", "Police", "Public security", "Public management", "International environment", "Costs of change", "Policing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nOrganizational change as a risky strategy: Organizational change is omnipresent, being the raison d'etre of the consultancy industry (Sorge and van Witteloostuijn, 2004). Modern organization sciences have produced a large amount of insights into a wide variety of issues related to organizational change. And of course, consultancies successfully launch new organizational change \"products\" all the time. However, organizational change is still often associated with failure. A case in point is the persistently high number of merger and acquisition deals that fail in the post-integration stage (totalling approximately 70 per cent) or the (circa) 30 per cent that fail before consummation (see, e.g. Dikova et al., 2010; Muehlfeld et al., 2012; Brakman et al., 2013). Most organizational change projects, of course, deal with less impactful issues than mergers and acquisitions, where negative effects may be expected to be less threatening to organizational survival than M&A deals gone awry. Yet, change projects with a smaller scope are also prone to poor planning, disappointing results and unintended consequences that divert resources from operational tasks, disrupt well-established routines, and shatter the trust of employees and business partners alike.Organizational change theories need to negotiate two hurdles: scholarly quality and practical relevance (Pettigrew et al., 2001). Key questions in research on organizational change are: Why do so many organizational change initiatives fail to deliver? And how can organizational change processes be implemented in a way that assures success? Organizational change is a notoriously complex phenomenon; it is only natural that research on organizational change addressed this complexity from numerous more or less complementary or contradictory, but equally legitimate perspectives. These perspectives stretch across disciplinary boundaries, across methodological camps, and often across contradictory visions of organizations. The result is a debilitating fragmentation of theories of organizational change, with widely different perspectives - sometimes complementary, but sometimes contradictory - blossom side by side in the large organizational change literature. One angle to illustrate this state of fragmentation is that of the level of aggregation: micro (individuals) and, meso (groups and organizations) and macro (organizational environment and populations of organizations).The fragmented nature of the field of organizational change research\nTheoretical framework: Our macro-lens brings a fundamental observation to the theoretical discussion that is often ignored by micro-level researchers: Organizational change does not emerge and evolve in splendid isolation. Stakeholders inside and outside of the organization tend to be heavily involved before, during and after the change process (Frooman, 1999). Our micro-lens, in turn, draws attention to the role of organizational members in organizational change, an aspect that is often overlooked by macro-level scholars of strategic management. We embed our analysis of internal organizational change processes in a larger cultural and institutional framework, focusing on differences across societies. To organize the arguments, we frame this process in a simple input-throughput-output model, as introduced in Figure 1.Input relates to the antecedents of change (the period before the change), throughput to the process of change (during), and output to the consequences of change (after). The glue that binds all of these elements of our theoretical framework together is organizational identity and how this may be affected by organizational change. Therefore, before introducing our unified input-throughput-output framework, we first discuss this essential nexus between organizational identity and organizational change.The effects of organizational change on organizational identity\nDiscussion: Organizational change is a major challenge; the literature is full of contributions outlining the multi-complexity of organizational change endeavours. It is widely acknowledged that planned organizational change is not fully possible, since \"[o]rganisations are continually changing, routinely, easily and responsively, but change within them cannot be controlled arbitrarily. Organizations rarely do exactly what they are told to do\" (March, 1981, p. 563). We are aware that our model implies an ambitious programme for organizational change studies. Interdisciplinary discourse and cross-cultural research frameworks are challenging in themselves (Sauquet and Jacobs, 1998; Turati et al., 1998). We feel that it is worth the effort and that existing theories in organizational change need to be systematically tested and modified in an international arena.At the heart of our model lie the three observations with which we started. First, organizational change can violate the organizational identity, which might have detrimental effects on the organization's legitimacy and performance. Second, to predict such effects, a contingency perspective enables us to analyse the specific external and internal conditions of organizations that facilitate both change success and change failure. Third, the general patterns and mechanics apply to all change processes. Nevertheless it is the very spirit of our contingency perspective that in an international context the meanings of patterns and mechanics that lie behind the input, throughput and output processes of organizational change can widely differ and therefore deserve not a cure-all approach, but a careful and respectful analysis of the specific contexts.The two next contributions to this special issue introduce the first results from a large EU-financed international project into organizational change in police organizations. This project involves teams from ten different countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Republic of Macedonia, The Netherlands, Romania, Spain and the UK. The research project \"Comparative Police Studies in the EU (COMPOSITE; see www.composite-project.eu/) runs in the period from 2010 to 2014 collecting rich multi-level data to explore Figure 1's unified, multidisciplinary and multi-level framework of organizational change in police forces in the ten participating countries. In this special issue, next to this paper's introduction of the framework, initial findings from two work packages will be presented. The next paper in this special issue summarises the results from the joint efforts of the complete COMPOSITE team to systematically carry out an environmental scan analysis in all ten European countries, focusing on evaluating the O and T pillars of a SWOT framework from the perspective of specific police forces. The paper after that discusses issues that relate to the key role of technology.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Organizational change is a risky endeavour. Most change initiatives fall short on their goals and produce high opportunity and process costs, which at times outweigh the content benefits of organizational change. This paper seeks to develop a framework, offering a theoretical toolbox to analyze context-dependent barriers and enablers of organizational change. Starting from an organizational identity perspective, it aims to link contingency-based approaches, such as environmental scan, SWOT and stakeholder analysis, with insights from organizational behaviour research, such as knowledge sharing and leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The framework is informed by long-lasting field research into organizational change in an international policing environment. The theories in the framework are selected from the perspective of field validity in two ways; they were chosen because the topics covered by these theories emerged as relevant during the field research and therefore it can be expected they have applicability to the field. The authors' insights and suggestions are summarised in 13 propositions throughout the text.\nFindings: - The analysis provides a clear warning that organizational change is more risky and multifaceted than change initiators typically assume. It is stressed that the external environment and the internal dynamics of organizations co-determine the meaning of managerial practices. This implies that cure-all recipes to organizational change are bound to fail.\nOriginality/value: - This paper makes an ambitious attempt to cross disciplinary boundaries in the field of organizational change research to contribute to a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of change processes by integrating perspectives that focus on the internal context and the external environment of organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Influences of contextual variables on the intention to use technology in education: A latent variable modeling approach	[ "Singapore", "Teachers", "Primary schools", "Technology", "Usage", "Intention to use", "Latent variable modeling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: From the literature, researchers in technology acceptance have been interested in understanding the factors that influence users' acceptance of technologies. These research often include determining the factors that cause individuals to completely accept or reject new information technology, or engage in sabotage or active resistance, designing appropriate implementation tactics and interventions that mitigate problems associated with the rejection of information technologies, and identifying factors that ensure continual use of information technologies. Among the models where research variables are drawn are the technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, 1989), theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991), and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003). In the majority of acceptance studies, researchers examined the variables in each model/theory and their interactions among one another within or across the models/theories to understand or predict users' intention to use or actual usage of technology (e.g. Teo, 2009; Teo and Van Schaik, 2009).Some researchers attempted to study technology acceptance by rising above the variable level. For example, Chau and Hu (2002) proposed a generic framework for technology acceptance by looking at how the various variables (influences) could be grouped into different contexts and their impact on users' intention to use technology examined. By studying the acceptance of telemedicine among physicians, Chau and Hu found that users' acceptance behaviors could be influenced by factors pertaining to the individual, technological, and the implementation contexts. The individual context refers to users' characteristics; the technological context refers to the characteristics of the technology itself; while the implementation context refers to the professional environment of the user. In a more recent study, Almeida and Sobral (2009) proposed a model which included perceptions about the technology (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness), perceptions about the environment (subjective norm and perceived behavioral control), and organization structure adaptability (e.g. control and planning) to study the psychological and structural determinants of technology integration in organizations. Almeida and Sobral also hypothesized in their model that users' perceptions about the technology and environment have positive and significant influences on attitude toward technology. Drawing data from 127 managers among small- and medium-sized enterprises in Portugal, the authors found a good fit for the model which included the proposed three contexts.Drawing from the variables in the above-mentioned model/theories, individual context encompassed computer anxiety and computer attitude. The technological context was represented by performance expectancy and effort expectancy while the implementation context was defined by subjective norm and facilitating conditions. All the variables in Chau and Hu (2002) were the same or similar to Almeida and Sobral's study. Although they have different terms, they shared the same operational definition. For example, perceived ease of use and effort expectancy is the same as these constructs were proposed by Davis (1989) and Venkatesh et al. (2003), respectively. Table I contains the operational definition for each of the variables within each context (individual, technological, and implementation) that will be examined in this study.Aim of this study\nMethod: Participants and procedures\nResult: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: The aim of this study is to test the efficiency of the individual, technological, and implementation contexts in explaining the intention to use technology on a sample of primary school teachers. Specifically, this study aims to answer whether the variables in the research model significantly predict the context and, whether the individual, technological, and implementation contexts significantly predict the intention to use technology. Using latent variable modeling, the research model (Figure 1) was tested and the results indicated a good fit to the data although the results showed non-significant paths from all contexts (individual, technological, and implementation) to teachers' intention to use.This finding is contrary to Chau and Hu (2002) who found the three contexts to have significant influences on the intention to use among healthcare professionals. It is possible that the individual, technological, and implementation contexts affect educational users of technology and their commercial counterparts in different ways. For example, teachers, compared to their counterparts in the business settings, have greater autonomy than business users in deciding how and what technology to use for teaching and learning purposes. Moreover, teachers do not use technology because they are motivated by profits, as is the case of commercial users of technology. Niederhauser and Stoddart (2001) suggested that teachers' beliefs were crucial to their acceptance of technology. This largely supports the results of the current study which showed significant relationships between the six variables and intention to use.The results also found the contexts were significantly predicted by their assigned variables. For example, computer anxiety and computer attitudes were significant predictors of the individual contexts while performance and effort expectancy were significant predictors of the technological context. This suggests that while the teachers in Singapore recognize that the variables that impact on technology acceptance (e.g. computer anxiety, computer attitudes, performance expectance, subjective norm) may be grouped into contexts, their acceptance decisions were more affected by these variables in a direct way (Figure 2) than through the three contexts proposed in this study (Figure 1).Implication for practice\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of selected individual, technological and implementation variables on the intention to use technology, among a sample of primary school teachers in Singapore.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, 385 teachers from 18 primary schools completed a survey questionnaire measuring their responses to six constructs that are categorized into in three contexts in which teachers' intention to use technology was influenced. Latent variable modeling was used as the technique for data analysis.\nFindings: - The results showed that teachers' intention to use technology was not significantly influenced by the three contexts. However, each of the three contexts was significantly explained by their variables. The results suggest that the teachers in this study may have conceptualized the influences on their intention to use technology differently than commercial users of technology, as seen from the information sciences literature.\nOriginality/value: - This study contributes to our understanding of what influences the intention to use technology among educational users. While much research has been focused at the variable level, this study examines the contexts in which variables interact with each other.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploratory insight into the workplace demographic challenges in the public sector: A Kenyan perspective	[ "Talent management", "Public sector organizations", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "Strategic workforce planning", "Ageing workforce", "Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A recent report has estimated the youth population in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to be in excess 200 million and this is expected to double by 2045. Compared with the 42 per cent of youth with secondary education, it is expected that in another ten years, this proportion would have grown to 59 per cent (World Economic Forum, 2013). Against the backdrop of a rapidly growing, and better educated youth population in SSA, the representation of the youth in the public sector has been marginal. This raises a number of concerns that form part of the research enquiry prompting the need to explore whether a Strategic Workforce Plan (SWP) would be accepted and implantable in order to mitigate the demographic challenges in the workplace of a Public Sector organization (PSO) that should be a role model for the public sector in Kenya.\n2. Research context - the KNBS: The KNBS faces a looming workplace demographic deficit that would require research into understanding how best to replenish exiting staff, while improving on diversity of its workplace along all facets of the demographic - age, gender, education being the main elements. In the face of a new \"constitutional dispensation\" in Kenya, coupled with the country's increasingly aware and educated populace (with graduates of both genders) the diversity of the workplace should be seen as central to the daily lives of those in the public sector of which KNBS is the legitimate custodian.\n3. Literature review: The literature review is split into three sub-sections: the ageing question; organizational learning; and the need for an SWP.\n4. Research approach/design/method: This study is based upon Action research, an approach that typically involves participants examining their own day-to-day workplace practices carefully and systematically, in order to bring about positive change to organizational practices (see Coghlan and Brannick, 2010). In this study such change processes are based on a critical reflection of key employees in their day-to-day roles within KNBS. The research protocol involved probing the various strategies of improving recruitment, training, retention and retirement practices to achieve greater diversity. The study also takes the form of a \"self-conscious criticism\" (Kincheloe and McLaren, 1998) considering that one of the authors happens to be a senior employee of KNBS, which also poses challenges (e.g. conflict of interest) and opportunities - i.e. the insider advantage (Coghlan and Brannick, 2010). With the impending retirements of the \"Baby Boomer\" generation, it is inevitable that many organizations would be affected by the loss of institutional skills and talent. This is especially critical in the public sector in Kenya, where the mandatory retirement age is 60 years.\n5. Findings: The main findings of the study lean towards the need for SWP emanating from the established ageing workforce at KNBS. The focus groups all pointed towards: A change in the status quo especially in the areas of existing recruitment and retention strategies; Matters related to talent management and succession planning. Indeed a realization of the disconnect in the inter-generational workforce, which emerged out of the collective internally driven action research also testifies to the appropriateness of the adopted approach; Provides avenues for reflexive thinking and organizational learning being plugged into the SWP going forward - in other words the buy-in of employees going through a change process. As suggested in the literature, the SWP involves looking at the bigger picture where talent had to be evaluated from an organization-wide perspective. Similarly the information was sought through the in-house team of economists, accountants, human resource experts and demographers, and the qualifications of these research participants at KNBS. Each directorate had to interrogate their unique reports in order derive that \"holistic picture\" of the problem at hand. Key elements and excerpts from the explored themes are discussed in this section.\n6. Conclusions: The main purpose of this study was to explore the how, where and what the ageing workforce in Kenya's public sector has been managed. In order to reach the conclusions, an evaluation of the status quo within the ranks of the custodian of national statistics in the country was undertaken with a general consensus reached as to the need for changing existing practices. Considering that KNBS is perceived by the key informants in the study as a microcosm of the wider economy, the dilemma of an ageing workforce was deemed to be a clear and present danger, which is in need of public policy attention. As a consequence, the proposed SWP may be seen as a step in the right direction, as it proposes coping strategies to address the demographic challenge facing, not just KNBS in particular, but Kenya in general. Indeed evidence has shown that what obtains in the Kenyan context seems to be playing out in other SSA contexts. Notable among these include studies on Eritrea (Ghebregiorgis and Karsten, 2006) and Ethiopia (Moges et al., 2014) both of which highlighted similar concerns - perhaps due to a shared political history. Similarly studies in the context of Mozambique (Wood et al., 2011; Webster and Wood, 2005; Sartorius et al., 2011, p. 1963); Nigeria (Okpara and Kabongo, 2011); South Africa and Tanzania (Lam et al., 2006; Velkoff and Kowal, 2006; Spitzer and Mabeyo, 2014; Schatz and Seeley, 2015); as well as Zambia (Fashoyin, 2008a; Gadzala, 2010) seem to have provided some indication of the demographic shifts in the SSA region. Indeed Moges et al. (2014) captured the newness of the trend more aptly in their study on emerging population ageing challenges in Africa, which explored the implication for Ethiopia. According to them \"Ethiopia [the second most populous country in SSA behind Nigeria] is in its early stage of demographic transition [...] with projections indicating [...] significant departures from the historical trend\". These authors went on to confirm that \"rapid changes in demographic features of the country can lead to fast population ageing before the economy, the country and families are ready to handle the problems associated with population ageing\" (see Moges et al., 2014, p. 15). A similar media report in Ghana also confirms the particular concern in a government department as recently as 2014 where the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority was feared to \"lose a lot of its human resource in the next two years because of ageing staff\" (see Abbey, 2014). According to the article, and quoting Mr Ussuri Ibrahim Adams, the Deputy Commissioner of Human Resource Unit of the agency:\n7. Limitations and implications: This study experienced a number of limitations - in at least four areas. First, the methodological concerns over the credibility of an action research protocol and the constitution of the research participants, many of whom were statisticians involved in positivist research methods posed an initial concern. Indeed the focus group composition may have discouraged the \"die-hard\" positivists from participating, even after consent had been given (five participants opted out, mostly directors). A second limitation arose from studying a single organization for a problem that affects the whole public service in Kenya. This brought about lingering doubts as to the generalizability of the findings. However as Coughlan and Coghlan (2002, p. 64) argues, action research does not attempt to create universal knowledge per se (emphasis added), but should be left to the readers to decide what to take from the \"story\". A third limitation arose from being an insider researcher. While many colleagues offered initial verbal assurances to participate in person, they later ignored invitations to meet-up or to provide information. This had negative implications for the successful implementation of the SWP and its sustainability going forward. A fourth limitation relates to implementation of the study findings. Being a semi-autonomous state agency in the Kenyan Public service, KNBS is impacted by what happens in the wider public service that depends on government funding - ultimately any recommendations would depend on the government goodwill and financing. Collectively the aforementioned limitations also raise opportunities for a number of future research areas. A first area would be to explore SWP in a different setting, say in a large private sector or NGO (non-governmental organization) for comparison with what has been observed in the public sector. A second area would be on inter-generational communication at the workplace as it impacts upon the transfer of skills from the older to the younger generation - i.e. succession planning. A third area would be to research on the impact of SWP wherever it has been implemented using an action research protocol considering the embedded cultural and organizational practices in other SSA contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the need for a Strategic Workforce Plan (SWP) in a public sector organization (PSO) confronting an ageing workforce situation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based upon an action research protocol with a view to initiating change through SWP developed in-house at a PSO that is arguably the custodian of workplace diversity.\nFindings: The findings reveal a general consensus on the ageing workforce challenges at the PSO requiring the need to revisit the status quo on the recruitment and retention strategies as well as succession planning and talent management practices within the organization.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study highlights the case of a PSO that has set about addressing the workplace demographic challenge by involving employees to become more reflexive in their engagement within the organization, which serves the dual purpose of \"custodian\" and \"role model\" for the country.\nOriginality/value: The challenge of an ageing workforce is not common occurrence in developing countries such as Kenya. However the manifestations of this unusual occurrence, and attempts to \"nip things in the bud\", using an internally generated SWP with a view to changing the status quo is a demonstration of organizational learning and employee buy-in.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of executive coaching on self-efficacy related to management soft-skills	[ "Coaching", "Supervisory training", "Management development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In organizational settings, executive coaching has become an increasingly common method to skill development (Bacon and Spear, 2003; Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001). In line, the number of professional coaches has increased considerably in recent years: in 2008, the International Coaching Federation alone counted more than 15,000 members in 90 countries (www.coachfederation.org). The reason most commonly cited in the popular literature to explain this keen interest in coaching is that the numerous and frequent changes experienced within organizations (e.g. mergers and acquisitions, changes in management philosophies, new forms of work organization) have created a new need to develop management skills, especially interpersonal skills (Zeus and Skiffington, 2001). However, from a scientific perspective, it has been noted that very few empirical studies have been conducted on executive coaching (Lowman, 2005; Sue-Chan and Latham, 2004). Moreover, some authors have argued that coaching is over-utilized in organizational settings, considering the limited research on its efficacy (McGovern et al., 2001).\nExecutive coaching: A number of definitions have been proposed for executive coaching, mainly in the popular press. These definitions differentiate themselves, to use the taxonomy of Sperry (2004), by their focus either on performance enhancement, skill development, or personal development. The type of executive coaching studied in this paper refer to skill-focused coaching and is well described by the definition of Douglas and Morley (2000) for which coaching is:The process of equipping people with the tools, knowledge, and opportunities they need to develop themselves and become more effective (Peterson, 1996). Executive coaching involves the teaching of skills in the context of a personal relationship with the learner, and providing feedback on the executive's interpersonal relations and skills (Sperry, 1993). An ongoing series of activities tailored to the individual's current issues or relevant problem is designed by the coach to assist the executive in maintaining a consistent, confident focus as he or she tunes strengths and manages shortcomings (Tobias, 1996).The adjective \"executive\" can be explained by the original use of coaching with CEOs and vice-presidents. Although the use of executive coaching has been extended to lower levels of management over the past decade, the expression \"executive coaching\" was kept because the objectives of the coaching interventions did not changed.Executive coaching differs from supervisory coaching behaviors, which are increasingly performed by managers (Ellinger et al., 1999). First, the manager, due to his position of authority over the employee, exercises significant control over him. This authority and control can have the effect of restraining the employee from bringing up certain subjects thought to be more delicate, notably those of a more personal nature involving the manager. An executive coach, either from within or outside the organization, has no direct authority over the employee-coachee. Second, daily coaching behaviors that a manager displays with an employee do not constitute a formal development process with a beginning and an end as is the case with executive coaching. Executive coaching also differs from mentoring, which refers to \"a relationship between an older, more experienced mentor and a younger, less-experienced protege for the purpose of helping and developing the protege's career\" (Ragins and Kram, 2007, p. 5).Reviews of the literature on executive coaching (Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001; Smither and Reilly, 2001) have proposed the following six stages for an effective coaching process:1. establishing a relationship of trust between the coach and the coachee;2. evaluating the coachee and the professional setting in which he or she works;3. providing feedback on this evaluation to the coachee;4. establishing a development plan and setting goals;5. implementing the behaviors to be developed or improved; and6. evaluating the progress achieved.Furthermore, two types of coaches offering coaching services can generally be identified: in-house or internal coaches, from within the same organization where the coachee works, or external coaches, from outside the organization. Hall et al. (1999) and Wasylyshyn (2003) described the main advantages and disadvantages of each type of coach. For example, whereas an internal coach knows the coachee's work environment better, an external coach generally approaches the training situation with more objectivity. Finally, Peltier (2001) described the four contexts in which executive coaching is most commonly used. These contexts are:1. major organizational changes requiring new skills;2. a skill-development need stemming from a promotion;3. a specific skill-development need for the managers in question; and4. the resolution of individual performance problems.In the first three contexts, coaching is proposed in order to achieve development goals, whereas in the fourth context, the objective is corrective.Empirical studies on executive coaching\nMethods: Setting and professional development program\nResults: Preliminary analyses\nDiscussion: The objective of our study was to partially fill a gap in the training literature by examining the link between an executive coaching intervention and self-efficacy related to supervisory coaching behaviors. Our results indicated that executive coaching, operationalized in our study by the number of coaching sessions received, was positively and significantly associated with self-efficacy at the end of the leadership development program, after having controlled for the two other development methods used and for pre-training self-efficacy. In other words, the higher the number of coaching sessions, the greater the increase in the manager's self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, the size of the effect of executive coaching on the self-efficacy variance (r=0.35) exceeds the threshold of 0.30 established by Cohen (1992) for an average effect. Considering the limited number of rigorous empirical studies on the efficacy of coaching in organizational settings, this result constitutes a substantial theoretical contribution.The second theoretical contribution of this study is to have tested, in the context of executive coaching, the influence of individual and situational variables whose impact is recognized in the context of more traditional training. Indeed, utility judgment, learning goal orientation, and work-environment support have been widely studied in the area of organizational training, but the pertinence of these variables had not yet been investigated in the context of a professional development program including executive coaching. Our results show a positive and significant relationship between utility judgment of the professional development program and self-efficacy. While some authors question whether a participant's reaction to training has predictive power for learning and transfer (Ruona et al., 2002; Tan et al., 2003), our results suggest the contrary. As we hypothesized, the participants who perceived this management skills training as not very useful in meeting the demands of their job showed less development of self-efficacy than did those who perceived the training as useful. This result suggests that, as with traditional training, professional development programs for managers that rely in part on coaching should not overlook presenting the program's objectives and the expected benefits for the participants in their jobs. This appears to be even more important when the program's objectives are to teach non-technical or \"soft\" skills, which would be more difficult for the participants to grasp.Concerning the other individual variables, the results also show that affective organizational commitment at the beginning of training is positively associated with self-efficacy at the end of training. This result suggests that the more an individual feels emotionally connected to his organization, the more he develops his skills when the organization gives him the opportunity. This result, which is in agreement with several studies on affective commitment in the area of training (Seyler et al., 1998; Tannenbaum et al., 1991), suggests that pre-training affective commitment is a determining factor for transfer in coaching situations. Furthermore, Morris and Sherman (1981) postulate that the degree to which an individual is committed to an organization varies with the extent to which it meets his or her needs for growth and success. It would thus be interesting to examine the impact of executive coaching on post-training affective commitment in a future study.While several authors have suggested an association between learning goal orientation and the benefits of training or executive coaching (Joo, 2005; Colquitt et al., 2000), our results offer only qualified support for an association between learning goal orientation and post-development self-efficacy. Although we observed positive correlations between learning goal orientation and pre-training self-efficacy and post-training self-efficacy, the results for these factors in our regression analysis were not significant. In this study, learning goal orientation was not predictive for the participants' self-efficacy increase over the professional development program. One possible explanation of this result is that the behaviors associated with a weak learning goal orientation may be attenuated by the nature of executive coaching. In effect, whereas an individual may have a natural propensity to avoid tasks that test his skills, he or she may be strongly encouraged to take on such tasks by his coach. A development plan that targets such tasks, follow-up from a coach, and the coach's support in adversity could decrease the risk of task avoidance and contribute to appropriate risk-taking by the participants.In addition, the results of our regression analysis show that work-environment support does not account for significantly more of the self-efficacy variance than had been already been accounted for by the model, in spite of a highly positive correlation between the two variables (r=0.38, p<0.01). This result corroborates those of other studies that did not observe an effect of situational variables on the benefits of training beyond that explained by individual variables (Axtell et al., 1997; Chiaburu and Marinova, 2005). One possible explanation of this result is that the design of the professional development program already included supportive interventions to facilitate transfer, such as coaching and action learning, which possibly attenuated the effect of traditional forms of support from supervisors or peers. In addition, peer support may have less of an effect on the development of the participants' self-efficacy when they are managers, because in general, managers have less contact with peers than do employees. Furthermore, in the situation examined here, the perceived support from the internal coach (which was not measured) probably was more determinant than was the perceived support from the supervisor or immediate superior. All of which suggests that studies of perceived support should take the training context into account. For example, it is plausible that support from peers and supervisors would be more important in the context of technological change affecting all employees than in the context of specialized training for a professional who is already highly qualified.Finally, this study also indirectly contributes to the literature on the adoption of coaching behaviors as a method of supervision and employee empowerment (Ellinger and Bostrom, 1999; Ellinger et al., 2003; Heslin et al., 2006) Recent research has shown that the adoption of coaching behaviors by managers is associated with improved employee performance and satisfaction (Ellinger et al., 2003). The finding that a professional development program that included executive coaching favored the self-efficacy related to the ability to facilitate the development of one's subordinates is an additional contribution of this study. To date, few studies have examined training methods that aim to develop supervisory coaching behaviors. In one of the rare studies on the subject, Heslin et al. (2006) observed that a static or dynamic conception of skills (Dweck, 1999) was predictive for the adoption of coaching behaviors (guidance, facilitation, and inspiration) by a manager toward his or her employees, as assessed by those employees. In addition, training that targeted managers with a static conception of skills (i.e. believing that they are innate and cannot be developed) showed that, after training, these managers were more motivated to coach a hypothetical employee as compared to a control group.Limitations\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Executive coaching has become an increasingly common method to skill development. However, few rigorous empirical studies have tested its capacity to generate outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between executive coaching and self-efficacy in regard to supervisory coaching behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reports on a pretest-posttest study of a leadership development program using three training methods: classroom seminars, action learning groups, and executive coaching. Data are collected in a large international manufacturing company from 73 first- and second-level managers over an eight-month period.\nFindings: - Results indicate that, after controlling for pre-training self-efficacy and other training methods, the number of coaching sessions has a positive and significant relationship with post-training self-efficacy. Results also show that utility judgment, affective organizational commitment, and work-environment support have each a positive and significant relationship with post-training self-efficacy.\nPractical implications: - The paper first suggests that an organization that wishes to improve its return on investment with regard to coaching should implement a program with multiple sessions spread over a period of several months. This paper also suggests that organizations should consider coaching from a systemic point of view, that is, taking into account not only the design but also individual and situational variables.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the scientific literature by investigating, with a solid methodological design, the capacity of executive coaching to increase self-efficacy related to management skills.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do men and women experience work engagement and job satisfaction to the same extent in collectivistic, patriarchal societies?	[ "Job satisfaction", "Job resources", "Work engagement", "Cognitive job demands", "Emotional job demands" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In collectivistic patriarchal societies such as India, women, relative to men, are responsible for the lion's share of the burden for household chores. Consequently, striking a balance between work and home is an ongoing challenge for working women (Barry et al., 2004; Radhakrishnan, 2009). Devoting resources (mental, physical and emotional) to non-work activities implies that less resources are available to work-related tasks and consequently reduced capability to handle work-related demands. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 2001), we posit that when faced with challenging job demands at work, because of fewer resources available to devote to work, women would experience less work engagement and job satisfaction relative to men.\n2. Theoretical foundations and hypotheses development: 2.1 Work engagement\n3. Method: 3.1 Sample and procedure\n4. Results: 4.1 Data analysis strategy\n5. Discussion: Consistent with previous research (e.g. Crawford et al., 2010), job demands, both cognitive and emotional, related negatively to job satisfaction. Our mediation hypothesis received support as work engagement mediated the influence of cognitive job demands as well as emotional job demands on job satisfaction. As expected, gender interacted with cognitive and emotional job demands to influence work engagement, such that the relationship between job demands and work engagement was stronger for men than for women. Moderated mediation analysis showed that the indirect effect of cognitive job demands on job satisfaction through work engagement was positive and significant for men but not for women and the indirect effect of emotional job demands on job satisfaction through work engagement was significantly stronger for men than for women.\n6. Practical implications: Although job demands evidence a negative relationship with job satisfaction, by increasing work engagement and through work engagement have a positive influence on job satisfaction. Thus, demanding or challenging jobs improve work engagement and job satisfaction of job incumbents. However, when the job becomes too demanding, job incumbents may experience distress. Thus, finding the optimum level of job demands is key, recognizing that the optimum level will vary across individuals.\n7. Limitations and future research directions: Like most studies, ours also has limitations. First, the study is cross-sectional and all data were self-reported raising concerns of CMV. In order to reduce the possibility of CMV, we followed the recommendations for questionnaire design as suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003). In addition, Harman's one-factor test and common method factor test indicated that common method bias is not a serious issue in this study. Also, the fact that we found support for interactions argues against CMV as potential reason for the study results. Nonetheless, we recommend future studies to use a longitudinal design as well as include other-reported measures and objective outcome measures.\n8. Conclusion: In collectivistic societies, men experience work engagement and through work engagement, increased job satisfaction from challenging job demands, whereas these benefits do not accrue for women, and when they do, they are significantly less than for men. Future research should consider gender as a study variable and investigate if relationships among constructs (i.e. theories and models tested) vary for men vs women in different cultural contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how cognitive and emotional job demands interact with job resources to influence work engagement, and whether work engagement mediates the association of job demands with job satisfaction. In collectivistic patriarchal societies women have fewer resources to devote to work; thus, based on Conservation of Resources theory, the authors have tested if job demands relate differently to work engagement for women than for men and if the mediation differs across genders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data collected from 724 bank officers in India, the authors used the PROCESS macro developed for SPSS to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Gender interacted with job demands to influence work engagement, such that the relationship was stronger for men than for women. Moderated mediation analysis showed that men experience work engagement and through work engagement increased job satisfaction from challenging job demands, whereas these benefits do not accrue for women, and when they do, they are significantly less than for men.\nOriginality/value: Most models and theories of organizational behavior have been developed in the western world where, relatively speaking, men and women enjoy almost equal privileges at work and at home. In collectivistic patriarchal societies, women are responsible for the lion's share of household chores (Rout et al., 1999) and thus have fewer resources to devote to work, affecting their work engagement and satisfaction. The results behoove researchers to consider gender as a study variable when designing studies on organizational phenomena.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The Open Wings project: Transforming students' perceptions of self and society through the development of the homonomous self	[ "Information technology", "Educational innovation", "Elementary education", "Active citizenship", "Homonomy", "Immigrants and refugees" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This is a critical time for public school education in Greece, particularly in working class neighborhoods. Many Greek families have been directly affected by the current Greek economic crisis and indirectly affected by the recent influx of a record number of refugees entering Greece via the Middle East and Africa as they seek entry to other European countries. Lack of resources at the family and educational levels has led many students to feel that they have no control over their lives and little hope for future advancement. Elementary school teachers, as a result, feel the responsibility of not only educating students in the prescribed curriculum but also in guiding them beyond a feeling of hopelessness to see themselves as empowered individuals who can enrich their own lives and those of their communities.\nTheoretical framework: The foundation for a feeling of community lies in developing the notion of the homonomous (connected) Self. As constructed by Boucouvalas (1988), self (lower case) refers to one's separate individual self, characterized by autonomy, while Self (capital \"S\") refers to the expanded connected sense of Self, characterized by homonomy. Together, they constitute the complementary dimensions of selfhood, suggesting a conceptualization of s/Self that includes both autonomous and homonomous dimensions (Boucouvalas, 1988, 1999, 2009). Boucouvalas depicts an open system of worlds within worlds, contextualizing an individual as part of greater wholes, each of which addresses part of one's homonomous identity, as depicted in Figure 1. Boucouvalas' theory focuses on adult education, but Pyrini (2013) applies the theory and adapts Boucouvalas' image to the context of elementary school students, as depicted in Figure 2.\nProject description: The project described here was designed to encourage students of the first author, Nancy Pyrini (henceforth, \"Nancy\"), and those of several other elementary school teachers to \"open their wings\" through an international connection with the second and third authors and the opportunity to engage in meaningful tasks based upon those connections. Deacon Orestes Varonis, PhD (henceforth \"Orestes\") and Evangeline (Litsa) Varonis (henceforth \"Litsa) in the state of Ohio of the USA interacted with the children in real time during eight 45-minute sessions via WebEx, a commercial web-conferencing tool. Orestes was the key speaker for most of the sessions, narrating how he left Greece after high school in order to study in the USA and ended up making his life there. The narration offered opportunities for direct links with different subjects of the school curriculum, including language, history, geography, physics, and religion. Our hypothesis was that the story telling and live connection would increase the students' engagement and attention and that learning would therefore come naturally.\nMethodology: The current project was designed to apply the five UNESCO pillars by integrating presentations and opportunities for research with the development and presentation of action plans that would result in personal and community transformation.\nProject learning activities: This section focuses on project learning activities in the classrooms. Students participated in six-specific stations, each of which involved distinct objectives for student engagement and demonstration of achievement and was intended to proceed in a pre-determined order. However, in response to learning outcomes, the order changed during actual implementation.\nLearning outcomes and intellectual outputs: This project involved both quantitative and qualitative results. We administered pre-tests and post-tests to assess changes in knowledge and attitudes related to several of the videoconference sessions, but it is our belief that the major impact of the project is best described qualitatively. Some of the project learning outcomes are summarized in Table I.\nConclusion: The distinction between \"Self\" and \"self\" developed as a theoretical model for adult education clearly is also applicable to the education of children. Encouraging young students to contextualize their own existence within the multiple groups they are members of allows them to better define themselves and develop insight into and compassion for others. In our study, technology-enhanced international videoconference presentations of both a narrative and instructional nature resulted in knowledge gains and attitude changes in elementary school children. These, in turn, inspired collaborative, creative interdisciplinary projects through which students demonstrated that they could embed themselves in contexts that contribute to homonomous identification and development, creating a stronger sense of both self and Self. Not only did we find the \"treasure\" within each child, but more importantly they identified it within themselves, and within each other, and within the larger community. Emerging from the 2008 economic crisis, Greece is going through a major transformative process which affords opportunities for growth of humanitarian principles toward sustainable development, as well as of inhuman behaviors, such as lack of mercy and compassion, which are destructive for the social tissue. Educators can help prepare the youth not only for lifelong learning in general but also more specifically for the crises ahead, which will demand collective action and unity by informed active citizens. The theoretical and pedagogical frameworks behind this case study serve this goal and serve as a model for education that seeks to inform, engage, and develop lifelong learners. We recognize the limitations of a case study that involved a limited number of classes at two schools in the same country, and hope that others will attempt to implement this model into other grades, other schools, and other countries in order to further validate our findings.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the implementation and outcomes of the \"Open Wings\" project, a continuing effort to create a community of self-directed elementary school learners and to enhance their homonomy. Technology-enhanced international videoconference presentations resulted in both knowledge gains and attitude changes. These, in turn, inspired creative, collaborative interdisciplinary projects through which students demonstrated that they could embed themselves in contexts that contribute to homonomous identification and development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Over the 2015-2016 school year, interactive international videoconferences were delivered to first and sixth grade classrooms in two elementary schools in Athens, Greece. Topics included a personal immigration story and responsible citizenship. Impact was measured quantitatively by a pre-test/post-test design that measured changes in knowledge and attitudes and qualitatively by student group projects at six stations inspired by e-reflect methodology.\nFindings: Students demonstrated gains in factual knowledge and changes in attitudes toward immigrants and refugees. Individual and group work at each station revealed that they could plan, research, and present projects that demonstrated their personal sense of self and their place in the community.\nOriginality/value: With many in Greece directly affected by the economic crisis and an influx of refugees and immigrants, students feel they have no control over their lives and become fearful of outsiders. Even when resources are limited, innovative use of learning technologies can help educate students in the prescribed curriculum and guide them beyond hopelessness to see themselves as empowered individuals who can enrich their own lives and those of their communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluation and implementation: two regeneration programmes	[ "England", "Wales", "Regeneration", "Public policy", "Public sector management", "Evaluation", "Implementation", "Community development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Evaluation is a field of activity that draws on social research techniques to identify \"the merit, worth, or value of something, or the product of that process\" (Scriven, 1991, p. 139). The field can potentially focus both on the method of attempting to achieve an objective, and on the objective itself, once achieved. It follows from this that evaluation can be undertaken at various stages within a project or programme lifecycle, as part of the preparative phase before activity starts, while activity is underway, and once activity has concluded. Commentators on evaluation studies distinguish between \"formative\" and \"summative\" evaluation, the former focusing primarily on implementation processes and asking why an programme or policy is \"working\" or not, and the latter addressing issues of the impact of the programme (GSRU, 2003). Impacts are, however, multidimensional, including the (non) achievement of the stated objectives of the policy, and the wider effects on the environment within which the policy has been implemented. Evaluation that focuses predominantly on the stated objectives can be described as \"goals-based\", whereas that which offers a broader perspective is \"goals-free\" in orientation (GSRU, 2003). Critical evaluation approaches have often attempted to unpack the underlying logic and rationale behind particular policy ideas and initiatives (Chen, 1990), using aspects of sociological debates about individual motivation, structure and agency, and rational choice theory (Ostrom, 1999), that are pertinent to contemporary discussion about the role and management of public services. Sensitivity to the policy environment, and the interrelationship of programme or policy outcomes, contexts and activities is the basis of a \"theory of change\" approach to evaluation (Connell and Kubisch, 1998), which aims to develop testable theoretical models outlining how activities will support the achievement of stated programme outcomes in a given context.Public-choice theory seeks to expose the self-interestedness of public officials and has increased critical focus on the role of the state in policy making and implementation (Buchanan, 2003), but the instrumentalist basis of this approach is questioned by those who stress \"bounded rationality\" (Simon, 1991) and the limitations of our calculative capacity as individuals, and by sociological institutionalism, which turns attention to the structuring of decision-making at a macro-social and organisational field level in determining taken-for-granted appropriacy of action in given environments (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991). Moreover, since the publication of Implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973) there has been an underlying scepticism amongst those interested in the analysis of policy regarding the possibility of \"top-down\" goals-driven policy implementation and evaluation (Hill and Hupe, 2002), and enlightened evaluators are cognisant of \"policy evolution\" as political contexts alter, programmes are revised and emphases change between multiple objectives (Majone and Wildavsky, 1979). It is important to recognise the cyclical, but continual, nature of policy implementation (Hill, 2005) and the relationship between policy and action (Barrett and Fudge, 1981) in determining the translation of concepts, intentions and funding into activity \"on the ground\".Evaluation studies seek to present intelligible portraits of activity within given frames of reference often constructed by client objectives, but these frames may not fit with the reality of activity as perceived by those implementing policy, or those affected by it. Where evaluation is commissioned by government, political imperatives usually suggest that goals-based evaluation is undertaken to meet the demands of those scrutinising original objectives, and to enable governments to claim policy \"success\". Many would argue that this emphasis is compounded where the locus of power in public administration systems is centralised, with a tendency to view local administrators and professionals as \"agents\" of implementation (Wilson and Game, 2002), rather than contributing to policy design. Greater focus on centrally prescribed goals may not, however, necessarily make implementation outcomes more predictable, as identified by Lipsky (1980) with his portrait of the \"street-level bureaucrat\". The tensions and deficits inherent in \"planning and control\" approaches to policy implementation (Hill, 2005) are common in centralised states, for example as in the UK prior to devolution in 1999 and continuing since 1999 in England. These may continue to be replicated at a lower scale if power is transferred to authorities that remain convinced of their ability to implement specific policies exactly as they, or central government, have conceived them.Models of \"perfect implementation\" (Hogwood and Gunn, 1984) remain salient in the minds of policy-makers, implementers and evaluators, with a tendency to focus resolutely on the identification of \"implementation deficit\" (Hill and Hupe, 2002; Hupe, 2011) when analysing why policy objectives have not been met. The evaluation of policy or programme outcomes in comparison with a perfect or ideal model of implementation may prove useful in demonstrating the problematics of \"top-down\" implementation and mapping the interplay between programme activity, decision-making and the context into which a programme is introduced. Furthermore, this may stimulate processes of policy learning, which may involve a re-construction or deeper contextual understanding of policy problems if the concerns of institutionalism and implementation studies are taken into account (Sanderson, 2000; Hill and Hupe, 2002). However, the prevailing \"top-down\" models of implementation may also generate pressure for instrumental learning, to improve the efficacy of policy instruments and programme processes (May, 1992).A focus on notions of policy and programme \"success\" and \"failure\" may result in criticisms of the processes of evaluation themselves, if they are seen not to provide a clear indication of what caused a perceived failure in the achievement of desired outputs and outcomes. This may result in a tendency for decision-makers to identify \"evaluation failure\", particularly in the case of goals-free evaluation processes with their greater emphasis on broader impacts, and thus reverting to the perceived certainties of the goals-based approaches. These tendencies persist despite the arguments of those who have demonstrated the importance of linking evaluation with institutionalist approaches to analysing contextual complexity (Sanderson, 2000).\nTwo regeneration programmes: We now examine the use of evaluation in the context of the implementation of two publically funded community regeneration programmes in England and Wales. In the case of the Community First programme in Wales, which is still ongoing in a slightly different form, we focus primarily on the 2001-2008 phase, whereas with the Neighbourhood Renewal programme in England the relevant initial period is 2001 to 2006, at which point many of the funding streams were merged into another funding stream, the Safer, Stronger Communities Fund (DCLG, 2010). The objective is to provide some comparison of how evaluation was used within the two programmes, and to explore how evaluation activity may be influenced by assumptions about policy implementation.Communities First (2001-8 phase) in Wales\nComparative points and the maximisation of benefits: The experiences in Wales and England illustrate the significance of overall frameworks and structures in determining the foci of evaluative activity. In Wales, the ethos of the initial phase of the Communities First programme allowed room for experimentation, challenging conventional approaches based on central initiatives and funding streams, and this created a fundamental conceptual challenge for evaluators aiming to measure progress against objectives. In England, however, we have seen an overriding belief in the engineering of policy solutions steer evaluative activity towards improvements in prescribed indicators of deprivation and methods of assessing progress against objectives. This has led to a swathe of evaluation in England that is goals-based, both formative and summative, and full of detailed performance focused information, that contrasts with the more explorative theory-focused approaches outlined by the Welsh Assembly Government report. This Welsh distinctiveness could be perceived as part of the post-devolutionary context of policy-making, and can be contrasted with the evidence-based socio-technical policy approach of New Labour in England, as epitomised by the activities of the Cabinet Office and the Social Exclusion Unit. Both approaches therefore contain elements of the definition offered by Rossi et al. (1999, p. 16) who suggest the aim of evaluation is \"to systematically investigate the effectiveness of social interventions ... in ways that improve social conditions\", although notions of how to achieve \"systematic investigation\", \"effectiveness\" and \"improvement\" may vary with the evaluation approach chosen.The benefits that evaluation provides correspond to the nature of the programmes or strategy they relate to. In Wales, explorative evaluative activity can enhance our understanding of the potential of the Communities First model in building local capacity for change over the longer-term, albeit with caveats about the potential for confusion due to a lack of guidance or lack of clarity about what constituted successful application of the Communities First model. However, it could be argued that a measure of both implementation and evaluation \"failure\" was identified via the Wales Audit Office report. The earlier, more explorative approaches, while capturing examples of community-led regeneration activity and supporting the aims of capacity building and community development, were unable to provide the focus on progress against outcomes that was desired by policy makers, partly because of the flexibility afforded to partnerships in defining their own outcomes of measures of \"success\", This \"failure\" is of course inseparable from the perceived shortcomings of the programme itself as, in effect, evaluation was integrated with the programme implementation structures. The sharper focus on progress against objectives may put at risk the benefits available through holistic qualitative studies that provide insight into the dynamics of an implementation context (Diamond, 2005). The potential loss of trust between evaluators and those involved in implementation, with evaluators increasingly perceived as co-opted into the wider policy and programme direction (Sandberg et al., 2002), could also impact on the quality of the evaluation process.In England, however, assumptions have sometimes been made about \"effectiveness\" or \"what works\" based on data driven studies which then inform the development of prototypes for roll-out across the country. In such cases, evaluation could be constrained by goals-based approaches, with limited opportunity to critique inappropriate policy \"solutions\" or to identify where longer-term community partnership building at the local level is being undermined. From interpretative and institutionalist perspectives, such evaluation is failing to capture the multiplicity of impacts associated with programme activity. On the other hand, policy-makers and programme managers could argue that the development of intelligence about the use of public funds and the demonstration of \"evidence-based\" impact is necessary as part of the political process, and that no programme can reasonably expect to continue to be supported without these elements. Whatever the reservations regarding prevailing positivist assumptions about objectivity in decision- making processes (Sanderson, 2000) it can be asserted that goals-based approaches are a necessary evil which can strengthen the \"business case\" for ongoing policy and programme interventions, and can provide useful intelligence on the viability and efficacy of the operational aspects of implementation.Implementation and evaluation\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to discuss different approaches to evaluation taken in the case of two regeneration programmes in England and Wales and identify how assumptions about the nature of policy and programme implementation affect evaluation and considerations of its use in the public sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using an analysis of evaluation reports relating to two regeneration programmes, a distinction is drawn between two approaches to evaluation. This distinction is then articulated further with reference to differing perspectives in policy implementation studies. Related issues of policy and programme success and failure are discussed, in addition to the potential for policy learning.\nFindings: - There is a difference between the two approaches to evaluation employed in the two cases, which is likely to reflect contrasting beliefs about the nature and process of implementation. Implementation research indicates that while a process of evaluating progress against a set of specific objectives clearly has legitimacy in a public sector environment, it is likely to be inconclusive or even counterproductive. This is due to the inevitability of policy evolution, the multiple reformations of policy at the micro level, and the constraints engendered by norms of appropriacy in the wider policy environment.\nOriginality/value: - This article suggests how ongoing debates in implementation studies can inform and illuminate decisions made about approaches to evaluation. The dynamic between conceptions of implementation and the purpose of evaluation is illustrated through a comparison of the use of evaluation in two regeneration programmes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work values of surviving and non-surviving managers during economic recession	[ "Downsizing", "Recession", "Managers", "Motivation (psychology)", "Hong Kong" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organisational downsizing and organisational decline has been frequent phenomena in recent decades due to fundamental and structural changes in the world economy. Whereas organisational downsizing is an intentional, proactive management strategy, organisational decline is an involuntary negative consequence of non-adjustment to adverse environmental circumstances. However, both phenomena may be associated with a reduction of the workforce over time, both by layoff of staff and attrition because employees leave for better job opportunities elsewhere (Freeman and Cameron, 1993). Traditionally, research has focused either on macro- or micro-oriented issues and few contributions have tried to integrate the two approaches (Bhattacharyya and Chatterjee, 2005; Feldman, 1995). Macro-oriented research has tried to identify environmental and organisational characteristics associated with organisational shrinkage and pressure to downsize (see Hambrick and D'Aveni, 1988; Kimberly and Miles, 1980) while their micro-oriented colleagues typically have studied the impact on organisational downsizing on individual employees (see Markham and McKee, 1991; Mone, 1994). However, a situation not often studied is when staff reductions occur as a response to organisational decline associated with a general economic downturn or recession of the national or regional economy. In such a situation, there could be a need to integrate the macro and micro perspective as the pressure to reduce staff may be more uniformly felt by organisations across industries. At the same time, the general economic downturn provides specific circumstances for employees with less alternative job opportunities. On the other hand, organisations need to preserve their core competencies and hence must retain key staff members for organisational survival and post-crisis redevelopment (see Allen et al., 2001; Lee, 2001; Nutt, 2004). Consequently, although staff reductions may be perceived as unavoidable, they may be undertaken in a differentiated manner with the outcome that the surviving managers may have other personal characteristics compared to their non-surviving colleagues.The purpose of the current exploratory study is to examine this issue. During a period of general economic decline, surviving and non-surviving managers are compared in terms of their work values. These are relevant individual characteristics since it is difficult to disentangle values from motivation and behaviour. What one values, one is motivated to obtain or retain. Hence, work values may reflect some crucial personal traits of managers. So, a comparison of work values of surviving and non-surviving managers could be important to undertake for several reasons. Firstly, staff reductions associated with a general economic deterioration is not very often reported in the literature and the various consequences of such events needs to be better understood. Secondly, most studies deal with the effects of lay-offs on either the individual workers being laid off (e.g. Allen et al., 2001; Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998) or the survivors (e.g. Krackhardt and Porter, 1985) and not the antecedents of the layoffs. Finally, the results of this study are based on a rare but powerful natural field experiment (Green, 2004). The focus on both survivors and non-survivors - at a time before the crisis was evident - gives an unbiased perception of their differences in work values.The location of the study was Hong Kong. The Asian financial crisis, initiated by the collapse of the Thai baht on July 2, 1997, threw Hong Kong into one of its worst general economic recessions in modern times with record high unemployment and a collapsing property market and stock market (Ingram, 1998; Leung and Hayashibara, 1998); Wolf, 1999). The investigation covers the period 1995 to 1998, reflecting the situation before and during the worsening part of the recession in Hong Kong.\nLiterature review: Two concepts are discussed as the main theoretical foundation for this study. First, the activities associated with a reduction of the workforce of a firm, organisational downsizing and decline, are dealt with. Second, there is a presentation of the specific set of values associated with the work context, work values.Organisational downsizing and decline\nResearch question: In a general economic downturn or recession, involving the national or regional economy, other job opportunities may not be numerous and few employees may want to leave their current employment voluntarily. Hence, organisational downsizing involving staff reductions may be the main strategy employed to try to arrest the organisational decline and achieve survival of the firm (Freeman and Cameron, 1993).Downsizing should preferably be done very carefully as it is crucial not to lay off the wrong employee. In the short run, a company needs staff members with a capability of saving the company. To a certain extent, in a longer perspective, employees capable of re-developing the business further are also needed. Hence, both short-term survival and longer term re-development are contingent on that the company succeeds in retaining the right people and only dismisses employees that can be expected to contribute less to these two crucial tasks. Strategies for successful downsizing may have some common ingredients encompassing such a differentiated approach. Common components could include: Downsizing is undertaken based on recommendations from lower-level employees involving job and task analyses of how work is organised at the moment, use of both short-term (staff reduction) and long-term approaches (organisation redesign and change of the organisational culture), using internal means to identify areas of redundancy and inefficiency and targeting such areas for downsizing, and slowly moving towards less organised complexity while retaining essential core competencies and supporting functions (see Cameron et al., 1991; Cascio, 1993; Nutt, 2004).In other words, if the ability to deal with the crucial task of the imminent survival of the firm, as well as longer term re-development, is reflected among the personal characteristics of the remaining managers, it is not unlikely that surviving managers have different work values than the non-survivors. This presumption leads to the following research question:RQ1. During periods of a general economic downturn of the regional economy, accompanied by downsizing of the work force of declining firms, do surviving and non-surviving managers have different work values?\nMethod: Place of investigation\nResults: Our research question was formally tested by means of MANCOVA and ANCOVA. As shown in Table III, the MANCOVA with age, education, position and tenure as covariates indicated an overall significant inter-group difference in work values between surviving managers and non-survivors (F=4.01; p<0.01). ANCOVAs revealed four statistically significant differences among the mean importance of the work values between the two groups. Surviving managers had a higher mean score than non-survivors for independence in work (F=64.27; p<0.001) and influence in the organisation (F=3.98; p<0.05). On the other hand, non-survivors had a higher mean score than surviving managers for opportunity to meet people and interact with them (F=3.30; p<0.10) and responsibility (F=3.21; p<0.10). These results provide an affirmative answer to our research question that during periods of a general economic downturn or recession of the national or regional economy accompanied by downsizing of the work force of declining firms, surviving and non-surviving managers may have different work values, at least in certain respects.\nDiscussion: Examining the background variables of the two groups of managers, as could have been expected, non-survivors were found to be younger, less well educated, and have shorter tenure than the survivors. The only surprise here was that non-surviving managers occupied higher positions than the survivors. One may speculate that younger managers with shorter tenure but with experience of higher managerial positions may have felt more mobile and also more attractive for the job market than older managers already since long established in a middle position in a company.The main results are quite straightforward. Controlling for the inter-group discrepancies in background variables, we found that there was indeed a difference in work values between the surviving and non-surviving managers. The most distinct difference between these two groups of managers was in terms of the work value labelled independence in work. Survivors attached much more importance to this work value than non-survivors. This may reflect the change in working conditions brought about by the increasingly adverse economic conditions. The individual competency of surviving managers may be threatened as they have to assume the job tasks of their laid-off colleagues which may induce perceptions of job overload and lack of job clarity (Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998). In a context of rising uncertainty, when clear work directions may be scarce, managers that are able to perform independently may be more successful and better appreciated than others. Managers valuing independent work may also be more acutely needed to save the firm during the general economic downturn.Other findings were not as significant but help to create a more nuanced picture. Not surprisingly, the surviving managers also thought it was more important to have influence in the organisation than the non-survivors. On the other hand, the group of non-surviving managers attached somewhat more importance to responsibility than survivors. The group of non-surviving managers also attached somewhat more importance to have an opportunity to meet people and interact with them than survivors, which may be explained by the fact that some of the non-surviving managers actively could have used their contacts to try to find another job.Limitations\nConclusion: The contribution of this highly exploratory study lies in the potentially reassuring message to business firms experiencing general economic downturns of the national or regional economy that surviving managers may have some key characteristics that could be necessary to ride out the crisis. This is different from the traditional perspective suggesting that companies in dire straits may lose their best and brightest first (see Bedeian and Armenakis, 1998).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to compare work values of surviving and non-surviving managers during a period of general economic recession in Hong Kong associated with the Asian financial crisis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Involving a natural field experiment, data on work values were collected from ethnic Chinese Hong Kong managers employed by local companies. The two sub-samples were established over the period of study, from 1995 to 1998, but all variables concerning these two groups were measured in 1995, well before the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997.\nFindings: - Results indicate that survivors attached more importance to independence in work and to have influence in the organisation than the non-survivors. On the other hand, non-surviving managers attached more importance to responsibility and to have an opportunity to meet people and interact with them than survivors.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In future studies, the longitudinal investigation can be improved, non-Asian locations could be included, and more work values as well as other personal characteristics can be added.\nPractical implications: - The findings may have consequences for the strategic retention of managerial staff.\nOriginality/value: - As opposed to the traditional perspective, that firms in dire straits may lose their best and brightest first, the findings suggest that in a general economic recession, it could be possible to retain managers capable to ride out the crisis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Accessibility to reproductive health rights among adolescents in three provinces of Thailand	[ "Adolescents health", "Reproductive health rights", "Conditional factors", "Thailand" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Thailand is facing an adolescent pregnancy problem; threats of live births among female adolescents aged 15-19 years increased from 50.1 per 1000 in 2008 to 51.2 per 1000 in 2013[1]. Thai authorities have tried to adopt various measures to prevent and solve the adolescent pregnancy problem but the rate of adolescent pregnancies remains high. The major cause of the adolescent pregnancy problem was that previous measures used to prevent and solve the problem did not focus on reproductive health rights at all. As a result, adolescents had limited access to reproductive health rights, which included reduced knowledge of: the right to make informed decisions; the right to access information and education on the subject; the right to health in terms of attainable reproductive healthcare and relevant social welfare services; the right to enjoy confidentiality and privacy; and the right to be treated equally and without discrimination[2].\nMethodology: Study design\nResults: The study results were as follows.\nDiscussion: Adolescents found it difficult to exercise their rights because regulations governing hospital policy did not support adolescents to make their own decisions regarding pregnancy termination and required parental permission instead. This is consistent with previous research relating to barriers to reproductive health service and rights being caused by the lack of explicit legislation on getting safe pregnancy termination. Similar studies found legislation and policy that required parental approval for getting reproductive services as well as policies that reduced access to contraceptive methods[8, 9]. Also, pregnancy termination is a sensitive issue impacting on culture, belief and religion, which, in turn, impacted on access to rights for reproductive services including abortion. This is consistent with the study of Chaba Chaichest in 2002[10] and Renu Chunin and Wanapa Naravage in 2015[11] and remains an ongoing challenge.\nConclusion: This qualitative study was conducted to describe the situation of accessibility to reproductive health rights and the conditional factors of accessibility to such rights among adolescents. An in-depth interview method was used to collect the data from 80 informants. The results illustrated that some problems still exist regarding accessibility to the five aspects of reproductive health rights among adolescents. The conditional factors hindering the accessibility to these rights included knowledge and negative attitudes among administrators, operational workers, parents and adolescents; and not systematically applying the laws and policies of authorized agencies due to social dimensions, traditions, customs, sexual culture and religion.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the situation of accessibility to reproductive health rights, and the conditional factors of accessibility to such rights of adolescents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative method was used to extract information from 80 informants. Data were collected through in-depth interview, focus group discussion, observation, data recording, audio recording and the review of related documents during August to October 2016.\nFindings: Adolescents had not accessed to their right on informing of their decision making; information and education; health; confidentiality and privacy; and treating with equity and no discrimination. Also, the conditional factors influenced to the accessibility on such rights were lacking of knowledge on reproductive health and negative attitude toward this matter among the people concerned. There were still no regulations or policies on the performance of authority agencies and the factors on social dimensions, traditions, customs, sexual culture and religion.\nOriginality/value: The findings from this study would be a help to promote the accessibility for adolescents to reproductive health rights under the Prevention and Solution of Adolescent Pregnancy Problem Act, B.E. 2559 (2016) specific on standard criteria reproductive health services from hospitals and the involvement from Ministry of Education for the development of sex life skill and reproductive health for the teacher.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumers profile analysis towards chicken, beef, mutton, fish and egg consumption in Bangladesh	[ "Marketing mix", "Consumer segmentation", "Consumption frequency", "Food-related lifestyle", "Meat-fish", "Sociodemographic variables" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The ongoing technological and industrial revolution has had an impact on the quality of life, especially on lifestyle, food habits, environment and society. Consumers have been bombarded with a wide range of new food products, which has led the food industry to explore consumer profiles in order to develop more attractive food products and to meet consumers' expectations (Esmerino et al., 2017). Consequently, consumers have become more concerned with their daily purchasing habits (Akehurst et al., 2012). Consumers question food production practices and demand greater transparency in the supply chain because the distances between the place of production and consumption have grown larger and become increasingly non-transparent (Feldmann and Hamm, 2015). Besides, consumers are increasingly involved in and influencing the entire food/value chain (Garnier et al., 2003) and characterize the final stage of the food value chain to satisfy their needs and wishes (Gonzalez-Redondo and Sanchez-Martinez, 2014; Horton et al., 2016). Thus, patterns of food consumption are unpredictable and it is very clear that the changes occur in the way consumers behave to food (Grunert et al., 2011).\n2. Methodology: 2.1 Study area and sample selection\n3. Results and discussion: 3.1 Sample meat consumption\n4. Conclusion: Chicken, beef, mutton, fish and egg have a small degree of differences compared to other food products. Any kind of improved or otherwise differentiated food quality, therefore, requires new ways to signal the quality to the consumer (Escriba-Perez et al., 2017). Differentiation measures like branding, quality of eating, health consciousness, convenience and process characteristics are important to understanding consumers (Scholderer et al., 2004). To approach any of these, it is important to understand first consumers (Resurreccion, 2004), their attitudes and behaviour (Hsu and Chen, 2014). One way to understand consumers is through knowledge of their profile (Rong-Da Liang, 2014; Zanoli et al., 2014). The present findings would be helpful for designing future research on new products development, price variations effects, new messages/information, development of communication/distribution channels, etc., and for other consumer, typologies not included in the current profile. The information presented in this study may also interest different food companies, retailers and restaurants in Bangladesh. The frequency of use of food types is an interesting topic deserving further research. Moreover, the theory of planned behaviour model proposed by Ajzen (1991) could be studied further to validate the present study (consumers' food choice behaviour and their profile analysis). Based on the present findings, this study better describes the variables linked to the marketing mix for existing consumers and, of course, to thinking of new ways to fascinate and attract them. Finally, it can be stated that in general there is no specific consumer behaviour pattern for fish, chicken, beef, mutton and eggs. Therefore, for each product and each consumer, the separate marketing mix model has to be adapted to better understand the market.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conduct consumer profile analysis for chicken, beef, mutton, fish and egg to better adapt the marketing mix for each type of food in Bangladesh.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper investigates the mean consumption frequency of chicken, beef, mutton, fish and egg, following 658 questionnaire survey results. The sociodemographic variables used in this study were: sex, age, gender, educational level, social class, number of family members in the home, the presence of minors less than 18 years in the home and geographical area. Frequency distribution, factor and cluster analysis were performed to understand the food consumption frequency and food-related lifestyle segment, respectively. The statistical significance for differences among the mean values of different foods was tested by Snedecor's F-test.\nFindings: Egg was the most frequently consumed; 77 per cent of respondents ate egg once daily. Chicken was the second most consumed (62 per cent), whereas fish was third (59 per cent). Mutton was in the fourth place of consumption frequency level. However, 24 per cent of respondents did not consume mutton. The same types of behaviour were observed for beef, which was the least consumed (7 per cent) once daily, 48 per cent once a week, whereas 13 per cent did not consume it. There was no specific consumer behaviour pattern for the sociodemographic variables and types of food studied here.\nOriginality/value: This research provides the status of consumer preferences towards chicken, beef, mutton, fish and egg consumption in Bangladesh.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Genetic algorithm for determining the construction logistics of precast components	[ "Construction logistics", "Genetic algorithm", "Precast component", "Logistic cost" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The rapid development of construction technology has facilitated the industrialization of construction activities. To avoid bottlenecks due to uncertain site and weather conditions, certain types of construction work have increasingly shifted to factories. The Hong Kong Housing Authority has in recent decades pioneered using precast concrete components for high-rise public housing estate construction (Jaillon and Poon, 2014). This trend toward offsite precast production has extended to the private sector as the production technology has matured. While the wider application of offsite production could shorten construction time, improve construction quality and ease labor shortage problems (Lu et al., 2014), construction sites in Hong Kong are usually cramped and offer limited storage space. Most precast components are fabricated outside Hong Kong (Lu and Yuan, 2013), and transporting finished precast units, especially massive ones like facades or staircases, is challenging because of city traffic congestion and the need to clear customs. Therefore, keeping excessive buffer stock or adopting just-in-time principles can be undesirable. Efficient application of industrialized production in construction projects hinges on good coordination between the contractor, manufacturer and transportation company.\nConstruction logistics management tools: Many efforts have been made in recent years to improve construction logistics management. These include the application of advanced technologies and management philosophies, such as business process reengineering, lean construction, concurrent engineering and process redesign (Sobotka and Czarnigowska, 2005; Chen et al., 2016; Oluwatosin et al., 2019). The development of cloud computing and big data also make it possible for materials suppliers to exchange information with other stakeholders and to maximize the global supply chain to manage their production, warehouse storage and delivery schedule. One example is an integrated building information model and geographic information systems platform that enables tracking and tracing supply chain status and provides warning signals to ensure the delivery of materials (Irizarry et al., 2013).\nConstruction logistics cost: When considering construction logistics, researchers have mainly focused on the process or on minimizing logistics costs (e.g. Said and El-Rayes, 2014), while neglecting the composition of logistics costs. Sobotka and Czarnigowska (2005) found that construction logistics cost comprises several different cost components, namely, the order cost, external and internal transportation cost, capital cost frozen in inventory, inventory cost and penalty cost for delay. However, they did not suggest how to calculate those costs. Fang and Ng (2011) adopted an activity-based costing (ABC) approach to delineate the total construction logistics cost of a construction project. A detailed analysis of the cost components during every stage of the construction logistics process was given in their study, and the construction logistics cost composition can be represented as follows:(1)\nSelection of optimization method: Trading off the construction logistics cost against construction, production and delivery schedules necessitates the use of suitable simulation techniques. Although this trade-off is a TCT problem, the length of time considered in this analysis is not the project duration but scheduling problems involving production, transportation and construction. More importantly, the cost is no longer the total construction cost but the construction logistics cost. Nevertheless, methods similar to those used in the TCT domain can be applied to model the logistics-driven TCT problem.\nGAs for construction logistics TCT problem: To provide a clearer picture of the optimization process in relation to construction logistics cost, the project schedule shown in Table III is used as an example case. The project involves a series of installations of precast units, which involve eight construction activities on the construction site. As is common in practice, some of this work can be completed at flexible times. The production of precast components always takes place a few days before they are needed.\nDiscussion: The simulation result indicates that around 13 precast units are delivered to the intermediate warehouse every day in the first 32 days. The storage at the plant yard on a particular day is the difference between the accumulated production quantity and the delivery quantity to the intermediate warehouse (Figure 4). As the delivery to the intermediate warehouse is just a transition stop in the logistics process, the delivery to the intermediate warehouse must take into account the real-time productivity rate of the production plant. Therefore, the storage at the plant yard should be greater than zero. The delivery to the construction site is based on daily transportation according to construction demands on site. There is no storage on site (i.e. zero), as the requirement can be satisfied every day. The storage at the intermediate warehouse is the difference between the total delivery quantity from the production yard and the total delivery quantity to the site, and it should be greater than zero. This indicates that there is no shortage or penalty cost during construction.\nConclusion: Although many construction companies have their own logistics management systems, the applications and systems used in the construction industry are far from effective compared to those in the manufacturing and retail sectors. The construction industry still suffers from high fragmentation, large wastage, poor productivity, cost and time overruns, and conflicts and disputes. Moreover, the literature on construction logistics does not provide a satisfactory basis for modeling the logistics of major construction components like precast concrete units, leading to suboptimal scheduling and costs. The logistics cost is seldom considered in practice, as the optimizing process for a coordinated construction, production and logistics schedule with a lower construction logistics cost is very complicated. Currently, project managers create schedules based on their experience. Accordingly, a GA model is developed in this paper to ensure a good balance between time requirements in the logistics process and economic benefits.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Precast construction has become increasingly popular in the construction industry. Nonetheless, the logistics of construction materials has been a neglected topic, and this neglect has resulted in delays and cost overruns. Careful planning that considers all of the factors affecting construction logistics can ensure project success. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential for using genetic algorithms (GAs) to derive logistics plans for materials production, supply and consumption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed GA model is based on the logistics of precast components from the supplier's production yard, to the intermediate warehouse and then to the construction site. Using an activity-based costing (ABC) approach, the model not only considers the project schedule, but also takes into account the production and delivery schedule and storage of materials.\nFindings: The results show that GAs are suitable for solving time-cost trade-off problems. The optimization process helps to identify the activity start time during construction and the delivery frequency that will result in the minimal cost. What-if scenarios can be introduced to examine the effects of changes in construction logistics on project outcomes.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents a method for using GAs and an ABC approach to support construction logistics planning decisions. It will help construction planners and materials suppliers to establish material consumption and delivery schedules, rather than relying on subjective judgment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Opportunistic maintenance (OM) as a new advancement in maintenance approaches: A review	[ "Preventive maintenance", "Corrective maintenance", "Maintenance policy", "Opportunistic maintenance", "Optimal maintenance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Maintenance system: The role of maintenance in today's manufacturing systems is becoming more important as companies start to adopt the system as one of their profit generating elements (Waeyenbergh and Pintelon, 2002; Sharma et al., 2011) and a supporting function (Samat et al., 2011). Maintenance is conducted to ensure that all the equipment within the company is repaired, replaced, adjusted and modified according to production requirements. This way, the whole manufacturing processes are guaranteed to operate effectively and efficiently (Arts et al., 1998; Parida and Kumar, 2006). However, based on the research conducted by Mobley (1990), cited by Chan et al. (2005), 15-40 per cent of total production costs are spent on maintenance activities. On the other hand, Bevilacqua and Braglia (2000) stated that maintenance costs can reach 15-70 per cent of production costs, varying according to the type of industry. Consequently, further research by Wireman (2003) showed that up to 33 per cent of this maintenance cost is actually wasted or spent unnecessarily. These percentage show a lot of improvements could be carried out in order to achieve an effective and optimized maintenance system. Nowadays, the literatures on maintenance is centred on problems in the optimization of maintenance policies. The aim is to ensure a system has the ability to satisfy consumer demand with the minimal maintenance cost possible, without sacrificing component useful lifetime or reliability (Nourelfath and Ait-Kadi, 2007; Zhou et al., 2012).\n2. Conceptual analysis of OM policy: A tremendous number of publications can be found discussing maintenance techniques since the maintenance technique transition from corrective maintenance (CM) in 1940 to various operation research models (Garg and Deshmukh, 2006). Each one is developed based on a variety of principles and to suit different situations. For Zheng (1995), the major objectives of maintenance policies are to increase system reliability and availability while at the same time to reduce system maintenance cost. Among the various maintenance policies, some are widely implemented as they have strong fundamental elements such as CM, preventive maintenance (PM), predictive maintenance, condition-based maintenance (CBM), total productive maintenance (TPM), reliability-centred maintenance (RCM) and computer maintenance management system.\n3. Classification of literature on OM: Once the genealogy, names, concepts and aims of OM are successfully analysed, the next step is to analyse the application of OM in various publications. As previously discussed, OM originates from ARP and BRP, where ARP is mostly implemented for single component systems while BRP is mostly used for multi-component systems. Therefore, as OM shares the threads from both policies, it was also implemented in both types of system. Additional discussion on the topic is prepared in the next subsection. Classification of the literature was also conducted in this paper. The aim is to show the research trend and interest in order that future research can be identified.\n4. Application of OM in industries: Despite numerous publications reported in relation to OM, its application in real industry remains limited. Nevertheless, this section of the paper will discuss the publications that apply and analyse the OM concept as an effort to show where OM is used and how practical the concept is. From the perspective of real industry, the concept of \"opportunity\" is twofold. First, it is applied when a shutdown of a system for CM activities takes place. Second, an opportunity is taken when the system is down for PM, in other words the PM is meant for the scheduled replacement of a component where OM is applied on the other maintenance-significant components which have the potential to fail in the near future (Savic et al., 1995b). Combining the two policies, OM was developed with the practice of conducting PM on failure-prone components when performing CM on a failed component. OM can be conducted either by choice or based on the physical condition of the equipment (Cui and Li, 2006). OM can be considered as a modification of run-to-fail maintenance management philosophy (Samhouri, 2009). Generally, as a result from this opportunity, total equipment downtime and maintenance costs will be reduced.\n5. Findings and suggestion of future work: Swanson (2001) categorized various types of maintenance policy into three main groups, named as reactive, proactive and aggressive maintenance approaches. Each approach has a designated technique regarding how the policies were implemented in a system. In the case of reactive maintenance, a fire-fighting approach was used where equipment in a system is run until it experiences a failure before any replacement or repair tasks are conducted. This approach is commonly used in the early history of maintenance systems and an example of the policy is CM. The approach of the proactive maintenance system contradicts the first group. Applying a preventive principle, the approach is to monitor the condition of each piece of equipment and then conduct maintenance tasks before the equipment fails. This is done in order to avoid equipment breaking down when it is operating. Policies like PM and RCM are best to describe the approach. The third group, aggressive maintenance, used an improvement approach. The principle is to conduct analysis and plan for improvement of the overall equipment operation. This type of approach not only focuses on the equipment itself but also on maintenance management, resource allocation and production rate. TPM falls under the aggressive approach.\n6. Conclusions: Effective and optimized maintenance systems are highly acquired in today's manufacturing system. First coined in the 1963, OM is known as a simple \"opportunistic replacement policy\" to unique names like \"piggyback maintenance\" and \"all opportunity-triggered replacement\", and the OM concept has been applied in maintenance systems for decades. The number of publications has gradually increased over the years, showing an encouraging trend and growing interest on this maintenance policy. OM is commonly applied in research on optimal maintenance systems as well as in effective maintenance policy. The OM concept has been widely and numerically studied for maintenance scheduling for multiple components, single component and two components as well as multi-equipment and multi-component systems. This policy evolves from age replacement and BRPs which used the concept of components' relation to one another in a system to conduct maintenance simultaneously.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper reviews the literature on opportunistic maintenance (OM) as new advance maintenance approach and policy. The purpose of this paper is to conceptually identify common principle and thereby provide absolute definition, concept and characteristics of this policy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A conceptual analysis was conducted on various literatures to clarify a number of principle and concepts as a method for understanding information on OM. The analysis involves the process of separating the compound terms used in the literatures into a few parts, analyse them and then recombining them to have more clear understanding of the policy.\nFindings: The paper discussed the maintenance approach, genealogy, principle, concept and applications of OM both in numerical analysis and real industry. OM policy is developed based on combination of age replacement policy and block replacement policy and in practical; OM is applied as the combination of corrective maintenance which is applied when any failure occurred, with preventive maintenance (PM) - a planned and scheduled maintenance approach to prevent failure to happen. Any machine shutdown or stoppages due to failure is the \"opportunity\" to conduct PM even though it is not as planned. The characterization of OM was provided in order to present its theoretical novelty for researchers and practical significance for industries.\nPractical implications: To date, there is no publication that reviews the OM in-depth and provides clear understanding on the topic. Therefore, this paper aims to show lineage of OM and the current trend in researches. This discussion will pave the way of new research areas on this optimal maintenance policy. Clear definition and principle of OM provided in this paper will trigger interest in its practicality as well as aid industries to understand and conduct OM in operation plant.\nOriginality/value: This paper discussed the available literature about OM in various perspectives and scopes for further understanding of the topic by maintenance management professionals and researchers. Therefore, OM can be widely studied and applied in real industry as it is an effective and optimal maintenance policy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The moderating effect of corporate reputation on inter-firm alliance impact on company performance	[ "Corporate performance", "Corporate reputation", "Partners’ resource heterogeneity", "Social resources", "Partners’ social ties", "Structural relations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Inter-firm alliances and \"open innovation\" have proliferated as they allow a firm to access desired resources and capabilities to keep abreast of rapidly changing technologies (Lin et al., 2009), decrease its transaction costs through unique opportunities and information (Chung et al., 2000) and increase profits from relational rents (Dyer and Singh, 1998). With increasing inter-organizational relationships, firms are more embedded in intricate webs of interfirm networks such as strategic alliances, joint ventures (JVs), licenses and cooperative research and development or open innovation (Koka and Prescott, 2002; Radnejad and Vredenburg, 2015; Radnejad et al., 2017). Consequently, researchers have extended their analysis from the individual-firm level to the dyadic and network levels to understand corporate performance associated with these relationships (Dyer and Singh, 1998; Rowley, 1997).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: Drawing from the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, social resources can be construed as bundles of idiosyncratic intangible resources and capabilities that result from the involvement and interactions between firms in alliances, which would lead to value creation and competitive advantage for firms in networks (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). It is a type of difficult-to-imitate resource, serving as a strong foundation for collaboration and constituting a valuable channel for resource transfer between different partners (Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998). Corporate reputation, accumulated over a period of time, is another intangible asset of a firm which is valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable and can lead to superior financial performance (Fombrun and Shanley, 1990; Roberts and Dowling, 2002; Tischer and Hildebrandt, 2014). As corporate reputation is determined by the value and quality of the firm's previous efforts and is often represented by firms' external partners, a firm could obtain benefits for its reputation by managing its associations with other partners to build a positive external network (Roberts and Dowling, 2002). In turn, the access to and the use of social resources (resources embedded in social networks) can lead to better socioeconomic status and corporate reputation (Das et al., 2003).\nMethodology: Sample selection\nResults: Table I provides both descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficients for all variables in group one and group two. To reduce possible multicollinearity problems, the centered values of the main explanatory variables were included in our paper (Hair et al., 2010).\nDiscussion: Our study clearly reveals corporate reputation's moderating effects from the firm and the network points of views. H1 is supported in that there is negative moderating effect of corporate reputation on the relationship between a partner's resource heterogeneity and a firm's performance. As indicated by previous researchers (Dollinger et al., 1997), corporate reputation has a halo effect for a firm to operate in an unfamiliar market because key stakeholders would assume the firm has solid capabilities to perform better. Therefore, the firm would rely more on its partners' resources to perform better when it does not have a high reputation, and such dependence would be low if the firm has a high reputation.\nConclusions: Extant empirical studies have explored the determinants of corporate performance in corporate alliances from various theoretical perspectives, including the RBV (Lin et al., 2009), institutional theory (Stuart et al., 1999), bargaining power theory (Lavie, 2007), the relational point of view (Dyer and Singh, 1998) and the network point of view (Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998). Combining these views, we proposed three levels of JV partners' social resources as having implications for a focal firm's performance: partners' resource heterogeneity, relative structural relations with partners and partners' social ties. We investigated the moderating effects of the focal firm's corporate reputation on the relationships between the three levels of partners' social resources and focal firm performance using 265 US JVs. Our analytical model highlights somewhat different results by dividing the 265 JV pairs into two groups (focal firms rated by Fortune database vs focal firms not rated by the Fortune database).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to untangle the impacts of a firm's corporate reputation and its alliance partners' social capital on its financial performance, drawing on the relational and the network points of view.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper explored the moderating effect of corporate reputation on the relationship between partners' social capital (e.g. resource heterogeneity, structural relations and partners' social ties) and a focal firm's performance. An OLS three-step regression model (controls, main effects and interaction effects) was used to test the proposed hypotheses based on 265 US joint ventures.\nFindings: The influence of partners' social capital on a focal firm's performance is negatively moderated by the focal firm's reputation at the firm and network levels; larger and more prestigious firms listed in Fortune database tend to choose partners with a higher level of resource heterogeneity, whereas smaller firms tend to choose partners in similar industries to increase economies of scale. The social capital factors of the partners will have different effects on the focal firm performance.\nOriginality/value: The value of this paper is in providing insight into the importance and nuances of corporate reputation in offsetting the advantages of inter-firm alliances and their impact on firm performance. In particular, the performance benefits of inter-firm alliance partners' social ties and heterogeneous resources are negatively affected by the corporate reputation of a firm.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Why buy when we can pirate? The role of intentions and willingness to pay in predicting piracy behavior	[ "Crime", "Social economy", "Digital piracy", "Barbados" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Affordable high-speed internet connections and advancements in computing technologies have paved the way for the proliferation of intellectual property theft in the last decade. Specifically, the rapid development of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software since 1999 has greatly increased the ease at which individuals can access digital products (Gunter, 2011), making the internet a refuge for stealing intellectual property. Presently, any individual with minimal experience and broadband internet access can download a music file in less than a minute (Cooper and Harrison, 2001). In fact, Envisional (2011) documents that intellectual property theft is a huge consumer of bandwidth. According to their estimates, approximately 23.8 per cent of global internet traffic in 2010 was infringing, while estimates from Ouellet (2007) suggests that up to 2.6 billion digital files are being illegally transferred every month.\n2. Conceptual model: Several researchers have sought to ascertain the determinants of digital piracy. Studies on digital piracy are usually in the form of cross-national studies or demand-type models. The cross-national studies tend to focus on the national differences in the rate of piracy. For instance, studies by Andres (2006), Shalden et al. (2005), Depken and Simmons (2004), Holm (2005) and Husted (2000) test whether the cross-country variation in software piracy is dependent on economic influence and institutional social mores. Other studies (for instance Janssens et al., 2009) focus on the opportunities and challenges in the digital age.\n3. Data and methods: It has been argued that intellectual property theft tends to be more prevalent in developing countries, as it is less vigorously enforced (see Richardson and Gaisford, 1996). Moreover, the BSA reports that emerging economies have been the driving force behind the rapid increase software piracy in recent years, decisively outpacing the developed world (BSA, 2011). Hence, studying digital piracy in developing countries is important.\n4. Results and discussion: Table II presents the estimated results, disaggregated according to the two stages of the conceptual piracy model (Figure 1). The first panel presents Stage I of the model - i.e. the determinants of piracy behaviour. The OLS estimates are consistent with our expectations outlined in Section 2: intentions contribute significantly and positively to individuals' piracy behaviour, while a person's WTP reduces digital piracy. Since the \"piracy\" variable is censored (zero for a substantial part of the sample, but positive for the rest), Tobit estimates are also presented to ensure that the results were not biased by the OLS estimation. These confirm the OLS results; intentions and WTP are highly significant determinants of actual piracy. Quantile estimates show that these determinants are statistically significant over the distribution of actual piracy.\n5. Concluding remarks: This paper builds behavioural model of digital piracy that draws extensively on the empirical work developed by Triandis (1980) and WTP models. The model consisted of two stages. In the first stage, an individual's rate of digital piracy is modelled as a function of piracy intentions and the WTP for the product. The second stage then identifies the factors influencing piracy intentions and WTP for digital goods. This approach is quite novel, as most studies do not combine these notions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Digital piracy is one of the most popular forms of intellectual property theft and is currently recognized as a crime in several countries. This begs the question, if persons are fully informed that digital file sharing is a crime and, if caught, can be legally prosecuted, why do individuals opt to engage in such criminal behaviour? The purpose of the paper is to determine the psychological, social and economic factors influencing digital piracy. Understanding the social and psychological features of digital pirates is necessary if effected strategies are to be developed to deter the practice of digital piracy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, a representative sample drawn from the population of Barbados was surveyed. The conceptual models were estimated using ordinary least squares multiple regression, Tobit estimation and quantile regression.\nFindings: The results suggest that intentions and willingness to pay (WTP) both have a significant impact on digital piracy. Intentions are in turn influenced by the pirate's attitude, perceived consequences, ethics, education level and environment. Finally, a facilitating environment and perceived importance of the piracy issue help to predict' WTP for digital products.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the knowledge, no other study has combined notions from attitude/values/behaviour with that of WTP. Yet, the literature would suggest that they both have significant impacts on the quantity of digital goods that are pirated. It is possible that not modelling their joint impact could have resulted in loss of vital information.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The reliability, use and evaluation of sources of information on foodstuffs	[ "Young consumers", "Food labelling", "Information reliability", "Sources of information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One of the priorities of the consumer policy in the European Union is providing consumers with the access to full information on food products. As Johnston (2012) notes, the consumers cannot make informed decisions on foodstuffs purchases in the situation when their access to the information on products is restricted or limited. This asymmetry is aggravated by the advertising messages which show mainly the positive features of the product. Undisputedly, the consumers' right to information which is not misleading with regard to the actual characteristics of the food products should be the priority of an efficiently functioning system of consumers' protection.\nMaterials and methods: The Polish-language survey was conducted from April to December 2011 on a group of respondents aged 16-24. The survey participants were students of secondary schools and universities located in Poland, on the territory of Mazovian Voivodeship. Simple random selection was used to get four universities and eight high schools. A computer-aided simple random selection method was used to select the classes and lecturers group. In each of the selected group only respondents which buy food were participated in research. A pilot study was conducted prior to the main study to refine the questionnaire and methodology. Due to a limited time period and inadequate financial budget, 50 respondents were selected to evaluate the objectives of this study. However, no revisions were made in the questionnaire after a pilot study, as the respondents had no difficulty understanding the language as well as the structure of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed directly by the authors in all schools and 1,700 inquiry forms were distributed. The response rate of the survey was at the level of 76.8 per cent (1,305 items). A total of 1,121 questionnaires (85.9 per cent) were analysed in the study. The questionnaire was divided into two sections. The first section contained seven questions concerning, among other things, the assessment of the reliability of information about foodstuffs and the frequency of their use, the hierarchy of the importance of information on the food product packaging or the circumstances for reading the information placed on food products by respondents. The questionnaire included closed-ended and open-ended questions. The second section included the background information on respondents, such as sex, age, education, wealth and residence. The questionnaire took approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. All questionnaires were administered in the classroom by the researchers involved in the project in collaboration with teachers. The analysis also considered the subject of studies in the case of university students; moreover, they were divided into individuals studying at the faculties connected with nutrition and students of other faculties. The statistical analysis was made with the use of the STATISTICA 10 package. The kh2 tests were used in order to show the impact of demographic variables and to examine the effect size measure, respectively. To examine the relationship between the respondents' attentiveness to the information contained on the food packaging and their legibility and comprehensibility, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used.\nRespondents' profile: The characteristics of the survey participants are presented in Table I. The surveyed population accounted for 407 people aged 16-18 (36.3 per cent) and 714 (63.7 per cent) aged 19-24. Generally, women prevailed (61.5 per cent); however, differences in sex in particular age groups were noted. Among the respondents aged 16-18, there were more men than women, however, the difference was not of great importance (49.4 per cent). In turn, among the people aged 19-24, the majority were women (68.3 per cent). The respondents were residents of both rural areas and towns. The respondents living in towns accounted for 65.8 per cent of the surveyed population. More than half of the samples were students.\nResults: The analysis of the respondents' answers to the question about the reliability and frequency of use of the indicated sources of information, carried out on a five-grade scale, demonstrated that more than three-fourths of the respondents considered the information provided by specialists in the area of nutrition (M=4.19; SD=1.03) and from the family (M=4.08; SD=0.86) to be reliable and very reliable. The sources such as the press (M=2.84; SD=1.01) and the radio (M=2.62; SD=1.01) were assessed by the respondents as less reliable (Table II).\nThe reliability of information contained on food products packaging: In the presented survey, 13.2 per cent of the respondents admitted that they read the labels on food products. Most often such declaration was made by individuals aged 16-18 (22.6 per cent) and the students of secondary school (20.6 per cent). Considering the places where the respondents most often read the food products labels, it was ascertained that more than a half of the respondents read the information placed on the label in a store while doing shopping (54.8 per cent). Most often, food labels are read by older consumers (76.2 per cent) while they are doing shopping. At home, the food products labels are analysed by 30.8 per cent of the respondents, and most of them are women (43.0 per cent) (Table IV).\nThe comprehensibility of the information on food products packaging in the respondents' opinion: The analysis of the respondents' answers to the questions about the comprehensibility of the information contained on food products packaging revealed that the percentage share of scores 4 and 5 accounted for 47.8 per cent. The legibility of the label was assessed favourably more often. The average score amounted to 3.40 (SD=0.92). Individuals studying at universities (M=3.48; SD=0.84) and the respondents aged 19-24 (M=3.45; SD=0.87) more often stated that the information on food products packaging was comprehensible (Table VII).\nDiscussion: In the European Union, it is desirable that the information provided to consumers was clear, legible and comprehensible. Such was the purpose of implementing the Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to the consumers. The food product packaging is an important source of information about foodstuffs (Moser et al., 2010) and it may provide consumers with relevant information. As Amital et al. (2003) notice, the information on the food product packaging plays an important role in promoting proper nutrition behaviours. The information on food products packaging is considered by the respondents as the most reliable source of information and consumers place high value on labelling schemes that are regulated by the EU law (Gracia and de-Magistris, 2016).\nSummary: To sum up, we need to stress the differences in the perception of the reliability of sources of information about foodstuffs and the declared frequency of their use. For the respondents, the most reliable information about foodstuffs can be received from nutrition specialists, family members or from physicians and pharmacists. Furthermore, the analysis of the frequency of use of the particular sources of information shows that the respondents most often use the advice offered by the family members, the information on the label and the recommendations provided by their acquaintances. These answers show that the respondents are aware that the advice offered by professionals on foodstuffs provide them with true information on proper nutrition, which is a highly important issue concerning human health. While assessing the sources, the discrepancy between the reliability of a given source and the frequency of its use shows that the group might be interested in the information received from the professionals if they had better access to it.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how young Polish consumers perceive the selected sources of information on foodstuffs. The authors have also taken into account the consumers' comprehension, hierarchy of importance and use of labels on food products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The survey sample consisted of a group of respondents aged 16-24. The participants were students of secondary schools and universities located in Poland, on the territory of Mazovian Voivodeship. The questionnaires were distributed among the respondents: the kh2 test was used to show the impact of demographic variables, while the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was applied to examine the relationship between the respondents' attentiveness to the information contained on the food packaging and its legibility and comprehensibility.\nFindings: The study ascertained the existence of differences in the perception of the reliability of sources of information on foodstuffs and the declared frequency of using them. In the respondents' opinion, the most reliable information can be obtained from nutrition consultants, family members, physicians or pharmacists. Furthermore, the analysis of the frequency of use of individual sources of information by the respondents proved that most often they relied on the recommendations from their family members, the information contained in the label and advice offered by their acquaintances.\nOriginality/value: The research findings indicate that the key action should be to carry out further educational activities aimed at young consumers in order to enable them to execute their rights to fair information and education, in the foodstuffs market, as well as to increase their consumer activity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer adoption of online food shopping in China	[ "Structural equation modelling", "Segmentation", "Chinese consumer", "Innovation-adoption characteristics", "Online food shopping" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to rapid developments in e-commerce, online food shopping has conquered many obstacles identified by researchers a decade ago such as long web loading time, transaction problems, payment security and receiving low-quality food products (Amir and Rizvi, 2017; Hansen, 2005). Today, it has been adopted by more and more consumers as a part of their daily lives (Amir and Rizvi, 2017; Hansen, 2005). This is particularly the case in China - the world's largest online retail market which delivered 40 percent of the world's e-commerce packages in 2016 (Harkell, 2017; Tong, 2017; Xu and Zhao, 2016; Yuan, 2017). China is experiencing a dramatic growth in the online food retail market due to a huge population base, low delivery cost, weak offline retail market and major investments to improve the online retail environment by Chinese e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD (Amir and Rizvi, 2017; Harkell, 2017; Tong, 2017; Xu and Zhao, 2016; Yuan, 2017). Approximately, 20 percent of fresh food and soft drinks were purchased online in China in 2015 (Xu and Zhao, 2016). There was also a growth rate of 86 percent for online fresh food shopping in China between 2015 and 2016 (Yuan, 2017).\nTheoretical background and conceptual model: A conceptual model is proposed in Figure 1. This section will discuss the theoretical background underpinning it.\nMethods and materials: Participants and procedures\nResults: Online purchase intentions for specific food categories\nDiscussion and conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore consumer segments, innovation-adoption characteristics and product preferences related to online food shopping with a sample from China. The study has major importance as China is the largest country in the world for e-commerce and has different dietary cultures and customs from western countries. The original five-factorial structure of innovation-adoption characteristics for online food shopping was initially developed through a study that used a sample from a western setting a decade ago (Hansen et al., 2004; Hansen, 2005, 2008). Through a CFA, we confirm that the original five-factorial structure does not fit with the data in current day China. With an EFA, we obtained an adjusted and more suitable factorial structure for the Chinese sample, with three factors: perceived incentive, perceived complexity and perceived risk.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of innovation-adoption characteristics on Chinese consumers' adoption of online food shopping. It also examines consumers' online purchase preferences for specific food categories and the consumer segments shopping for food online in China.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were collected through a web-based survey (n=643, in three cities: Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing). Descriptive analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis and structural equation modeling were employed for data analysis.\nFindings: Participants had strong online purchase intentions toward snack and imported food, while they had weak online purchase intentions toward fresh food products such as meat, eggs, vegetables, fish and seafood. Two consumer segments were found: online-food-conservative (42 percent) and online-food-pioneer (58 percent). Factor analysis resulted in an adjusted factorial structure of the innovation-adoption characteristics, which was considered more appropriate within the context of Chinese consumers when shopping for food online. Path analysis found that Chinese consumers' attitudes and/or purchase intentions were positively linked to their perceived incentives and negatively associated with their perceived complexity for online food shopping.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to explore consumer segments, consumption psychology (innovation-adoption characteristics) and product preferences related to online food shopping with a sample from China, the largest e-commerce country. The findings can help food producers and marketers to better understand Chinese consumers' online food shopping behaviors in order to meet the needs of consumers and have further success in this major market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing information for collaborative networks	[ "Case study", "Collaborative networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With industrial firms no longer competing as individual businesses but now as parts of industrial collectives (Ball, 2007), collaborative networks (CNs) are increasingly becoming the mainstay of manufacturing and production firms. CNs are \"constituted by a variety of entities (e.g. organisations and people) that are largely autonomous, geographically distributed and heterogeneous in terms of their: operating environment, culture, social capital and goals and these entities collaborate to better achieve common or compatible goals, and whose interactions are supported by computer network\" (Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005). Supply chains, virtual organisations, virtual enterprises and professional virtual communities are some examples of CNs. In these arrangements, information management poses strategic, provisioning and complexity challenges that impact on the performance of CN partners (Afsarmanesh and Camarinha-Matos, 2009; Afsarmanesh et al., 2009). For instance, citing examples of firms such as National Semiconductor, Steelcase and Wal-Mart, Fawcett et al. (1997) linked the performance of these firms to their strategies for managing information within their networks for collaboration. They noted that the application of improved schemes to manage the flow of information aided these firms in achieving competitive networking and in positioning (or shaping) their businesses to meet market needs. On the flipside, through an example of how Cisco wrote off $2.2 billion due to serialised information flow, Sherer (2005) suggested that better integrated flow of information is needed to overcome problems of artificially inflated forecasts and overlapping orders that fuel artificial demand spikes.\n2. Theoretical framework: For modern firms in CNs, integrated information flow is characterised by the wide spread use of ICTs such as electronic data interchange in production and operations management systems such as in Materials Requirement Planning (MRP), Quick Response, Efficient Consumer Response, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems. These systems control the extent to which information is shared by attempting to \"replace human coordination, reduce uncertainty, improve decision-making, promote new coordination structures and substitute information and knowledge for inventory\" (Wisner and Stanley, 2008, p. 316). Also, through the use of ICTs, firms such as Chevron, Xerox, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, FinnAir, Mitre Corporation and 3 M have transformed their company culture from one driven by internal rivalry to a more accessible CN (Pereira and Soares, 2007).\n3. Research method: The research adopts the multi-case study logic[1] (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009) for three main reasons. First, in view of the research motivation, the use of exploratory cases (Marshall and Rossman, 1999) offered a useful avenue to address the research. This motivation stirred the research towards the case study logic which offers a more viable option to studying information-rich cases, in comparison to surveys (Yin, 2009). Second, the multi-case variant of the case study approach is more robust and generalisable, and offers the added benefit of replication for independent confirmation of emerging themes and extension for revealing complementary aspects of phenomena (Santos and Eisenhardt, 2004). Third, due to the research question, the study adopts an interpretivism epistemology - a theory of knowledge that attempts \"to understand phenomena through accessing the meanings that participants assign to them\" (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991, p. 5). This purpose is pivotal to this research study, which concentrates on interviews and analysis of qualitative data. The next subsections describe the case study domain and how data were captured and analysed.\n4. Research findings: Much like supply chain integration, information flow integration is built up from relationships and enables firms to collaborate and to successfully apply competences (e.g. Hoyt and Huq, 2000; Klein and Rai, 2009), and for the case firms studied as part of this research, this building process revolved around CN partners coherently and contextually sharing strategic, tactical and operational information downstream with clients and with particular emphasis on client feedback. Table III summarises the focus of information sharing and coordination within case firms for which orientations with identified.\n5. Discussion: In the next subsections the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the research are discussed.\n6. Conclusion: In CNOs, integrated information flow enables partners to share and coordinate operational, tactical and strategic information. Upstream-downstream-sidestream relationships between CN partners are enhanced and internal/external communications associated with firms are harmonised using network technologies. Along these lines, this paper attempts to offer insights into the main integrated information flow challenges for CN management. It describes a study involving 14 informants from six MST-based firms to shed light on the following research question:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the orientations of collaborative networks (CNs) for managing integrated information flow. It seeks to analyse and shed light into the main priorities of firms for sharing and coordinating information with CN partners. These priorities are needed to enhance practices to trade-off and integrate flows where appropriate for maximising profits and performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, inductive multiple-case logic is applied to research how six industrial firms manage integrated information flow in relation to their collaborative networked organisations (CNOs). Guided by an interpretivism epistemology, 22 face-to-face and 13 telephonic semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 key informants in six industrial firms. Interview data were analysed in line with the research agenda to understand orientations for integrated information flow.\nFindings: The research finds that CN management is enhanced when flow integration for industrial firms is skill, project, agreement and relationship oriented. The investigation also finds that CNO flow integration could be enhanced when industrial firms confront and prioritise schemes for fluidity prevention, systematised templates, procedural prompts, implementation checklists, confidence building, issuance policies and concern separation.\nOriginality/value: The major contribution of this paper is an exposition on priorities for integrated information flow within CNs. It also offers insights that suggest industrial firms can boost the performance of their CNOs by: working in small knit highly skilled teams, tactically implementing manufacturability and marketability programmes, strategising their production contracts and strengthening their company-customer-supplier ties.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Governance quality, foreign direct investment, and entrepreneurship in emerging markets	[ "Entrepreneurship", "Institutions", "Emerging markets", "Foreign direct investment", "Governance quality", "Necessity entrepreneurship", "Opportunity entrepreneurship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Modern theories of entrepreneurship from the perspective of economics postulate that institutional conditions can facilitate or hinder entrepreneurial activities which drive a country's economy (Baumol, 1990; Acs et al., 2008, 2009, 2013). Consequently, variations in the nature and structure of entrepreneurship - for instance, differences in entrepreneurial motivations by opportunity and necessity, should be witnessed across countries (Acs et al., 2008; Stenholm et al., 2013). Despite a large number of studies surveying the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship, a consensus has been not reached among empirical findings, especially, in emerging markets (EMs) (see Herrera-Echeverri et al., 2014). Fuentelsaz et al. (2015) show that different formal institutions play distinctive roles in opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship across a large sample of 63 selected countries. In relation to the specific influence of governance institutions on entrepreneurship, typical studies probing into distinct institutional infrastructures in EMs (e.g. Tracey and Phillips, 2011; Herrera-Echeverri et al., 2014) have not drawn a distinction between, for example, opportunity- and necessity-motivated behaviors of entrepreneurship.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Institutions, GQ and entrepreneurship\n3. Sampling and data: 3.1 Why emerging markets?\n4. Methodology: We establish empirical models based on the panel data approach in order to test H1 and H2. Fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) regressions are commonly employed to control unobserved heterogeneity. We use the Hausman specification test to determine whether the FE model (1) or RE model (2) is appropriate for analytical inference:(1)\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Conclusion: We further investigate the interplay of institutions, FDI and entrepreneurship in EMs. Our empirical results affirm that governance institutions and FDI play significant roles in entrepreneurial activity. National governance infrastructure facilitates FDI-based spillover effects of entrepreneurship. In particular, empirical patterns of the relationship between direction-specified FDI and motivation-specified entrepreneurship vary across the spectrum of GQ. That is, in EMs with different levels of GQ, the effects of inward FDI and outward FDI on OEA and NEA are in opposite directions. Inward FDI stimulates OEA in markets with the lowest GQ and discourages NEA in markets with the highest GQ; and, at the same time, outward FDI diminishes OEA in markets with the lowest GQ and promotes NEA in markets with the highest GQ.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to thoroughly investigate the interplay between institutions, foreign direct investment (FDI) and entrepreneurship in the context of emerging markets (EMs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors argue that the impact of FDI on entrepreneurial activity depends on different natures of capital flow and entrepreneurial motivation and relates to the quality of institutional environment. First, the roles of inward and outward FDI are examined in connection with the new firm creation by opportunity- and necessity-motivated entrepreneurs. Second, the integrated influences of (inward/outward) FDI and governance quality (GQ) on (opportunity/necessity) entrepreneurship are tested. This nexus of relationships is analyzed through segmented regressions using the GEM data of 39 EMs over the 2004-2015 period.\nFindings: It is evidenced that the quality of governance infrastructure affects the relationship between FDI and entrepreneurship: in emerging countries with low GQ, opportunity entrepreneurship is stimulated by inward FDI and diminished by outward FDI; and in emerging countries with high GQ, necessity entrepreneurship is discouraged by inward FDI and promoted by outward FDI.\nPractical implications: This research has implications for the institutional context-based execution of public policy in emerging economies. As the entrepreneurial effects of inward and outward FDI are pronounced differently under the two types of entrepreneurship and the two extremes of GQ, public policy makers who recognize the catalytic role of FDI in domestic business development should take the distinct institutional context of their country into consideration.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the extant literature on international entrepreneurship in emerging economies by making a breakdown on the roles played by different types of FDI in the entrepreneurial activity, analyzing the mediating effects of GQ on the relationship between inward/outward FDI and entrepreneurship, and interpreting the capital and institutional determinants of entrepreneurship in terms of entrepreneurial motivations by opportunity and necessity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How socially connected are citers to those that they cite?	[ "Social networks", "Referencing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The two disciplines investigated in this study - citation analysis and social network analysis (SNA) - are both rapidly developing. Otte and Rousseau (2002, p. 441) confirmed, \"Interest in ... social network analysis has only recently blossomed in sociology\". Citation analysis has become increasingly popular in recent years, driven by the ease of which ISI's Web of Science (WOS) allows users to carry out citation searches. This paper reports an attempt to bring SNA and citation analysis together.Social network analysis\nMethods adopted: The individuals chosen\nResults: Citation counts\nDiscussion: This study shows that citation analysis can be applied to SNA, as was suggested by Otte and Rousseau (2002). Social networks can be compared successfully to citation networks, by means of the deviance value as well as MDS representations. The social and citation networks involving those most regularly cited by Williams, Nicholas and Huntington were found to have considerable similarities.We have found that in this case study, social closeness is correlated with citation count. It was found that citation rates tend to increase almost linearly as social connectivity ratings increase. It is likely that there is a cause and effect process at work here, i.e. the existence of social networks makes it more likely that the other person will be cited. The chance of citing someone with whom a form of contact had been made was found to be 36.2 times greater than the chance of citing someone with whom no contact had been made. Although this was based on a small group of authors with similar subject interests, these figures are still quite remarkable.Comparisons with other work\nConclusions: It is clear that the combination of SNA and citation analysis provides a rich picture of academic networking. SNA integrates with citation analysis. Objective comparisons have shown a positive correlation between social closeness and citation rate. This would imply that friends are more likely to be cited than non-friends, which suggests in turn that this leads to bias in citing. Future studies could refine the methods used in this study to determine the extent to which this is true.It is clear that Williams, Nicholas and Huntington cite rather widely and do not restrict their citations to their social grouping. To succeed, research groups must be social entities. In research teams, inevitably people cite within the team. Furthermore, the area of digital consumer health services, which was a new and breaking field in which there was little published, was one which the researchers we studies essentially put on the map. Research in a virgin area inevitably leads those researchers to cite their own material because there is little else to cite. This is supported by Peritz and Bar-Ilan (2002), who suggest \"that Williams, Nicholas and Huntington's self-citation rate deviates little from what should be expected\".SNA will no doubt have an impact on the future direction of bibliometrics. This should increase our understanding of many information science phenomena, including invisible colleges.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to report an investigation into the social and citation networks of three information scientists: David Nicholas, Peter Williams and Paul Huntington.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Similarities between citation patterns and social closeness were identified and discussed. A total of 16 individuals in the citation network were identified and investigated using citation analysis, and a matrix formed of citations made between those in the network. Social connections between the 16 in the citation network were then investigated by means of a questionnaire, the results of which were merged into a separate matrix. These matrices were converted into visual social networks, using multidimensional scaling. A new deviance measure was devised for drawing comparisons between social and citation closeness in individual cases.\nFindings: - Nicholas, Williams and Huntington were found to have cited 527 authors in the period 2000-2003, the 16 most cited becoming the subjects of further citation and social investigation. This comparison, along with the examination of visual representations indicates a positive correlation between social closeness and citation counts. Possible explanations for this correlation are discussed, and implications considered. Despite this correlation, the information scientists were found to cite widely outside their immediate social connections.\nOriginality/value: - Social network analysis has not been often used in combination with citation analysis to explore inter-relationships in research teams.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Keeping it local: Incorporating a local case study in the business curriculum	[ "Case studies", "Curricula", "Finance", "Undergraduates" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nTeaching with cases in the higher education business curriculum: The use of business case studies has long been regarded as an effective teaching approach within the higher education business curriculum (Barnes et al., 1994). Numerous articles have discussed this important method of teaching and presented various approaches for use of the case method to present business concepts (see for example, Brigham et al., 1972; Roulac, 1975; Viscione and Aragon, 1978; Simon, 1979; Gitman et al., 1987; St. Pierre, 1997; Bruner et al., 1999). Businesses cases vary from focusing on specific tools for analysis to comprehensive strategic decision-making problems. Business cases often require students to use teamwork as well as multidisciplinary approaches to solve business problems and actively engage students actively in the learning process.Regardless of the focus of the case, their use as an instructional pedagogy allows for building interpersonal and communication skills through a covert agenda (Westgren and Litzenberg, 1989) in addition to presenting and reinforcing the functional or multifunctional business area subject matter. Most educators agree (see Velenchik, 1995) the skills of communication, teamwork, and analyses are essential for students to meet workplace demands. Thus, cases offer a more realistic preview of the post-college work experience and provide need practice in teamwork and communication. Hansen (2006) also agrees students working in teams to acquire, communicate, and integrate information helps them think critically to analyze and solve problems.Case advantages\nUse of a local company case: Designing a case for a business course should follow the suggestions of Wiggins and McTighe (2005) for \"backward design\". In cases, faculty should design interesting learning experience by first focusing on concepts and the theories students need to understand and then develop an appropriate case situation to showcase these concepts and theories. The backward case design method promotes more effective learning applications to reinforce the appropriate textbook and course concepts, particularly for core or foundation courses.Using a local company as a living laboratory during the course of study can be an effective means of enhancing the competencies of students while maintaining their interest. While some researchers support the use of live or real-time cases, where representatives from the selected company are present during the learning experience (see Kennedy et al., 2001; Simkins, 2001; McWilliams and Nahavandi, 2006; Kocher and Helmuth, 2000), similarly, the use of a local company case can also expose students to business issues an area company is facing but without the problems of scheduling top executive's time to meet with multiple class sections or over several semesters. With a local case, students become knowledgeable of the complexities of the company while gaining background on an area industry.Use of a local company case in principles of finance\nSelecting the company and preparing a local company case: Case selection should begin with an understanding of student backgrounds and interest and the educational mission of the university. In this instance, the students attend a regional state college with Baccalaureate business degrees. Since most students live within the ten county state service region, they have a common understanding business and economic conditions.It is important to select a major industry or area company that students are familiar with and possibly have friends or family employed at the company. If there is not a publicly-traded company in the local city or town, consideration can be expanded to the closest metropolitan area or to a regional company employing multiple business students from the university. It is important to find a company that is publicly-traded so financial data will be easily available for analysis. Company annual reports are essential for financial analysis and background information. The US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings are available on EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system that performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions by companies who are required by law to file forms with the SEC (accessible at: www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml).In our Northwest Georgia area of the USA manufacturing remains a major industry and over 80 percent of the USA's carpet production is manufactured within a 60-mile radius of Dalton, Georgia. The major industry players are Shaw, Inc. (a division of Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc. conglomerate), Mohawk Industries, Inc., J & J Industries, Inc. and Beaulieu. Both J & J Industries, Inc. and Beaulieu are privately owned. Mohawk Industries, Inc. is the only major publicly-traded company with stand-alone financial statements for company analysis.Company background information is also essential for successful case analysis. News articles, trade journals, and analysts' reports provide students with current company and industry background information. The case writer should work with the library staff to gather the background information. In addition, if electronic files are available on the company or industry, students can be provided additional case supporting information.A case based on the financial analysis of Mohawk Industries, Inc. was developed in 2006 as a teaching aid, focusing on financial statement analysis and was used in all sections of the Principles of Finance class. The majority of the case was developed from the company's web site with additional background from industry trade publications and newspaper articles. The case begins with a brief history of the company as well as a short summary of major floorcovering competitors and a profile of the industry. This background information is useful to students in their initial understanding of the company's products and services.The learning objectives for the Mohawk Industries, Inc. case study are to illustrate financial ratio analysis and other financial statement analysis and stress interpretation of the ratios through written analysis and oral presentation. After preparing the case analysis of Mohawk Industries, Inc. students were asked to analyze financial statements for comparison purposes, compute and interpret common financial ratios, discuss the determinants of a firm's profitability and growth, discuss financial challenges with acquiring and merging companies, and recognize some of the problems and pitfalls in financial statement analysis.In addition to financial analysis, students were asked to consider growth issues at Mohawk Industries, Inc. Because the company is mature, students were also asked to consider strategies for vertical and horizontal integration and the benefits of industry consolidation, as well as review effects of economic conditions and rising fuel and material costs on industry strategies. Students also were asked to considered the impact outsourcing has on the ability to retain market share for the firm and to practice balancing the interplay of strategic alternatives, financial outcomes, and the industry implications of possible continued mergers and acquisitionsDepending on the company and industry chosen for a local company case, life cycle stages and strategies will vary and learning objectives beyond the ratio computation and financial statement analysis should be adjusted based on the particular firm chosen for analysis and the need for coverage of topics within the chosen course. If there are several options to choose from, faculty members are encouraged to select a company undergoing several changes (growth, mergers, divestiture, etc.) to enrich the analysis and broaden student analysis and discussion beyond coverage of the topic area and to extend to other functional-area business courses. A case on a company with a variety of issues and challenges in several major functional areas of business may be more appropriate for use in the capstone, strategic management course.Implementation\nMeasuring students' perceptions of satisfaction: The benefits of a using the local company case seem evident and lead to the subsequent research question posited by this paper:RQ1. Would the use of a local company case improve students' perceptions of satisfaction with learning the financial statement analysis in the Principles of Finance Course?A questionnaire was developed to gain insight into students' perspectives as to whether the local company case was a more effective learning tool for financial statement analysis than a general case or a lecture on ratio analysis. Results are shown in Figure 1. Students in two sections of Principles of Finance at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia were surveyed at the end of the Spring 2007 semester. Overall, 23 students out of a possible 27 enrolled in two sections of the Principles of Finance course completed surveys for a response rate of 85 percent. The professor was in the classroom during the administration of the survey to answer all student questions. This survey was separate from the traditional end-of-course student evaluation of faculty questionnaire also administered by colleges and universities in the Georgia System.Of the respondents, 36 percent were from day students (attending class from 7:30 am to 1:30 pm) and 64 percent were from evening students (attending class after 4:45 pm). The average age of the student respondents was 26 and 90 percent were Caucasian and the remaining ten percent were of Hispanic descent. Of the students, 64 percent were male (36 percent female) and 87 percent of the students worked at least part-time, with 80 percent working at least 20 hours per week. Of the working students, 10 percent were employed by Mohawk Industries, Inc. (the subject of the local company case), while 25 percent of the employed students worked for competitors in the area floorcovering industry or supply chain (which includes fiber, yarn, nylon, tufted carpet, carpet backing, rugs, or hard surfaces of tile, vinyl, wood, and laminate).Average responses to the first section of the survey (Questions 1 through 10) are shown in Table I. Overall, students seemed to prefer working on a local company case rather than a textbook case. Most felt the local company case helped them understand the theories and concepts of financial statement analysis from the course and prepared them for future case analysis. The student respondents also felt they had a better understanding of the strategic issues facing the industry and of the use of and interpretation of financial ratios after completing the case. Students disagreed that knowledge of the industry helped them analyze the project. They did not feel the use of a local company case would improve their career prospects in the industry. They were also not likely to follow the financial performance of the company.The results varied between the day and night students. The night students were more likely to agree they had a better understanding of the industry as well as the theories and concepts of the course. This may be due to prior business experience, since two-thirds of the night students worked full-time.Student comments\nAreas for future research: Future research should study the benefits and limitations of using local company cases throughout the business degree and study if the use allows students to apply principles learned early in their curriculum to strategic analysis and decision-making in capstone courses. Research could determine if students will build upon their previous knowledge of the company and business concepts in much the same way as business managers gain business and industry knowledge as they advance through their career. Teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes could be further enhanced by establishing benchmarks for student performance in the areas of general business knowledge, functional area knowledge, written and oral communication skills, business ethics, teamwork, and analysis of business conditions and monitoring learning improvement over time.More cases are needed and should be developed, published, and shared for use in principles courses. In Principles of Finance courses, cases are needed to illustrate course concepts beyond financial statement analysis, to include capital budgeting, portfolio theory, and capital structure. Outlets for sharing and circulating these cases are also important. In addition, these developed cases and accompanying teaching notes can be offered on textbook web sites for faculty use.Additional research is needed on ways to improve the teaching and delivery of concepts in the Principles of Finance and other principles courses in business. A longitudinal study across multiple institutions with larger sample sizes is needed to follow the progress of students who have participated in the analysis of a local company case early in their Principles of Finance and other business courses. Another interesting research question would be whether the exposure to case analysis, written analysis, and oral presentations early in their junior years would improve their scores in later senior-level capstone courses including business policy and strategic management or on the financial portion of senior competency tests and business exit exams.Validation is necessary to move beyond student perceptions to more accurately measure student satisfaction with the local company case. Research should use methodologies that establish a clear benchmark standard obtained from previous teaching and learning strategies to measure satisfaction and learning. Longitudinal studies of satisfaction comparing classes using a local company case to a control group utilizing more traditional teaching strategies is necessary to show changes in improvement and learning over time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to evaluate the inclusion of team case analyses and presentations in undergraduate finance courses that usually focus on analyzing provided financial statement data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this paper the authors argue the early use of a local company case can illustrate key course concepts while offering students or participants in an academic or vocational training program a preview of the pedagogical techniques of case analysis. It is also argued that the use of a local company case can be extended to other business courses to improve students' interest and understanding. A survey of student perceptions was conducted at the end of the semester.\nFindings: - Overall, students preferred working on a local company case rather than a textbook case. Most felt the local company case helped them understand the theories and concepts of financial statement analysis from the course and prepared them for future case analysis. The student respondents also perceive a better understanding of the strategic issues facing the industry and of the use of, and interpretation of, financial ratios after completing the case. While the exploratory analysis did indicate student preferences for use of a local company case, further study and analysis is needed to move beyond perceptions of satisfaction to determine the actual improvement in learning of the key course concepts\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future research should study the benefit of using a local company case throughout the business degree and study how it allows students to apply principles learned early in their curriculum to strategic analysis and decision making in capstone courses. Research could determine if students will build upon their previous knowledge of the company and business concepts in much the same way as business managers gain business and industry knowledge as they advance through their career. In addition, the benefit of using a local company continuation case through the upper division courses in the business curriculum should be investigated.\nOriginality/value: - This article highlights the steps involved in preparing a local company case for classroom use and presents an analysis of student perceptions of satisfaction with a case-enriched course and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the case. The article also discusses ways to create a similar local company case for other business disciplines.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cognitive and emotional processing of brand logo changes	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Brand attachment", "Brand identity", "Corporate branding", "Rebranding", "Attitude toward the brand", "Curiosity", "Deprivation curiosity", "Interest curiosity", "Logo change" ]	[ { "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 issue.\nConceptual background: The word \"rebrand\" comprises two parts: \"re\" and \"brand\", which comes from the root \"bran\" - meaning \"burn\". According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, in the 1400s, the term brand was originally used negatively to stigmatize criminals, marking them with a hot iron. In the 1580s, branding became a way to mark property. In the 1820s, the term was broadened to refer to a particular maker of goods. By adding the prefix \"re-\" to \"brand\", the word means \"branding again\" or \"branding anew\" and implies refreshment, makeover, reinvention and repositioning (Merrilees and Miller, 2008).\nModel development: Qualitative research\nHypotheses: Because theoretical development of consumer processing of logo changes is sparse, we draw on literature that does exist in general for rebranding to develop our hypotheses. We also draw on our own qualitative research, quoting participants to support our theoretical development. Finally, examples of reactions to logo changes appearing in social media have also been included where relevant.\nStudy/methods: Participants\nDiscussion: This study focused on change for a brand - specifically, logo change. In a comprehensive model of consumers' response to changes in two brand logos, the study included two types of assessments related to these logo changes:\nConclusion: This study developed a model of how consumers may cognitively and emotionally respond to changes marketers make to the face of the brand. Nine of the ten hypotheses for the model received empirical support. Changing a brand's logo is a primary way to signal to consumers that the core offering of a brand has been changed. However, as this study highlights, both interest and doubt will be responses of consumers about any such change. With this understanding in mind, researchers and managers will be better able to understand how consumers will likely respond when a brand attempts to increase its appeal by changing the brand's logo.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the study is to develop and empirically test a model of how consumers process logo changes used in rebranding.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Individual in-depth interviews with 12 informants allowed researchers to better understand how consumers respond to logo changes. After developing a model of how consumers process logo changes, researchers deployed a field study evaluating two actual retail brands using survey methodology with 406 respondents.\nFindings: Nine of the ten hypotheses of the study receive support. Notably, both interest in the logo change as well as doubt about the logo change characterize consumers' processing of the logo change.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although study respondents viewed multiple brands along with variations of these brands, other brands might elicit other responses from consumers. Further study is now in order.\nPractical implications: As a result of the study, brand managers can be more aware of the positive and negative processing that brands receive from consumers when brands change their logos. Accordingly, communication programs of brands can better anticipate such processing before logos are changed.\nSocial implications: Social enterprises that change their logos stand to benefit in a similar way to for-profit businesses that change their logos.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to include two types of curiosity - interest curiosity and deprivation curiosity - in a comprehensive model to better explain how consumers process logo changes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Unified Theory of Information, hypertextuality and levels of reality	[ "Evolution", "Information", "Hypertexts", "Integrative levels" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: is information one or multiple?: The notion of information permeates most contemporary culture. Still, it lacks any precise definition accepted by the specialists of all involved domains, hence holding in any research context. Telecommunication engineers measuring entropy and redundancy of information transmitted through a material channel; computer scientists comparing the information processing capabilities of different computers; biologists trying to decipher information contained in DNA of living organisms, and palaeontologists trying to obtain it from the fossil record; linguists studying how information exchanged between humans can be structured; historians using any kind of information to reconstruct our past; journalists reporting factual information; librarians helping their users to find and evaluate the information they need: are they really all speaking about the same entity? Or would it be better at least to distinguish, as proposed by Buckland (2012), between \"information-as-thing\" (the documents), \"information-as-process\" (learning) and \"information-as-knowledge\" (what was learned)?\n2. The UTI: The preliminary difficulty of any general theory concerning information lies in having to choose between three alternatives, none of which looks fully satisfying (Capurro, 2009, p. 134):\n3. The HDT: Theories of the document (Lund, 2009), like theories of information, also face the challenge of the trilemma advanced by Capurro (2009). Indeed, they also have to decide if the properties of documents created and used by humans in their communication activities, like books or movies, can be extended to any kind of document, including, e.g. dinosaur fossils; or if we should take in account so basic, universal properties that they are found even in \"documents\" not produced by humans for communication; or if the term document has to be viewed as taking a plurality of different meanings, according to its context.\n4. The theory of levels of reality: The idea that new forms can appear by evolution of pre-existing ones has now been applied in a wide variety of specific sciences, including astronomy, soil science, biology, linguistics and history of religions.\n5. Some pros and cons of the three theories: None of the theories discussed above - UTI, HDT and ILT - is scientifically proved, nor perhaps provable. Also, none is currently predominating in its academic and professional domain.\n6. \"It from bit\", \"bit from it\", \"it with bit\": Those who, instead, consider the hermeneutic-heuristic approach to be excessively bended towards postmodern relativism, even in light of the recent discussion on \"new realism\" (Ferraris, 2012; Vattimo, 2012; Santarcangelo and Scarpa, 2013), may prefer to venture a metaphysical explanation on how the world is \"really\" done.\n7. Conclusions: Coming back from speculations to our main thesis, we have seen how Hofkirchner's theory is compatible and agrees in several points with the theories of hypertextuality and of levels of reality. Each of these approaches can contribute fruitful arguments to the other ones. In particular, we hope to have shown in a convincing way how UTI is a special kind of levels theory based on hypertextuality.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The different senses of the term information in physical, biological and social interpretations, and the possibility of connections between them, are addressed. Special attention is paid to Hofkirchner's Unified Theory of Information (UTI), proposing an integrated view in which the notion of information gets additional properties as one moves from the physical to the biological and the social realms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: UTI is compared to other views of information, especially to two theories complementing several ideas of it: the theory of the hypertextual documental universe (\"docuverse\") and the theory of integrative levels of reality. Two alternative applications of the complex of these three theories are discussed: a pragmatical, hermeneutic one, and a more ambitious realist, ontological one. The latter can be extended until considering information (\"bit\") together with matter-energy (\"it\") as a fundamental element in the world. Problems and opportunities with each view are discussed.\nFindings: It is found that the common ground for all three theories is an evolutionary approach, paying attention to the phylogenetic connections between the different meanings of information.\nResearch limitations/implications: Other theories of information, like Leontiev's, are not discussed as not especially related to the focus of the approach.\nOriginality/value: The paper builds on previously unnoticed affinities between different families of information-related theories, showing how each of them can provide fruitful complements to the other ones in clarifying the nature of information.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Aligning the talent development and succession planning processes: don't allow critical leadership talent to fall by the wayside	[ "Development", "Leadership development", "Management development", "Organizational learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: To be truly effective, succession management must accurately map the supply of talent against demand, based on current and future business aims. Alignment has to come from an understanding of the strategy, as you need to know what kind of talent, and how much of it, is needed to support the direction in which the organization is going.\nDeveloping the high potentials: So, how do we improve our chances of identifying the right people and boosting these numbers?\nThe performance trap: Where most line managers struggle is in identifying high potentials. Let's be clear on the distinction. High performance is about the here and now, whereas high potential looks at the future - where these individuals can go.\nEnter into a development dialogue: Having a clear and well-understood definition of potential will help to more accurately plot individuals in the 9-box performance and potential matrix (Peters, 2014) and move away from high levels of manager subjectivity. Unfortunately, many organizations stop at the plotting stage and fail to make the critical link between differentiating talent and prescribing high-impact development.\nSetting goals: A deep understanding of talent demand will help organizations achieve their ideal \"build\" (develop within) to \"buy\" (hire externally) ratio. However, talent management strategies still need to be driven from the metrics they're trying to achieve. Too many organizations measure the ratio of internal to external hires in a given period, but very few actually set targets for this that are linked to an original analysis of what the business needs.\n\"What can they do?\": Recapping some of the main points, let's look at the key pitfalls to avoid in order for talent outcomes to be achieved.\nStructured and systematic: Some organizations will quote the speed at which the business context is changing as a reason to avoid putting in place a more structured approach to succession. This is flawed thinking. Granted the approach needs to be agile enough to adapt as talent needs evolve, the absence of a proper strategy for systematically developing the talent supply chain is as much a risk as the absence of a system to manage quality or safety.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Organizations need to take a holistic view of their talent management programs, and it's no longer sufficient to simply look at the top layers of leadership (succession planning). High potentials need to be identified early and customized plans put in place to ensure that their development is aligned to the business strategy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a global study commissioned by Korn Ferry and conducted by Hanover research during August and September 2014. The survey covered 54 countries globally and companies ranging in size from 500 to 50,000+ employees. It generated more than 1,000 responses from business leaders at the following levels: C-suite (41 per cent), VP/SVP/EVP (42 per cent), Director (11 per cent) and Other (6 per cent).\nFindings: Only one third of those surveyed reported they are satisfied with the outcomes of their succession programs and the majority end up recruiting externally more often than they would like to obtain the talent they need. Analysis of current versus future skills requirements is rarely done and promotions are awarded on current performance rather than future potential. Development plans are not differentiated neither are they dynamically managed. A structured and systematic approach is needed, starting earlier in employees' careers to ensure those who have the greatest potential are ready when they need to be.\nOriginality/value: Organizations typically recruit externally more often than they would wish. This article, through analysis of the survey results, highlights the need for a more holistic approach with early intervention and differentiated development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does being beautiful always help? Contingency effects of physical attractiveness of the service providers on customer response	[ "Service encounter", "Customer citizenship behaviour", "Consumption situation", "Physical attractiveness", "Social interaction anxiety" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: \"Frontlines of service organizations are at the frontier of innovation, growth, and competitive advantage\" (Singh et al., 2017, p. 3). Both managers and researchers have recognized that frontline employees will have greater impacts on customer responses - such as emotional attitudes, purchases, and word of mouth - toward a service firm (Bitner, 1990; Bitner et al., 1990; Sundaram and Webster, 2000; Soderlund and Julander, 2009; Wan and Wyer, 2015; Stock, 2016). However, while considerable research has concentrated on the behavior of employees (Dallimore et al., 2007) and how to optimize customer satisfaction, only a few studies have investigated the roles of service employees' physical attractiveness on customer responses (Argo et al., 2008; Dong and Wyer, 2014).\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 Physical attractiveness stereotype\n3. Study 1: This study posited that there is a physical attractiveness stereotype effect when a customer interacts with a service provider. More specifically, customers would be more willing to demonstrate citizenship behavior through participation intention when they encounter a more attractive employee than a less attractive one.\n4. Study 2: As a customer's intrapersonal characteristics are important factors to consider for service success, Study 2 addressed the effects of a customer's social interaction anxiety on their response to the attractiveness of a service provider.\n5. Study 3: 5.1 Method\n6. Discussions and implications: 6.1 Summary and discussions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the physical attractiveness stereotype in service encounters. Specifically, this paper examines how physical attractiveness affects a customer's response and whether a customer's social interaction anxiety and the consumption situation moderate this relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three experiments were used to test hypotheses. Participants were subject to scenarios of varying levels of physical attractiveness (more vs less), social interaction anxiety (high vs low) and consumption situation (private vs public). Customer participation intention and citizenship behavior were measured along scales.\nFindings: The results indicate that the physical attractiveness of service providers positively affects customer citizenship behavior, and customer participation intention mediates this relationship. However, the effect only exists for a customer with low social interaction anxiety or presents itself under public consumption conditions.\nResearch limitations/implications: This work paints a more nuanced picture of missing links in the understanding of the influence of service providers' physical attractiveness. It enriches the physical attractiveness stereotype literature by identifying the mediating role of customer participation intention while bounding the relationship within conditions related to a customer's social interaction anxiety and the service consumption situation.\nPractical implications: Management may alter the performance of service employees by considering the employee's physical attractiveness and gauging customer social interaction anxiety while keeping in mind the consumption situation.\nOriginality/value: This study advances physical attractiveness stereotype research by examining its effect on customer participation intention and citizenship behavior in the service industry. Additionally, this study adds customer social interaction anxiety and consumption situation to the existing literature that addresses employee factors affecting customer behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sustaining organizational culture change in health systems	[ "Organizational culture", "Sustainability", "Transformation", "Realist review" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper describes a policy-focussed literature review informed by concepts from rapid realist review methodology, and focussed on understanding the factors associated with implementing and sustaining cultural change in health care organizations. Organizational culture change is recognized as a key element in large system transformation (LST) (Lukas et al., 2007), which is in turn assumed to be an explicit approach to health care system reform \"with the goal of significant improvements in the efficiency of health care delivery, the quality of patient care, and population-level patient outcomes\" (Best et al., 2012). LST involves changes to multiple components of health care systems, including primary care practices, hospitals, professional practice, as well as the financial, regulatory and policy systems underpinning these agencies and their inter-relationships. Such LST is currently underway in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where leaders in the Ministry of Health (the Ministry) have expressed a need to better understand how changes in the cultures of their health care organizations (that are in part being shaped through the implementation of Lean methodologies) may be sustained over time. This review distills, integrates and synthesizes a diverse evidence base to address this question.\n2. Materials and methods: Given this study's focus on mechanisms and contexts for sustaining culture change, a knowledge synthesis informed by a realist approach was considered the most appropriate review method (Pawson, 2013). We were aware of the RAMESES publication standards for full realist reviews which were under development while this review was being undertaken (Wong et al., 2013), and we broadly followed these recommendations. However, a number of modifications were made to tailor the process for our purposes, which are described below.\n3. Results: The results of the literature search are described in Figure 1. Based on panel recommendations, citation searches and an extensive database search, 865 potentially relevant documents were identified. Of these, 68 met inclusion criteria and were included in the final review. Documents were a combination of primary and secondary data analyses. Many did not state the time period over which the cultural change in question was examined. Of those documents that did, this period varied widely: many focussed on changes occurring between one and four years (Edwards et al., 2007; Sheaff et al., 2010; Lukas et al., 2007; Chreim et al., 2010; Connolly and Smith, 2010; Baker et al., 2003; Drenkard, 2001; Kingsley, 2001; Masso et al., 2010; Detert and Pollock, 2008; Parsons and Cornett, 2011; Pellegrin and Currey, 2011), 5-10 years (Coustasse et al., 2007; Dressendorfer et al., 2005; Buchanan and Fitzgerald, 2007; Buchanan and Fitzgerald, 2005; Berger, 2004; Yano et al., 2007; Vest and Gamm, 2009; Greenhalgh et al., 2012) or in some instances more than ten years (Macfarlane et al., 2011; Amis et al., 2002).\n4. Discussion: This review identified six guiding principles that may be useful when considering organizing efforts and policies to sustain cultural change in health systems: align vision and action; make incremental changes within a comprehensive transformation strategy; foster distributed leadership; promote staff engagement; create collaborative relationships; and continuously assess and learn from cultural change. These guiding principles interact with various contextual factors, resulting in activation of different mechanisms to influence sustainability of large-scale changes in organizational culture.\n5. Conclusions: There are many factors influencing how culture in organizations changes and the degree to which those changes are sustained. The six guiding principles identified in this review may provide health system leaders with useful ways of engaging in the process of cultural change, which may yield positive changes. Health care leaders are encouraged to interpret and adapt these principles in the contexts of their own local health settings, and explore which activities and policies make most sense given local constraints and opportunities. Through continued sharing of experiences in implementing these guiding principles, combined with clear accounts of how they interact with key contextual factors, an improved understanding of cultural sustainability may be gained.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The questions addressed by this review are: first, what are the guiding principles underlying efforts to stimulate sustained cultural change; second, what are the mechanisms by which these principles operate; and, finally, what are the contextual factors that influence the likelihood of these principles being effective? The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a literature review informed by rapid realist review methodology that examined how interventions interact with contexts and mechanisms to influence the sustainability of cultural change. Reference and expert panelists assisted in refining the research questions, systematically searching published and grey literature, and helping to identify interactions between interventions, mechanisms and contexts.\nFindings: Six guiding principles were identified: align vision and action; make incremental changes within a comprehensive transformation strategy; foster distributed leadership; promote staff engagement; create collaborative relationships; and continuously assess and learn from change. These principles interact with contextual elements such as local power distributions, pre-existing values and beliefs and readiness to engage. Mechanisms influencing how these principles sustain cultural change include activation of a shared sense of urgency and fostering flexible levels of engagement.\nPractical implications: The principles identified in this review, along with the contexts and mechanisms that influence their effectiveness, are useful domains for policy and practice leaders to explore when grappling with cultural change. These principles are sufficiently broad to allow local flexibilities in adoption and application.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to adopt a realist approach for understanding how changes in organizational culture may be sustained. Through doing so, this review highlights the broad principles by which organizational action may be organized within enabling contextual settings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Life cycle cost analysis on the operation of power generation	[ "Life cycle cost analysis", "Power generation", "Assets management", "Cost and benefit", "Cost analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: Life cycle cost (LCC) was conceived in the mid 1960s and now the publications as sources for a variety of LCC such as: Systems Engineering and Analysis, Life-Cycle Cost and Economic Analysis (Fabrycky and Blanchard, 1991); Handbook of Industrial Engineering Logistics Engineering and Management Maintainability (Blanchard et al., 1995); The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Handbook 135, 1995 edition, etc. NIST defines LCC as \"the total discounted dollar cost of owning, operating, maintaining, and disposing of a building or a building system\" over a period of time. Also, British Standard International defines LCC as a valuable technique which is used for predicting and assessing the cost performance of constructed assets.Another practical reference of LCC was explained by Barringer at his several papers and his web site www.barringer1.com. He explained that LCC is the total cost of ownership including the cost of the project or asset acquisition, operation and maintenance, and disposal. LCC includes both deterministic costs (such as acquisition costs, improvement costs, and disposal costs) and probabilistic (such as the cost of failure, repairs, spare parts, downtime, lost gross margin). Most of the probabilistic costs associated directly with the reliability and maintenance characteristics of the system. The objective of the LCC is to choose some alternatives of the most cost effective approach to determine the lowest long-term cost of ownership (Barringer, 2003).Probabilistic cost estimation in this paper is calculated by considering the mean time to failure (MTTF) of coal fired power plant (CFPP) 330 MW where the MTTF is influenced by time to failure of equipment or sub-systems that shape it. MTTF CCPP are calculated using Monte Carlo simulation based on the values of Weibull shape factor b and Weibull characteristic life e for each equipment or sub-systems that have a high criticality ranking. To develop criticality ranking of equipment or sub-system, this paper propose to use the method of the system and equipment ranking process (SERP).In this paper, we will mainly discuss a sample of case study, the LCC analysis on the operation of CFPP 330 MW. The graph of cash flow, break-even graph, and graph of cost/benefit vs risk made for a period of 30 years will be provided to give briefly explanation that LCC can be used to asses an effective management program and costs of power plant with a low risk.\nII. Methodology: 2.1 The method of calculation of life cycle cost analysis (LCCA)\nIII. Calculation and discussion: 3.1 Development and management of CFPP scenarios\nIV. Conclusions: 4.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study the life cycle cost (LCC) on the operation of power generation. LCC is the total cost of ownership including the cost of the project or asset acquisition, operation and maintenance, and disposal. LCC includes both deterministic costs (such as acquisition costs, improvement costs and disposal costs) and probabilistic (such as the costs of failure, repairs, spare parts, downtime, lost gross margin). Most of the probabilistic costs are associated directly with the reliability and maintenance characteristics of the system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To be able to analyze failure data using appropriate cost profile in order to represent the fact that each failure has different prices, in different time periods at an economical cycle the new methodology of LCCA Diagram is proposed. Developing criticality ranking of sub-system, calculating values of Weibull Shape Factor b and Weibull Characteristic Life e for each sub-system, calculating the time to failure of sub-system, calculating the mean time to failure of sub-system using Monte Carlo simulation, determining several alternatives, failure mode and effects analysis and root cause failure analysis are parts of the methodology.\nFindings: - To give a sample of case study, the LCC on the operation of coal fired power plant (CFPP) 330 MW is analyzed. Five alternatives calculation of LCC will be simulated. Graph of cash flow, break-even graph, and graph of cost/benefit versus risk made for a period of 30 years can be used to asses an effective management program and costs of power plant with a low risk.\nOriginality/value: - The paper suggests that LCC can be used to asses an effective management program and costs of power plant with a low risk.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing disaster mutual assistance decision criteria for electricity industry	[ "Analytic hierarchy process", "Disaster mutual assistance", "Electricity utilities", "Mutual aid", "North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group", "Power distribution", "Regional mutual assistance group" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and background: Utility companies in North America are continuously under scrutiny and pressure to provide an uninterrupted, safe and reliable supply of power to satisfy customers' and regulators' demands. These demands together with the increasing number of extreme events and aging power delivery system (Amin, 2003) force electricity companies to constantly monitor and forecast factors that impede service delivery, and continuously enhance emergency preparedness and service restoration strategies (Cohn, 2005). To end-use consumers, electricity is an integral commodity, which should either be available 100 per cent of the time or restored quickly, if ever disrupted, regardless of the cause. Consequently, the primary concern for utility companies is the length of outage experienced by consumers (Kumar and Pallas, 2013). When faced with extensive damage as witnessed with 2013 Hurricane Sandy or the 2013 Southern Ontario Ice Storm, electricity utility companies do not have the internal resources to restore power in a reasonable amount of time.\nDisaster mutual assistance strategy in the electricity industry: DMA amongst electricity utilities is well established and has evolved over many decades usually through the lessons experienced with every subsequent disaster. However, the key characteristic of DMA is a geographic mutual aid strategy where resources are pooled between neighbouring customer bases. Figure 1 shows the Regional Mutual Assistance Groups (RMAG) in the USA and some parts of Canada. The North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group (NAMAG), the focus of this study, is the merger of three smaller mutual assistance groups - NYMAG (New York Mutual Aid Group), MAMA (Mid-Atlantic Mutual Assistance) and NEMAG (Northeast Mutual Assistance Group) which occurred in 2013. NYMAG first started in 1991 as an informal arrangement amongst utilities within the state of New York. Encouraged by the New York State Department of Public Service, utilities decided to support each other in case of severe storms. NYMAG leadership rotated from company to company to dispel biases. Besides this, there was little formality and the loose nature of NYMAG meant that charters, terms of reference or even a signed agreement, were not implemented and did not facilitate acquiring resources from outside its state borders.\nActivation of mutual assistance: NAMAG comprises utility signatories that appoint an executive body to facilitate the group's planning, maintenance and activation procedures. In regards to activation, at any point, a signatory may request mutual aid from another signatory or request the chair to hold a full conference call amongst all signatories, depending on the scale of the response required. Situations that are small and contained, requiring a limited localized response, can be managed between signatories once the chair is notified. This is to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of resources among the requesting companies. If the scale of the situation impacts multiple utilities beyond a localized response, all signatories are requested to participate in a full conference call via an automated notification system. This notification system also has the capacity to host conference calls and has multiple redundancies to support emergency communications during most power outage events.\nMethodology: A decision to provide mutual assistance is not straightforward. It not only includes rational decision criteria but also altruistic, corporate social responsibility and qualitative and quantitative attributes. To understand these criteria and their weights, we employed a combination of Delphi and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methods that are very common in these types of research (i.e. Pourahmadi et al., 2016). We leveraged the Delphi to identify and gain consensus on important factors or criteria from selected experts. The Delphi method is a multi-staged survey which attempts to achieve consensus on an important issue (Keeney et al., 2011) which is the DMA decision criteria in this study. Introduced by Saaty (1980), AHP has been used as a useful multi-criteria decision-making tool with very wide applications. AHP has been proven to be a practical and systematic method for solving complex decision problems and weighting decision criteria (Yadav and Sharma, 2015). According to Vaidya and Kumar (2006), AHP is one of the most widely used multiple-criteria decision tools. In particular, AHP is a very common method used by many researchers in resource allocation decision-making (Ramanathan and Ganesh, 1995; Chen et al., 2008; Gao and Hailu, 2013).\nFindings and results: Identifying disaster mutual assistant decision criteria\nDiscussion: In October 2015, researchers presented their initial findings to the NAMAG networking conference in Toronto (Gass, 2015), where conference participants had an opportunity to provide feedback on the initial findings. Participants did not suggest edits or alterations. To this extent, the researchers believe that the identified DMA criteria were given opportunities for validation amongst parties with the highest interest in such research. Therefore, the researchers believe that the identified DMA criteria are strongly pertinent.\nConclusions: A decision to provide or request DMA by a utility company is a complex process that occurs under uncertain conditions, under very tight timelines and can be extremely costly. Relying solely on subjective \"gut-feel\" and interpersonal relationships between companies is unpredictable, unsustainable and burdensome to professionals assigned to activating their DMA agreements. This research has consolidated and presented a common set of criteria by which DMA decision makers in the electricity utility industry can reference for their own decisions, but more importantly, it provides a foundation by which business-sense decisions can be based. The DMA decision criteria developed and weighted in this study can be used to develop a multi-criteria decision-support tool for electricity utilities to make informed decisions when they assess mutual assistance requests. The next evolution of this research is to validate the weighting of the MA factors with real-time disaster inputs and develop a decision-support tool that incorporated these criteria and their relative weights.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Disaster mutual assistance (DMA) or mutual aid is a reciprocal arrangement between organizations that permits and prearranges one company to access resources from another company to recover from disaster impacts faster. As a practical tool to access response resources quickly, DMA can be an important element of an effective emergency management process, but the decision to provide (or not to provide) DMA is challenging and involves a number of factors. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study conducted to identify DMA decision criteria and their weights based on electricity companies operating in North America.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors employed a combination of Delphi and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methods. Delphi method identified the decision criteria that should be considered before electricity utilities enact their DMA agreements. A standard AHP calculated the weights of identified DMA criteria.\nFindings: In total, 11 criteria were identified and classified into three main groups: responding criteria, requesting criteria and disaster criteria. Of the 11, \"Emergency Conditions\" within the responding criteria group, \"Extent of Damage\" of the requesting criteria group, and \"Size of Disaster\", associated with the disaster criteria group, had the highest weight. Three other factors (\"Work Safety Practice\", \"Natural Hazards\" and \"Availability of Resources\") carried a noticeable weight difference, while the remaining factors were weighted relatively lower.\nPractical implications: At present, a decision to provide mutual assistance is highly subjective, based on \"gut feel\", and dependent on interpersonal relationships between the requestor and the provider. However, mobilizing and dispatching electricity industry crews is a risky and costly operation for both requesting and responding companies and requires careful assessment for which a cost-benefit threshold has not been developed. This cost-benefit perspective is often frowned upon owing to the intended altruistic nature of DMA agreements and its influence on decision makers. The developed criteria in this study are intended to assist electricity companies in making a more informed and quantifiable decision when deliberating a request for mutual assistance. These criteria may also be used by assistance-requesting companies to better identify electricity companies that are more likely to provide assistance to them.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the literature by examining the current state of DMA in electricity utilities, identifying decision criteria and weighing such criteria to enable electricity companies in making more objective decisions, thereby, increasing the overall effectiveness of their disaster management process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of mindfulness in response to abusive supervision	[ "Aggression", "Abusive supervision", "Mindfulness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There has been an explosion of research in the construct of abusive supervision since its inception 20 years ago. Abusive supervision is defined as employee perceptions of the sustained display of supervisory hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior directed at the employee, excluding physical conduct (Tepper, 2000). We currently know much about the outcomes of employee perceptions of abusive supervision (Mackey et al., 2017). However, evidence on intervention strategies that help employees effectively cope with abusive supervisors is sparse (Tepper et al., 2017). Finding ways to limit the negative effects of abusive supervision is important due to the substantial personal and financial costs associated with abusive supervision (Tepper et al., 2006).\nThe benefits of mindfulness: Although there are many definitions of mindfulness, a common theme is that mindfulness represents focused attention, both internally and externally, on present moment events (Sutcliffe et al., 2016). Mindfulness can be a momentary state condition or, over time, individuals can develop trait-like mindfulness (Dane, 2011). For this paper, we adopt the definition provided by Shapiro et al. (2006) who note that mindfulness is the \"process of intentionally attending moment by moment with openness and nonjudgmentalness\" (p. 378). Although research on mindfulness in organizations is limited, such explorations have shown promising effects. Mindfulness can enhance individual performance (Dane and Brummel, 2014), creativity (Ostafin and Kassman, 2012) and job satisfaction (Hulsheger et al., 2013). In addition, mindfulness can reduce burnout and stress (Roche et al., 2014), retaliation (Long and Christian, 2015) and improves both emotional and behavioral self-regulation (Brown and Ryan, 2003). In the sections that follow, we propose that interactional justice acts as a mediator between supervisor abuse and employee retaliation directed at the supervisor and that mindfulness influences both justice perceptions associated with abusive supervision, as well as retaliatory reactions to injustice.\nAbusive supervision and retaliation - the mediating role of interactional justice: Tepper (2000) argued that the negative outcomes resulting from abusive supervision are most likely when the abuse from the supervisor is viewed as unfair. This is because fairness perceptions arise from perceived violations of social exchange relationships, which are motivated by personal or self-interest according to social exchange theory (Lawler and Thye, 1999). The supervisor-employee relationship is a key social exchange relationship in organizations that tends to follow rules regarding expectations for reciprocity in terms of fair treatment. Although justice perceptions can take many forms, interactional justice is particularly salient for employee reactions toward the supervisor whereas procedural and distributive justice inform reactions toward the broader organization (Cropanzano et al., 2002). Interactional justice represents the perception that abuse from the supervisor was undeserved or disrespectful based on the employee's behavior (Bies and Moag, 1986), which reflects a social exchange violation. Following this violation, employees are motivated to \"even the score\" with retaliation directed toward the supervisor (Cropanzano et al., 2002). Replicating past studies (Burton and Hoobler, 2011) and meta-analytic research suggesting that interactional justice is central to linking abusive supervision and employee behavior (Mackey et al., 2017), we argue that interactional justice perceptions mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and supervisor-directed retaliation:\nReducing retaliation via self-regulatory processes - the moderating role of mindfulness: Abusive supervision is conceptualized as a negative social exchange relationship where bad behavior from the supervisor increases the desire of the subordinate to reciprocate unfavorable treatment (Peng et al., 2014). However, employees do not always engage in behaviors that would lead to a negative reciprocity norm (i.e. retaliation). Researchers have integrated self-regulatory theory into social exchange frameworks to explain why some employees resist the urge to reciprocate negative behavior (Long and Christian, 2015). Though much of this research has focused on individual differences in self-regulation (and more specifically, trait self-control capacity), one promising intervention for improving self-regulatory processes in response to abusive supervision may be mindfulness because it can influence individual responses to negative events (Sutcliffe et al., 2016). Although mindfulness has been shown to reduce negative cognitive and emotional reactions resulting from the experience of organizational injustice (Long and Christian, 2015), we are aware of no research examining how mindfulness affects evaluations of the central social exchange relationship. That is, the existing literature suggests that mindfulness helps employees with reactions to injustice, but does mindfulness also alter employees' perceptions of injustice in response to abusive supervision?\nMethods (Study 1): Participants were full-time employed individuals registered with Amazon's MTurk, which is an acceptable method of collecting data with working adults (Cheung et al., 2017). Data were collected via two online surveys two weeks apart to separate the measurement of the independent and dependent variables, which helps to address common method variance issues (Conway and Lance, 2010). At time 1,745 participants answered questions regarding their trait mindfulness, supervisors (i.e. abuse) and various demographic variables in exchange for $0.50 for a completed survey. At the end of the survey, individuals could sign up with an e-mail address to participate in the second survey administered two weeks later.\nMeasures: Abusive supervision\nResults: All analyses were checked for violations of the assumptions of the normal error regression model. Based on a variety of analyses (e.g. studentized deleted residuals, cook's distance test, DFBETAS, etc.), two cases were shown to be abnormally influencing the results and were removed, leaving a final sample of 230. All means, standard deviations and correlations are reported in Table I. Consistent with past research, we found that abusive supervision was negatively related to interactional justice (r=-0.73, p<0.001) and positively related to supervisor-directed retaliation (r=0.46, p<0.001). In addition, we found that employee trait mindfulness was negatively related to employee ratings of abusive supervision (r=-0.23, p<0.001) and retaliation (r=-0.19, p<0.001), but positively related to interactional justice (r=0.24, p<0.001).\nExploratory analyses: Given that the results from our study demonstrated that individuals with high mindfulness are most likely to view the abusive supervisor as unfair, we conducted exploratory analyses examining subcomponents of our mindfulness measure (Baer et al., 2006). Describing (M=3.62, SD=0.85, a=0.91) involves labeling one's internal experiences. Acting with awareness (M=3.76, SD=0.87, a=0.92) refers to attending to one's present moment. Nonjudging of inner experience (M=3.58, SD=0.90, a=0.93) involves a non-evaluative attitude toward one's thoughts and feelings. Finally, nonreactivity to inner experience (M=3.15, SD=0.74, a=0.86) refers to a person allowing their thoughts and feelings to come and go.\nMethods (Study 2): Participants were 327 undergraduate students at a large university in the Midwestern USA who were enrolled in a junior or senior-level required business course. They were offered extra credit to complete an online study that asked them to watch a video and \"play the part\" of an employee depicted in a scenario that has been used in past research to manipulate perceptions of abusive supervision (Burton and Hoobler, 2006).\nMeasures: Abusive supervision\nResults: We first examined whether our scenario manipulation influenced participant ratings of abusive supervision. As expected, an independent samples t-test demonstrated that individuals who were in the abusive supervisor condition rated their supervisor significantly more abusive (M=5.72, SD=1.04) than individuals in the positive supervisor condition (M=1.76, SD=1.14), t(261)=-29.47, p<0.001. Next, we examined whether the video the participants viewed induced feelings of mindfulness, specifically attention to the present moment. As expected, we found significant differences between participants who watched the video (M=3.69, SD=0.91) and those who did not watch the video (M=3.41, SD=0.91) for attention to the present moment, t(261)=-2.42, p<0.05.\nDiscussion: Mindfulness has been shown to have a positive effect on a variety of outcomes in organizations (Sutcliffe et al., 2016). However, past research has emphasized how mindfulness might improve stress and well-being outcomes in organizations rather than employee interactional justice perceptions. When examining mindfulness within the specific context of abusive supervision and interactional justice in this set of studies, mindfulness appeared to come with a psychological cost rather than a benefit. In our studies, when someone with high trait or state mindfulness experienced an abusive supervisor, they were more likely to view that supervisor as unfair, which in turn predicted more retaliation. Exploratory analyses in Study 1 and the results from Study 2 demonstrated that this effect is largely driven by the tendency to be attentive to moment-to-moment experiences among individuals high in mindfulness. Perhaps abusive supervision is especially severe and salient when one is highly observant of current feelings and experiences. Finally, across both studies, mindfulness did not moderate the relationship between injustice and retaliation. Though mindfulness predicted perceptions of abuse (i.e. lower justice perceptions), it did not affect worker reactions to these injustice perceptions with respect to supervisor-directed retaliation.\nLimitations: The findings of this research should be viewed in light of its limitations. First, in Study 1 all of the measures where collected from the same source. However, we did separate the measurement of our variables by two weeks, removed careless responders and collected data from a diverse sample of working adults (Podsakoff et al., 2012). Given that we are examining employee views on abuse and justice, it was also appropriate to collect this data using self-report methodology. However, future research could attempt to replicate our findings using multi-source data when theoretically appropriate.\nConclusion: While there have been many studies that have demonstrated the benefits associated with mindfulness, we find that mindfulness was not helpful in the context of abusive supervision. Across two studies, individuals with high levels of mindfulness reported lower levels of interactional justice in response to abusive supervisors than those with low levels of mindfulness. This finding was driven by the \"attentiveness\" dimension of mindfulness at both the trait and state level. Although mindfulness can be a useful intervention for aiding employees with stress management, future research must continue to examine contexts where mindfulness may not be helpful to individuals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore whether trait and state mindfulness alters the relationship between abusive supervision and interactional justice perceptions, which then predicts supervisor-directed retaliation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Study 1 examined these relationships among 230 employees using a cross-sectional survey design. Study 2 further examined these relationships among 263 undergraduate students using a scenario-based, experimental laboratory study.\nFindings: In Study 1, counter to predictions, individuals who were higher in trait mindfulness were most likely to view an abusive supervisor as unfair. Exploratory analyses suggested that this effect was isolated to the mindfulness dimension of being highly attentive to moment-to-moment experiences. Study 2 replicated this effect with state mindfulness (specifically, attention to one's present moment).\nPractical implications: Organizations should consider how mindfulness interventions might not always be useful - and potentially counterproductive - for affecting perceptions of and reactions to some stressful work situations like abusive supervision.\nOriginality/value: Little research has been done on how mindfulness affects perceptions of and reactions to abusive supervisors. The authors expected mindfulness could reduce the negative effect of supervisor abuse on interactional justice perceptions, as well as the effect of interactional injustice on retaliation. However, within the context of abusive supervision, training individuals to become more mindful may actually predict lower levels of interactional justice, resulting in more supervisor-directed retaliation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Young children's perceptions of branded healthy fast food	[ "Parents", "Health", "Children", "Food choice", "Fast food", "Card sort" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Children and fast food\nMethods: Respondents\nResults: Participants\nSummary: A conclusion from this study, similar to the conclusions by Adams and Savage (2017) on their snack study with this age group of children, is that we need a better understanding of young children's eating behavior if we wish to target effective interventions for healthy eating. Althubaiti et al. (2017), looking at a wider range of ages (age 3-12) in a snack card-sorting exercise, reported that when children were asked about their parent's snack choices for them, as in our study, they identified snacks that they perceived to be healthier. However, in their study, they observed that perceptions of healthier did not translate into the children's actual snacking behavior and suggested that more nutrition education is required to encourage healthy choices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of branding on healthy fast food items.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 20 children (age 4-6) performed one open sort and four closed card sorts about food preferences, perceived healthiness and perceived parental preferences using branded and non-branded food image cards. Descriptive statistics were calculated and major themes were identified from the verbatim transcripts.\nFindings: The children chose whole fruit over branded and bagged apple slices, stating whole fruit would be tastier, healthier and more likely parent approved. When apples were sliced and bagged, perceived taste and healthiness perceptions were variable. Packaged foods were more challenging for the children to conceptualize. Presented with eight options, french fries were the favorite choice as the children did not believe fruit or vegetable side dishes should accompany a cheeseburger.\nResearch limitations/implications: Only children's perceptions and not actual eating behaviors were measured. It was a small sample (n=20) with limited sample diversity that would not be representative of all children.\nPractical implications: Packaging and branding a healthy food item with a fast food logo did not increase the item's appeal to the children. Branding healthy foods in this manner may not lead to increased consumption.\nOriginality/value: The impact of branding healthy items on very young children's perceptions has rarely been examined. Most of the research on branded food items has focused on high calorie processed foods. Using a card sort exercise allowed children, too young to read and write, to articulate similarities, differences and motivations around food preferences.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Women's entrepreneurship and internationalization: patterns and trends	[ "Women", "Entrepreneurship", "Globalization", "Internationalization", "Female entrepreneurship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurship plays a fundamental and dominant role in many developed and emerging economies (Ramaswamy, 2013). Increasingly, there is more interest in women entrepreneurs who contribute to the economic and social fabric of the international business community (Brush et al., 2010). Whilst the evolution of women entrepreneurial activity in the last few years has been a crucial element in the economic and social development of many nations (Noguera et al., 2013), there is a lack of a coherent framework and inconsistent research about the internationalization perspective on women entrepreneurship. This has led to there being a number of different methodological and theoretical perspectives about the role of gender and entrepreneurship (Henry et al., 2015). Whilst the concept of internationalization has been initiated before in international entrepreneurship (e.g. Etemad, 2015; Kraus et al., 2016), the pace has not kept up to date with women entrepreneur's involvement in the process of internationalization.\nLiterature review: Women's entrepreneurship\nMethodology: Research on women's entrepreneurship has expanded with there being a large number of different outlets for publications. Due to the increased interest on women's entrepreneurship, a systematic search of the literature was conducted in terms of its effect on internationalization. The systematic search follows guidelines by Pittaway and Cope (2007) that an analysis of the literature helps make entrepreneurship research more transparent. The systematic literature review followed the approach suggested by Denyer and Neely (2004) and Martineau and Pastoriza (2016). A document analysis using the Thomson Reuters ISI and Scopus databases focused on women's entrepreneurship and internationalization using the social sciences as the research domain. Only peer-reviewed journal articles were included as they are considered to have the most impact and are more credible than other sources (Podsakoff et al., 2005). The focus of the search was journal articles as they are validated knowledge due to the peer review process (Tranfield et al., 2003). Other forms of research such as policy papers, book chapters and conference presentations were excluded. The literature review contains articles up until July 2017. A word search on the computer using the keywords women entrepreneurs and internationalization was conducted. Linan and Fayolle (2015) highlight how systematic literature reviews are important in the entrepreneurship literature to ensure transparent and reliable research. Each of the articles found was analyzed by the authors to see if it was in fact relevant to women entrepreneurship and internationalization. Articles were removed that did not link to the topic of women entrepreneurship in an international perspective.\nResults and discussion: From the content analysis of the articles, three main themes emerged: philosophical underpinnings, management and motivations. These themes were then analyzed in terms of the link between women's entrepreneurship and internationalization. The literature about women's entrepreneurship and internationalization is still unclear about the different philosophies, management and motivations between male entrepreneurs. Each of these themes will now be discussed.\nImplications for practice: For practitioners, this paper highlights the different reasons, women entrepreneurs internationalize their business and how it is important to focus on motivations and business attributes as part of the competitiveness process in the international marketplace. Women entrepreneurs interested in international expansion should engage in active networking and educational endeavors. This will enable women entrepreneurs to discover international opportunities that can help them expand their business practices (Tajeddini et al., 2017).\nTheory implications: In terms of theory, women entrepreneurship needs to link more with internationalization process theory to recognize the benefits of interdisciplinary research. Studying how women entrepreneurs internationalize their business will provide richer insights into the internationalization literature. Most of the current internationalization literature has focused on a gender neutral view of entrepreneurship but this paper highlights that gender does influence internationalization patterns. This study contributes to the literature by showing how through internationalization women entrepreneurs manage their business enterprises. In addition, as noted in the analysis of the published articles on women's entrepreneurship and internationalization, there needs to be more consideration of gender to the effectiveness of the internationalization process. As Bullough (2013) suggests that there is positive support for women entrepreneurs that need to be linked to the theories of this literature review in terms of internationalization patterns. Future research should explore at what stage of the entrepreneurship process women entrepreneurs begin their internationalization path. Furthermore, as stated by Noguera et al. (2013), there are distinct socio-cultural factors that influence female entrepreneurship that needs to be considered in terms of internationalization rates.\nPolicy implications: There are a number of policy implications coming from this study given the increased attention placed on women's entrepreneurship in the global economy. There needs to be more recognition of the cultural and social factors affecting women being entrepreneurs (Lewis, 2013). More funding and time needs to be spent on encouraging women to become entrepreneurs in developing countries in order to increase gender equity and economic growth. Previous research by Nissan et al. (2012) confirms the analysis of the current literature in this paper that there are specific motivations women entrepreneurs have that can be guided by policy initiatives. This includes focusing on the entrepreneurial-orientation performance relationship to see how it differs between developed and developing countries (Etemad, 2015).\nConcluding comments: The growth of women entrepreneurship over the last 10 years has been dramatic. Women entrepreneurship is expected to evolve to focus more on international markets due to increased revenue opportunities. As there is growing body of literature about women's entrepreneurship and internationalization, it is beneficial to analyze the research conducted up to now. The contents of the articles published in academic journals were analyzed to understand the relationship between women's entrepreneurship and internationalization. The review of articles on women's entrepreneurship and internationalization helps to see the changes in research outputs. The main findings of this paper reveal that there are cultural and social barriers affecting women entrepreneurs' decision to internationalize.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on women's entrepreneurship and internationalization in order to build an understanding about future trends. There is increasing interest in the role of women in entrepreneurship yet little research has been conducted about the link to internationalization patterns.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The literature is reviewed based on a systematic analysis of the words women, female, gender and internationalization.\nFindings: Three main schools of thought around women's entrepreneurship and internationalization (philosophy, management and motivations) are then discussed. The analysis of literature and classification into main theories enables the building of new research around women's entrepreneurship and internationalization.\nOriginality/value: There is a pipeline of women intending to become entrepreneurs so this paper helps to understand how women entrepreneurs influence internationalization patterns and how to help support women in their business endeavors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Ownership and leadership in building an innovation culture	[ "Leadership", "Innovation", "Culture", "Ownership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Innovation has long been identified as a crucial factor in the ability of an organization to thrive in the midst of competition and in preventing its obsolescence (Lafley and Charan, 2008). As such, studies have identified the factors that build a culture of innovation. Most of these studies look at the organizational factors that impact innovation (Damanpour, 1991). Leadership, in particular, has been shown to predict employee, team, and organizational creativity and innovation (Hughes et al., 2018). Nevertheless, Hughes et al. (2018) have noted that most work on leadership and innovation has been about broad leader styles and not much has been done to determine and test the nuanced and incremental effects of specific leadership behavior especially in the innovation and creativity literature. For example, there may be a need to check if certain leadership styles would be more appropriate for the different stages of the creative and innovative process or to look into the relative effects of these styles to determine the best predictors of creativity and innovation. In addition, there is also a need to determine which leadership variables predict mediators and a need to link leadership to organizational processes.\nInnovation culture and its antecedents: Innovation has been defined by West and Farr (1990) as \"the intentional introduction and application within a role, group or organization of ideas, processes, products or procedures, new to the relevant unit of adoption, designed to significantly benefit the individual, the group, organization or wider society.\" Building a culture of innovation would entail providing the environment and infrastructure that would influence employees to support thoughts and actions necessary for innovation (Dobni, 2008), that is, innovativeness has been said to likely occur in a work context that encourages coming up with novel and creative outcomes (West and Richter, 2009).\nLeadership and innovation: A number of studies have also identified leadership as a significant contributor toward creating a culture of organizational innovation (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009a; Sarros et al., 2008; Miles, 2007). In general, leadership has been seen to \"inspire a sense of mission and purpose about the importance of the work being done, stimulate new ways of thinking and problem solving, and encourage group members to do more than what might normally be expected\" (Keller, 1992). Leadership promotes creativity (Amabile and Khaire, 2008), influences creative problem solving (Carmeli et al., 2013), and is positively related to innovation implementation (Michaelis et al., 2009).\nOwnership type and innovation: Beyond testing a general model for the factors that shape innovation culture, this study also examines the roles of ownership on innovation culture. Jensen and Meckling (1976) said that studies on ownership type are concerned with the relationship between the stockholders and the managers of a firm, saying that an agency relationship exists between these two groups as the principals (owners) of the firm can delegate decision making to agents (managers) who may not be owners. Agency issues can surface and affect the firm when the principals (owners) and agents (managers) have differences in terms of goals and in their inclination for risk-taking (Jensen and Meckling, 1976).\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: This study seeks to make two contributions to the literature of innovation culture. First, it tests the CREATE model for culture building but highlights the central role of leadership in shaping the predictors of innovation culture. Specifically, we suggest that leadership directly predicts innovation culture, as well, as indirectly impacts innovation culture through mediating variables of communicating strategy for innovation, employee engagement and climate, support system and structures, training and development for innovation, and evaluation and rewards. Second, given differences in leadership because of ownership type, it examines possible differences in the applicability of the model among sole proprietorship and family-owned corporations and non-family corporations (Figure 1).\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Correlations\nDiscussion and conclusions: Total model\nLimitations and future research: This study contributed to the research in innovation by linking leadership and building an innovation culture, and comparing how these relationships may occur based on organization ownership. Nevertheless, the findings of this study might be limited because of the cross-sectional nature of the data. More robust conclusions may be drawn from longitudinal research where it can capture how innovation in businesses happens over time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test a culture-building model, CREATE, highlighting the central role of leadership in shaping the predictors of innovation culture. The authors hypothesize that leadership directly predicts innovation culture, as well, as indirectly impacts innovation culture through mediating variables. Also, the authors examine the impact of leadership on innovation by ownership type.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total 631 survey responses were collected from employees of sole proprietorship, family-owned corporations, and non-family corporations. Parallel multiple mediator models were used to test the hypothesized relationships of the variables.\nFindings: The findings show that a leadership variable, role modeling, and support for innovation, directly and indirectly predicts an innovation culture. However, it appears that in sole proprietorship and family-owned corporations, leaders impact on innovation culture are through mediating variables, while in non-family corporations, leaders influence innovation through strategy, evaluation, and rewards.\nOriginality/value: The study shows that the culture-building model, CREATE, can be used as a framework for building an innovation culture in organizations. The study also showed that leaders among sole proprietorships, family-owned corporations, and non-family corporations may need to employ different approaches in building an innovation culture in their organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Training returns DHL Express to the road of exceptional customer service: Blended program delivers complete solution for 10,000 global leaders	[ "Leadership development", "Customer service", "Training", "Logistics and distribution", "Leadership", "Customer service management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An important global provider of express services, DHL Express, lost sight of some of its \"insanely customer-centric\" focus during a period of significant organizational restructuring and rapid growth.\nThe certified international specialist (CIS) foundation program: The first step in re-invigorating the workforce was the certified international specialist (CIS) foundation program (see Figure 1). Developed and rolled out within only 18 months, it was delivered by line managers, not trainers, to all 100,000 employees in 220 countries.CIS foundation uses a blended-learning approach. It aims to be engaging and capable of reigniting the inspiration, know-how and passion of DHL Express' people, motivating them to deliver great service quality, drive customer loyalty and so produce a more profitable network.The CIS foundation features highly immersive and interactive 1.5-day engagement events that incorporate innovative learning methods and approaches, high-impact learning materials and cutting-edge film and animation. Another important element is the trainer scripts, which were crafted so they could be easily adapted and translated into 42 languages and still be effective.The program has significantly exceeded the agreed employee opinion-survey targets across the board:* an additional 11 percent of DHL Express employees agreed with the statement \"I understand our business strategy and the part I can play to support it\";* an extra 7 percent agreed that they felt engaged, excited and passionate to work for DHL Express;* 7 percent more said they were motivated to develop and learn in their role;* an additional 12 percent concurred that they were led and managed in a positive, inspiring way;* an extra 7 percent agreed that they would recommend DHL Express as an employer of choice; and* 81 percent more said they felt confident and empowered to do their best at work.\nThe certified international manager (CIM) program: Following the successful CIS foundation program, DHL Express commissioned NKD Learning to develop the certified international manager (CIM) program for its 10,000 global managers (see Figure 2).The reasons for the CIM program were to ensure that leaders:* know themselves - build confidence and competence in their personal leadership style to lead the organizational changes required to deliver the business strategy;* know the business - think globally and act locally, working collaboratively across the world to beat the competition;* know their customers - are \"insanely customer-centric\" in all actions and decisions, doing whatever it takes to build customer loyalty;* know their people - motivate and inspire others to deliver the highest possible levels of performance; and* know their numbers - think and act in ways that consistently improve DHL's profitability and attractiveness to investors.Some 10 percent of development for DHL Express' existing and future leaders comes through formal training, 20 percent through line-manager coaching and feedback and 70 percent through challenging assignments back at work. The CIM program blends these three approaches to deliver a complete solution for DHL Express' 10,000 global leaders.The driving force behind the CIM program is the sponsorship by chief executive Ken Allen and the board. Not only are they involved in the design and development of the program, attending pilot sessions and providing feedback, but the board members are also trained and certified by NKD as facilitators of each module. They then deliver the launch programs to their top 150 executives - with the expectation that they then train their direct reports - and run train-the-trainer events with NKD facilitators.CIM is divided into parts. Part 1, which involves three days on knowing themselves and the business, has begun roll-out. Part 2, which involves a further three days on knowing the customer, the people and the numbers, is in development. Parts 3-6 will also be developed.Some 14 CIM courses, for Part 1, have been run in 10 locations globally for just under 1,000 delegates. A sample of 52 delegates from Singapore, Prague, London and Bonn scored the workshops at 5.8 out of 6, on questions such as whether they understand why leadership is critical to delivering the DHL Express strategy and whether they know what is expected of them to be a successful twenty-first-century manager at DHL Express.Follow-on programs are now being developed to further enhance business performance through insightful, inspiring and business-focused learning and development.The program's objectives have not only been achieved, but exceeded. The company's most recent financial results show that revenues and earnings were boosted in 2012, and that DHL Express had expanded its global market share. Revenues climbed by almost 10 percent to more than EUR12.8 billion in 2012, from EUR11.7 billion in 2011. The division's earnings before interest and taxes increased by 21 percent, to EUR1.11 billion during the past year (2011: EUR916 million).While not all of this can be attributed to the CIM program, the core assumption is that great organizational leadership is at the heart of the DHL Express success.\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to chart the success of employee development at DHL Express.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - It explains the background to two training programs at the company, the form they take and the results they are achieving.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that, when employee engagement showed signs of dipping among the company's 100,000 employees, it sought training that would ignite the inspiration, know-how and passion of its people. It commissioned learning and development agency NKD Learning to help.\nPractical implications: - This study highlights the key roles played by the chief executive and the board, who were not only involved in the design and development of the programs, but also trained and certified by NKD as facilitators of each module. They deliver the launch programs to their top 150 executives - with the expectation that they then train their direct reports - and run train-the-trainer events with NKD facilitators.\nSocial implications: - It stresses the importance of training in improving customer service, employee morale and company profits.\nOriginality/value: - The paper gives the inside story of the development and application of employee training at a major international company.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Quality management as a determinant factor of productivity: A systematic literature review	[ "Quality management", "Productivity", "Literature review", "Determinant factor" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the notable topics in the growing proliferation and propagation of breakthrough performance management theories and praxes is the study of the relationship between performance and quality management (QM). QM has been widely studied as a mechanism for strengthening performance and considered a distinctive organisational capability, a competitive strategy and a competitive advantage within the theory of the resource-based view of a firm (Elshaer and Augustyn, 2016; Del Rio et al., 2017). The study of the relationship between QM and performance is a current topic and still of interest, with a growing trend for researchers and practitioners, as evidenced by the large number of publications in different contexts and disciplines. However, the large number of publications has focused mainly on studying the relationship with performance using general approaches such as firm; very few studies have looked at the relationship with more specific indicators of interest to organisations such as productivity.\n2. Research methodology: The SLR research method was used to accomplish the stated goals. A systematic review is a typology of reviews in which a search, analysis and evaluation of the research evidence is carried out using a protocol that results in a transparent report of the methods to facilitate its replication (Grant and Booth, 2009). The SLR method has been used in the research of different disciplines and fields of study, such as the research of Seuring and Muller (2008), in which a systematic review of sustainable supply chain management was carried out; the study by Colicchia and Strozzi (2012), which investigated the process of knowledge creation, transfer and development from a dynamic perspective within the context of supply chain risk management, and the study by Lopes et al. (2016), which analysed the links between lean manufacturing practices and organisation performance.\n3. Findings and discussion: The findings are divided into three sections. In Section 3.1, the first unit of analysis was used to analyse the current state of the literature on the relationship between QM and performance (RQ1) with 150 papers. In addition, in this section, the current state of the literature on the relationship between QM and productivity (RQ2) was analysed with the 49 papers that studied this relationship (see in greater depth the explanation of the selection of the 49 articles in Section 3.1.1). In Section 3.2, the key constructs of the QMp related to productivity were identified using 28 papers (RQ3). Finally, in Section 3.3, the second unit of analysis, with 37 papers, was used to identify the internal determinants of productivity and to reveal whether QM is one (RQ4).\n4. Conclusions and further research: This SLR encompassed two totally different units of analysis, the first one was used to analyse the current state of the literature on the relationship between QM and productivity in order to identify the key constructs of QM related to productivity and, the second one was used to identify the principal internal determinants of productivity. Subsequently, a theoretical relationship was proposed between the findings of these two units of analysis in order to reveal whether QM is a determinant of productivity. The analysis was carried out in terms of the distribution of papers over time, with classification by region, sector, type of data collection, operationalization of QM, type of performance studied, type of Productivity measurement technique used, QMp related to productivity, main internal determinants of productivity and the relationship with QM.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to analyse the current state of the literature on the relationship between quality management (QM) and productivity as a performance indicator; second, to identify the key constructs of QM practices related to productivity; and, finally, to reveal whether QM can actually be regarded as a determinant of productivity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research was carried out through a systematic literature review, considering 150 papers that studied this relationship between 1997 and 2017 and another 37 papers on the internal determinants of productivity.\nFindings: The findings revealed that human resource management, top management and process management were the more relevant constructs of QM practices related to productivity. In addition, 89 per cent of the internal determinants of productivity were related to the proposed constructs of QM practices, which suggest that QM is a determinant factor of productivity.\nOriginality/value: This review analysed the literature on the relationship between QM and productivity, as few studies have done before, generating original, interesting and useful findings that can guide future research and that also represent a useful tool for researchers, practitioners, managers and policy makers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Online recruitment connects 3 with top talent: HR specialists "can learn a lot from marketing"	[ "Recruitment", "Information systems", "Mobile communication systems", "Human resource management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Recruitment specialists can learn a lot from a company's marketers, says the head of recruitment and talent at 3, a UK mobile network. \"I believe that the application process should have the same look and feel as a well designed e-commerce site,\" explained Rebecca Baker, who played a major role in redesigning the careers website at 3.\nAn online recruitment strategy: Early in 2002, 3 made the decision to move all recruitment online. It hoped that e-recruitment would provide candidates with a more positive experience of the company by increasing the efficiency and speed of the hiring process. The company also wanted to make the process easier as well as more transparent and efficient for managers, to enable them to cope better with large volumes of applications and interviews.The company had historically used a combination of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Outlook to manage its recruitment campaigns. While this system was adequate, it was bureaucratic and involved significant co-ordination between the teams in charge of recruitment. The process was also inconsistent and the reporting system was ad hoc.Following a pilot phase, the Jobpartners e-recruitment solution ActiveRecruiter, which has been designed to manage the entire recruitment process, was rolled out across the UK in 2002. After four years of using the system, 3 retendered at the end of 2006 in order to meet procurement rules and to review the market. The company chose to continue to work with Jobpartners.\nAn impressive candidate experience: 3 has five candidate gateways on ActiveRecruiter. Two of these are external - one is aimed at finding candidates for 3's retail stores in the UK, while the second is aimed at recruiting for 3's UK contact-center and head-office functions, including sales, marketing and finance. There is also an external gateway specifically for Ireland, plus two internal gateways, one for retail and the other for contact centers and head-office functions, to enable existing employees to apply for vacancies. The internal-candidate gateways have simplified the process of applying for jobs for current employees.Candidates can gain an insight into what a career at 3 would be like through watching short video clips of employees talking about life at 3. Candidates can create and update their profile, search for positions and create e-mail alerts for roles matching their criteria. They can also monitor the progress of their application online. Candidates who are 3 customers can view select vacancies on their mobile phones.The company continues to expand its retail network. It has given each store manager direct ownership of the recruitment process for his or her store. This has enabled the business to reduce its centrally based retail-recruitment team to a minimum.\nEnhancing the employer brand: \"In a very competitive skill market, online recruitment provides a prompt and professional service to our candidates, which helps to differentiate the company and to attract top talent,\" said Rebecca Baker. \"The solution has enhanced our employer brand by improving the application experience (as candidates can now track the status of their application at every stage) and by ensuring that the recruitment process is consistent across the company.\"Administration requirements have been reduced and the company has lowered its reliance on external recruitment agencies. In 2002, 3 sourced 41 percent of its total UK hires from agencies. This figure has now dropped to 19 percent, saving PS1,760 per hire on average as a result of not incurring agency fees. The company has also increased its direct hires from 17 percent in 2002 to 36 percent in 2007.The new system has opened up the opportunity simultaneously to post jobs to multiple channels such as job-boards, the corporate web site, universities and recruitment agencies.\"This is a huge time-saver for our recruitment team and enables us to take full advantage of emerging new technologies and methods in recruitment advertising and selection,\" Rebecca Baker concluded.\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reveals how mobile-telephone company 3 is using e-recruitment to attract top talent in a highly competitive market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Describes how the company made the decision in 2002 to move all recruitment online, and how the firm redesigned its careers website recently to make applying for a job as smooth and straightforward as possible. Highlights the lessons that recruitment specialists can learn from a company's marketers.\nFindings: - Shows that e-recruitment has increased the efficiency and speed of the hiring process, and made it easier for managers to cope with large volumes of applications and interviews. The company formerly used a combination of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Outlook to manage its recruitment, but this was bureaucratic and inconsistent and involved a great deal of co-ordination between the recruitment teams.\nPractical implications: - Argues that the solution has a positive effect on the employer brand by improving the application experience.\nOriginality/value: - Contends that administrative requirements have been reduced and the company has lowered its reliance on external recruitment agencies, which has helped it to save PS1,760 per hire on average as a result of not incurring agency fees.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysis of BSC perspectives as related to the alignment of environmental uncertainty and supply chain strategy	[ "Performance", "Supply chain management", "Environmental uncertainty", "Balanced scorecard", "Supply chain strategy", "Decision-making analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Supply chain management (SCM) is thought to be an appropriate approach for organizational progress in today's competitive environment. In recent years, this area has attracted the attention of both researchers and practitioners, as the focus of an organization is to satisfy its customers' needs. To this end, all organizations across the chain should integrate their efforts so that customers receive the right product at the right time and place. This requires the chain partners to adopt a clear strategic direction in order to organize complicated activities, resources, communications and processes effectively (Qi et al., 2009).\n2. SC strategies: SC strategies comprise \"a focal firm's behavioral orientation toward collaborative partners in the chain or network and include process configurations across the key supply chain processes\" (Juttner et al., 2010, p. 105). Different types of SC strategies have received increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners. A primary classification (Hoekstra and Romme, 1992) divides SC strategies into five different strategies based on the location of the decoupling point. These include buy-to-order, make-to-order, assemble-to-order, make-to-order and ship-to-order strategies. Fisher (1997) argues that products can be classified as functional and innovative based on demand patterns. He further discusses how, according to this classification, two SC strategies can be adopted as physically efficient and market-responsive, respectively. Naylor et al. (1999) propose leanness, agility and leagility to distinguish between the approaches to SC strategies. Proposing the new approach of leagility, they argue that the combination of leanness and agility within a total SC strategy addresses the need for responding to downstream volatile demand while providing level scheduling upstream from the marketplace. Childerhouse et al. (2002) developed a classification schema known as DWVL (duration of life cycle, time Window for delivery, volume, variety and variability). Based on these variables, they identify four clusters of product. They argue that four different SC configurations with four different positions of their decoupling points and order penetration points can be adopted: MRP, packing center, design and build. Cigolini et al. (2004) categorize SC strategies as efficient, lean and quick supply. This is based on two main factors: the dominance of the product life cycle (i.e. introduction, growth, maturity and decline), and product complexity. Table I explains some of the key classifications put forward in the SC strategy literature.\n3. Research methodology: The aim of this research is to examine the impact of SC strategy on SC performance. With this aim, survey research was conducted. The sample consisted primary of all manufacturing companies located at an industrial estate in the northeast region of Iran. It included 170 companies, of which only 124 returned questionnaires. Of the 124 respondent companies, 86 could be grouped based on the attributes of the four SC strategies (Table I). Table II reports sample characteristics of the respondent firms in this study.\n4. Results: This study involves 19, 31, 16 and 20 organizations that are characterized by their low supply and demand, low supply and high demand, low demand and high supply, and high supply and demand, respectively. Thus, the efficient, reactive, risk-hedging and agile SC strategies can be labeled to each category of the organizations respectively, as was shown in Table I.\n5. Findings and discussion: The goal of this study was to examine the impact of SC strategy on SC performance. The results confirmed the positive impact of alignment between efficient strategy and environmental uncertainty on SC performance. This is consistent with the work of Sun et al. (2009) who studied the impact of efficient strategy on SC performance along with the alignment between SC strategy and environmental uncertainty. As efficient strategy focusses on cost reduction, the results also confirm the work of Doise (2008), who investigated the impact of cost leadership strategy on firm performance through the mediating impact of organizational culture.\n6. Conclusion and practical suggestions: Our results showed that three of the four SC strategies proposed by Lee (2002) improve the performance of supply chains, when they are aligned with their given types of environmental uncertainty. The reason for the lack of acceptance of the third hypothesis can be attributed to the numbers of employees at the surveyed organizations (Table XII). As most of them are small sized (less than 50 employees), it can be assumed that they cannot afford the risk of market fluctuations. In addition, as they lack structured information systems, these organizations cannot combat supply fluctuations by sharing information regarding their inventories with other SC partners (Table XIII).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Selecting the right supply chain (SC) strategy which is aligned with environmental uncertainty will definitely improve SC performance. Lee (2002) proposed a framework to consider the impact of alignment between SC strategy and environmental uncertainty and its impact on SC performance. The purpose of this paper is to apply this framework in Iran and extend it using balanced scorecard (BSC) approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research survey was completed to consider the aim of this research. A total of 124 questionnaires were returned.\nFindings: The alignment between SC strategy and environmental uncertainty and its positive impact on SC performance has been proven (except for risk-hedging strategy). Efficient strategy enhances all the four BSC perspectives, while agile strategy only improves learning and growth perspective.\nOriginality/value: This research extends the work of Lee (2002) and Sun et al. (2009) by emphasizing the impact of SC strategy on each of the four perspectives of BSC.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fight past the jargon and find the benefits	[ "Universities", "Profit", "Skills", "Productivity rate" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: If someone were to offer you a member of staff for less than half the normal salary cost, who was an expert in an area you needed, who was supported by a senior expert in that area for whom you didn't pay for at all, and who had access to millions of pounds of resources beyond your own reach, wouldn't you go for it?\nSo what is a KTP?: You may have heard of Teaching Company Schemes (TCS). These were replaced in October 2003 by KTPs, but in most details they are the same.A KTP is a project that is designed to enable a business to take advantage of the high level of expertise contained within universities. It involves a company usually employing a recent and talented graduate of a university who has skill in a discipline that will benefit the business. This should be tied to a specific project within the business which will last somewhere between one and three years.A KTP project cannot be funded for just any old whim in your business - you can't apply to get a KTP grant for an extra telesales agent in your latest sales promotion! But if you were looking to improve the system of telephony in an innovative way, to create some new business system relating to storing customer preferences, or to do a new market research programme to improve your understanding of your potential customers, you might well be successful in your proposal.In order to come up with the project it is best first to speak to a KTP consultant or a business link advisor, who can advise on what projects are most likely to achieve funding. After this initial consultation you put your proposal together and it goes to the Partnership Approvals Group. The good news is that if you've got this far, you will probably be successful: 90 per cent of proposals are accepted. Once your proposal has been accepted you advertise for your KTP associate - the graduate - and once you have your associate you are ready to get your project underway.\nWhat are the benefits?: Let's start with the bottom line - money. The main expense in a KTP is the salary and for a small and medium size company - a company with fewer than 250 employees - usually 60 per cent of the total cost of the salary is covered. For a company of more than 250 employees, usually 40 per cent of the cost is covered. This means that a SME will be expected to supply around 16,000-PS18,000 per KTP Associate/year and a larger company PS24,000-PS27,000 per KTP Associate/year.But it's not just cheap labour! Technically your KTP associate remains an employee of the \"knowledge base\" - usually the university from where they have come. This gives them access to the university facilities. In addition they have a supervisor from the university - also an expert in the area of the project - who advises and supports the associate in their work. So not only do you have the expertise of the associate, you also have the expertise of a senior academic - two brains for the price of less than one.As well as the success of your project there are also direct financial benefits to be experienced. Based on the experience of TCS, the predecessor of KTP, as reported by companies on successful completion of their TCS Programmes in 2001/2002, for a direct financial contribution from the company of around PS32,000 over two years, the average benefits that a company can expect from a KTP include a one-off profit before tax of PS47,000 and recurring annual profits before tax of PS156,000.And there are longer-term effects to be felt. The most widely reported effect from the participating companies in 2001/02 was an increase in the overall value of the company (52 percent reported this), closely followed by increased overall sales (46 percent), sales in existing domestic markets (41 percent) and increased profitability (42 percent).So, companies benefit a great deal from this cost-effective form of employment and project management, both in the immediate term and the long term.\nCase studies: What kind of projects are undertaken? When the government talks about \"knowledge transfer\" it is usually synonymous with \"technology transfer\" - but this need not be the case. Certainly, the greatest commercial benefits to be drawn from a university are usually in the area of technology, but they can also be in other business areas such as marketing. The following case studies give examples of different universities working with a range of companies who have different needs, and should illustrate well the breadth and variety of KTP projects.London South Bank University: Locke Carey Consulting case study\nConclusion: Once the jargon is pushed aside, it is clear that KTPs are an excellent aid to business, both in short term completion of projects, and also in long term profitability. They are also, needless to say, an excellent career development opportunity for graduates.The funding is out there, the graduates are out there, and businesses need new ideas and new systems to give them the edge, so for more information check www.ktponline.org.uk\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to inform businesses about the best practice in getting the most out of the government-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnerships - a method of transferring university expertise to the benefit of business.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper describes how these Knowledge Transfer Partnerships work, the kind of projects that get funded, and the benefits that surveyed companies have experienced. It then gives three case studies of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships to illustrate how they work.\nFindings: - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships significantly improve productivity and profitability in most businesses where the projects take place. They also cover a broad range of projects than simply technology transfer.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is valuable to businesses, especially SMEs, who might be looking to undertake projects that involve some innovative or research element as it explains how to obtain significant government funding.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Helicopter view: an interpersonal relationship sales process framework	[ "Interpersonal relationship", "Buyer‐seller relationship", "Sales process", "Relationship management", "Relationship marketing", "Selling", "Business‐to‐business marketing", "Organizational processes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Interpersonal relationships constitute valuable assets in a firm (De Lurdes Veludo et al., 2006; Freytag and Philipsen, 2010; Kleinaltenkamp and Ehret, 2006). As valuable assets, they need to be governed, managed, or utilized. This is particularly important in a B2B sales process context as the focus is on repeated selling and building long-term relationships (Moncrief and Marshall, 2005).Extensive literature exists interested in the nature of buyer-seller relationships; however, research has not yet addressed this area by focusing on interpersonal relationships in a sales process context. Furthermore, within the buyer-seller relationships area there have been requests for more dynamic approaches and holistic pictures capturing various dynamics that exist on both the inter-and intra-firm levels (De Lurdes Veludo et al., 2006; Ritter, 2007; Wilkinson, 2006).The aim of this article is to address this call in the literature and provide a comprehensive \"helicopter\" framework which focuses on interpersonal relationships and the dynamics that exist within and between the various levels of a sales process. Transformed into a key research question, the aim of the paper is to answer the following: how can interpersonal relationships in a sales process be understood and managed?The framework adapts a multi-paradigm philosophy and a multi-method approach, thereby capturing a wider perspective than previously considered in any academic marketing literature. Specifically, it draws on a cross-disciplinary review of the key concept \"interpersonal skills\", three behavior-based streams (i.e. social exchange theory/social penetration theory, interaction approach, and contingency theory), and an eclectic theoretical approach drawing from existing models within the buyer-seller literature.The two-dimensional framework suggested is valuable for researchers interested in buyer-seller relationships as it provides a new way of understanding the selling process. From a practical stance, this paper offers a relationship analysis tool. It is helpful for sales people, sales managers, and top managers to understand:* the complexity of interpersonal relationships in the sales process;* the levels on which their current relationship management activities are carried out: and* plan an overall optimal interpersonal relationship strategy.The paper is divided into three sections, which focus on:1. the theoretical foundation of the framework;2. the construction and presentation of the framework: and3. a conclusive discussion, which also summarizes the normative approaches on how to manage interpersonal relationships in a B2B sales process.\n2. Theoretical foundation of the framework: The concept of \"interpersonal relationship\" originates from the field of psychology. In 1958, the Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider suggested that it denotes relations between a few people and how one person thinks, feels, expects, and reacts in response to the actions of others. However, along with the field of psychology, various other disciplines such as sociology and communication remain vital contributors to the interpersonal relationship concept (Berscheid, 1994). Each discipline tends to address the interpersonal relationship relation differently. For example, sociologists examine the associations between macro-societal forces and the changing forms and stability of family or group relationships as well as outcomes such as marital satisfaction (Dollahite, 1991). Scientists within the field of communication who are interested in interpersonal relationship research view relationships as being formed across repeated communicative transactions; each new transaction adds new information to the one that came before which builds a cumulative database of information about the relationship (Berscheid, 1994). Developmental psychologists address the individual relationships between parents and children (Collins and Gunnar, 1990). Social psychologists examine adult and group relationships as well as influences on social interactions (Erber, 1994). Within the field of marketing, attention has also been placed on the concept of interpersonal relationships (Crosby et al., 1990, Iacobucci and Ostrom, 1996), but here the main focus is predominantly on the macro or dyadic level of business relationships.This article's framework adapts a comprehension of interpersonal relationships that combines the understanding from the fields of psychology, sociology, and marketing. That is to say, an interpersonal relationship can be viewed from a micro/individual level, a group level, and a macro/firm level. Furthermore, it adapts the understanding that, ultimately, it is people who compose all levels and that the essence of any interpersonal relationship is the interaction between people (Kelley, 1979).Also contributing to the theoretical foundation of the presented framework in this paper are elements from three theoretical streams including:1. social exchange theory and social penetration theory;2. interaction approach; and3. contingency theory.Social exchange theory and social penetration theory are, to some extent, interrelated. Social exchange theory explains social change and stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties. Self-interest is best maximized by the returns available through cooperation in a relationship; thus, an individual is attracted to another if he or she expects the association to be in some way rewarding. Expected value is thus the core of the construct (Blau, 1964). However, value is not only the reward that one part gets, but also what the other part gets in comparison. The roots of this theory are linked to the work of Homans (1958), Blau (1964), and Thibault and Kelley (1959).The social penetration theory, as formulated by psychologists Altman and Taylor (1973), refers to:1. overt interpersonal behaviors that take place in social interaction; and2. internal subjective processes that proceed, accompany, and follow overt exchange.Their description of the dynamics of relational closeness states that closeness occurs through a gradual process of self-disclosure. An often-mentioned onion metaphor in the social penetration theory describes this self-disclosure process: when one peels the outer skin from an onion, another skin is uncovered; when the second layer is removed, a third is exposed, and so forth. Thus, the more layers that are peeled off, the more that is revealed about oneself. These researchers believed that close relationships occur via a ring of self-disclosures. However, the parties will only continue to deepen a relationship as long as anticipated benefits exceed anticipated costs, thereby linking to the social exchange theory.The interaction approach has its roots in the marketing discipline, and a major contributor has been the International Marketing and Purchasing Group (IMP Group) school. The key point in this approach is that marketing and purchasing do not operate in separate and discrete ways. In industrial exchange, the relationship is more likely to be characterized by a number of buyers and sellers who are all active participants in the process and, furthermore, the interaction is not discrete, but relational and long-lasting. Moller and Wilson (1995) suggest that interaction is composed of processes through which a relationship is established, developed, maintained, and terminated. A key point here is the emphasis on processes. Any single transaction or other act by the trading actors cannot be understood without its context. Hence, this leads the way to viewing business relationships at different levels (Ford and McDowell, 1999), i.e. the individual, dyadic, and network levels.Contingency theory is a behavioral theory which claims that what is effective in some situations may not be successful in others. In other words, according to contingency theory there is no one best way to organize a cooperation (Galbraith, 1977), to lead a company (Bass, 1990), or to make decisions (Vroom and Yetton, 1973). Contingency theories emphasize that for complex phenomena it is valuable a priori to specify factors on which generalizations are contingent. A range of sales researchers apply a contingency approach, for example Weitz et al. (1986), Giacobbe et al. (2006), and Porter et al. (2003). The latter explains the need to apply a contingency approach when exploring a sales phenomenon like this: \"sales practitioners and researchers have recognized that one-size-fits-all selling strategies may not be appropriate for all customers\" (Porter et al., 2003, p. 275).In summary, the key features derived from the theoretical foundation and applied in the framework include:* interpersonal relationships are formed by using subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives;* relationships are embedded in a social structure or environment and, when analyzing an interpersonal relationship, it is also necessary to examine the environment in which the relationship takes place;* closeness in a relationship occurs through a dynamic, gradual process of self-disclosure;* the core element in the study of interpersonal relationships is the interaction or exchange between parties in the relationship, which ultimately involves people;* buyer-seller relationships are frequently long-term and involve a complex pattern of interactions; and* in order to understand the nature of interpersonal relationships in a sales process setting, it is essential a priori to specify contingency factors.\n3. Constructing and presenting the interpersonal relationship framework: It has been stated by Moller and Wilson (1995) that, in the next decade at least, there would be focused inquiry into the particular relationship phenomena integrating multiple theories of inter-firm and interpersonal behavior. This is partly what is attempted in this article as the framework draws on different existing models from the buyer-seller literature, including:* The interaction model (Hakansson, 1982, p. 8) contributes with the key understanding that an interpersonal relationship can be seen as an interaction process between two actors (viewable on different levels) within a certain environment.* The five phases of relationship development presented by Dwyer et al. (1987) are incorporated. However, the phases have been modified according to Batonda's (1998) research and the relationship states philosophy. This is because states theory appears to be an appropriate foundation for understanding the relationship development in marketing practice (Rao and Perry, 2002).* The buying or sales center philosophy expressed by the sales researchers Hutt et al. (1985, p. 33) is partly integrated. Likewise, Bonoma's buying psychology - the human side of selling is also included (Bonoma, 1982).* Basic elements from Weitz's (1981) original contingency framework are applied. Additionally, Wren and Simpson's synthesis model of buyer-seller relationships, which also links to Weitz's original framework, is adopted (Wren and Simpson, 1996), and Berghall's (2003) socio-economic exchange investment model is included as well.3.1 Presenting the conceptual framework\n4. Conclusions and implications: The aim of this paper is - from a helicopter view - to create an interpersonal relationship framework in a business-to-business sales process setting. The helicopter view does, of course, reduce the emphasis on the details; however, the value exists in the broader outlook that is captured.The research question of this paper is this: how can we understand and manage an interpersonal relationship in a sales process? The proposed framework offers four analysis perspectives - i.e. environment, firm, sales cycle, and sales characteristics - that are valuable in understanding the nature of interpersonal relationships in a sales process.This framework represents a synthesis of the current state of knowledge; furthermore, it renders the dynamic forces visible, not only between the different levels, but also within each level, for example the dynamic forces within the firm level are developed via continuous input exchanged between individuals, groups, or companies. Moreover, the framework's multi-method approach leads to a conceptualization of the two core layers of the framework. The first conceptualization of the sales cycle offers a cyclic relationship development approach whereby the movement (backward and forward) in a sales cycle is affected by the state of the interpersonal relationship rather than linear stages or steps. The second conceptualization of the sales characteristics introduces a measurement tool of the state of the interpersonal relationship which is measured by behavior and performance-based dimensions.A contingency inspired approach to the research question - i.e. \"How can we understand and manage interpersonal relationships in a sales process?\" -- implies that there is no best way to understand and manage an interpersonal relationship. However, not all ways to understanding and managing interpersonal relationships are equally effective. Thus - and this is one of the key findings in this paper - the manageability of an interpersonal relationship in a sales process, based on existing research, is contingent upon the level at which the analysis takes place. This is illustrated in Figure 4.Combining all levels and applying a holistic view provides useful insights for researchers as well as practitioners. First, it offers a positioning tool - on which level does the research take place? Second, on what level is the attention, management, or governance of the interpersonal relationship attempted? What effect does this attempt have on the other correlating levels? Is there a connecting or \"red thread\" in the company's relationship strategy woven through the operative activities on the inner sales characteristics level to the outer environment level? Or are there merely sporadic managerial attempts on random levels? Thus, these questions illustrate the necessity, when applying normative approaches, to call for an interpersonal relationship understanding and strategy based on the overall holistic picture; for example via the framework presented in this article. However, it is also recognized that prior choices, to some extent influence the ability to make future choices according to the past dependency thinking.Based on Figure 4, another interesting notion is that underneath most of the normative directions - across all four levels - there seems to be an implicit understanding that it is people who compose the levels. Meaning that, a large part of the managerial implications, even on the most abstract environment layer, suggests enforcing relational or cooperative skills of the employees. Thus, focusing on the human factor or enhancement of interpersonal skills seems to be an important aspect when managing interpersonal relationships in a sales process context. The next step, then, is to consider how we can understand these relational or interpersonal skills in a selling process and evaluate whether it is possible to improve these skills.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to offer a two-dimensional holistic framework for analyzing interpersonal relationships in the sales process in a business-to-business (B2B) context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper takes the form of a literature study of the key concept, i.e. \"interpersonal relationship\", three behavior-based theoretical streams, and an eclectic range of existing models within the existing buyer-seller literature.\nFindings: - The framework presented suggests that interpersonal relationships are comprehensible from four perspectives or levels in a sales process - i.e. environment, firm, sales cycle, and sales characteristics. The finding illustrated in the framework is that, in order to understand and manage interpersonal relationships in a sales process effectively, it is valuable to apply a holistic picture, thus including all four levels. This is because dynamic forces exist not only within each layer, but also between layers. In addition, it was found that existing normative directions that focus on managing interpersonal relationships in a sales process are currently contingent upon the level at which the analysis takes place. The findings suggest that future normative directions should instead apply a multi-perspective approach.\nPractical implications: - The helicopter view framework of interpersonal relationships in a sales process presented here enables businesses to understand and optimize the interpersonal relationship strategy in their selling process.\nOriginality/value: - By adopting a cross-paradigm philosophy and a multi-method approach, this paper offers a new, comprehensive framework for understanding a B2B selling process that focuses on interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, it presents a normative relationship management overview relevant to both academics and practitioners.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Demographic factors, personality and entrepreneurial inclination: A study among Indian university students	[ "Gender", "India", "Personality", "Demographics", "Age", "Entrepreneurship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurship has always been a topic of great interest for both developed as well as developing economies. For developed nations, entrepreneurship acts as a vital tool to revive the stagnant economy through innovative and value creating ventures of entrepreneurs. For a developing economy, entrepreneurship is a vivacious vehicle for economic growth and progress. It can provide a major source of employment creation, innovation and social adjustment (Gurol and Atsan, 2006). A number of studies from different countries have repeatedly reinforced the link between level of entrepreneurial activities in the nation and the indicators of economic development of the country (Reynolds et al., 2002; Awasthi et al., 2006). For the above reasons, every government encourages entrepreneurship with high priority. There is always a focus on encouraging micro, small and medium enterprises as they stimulate growth, innovation and wealth creation, which consequently provides competitive advantage to the nations in the global arena.\nReview of literature and study hypotheses: According to Holland (1985) people are more likely to be attracted and satisfied in occupations that match their personality. Therefore, it becomes imperative to identify the personality traits which distinguish an entrepreneur from a non-entrepreneur before investing the resources towards building the supply of entrepreneurs in the country. The following section presents a review of literature around each of the variables used in the present study followed by the study hypotheses.\nMethodology: Population and sampling\nResults: A preliminary analysis was conducted to know the nature of data. In the overall sample of 274 students, 104 were found to be entrepreneurially inclined. Out of these 104 entrepreneurially inclines students, 82 were males. These numbers are not surprising given the kind of culture prevalent in India where women are not encouraged to work as an employee or an employer (Wang and Wong, 2004). However, the trend has been changing significantly with more and more number of women entering into workforce with significant number of them even opting for a career as an entrepreneur.\nDiscussion and implications: To distinguish entrepreneurially inclined students from the non-inclined ones on the basis of demographic and psychological traits the present study adopted the trait model of entrepreneurship. This model follows from the psychological characteristics school of entrepreneurship as proposed by Cunningham and Lischeron (1991). The study results suggest that the traits of locus of control, tolerance for ambiguity, self-confidence and innovativeness were significant in differentiating entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs. In other words, students with an entrepreneurial inclination were found to be more innovative, more confident, had internal locus of control and displayed high tolerance for ambiguity. This was in line with a number of previous studies which looked into the personality traits of entrepreneurs (Robinson et al., 1991; Koh, 1996; Gurol and Atsan, 2006, etc.). At the same time it was also observed that the need for achievement and risk-taking propensity were not found differ significantly for these two groups, which was contradictory to the expectations.\nLimitations and scope for future research: In addition to the strengths of the study as noted above, there are certain limitations as well, which provide the scope for future research in this area. The cross-sectional nature of study restricts our ability to establish causality. Longitudinal studies should be taken up in future to confirm the predictive ability of these six psychological traits in determining entrepreneurial inclination. Also, sample can be expanded in future studies by including students from other universities and institutions to improve the generalizability of the study findings. Also, as discussed above, more promising potential predictors of entrepreneurial intent like subjective norms, instrumental readiness, perceived barriers and support can be included in the future studies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of demographic, social and personal dispositional factors on determining the entrepreneurial inclination. Specifically, the author examined the role of gender, age, stream of study, family business background and six psychological traits of locus of control, tolerance for ambiguity, propensity to take risk, self-confidence and innovation in differentiating entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: As university students constitute pool of potential entrepreneurs, participants for the study consisted of 274 students from two new and upcoming universities in an emerging economy of India. The sample included students from both business and non-business schools. Data were reported and analysed using descriptive statistics, frequency distribution, t-test and stepwise logistic regression\nFindings: The study results suggest that the traits of locus of control, tolerance for ambiguity, self-confidence and innovativeness were significant in differentiating entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs. At the same time it was also observed that need for achievement and risk-taking propensity were not found to be significantly different for these two groups which was contradictory to the expectations. In addition to these six psychological traits, the study results also underlined the role of family background and school in predicting entrepreneurial inclination.\nPractical implications: The study carries huge public policy implications for education system in India which largely prepares the students for jobs in public and private sectors rather than entrepreneurship.\nOriginality/value: The study discusses some of the missing links in the entrepreneurship research by providing new insights from India.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Corporate social responsibility and Latin American firm performance	[ "Latin America", "Propensity score matching", "Firm performance", "Corporate social responsibility" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the past decade, both business practitioners and policymakers have paid increasing attention to firms' socially responsible practices because they are of interest not only to firms but also to society as a whole (McWilliams and Siegel, 2000; Margolis and Walsh, 2003; Orlitzky et al., 2003). Visser (2008) defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) as \"the formal and informal ways in which business makes a contribution to improving the governance, social, ethical, labour and environmental conditions of the developing countries in which they operate, while remaining sensitive to prevailing religious, historical and cultural contexts\". One of the main issues in this context concerns the \"global credibility\" of CSR and, thus, the integration of socially and environmentally conscientious practices into the ordinary business of developing countries' firms (Adeyeye, 2011; Berliner and Prakash, 2014; and Moratis, 2015).\n2. Literature review: In this section, we first consider the literature on CSR practices in developing countries. We then explore the current theory on the relationship between CSR and firm performance, and we assess the available empirical evidence based on the experiences of advanced economies. Finally, we discuss the hypotheses to be tested in the remainder of the paper in light of the relevant theoretical literature.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 The causal effect of CSR on firm performance: estimable equations and methodological issues\n4. Data and descriptive statistics: 4.1 CSR adoption, range of activities and perceived impact\n5. Results: The results of our PSM exercise are reported in Tables VI-VIII. The first column of each table reports the country under analysis as well as the matching procedure used (i.e. kernel, three nearest neighbours or radius). The second column shows the ATT which summarises the effect of the treatment (i.e. CSR adoption) on the treated. The third column shows the value of the t-statistics associated with the ATT[7]. The last two columns report the firms pertaining, respectively, to the groups of CSR adopters (i.e. treated) and non-adopters (i.e. control) in the matched sample.\n6. Diagnostic tests: We can conjecture that, in many instances, insignificant results are driven by the small samples created in the matching process. To assess whether the quality of the matching is poor, and therefore whether the results are biased, we conducted two common diagnostic tests in the context of PSM.\n7. Conclusions: Attention to the social and environmental roles of firms is not new. However, in the past decade, there has been renewed interest in such issues. In the context of globalisation, firms are increasingly expected to play a positive role in society and thus contribute to sustainable development (Kolk and van Tolder, 2010; Lozano, 2011). The empirical evidence on the link between responsible behaviour and firms' performance shows mixed results. Moreover, existing research on CSR remains focused on developed economies, and there is scant evidence on the extent and the type of CSR practices adopted in emerging markets.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm performance in six Latin American economies. Firm performance includes five distinct dimensions, namely, firm turnover, labour productivity, innovativeness, product differentiation and technological transfer. The countries under scrutiny are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Propensity score matching techniques are used to identify the causal effect of CSR on firm performance. To this end, World Bank Enterprise Survey (2006 wave) is used. This data set collects relevant firm-level data.\nFindings: CSR has a positive impact on the outcome variables analysed, suggesting that corporate goals are compatible with conscious business operations. The results also vary across countries.\nResearch limitations/implications: The pattern that emerges from the analysis seems to suggest that the positive effects of CSR depend on countries' stage of industrialisation. In particular, the least developed the economy, the wider the scope of CSR. Nonetheless, the relationship between conscious business operations, firm performance and countries' level of development is not directly tested in the present work.\nPractical implications: The main practical implication of the study is that Latin American firms should adopt CSR. This is because corporate responsible practices either improve firm performance or they are not shown to have a detrimental effect.\nSocial implications: The major policy implication is that emerging countries' governments as well as international organisation should provide meaningful incentives towards CSR adoption.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides three major original contributions. First, it brings new descriptive evidence on CSR practices in Latin America. Second, it uses a broader and novel definition of firm performance, which is aimed at capturing developing countries' business dynamics as well as at overcoming data limitations. Finally, it reassesses and extends the empirical evidence on the impact of CSR on firm performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Empirical examination of REITs in Turkey: an emerging market perspective	[ "Real estate", "Portfolio theory", "Capital asset pricing model", "Emerging markets" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A long boom period especially in the last decade has been observed for both commercial and residential real estate not only in Turkey, but also in the rest of the world. Although this bull market nowadays appears to have ended, many researchers believe that the addition of real estate to the financial asset investments provide important gains in portfolio performance. These studies examine the proposed portfolio benefits of real estate, risk reduction and protection against inflation (Friedman, 1971; Gordon, 1991; Ziobrowski and Curcio, 1992; Eichholtz, 1996; Pagliari et al., 1997; Stevenson, 2001; Chiang and Lee, 2002, among others). Alternatively, real estate investment trusts (REITs) are increasingly becoming an important part of investors' diversified portfolios. REITs are closed-end investment companies managing portfolios composed of real estates, real estate based projects and capital market instruments based on real estates. REITs sell shares of stock to the investing public and use the proceeds, along with borrowed funds, to invest in a portfolio of real estate investments. Therefore investors own part of the portfolio held by the REITs. According to the Turkish Association of Real Estate Investment Companies (GYODER), REITs can be regarded as significant improvements in financial markets for being professional investment firms to shape the future of the real estate industry, which is capable of realizing high quality profit-generating projects in Turkey. REITs are also key investment tools, in order to bring savings to investors within a common pool to be used in the resource-starved industry. REITs offer an alternative to direct-asset investment for investors as well as eliminating liquidity problem that is the most deep-seated problem facing investment in the industry.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the risk-return relationship of REITs listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) to find out some empirical results for investors. In this paper, two possible approaches within the context of modern portfolio theory (MPT) are considered \"standard version of the capital asset pricing model (Sharpe, 1964; Lintner, 1965a, b; Mossin, 1966) and the single index model (SIM)\" (Sharpe, 1963). The first section of the paper will state the REITs in Turkey. The second section briefly reviews the related literature. Finally, the third section identifies the data that is used, how it is adjusted to fit into the framework of the models and deals with the empirical results. In conclusion, implications for investors are discussed.\nReal estate industry and the REITs in Turkey: In the wake of financial crisis in 2000-2001, the Turkish economy has gone through a severe restructuring and reached a remarkable growth performance supported by the EU accession process, with an average annual growth of 7 percent in the last five years stemming mainly from private consumption and investment. Investment activity in Turkey has been particularly increasing since 2005 following the political stabilization and falling interest rates.The Turkish real estate market has entered an upward trend, especially from 2004 onwards, with improvements in the Turkish economy and declining interest rates. According to the Deutsche Bank Research (2008) on Real Estate Investment in Turkey, the Turkish property market is one of the most rapidly growing real estate markets in Europe. Foreign interest in Turkish real estate is on the rise. With improved macroeconomic stability, an enhanced investment climate and the EU membership discussion under way, all sectors of the Turkish economy have experienced an influx of foreign investment. The real estate sector is no exception of the 2007 and 2008 results of the survey Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe, prepared jointly by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (2007) clearly indicates an increasing local and foreign interest in the Turkish real estate sector. In 2007, a new mortgage law was passed in Turkey. This new law will enable the mortgage system to flourish. In addition, the construction sector is one of the engines of the Turkish economy, stimulated by an urbanization rate of 2.7 percent, population growth of 1.4 percent p.a. and a young population. Real estate purchases by foreigners increased from US$998 million in 2003 to US$2.9 billion in 2007 (out of US$21.9 billion total foreign direct investment inflows). Foreign investors entered the market by purchasing real estate, directly developing projects, establishing partnership with construction and developed companies, making portfolio investments at ISE.There are 14 REITs listed on ISE. This number is expected to rise and the total market size to grow with new public offerings in the years ahead (see Table I).The REITs are in the joint stock company status like other corporations whose shares of stock are traded on the ISE. However, they have three significant differences from the other corporations. First, they conduct their business in accordance with the communique on the REIT. Second, they have tax exemption. Third, they are obliged to sell 49 percent of their issued shares of stock to the public. REITs can be established by forming a new firm according to Turkish Commercial Code or converting an established firm into REIT by changing articles of incorporation in line with Securities Exchange Act. Either way, establishment of a REIT should be accepted by the Capital Market Board (CMB) as a regulatory institution. After being approved by the CMB, the articles of incorporation of the REIT are announced in the Turkish Commercial Registry Journal. In addition to that, they have to prepare prospectus in the case of issuance and public offering of the shares. Besides, important developments about the REITs and their weekly portfolio tables including their assets and net asset value per share are announced to the investors in the bulletin of the stock exchange. Finally, their annual and semi-annual financial statements have to be audited by a certified external auditor and announced on the bulletin of the stock exchange.\nPrevious studies: The representation and function of real estate in a multi-asset portfolio have been regarded historically within the context of portfolio theory (French and French, 1997). Hoesli et al. (2004), and Mueller and Mueller (2003), conducted Markowitz's (1952) mean-variance efficient frontier methodology to carry out asset allocation, where optimal weight of both mix-asset and single-asset portfolios are being calculated. However, Markowitz's mean-variance optimization suffers from several limitations because of its generalized characteristics. Coleman and Mansour (2005) studied relaxed normality assumption of return and used the semi-variance as an optimizer. Based on their suggestion, a tractable and more useful allocation model, which better reflects the underlying statistical properties of real estate returns (e.g. non-normality) and their methodology fairly appropriate development to infer the model parameters, was introduced.Hsieh and Peterson (2000) added the real estate factor to the Fama-French's three-factor model to explain better the return characteristics and conducted four-factor model. Additionally, another four-factor model that incorporates risk factors such as size, value and market momentum into one model, was used by Lin and Yung (2004). Lin and Yung performed a single, three, and four-factor models and the results indicated that the explanatory power increases when the three and the four-factor model in particular was used.There are several papers attempting to overcome unrealistic assumption of factor models. Liow (2004) used rather advanced empirical GARCH methods in order to model the risk-return relationship within the framework of arbitrage pricing theory (APT) to estimate the variance or returns. Besides, multiple-factor models were used by Ellis and Wilson (2005) and Chiang et al. (2004) in order to analyze the different size and value effects of risk factors on returns. More recently, Kovac and Lee (2008) employed SIM over the period 1986-2003 to assess the risk inherent in public real estate securities in the UK by using for indexes. Aktan et al. (2009) used wavelets to estimate the CAPM parameters. In this study, systematic risks are estimated in different time-scales based on daily returns in the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Some selected empirical studies that examined REITs based on different methodologies can be seen in Table II together with their summary implications.\nData and methodology: In this study, common stocks of the REITs listed on the ISE are analyzed using standard version of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and the single index model (SIM) over the period January 2002-June 2008. Monthly adjusted returns of common stocks are computed as follows (ISE, 2008, pp. 388-389): Equation 1 where:* Gi: return of month \"i\".* Fi: closing price of month \"i\".* BDL: number of stocks bought from using right issues during the month.* BDZ: number of stocks bought from using bonus issues during the month.* R: price of pre-emptive rights.* T: dividend distributed per 1,000 TRY/1 New TRY nominal value of one share.* Fi-1: closing price of month \"i-1\".All returns are adjusted in accordance with the stock splits and dividends. In the period of analysis, 78 monthly returns are computed for those which were actively traded on the ISE where the numbers of observations differ for AKMGY (39) and AGYO (78) due to their listing dates (Tables III-VI). ISE National 100 Index is determined as a proxy of market portfolio and The Central Bank O/N interest rate is determined as a proxy of risk-free rate. ISE National 100 index is the only index that is being computed since the establishment of ISE; and hence, the most appropriate one representing the market portfolio. It is a type of weighted average index and is computed as follows: Equation 2 where:* Et: index value at time t.* n: number of stocks in the index (which is 100).* Fit: price of stock i at time t.* Nit: total number of issued stocks of i.* Hit: ratio of public offering of stock i at time t.* Bt: adjusted base market cap.Two types of regression model are specified usually known as the CAPM and the SIM for the research.The capital asset pricing model relates the expected return of an asset Ri to its beta bi. The equation for the CAPM is: Equation 3 where, rf is the risk-free rate of return, (E[Rmt]-rf) is the risk premium for the market portfolio (or proxy index), and the bi is the measure of risk for asset i.Single index model relates the expected return of the security Ri to the expected return of the market Rm by following equation: Equation 4 where ai is the alpha coefficient representing expected return of security i when the market return is zero, bi is the beta coefficient representing the slope of the line representing sensitivity of the security i with respect to market, and ei is the error term due to randomness of returns by which it can differ from the forecast return (Tables VII and VIII).Testing the expected abnormal returns\nConclusion and implications: Alpha values of all stocks analyzed in this research are not statistically different than zero and we cannot reject the hypothesis that alpha values are different than zero. However, these results should not have seen accurate due to the feasible differences between alpha values from zero. The assumption that leads us to employ t-test is the normality of residual. We do find inconsistency with the distribution of residuals with normality assumption after detecting through some tests (i.e. Jarque-Bera test). Testing whether betas are at the same level of risk as the market index against the alternative that the risk is different from the market that concludes mixed results for stocks. The coefficient of ex-post beta has negative explanatory power on average asset returns that is contradictory with the fundamental relationships between risk and return under the framework of the CAPM and the SIM. The point here is that the second-pass regression has no statistical meaning because of the limited number of assets analyzed in this research. Yet, there is no guarantee to conclude that it will make sense to increase the number of assets to validate the CAPM. That is why some researchers work on portfolios rather than individual stocks to test the CAPM assumptions. Findings imply that the SIM does not follow what it assumes. It should be noted that the econometrical specification is found out to be not enough to test coefficients of regression in case of small sample data with non-normally distributed residuals. The SIM is found to be statistically inconsistent as we have shown that the linearity assumption, as seen in Figure 1, is not confirmed.REITs in Turkey will play a much more important role in the near future in improving housing standards, liquidity and attract equity investment not only by domestic but also by international investors. A new mortgage law and a growing mortgage market will positively affect the country's financial sector, deepen its capital markets and support overall economic performance. At the same time, it might also reinforce cyclicality and contribute to swings in asset prices, in turn creating new challenges for policymakers and financial regulators. On the other hand, due to the contagious subprime crisis, a more challenging macroeconomic environment may be waiting for the real estate sector of Turkey in 2009, which means a potential slowdown in foreign interest, too.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to investigate the risk-return relationship of REITs listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) in order to assess the risk and to find some empirical results for investors within the framework of modern portfolio theory (MPT) using the standard version of the capital asset-pricing model (CAPM) and the single index model (SIM) over the period January 2002-June 2008.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Time series, cross-sectional regression and structural literature review are employed.\nFindings: - Results indicate that linearity assumption for both the CAPM and the SIM are rejected. It should be emphasized that the econometrical specification exposed the weaknesses of t-test methodology for testing coefficients of regression due to the non-normality of residuals.\nOriginality/value: - Understanding of risk and its resultant impact on the returns and evaluation of risk-return relationship is extremely important for investors. In this regard, real estate investment trusts (REITs) as indirect investment instruments are increasingly becoming an important part of investors' diversified portfolios to lessen the risk. The study is the first attempt to explore the structure of REITs in Turkey as an emerging market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Implementation of flexible working arrangements: The role of HR in supporting supervisors	[ "Supervisors", "Human resource", "Flexible working arrangements" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Human resource (HR) practice within organizations routinely offers flexible working arrangements (FWAs) to enable employees to achieve satisfactory balance between work commitments and life outside work. FWAs allow an employee to change the hours, the location and method of working to best suit their needs and are put into place through formal policies and informal practices. HR policies are implemented by supervisors through the process of line-management which has led to most empirical research into the successful uptake of FWAs examining the impact of the immediate supervisor in this process. Limited attention has been given to the role of HR function in supporting managers to carry out this practice.\nFWAs, the supervisor and HR support: Successful implementation of FWAs through individualized negotiations between employees and supervisors are valued and can bring benefits to the organization as well as the employee. Formal arrangements make changes to contracts such as different working hours or working from home resulting in improvements to life work balance. This can reduce employee stress and increase job satisfaction leading to higher retention and recruitment levels and greater commitment to the organization. Informal arrangements which are not part of the formal contract are also valued and accessed by employees for example time off in lieu. These arrangements may not be apparent to higher management levels and are more open to inconsistent application by managers.\nHR systems Theory: The HR system within an organization consists of the guiding principles of HR and the processes through which policies and practices are developed, communicated and implemented. The processes within this system send messages from the employer to the employees regarding implementation of policies and practices and influence the resulting organizational outcomes. Bowen and Ostroff (2004) identify three important features for a strong HR system. Firstly distinctiveness. This consists of features within the system that stand out and catch the attention and interest of the employees. These features include visibility - how readily observable the practices are, understandability - the lack of ambiguity and ease of understanding of HR management practice, legitimacy of authority in relation to HRM relevance - the extent to which employees see the practice as relevant to their personal or organizational goals. Secondly consistency where HR practices are seen to be applied reliably over a period of time. This includes instrumentality where cause - effect relationships can be perceived between the HR management systems's desired behaviors and the employee consequences, validity of HR practices and policies and the clarity and consistency of HR management messages. Finally consensus where there is agreement between the HR management decision makers in the messages they are sending out and a perception that the practices are fair. FWAs are one type of HR practice and when embedded within a strong broader HR system where these features are evident then managers are influenced positively in their ability to carry out HR tasks and should be able to provide and assess FWA requests with more consistency.\nFactors which support or constrain the implementation of FWAs by managers: Using Bowen and Ostroff's (2004) HR systems model this study examines how HR supports and constrains the way in which managers implement FWAs.\nPractical Implications: Organizations should consider both vertical and horizontal alignment of HR practices, Consensus at all levels of management is strengthened when HR policy is aligned to strategic initiatives.\nCommentary: The review is based on \"Support for supervisors: HR enabling flexible work\" by Williams (2019), published in Employee Relations. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of HR function in supporting supervisors to implement FWA policy. Five factors are identified as having an influence on the ability of managers to support FWAs through the meta-features of distinctiveness, consistency and consensus: policy alignment (strategic and operational), HR structure which provides support at senior and supervisory levels, influencing skills of HR staff, manager training and education on FWAs and supportive technology. To improve practice organizations should consider both vertical and horizontal alignment of HR practices, give attention to operational alignment of HR practice, give training and support to supervisors and build direct access to expert advice into the HR structure.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of HR function in supporting supervisors to implement FWA policy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study was carried out in an Australian private sector insurance company where FWA policies had been in place for five years. Data was gathered from semi -structured and in-depth interviews with forty seven HR staff, managers and supervisors from four divisions within the organization covering a range of differing work roles. In addition seven corporate documents relating to flexible working were analyzed.\nFindings: Five factors are identified as having an influence on the ability of managers to support FWAs through the meta-features of distinctiveness, consistency and consensus: policy alignment (strategic and operational), HR structure which provides support at senior and supervisory levels, influencing skills of HR staff, manager training and education on FWAs and supportive technology.\nPractical implications: To improve practice organizations should consider both vertical and horizontal alignment of HR practices, give attention to operational alignment of HR practice, give training and support to supervisors and build direct access to expert advice into the HR structure.\nOriginality/value: This paper has an original approach in explaining how the HR function supports and constrain managers in implementing FWAs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluating the effect of subsidies for rural development on agri-food and forestry firms: Technical progress and efficiency	[ "Rural development", "Subsidies", "Efficiency", "Productivity", "D24", "H25", "M21" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Predominantly rural areas in the European Union (EU) represent 52 per cent of the territory and 23 per cent of the population. Per capita income in these areas is relatively low compared to that of urban areas due to a less developed service sector together with a low level of infrastructure stock (European Commission, 2013a). In this context, the EU's Rural Development Policy focuses on reducing income inequalities between urban and rural residents. In particular, Article 28 of Council Regulation (EC) ndeg 1698/2005 establishes the support schemes for investments to improve the agri-food and forestry sectors' economic performance in rural areas through the introduction of new products, processes and technologies, as well as improving product transformation and commercialization. These support schemes are articulated via the so-called Measure 123.\n2. The effect of subsidies on firms' productivity: There is no consensus in the literature on the effect of public subsidies on firms' performance (Bergstrom, 2000; Calvo-Flores Segura et al., 2004). On the one hand, market failures may hamper firms' competitiveness, with subsidies on investments acting as a tool to promote modernization and economic growth in the long run. On the other hand, \"government failures\" may arise if regulators have an incentive to pursue policies focused on their political rather than economic returns, which may lead to a suboptimal resource allocation. Moreover, the implementation of subsidies may generate allocative inefficiencies for recipient firms as these are incentivized to change their capital/labor mix. Lastly, subsidies generate a safe cushion for recipient firms that may reduce the incentives to improve management practices.\n3. Model: To evaluate the effect of subsidies granted through the Measure 123, we estimate a stochastic frontier function. In its general form, this function is defined as:\n4. Data: The main objective of the Measure 123, i.e. the improvement in terms of performance of agri-food and forestry firms, is realized by supporting investments that pursue one of the following specific objectives: the application of new production processes or new technologies, the implementation of the use of information technologies, the implementation of quality systems and those aimed at the environmental improvement of the firm. Specifically, in Asturias the Measure 123 was endowed with a total of 70 million euros for the period 2007-2013. This measure usually subsidizes 30 per cent of the approved investment projects (although under certain circumstances the contribution can increase up to 50 per cent of the investment project). The subsidy recipients are microenterprises and small and medium-sized firms (exceptionally, firms that do not exceed 750 employees or 200 million euros in turnover can receive this subsidy), belonging to the agri-food and forestry industries.\n5. Results: The input variables were divided by their geometric mean prior to the estimation of equation (3). As a consequence, first-order coefficients reflect the output elasticities of each of the inputs for a representative firm characterized by a level of input equal to the sample geometric mean of each of the inputs. The estimation of equation (3) was performed using maximum likelihood and the econometric software Stata. Table III shows the estimation of the parameters of the production frontier.\n6. Analysis of the return on subsidies: Based on the results obtained, we perform a simulation exercise to assess the return on the subsidies granted under Measure 123. The methodology used, proposed by Jondrow et al. (1982), allows us to determine the efficiency scores associated with each one of the observations of the sample. Table V shows the statistics that characterize the distribution of these efficiency scores.\n7. Conclusions: Income inequalities between urban and rural areas within the EU have led to the implementation of policies aimed at rural development. These types of policies, involving the collaboration of the different administrations of the member states, are articulated around several intervention axes. In particular, the actions planned under Axis 1, including the Measure 123, are aimed at improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to evaluate the impact of the subsidies established by Measure 123 of the Rural Development Policy on the productivity of a sample of agri-food and forestry companies in the region of Asturias over the period 2006-2009.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors estimate a stochastic frontier function which allows subsidies to be considered as affecting both the level of technical efficiency and technical progress.\nFindings: The results show that while subsidies have a positive effect on the technical progress of companies in the agri-food industry, for the forestry industry, the effect materializes as an improvement in technical efficiency. Additionally, other factors affecting either, technical progress and technical efficiency were identified.\nOriginality/value: This study adopts a model that allows the separate identification of the effect of subsidies on the level of efficiency, on the one hand, and on the technical progress, on the other.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Development, measurement and validation of supply chain performance measurement (SCPM) scale in Indian retail sector	[ "Performance measurement", "Supply chain management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: India is now the major frontier for globalized retail. In the last two decades, since the economic liberalization of 1991, India's middle class has greatly expanded and so has its purchasing power. But over the years, unlike other major emerging economies, India has been slow to open its retail sector to foreign investment. Recent policy changes from the government however clearly suggest that this may be about to change: global supermarket chain stores such as Wal-Mart (USA), Carrefour (France), Marks and Spencer and Tesco (UK) and Shoprite (South Africa) are finally allowed to set up shops in India (Chari and Raghavan, 2012).\n2. Review of literature: 2.1 Retail SCPM\n3. Research methodology: 3.1. Sample size and characteristics\n4. Analysis and validation of the scales: This study used the analysed data in three stages. The first was based on an exploratory study which consisted of maintaining exclusively those items which enabled the analysis of other dimensions or factors with a suitable degree of reliability or unidimensionality. The second stage was an exploratory factor analysis and the third is the confirmatory study which discarded those items which did not enable suitable dimensionality for the entire constructs of SCPM. In the above analysis, the measurement properties of the nine dimensions of SCPM constructs were evaluated by assessing key components of construct validity. As per the guidelines of Bagozzi (1980), and Bagozzi and Fornell (1982), the following measurement properties are considered important for assessing the measures developed in this paper: content validity; internal consistency of operationalization (unidimensionality and reliability; convergent validity; and discriminant validity.\n5. Conclusions, managerial implications and future research lines: This paper strives to contribute to the literature on the SCPM in Indian retail industry. This paper tests the validity of the measurement scales which will enable the managers to determine the appropriate SCPM. The major contribution of the represent study is the development of a set of SCPM constructs as well as a rigorously validated measurement instrument for collecting data in further studies. The confirmation process is according to the typical standards of scale development (Raghunathan et al., 1999; Sethi and King, 1994; Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The instrument developed in this paper is parsimonious and will be of use to researchers for further studies of SCPM and their relationships with other organizational processes and outcomes like competitive advantage, SCM practices, and organizational performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale with a high degree of reliability, validity and dimensionality which help to determine appropriate supply chain performance measurement (SCPM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were compiled and collected from 213 operations and supply chain heads from leading retail stores in India. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the proposed measurement scale.\nFindings: The major contribution of the present study is the development of SCPM constructs as well as a rigorously validated measurement instrument. The confirmation process is according to the typical standards of scale development.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper strives to contribute to the literature on the SCPM in Indian retail industry. This paper tests the validity of the measurement scales which will enable the managers to determine the appropriate SCPM.\nPractical implications: In the long run a good set of identified SCPM and their implementation would inevitability enables in deriving meticulous supply chain strategies.\nSocial implications: SCM managers in evaluating their current supply chain performance. This can help the managers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their supply chain.\nOriginality/value: This study proved that the SCPM can be used from different perspectives, all of which are integrated into one exclusive assessment instrument, applied to the SCPM in this case.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A strategy of innovation through the development of a portfolio of innovation capabilities	[ "Innovation", "Research and development", "Competitive forces", "Portfolio of capabilities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nInnovation as a portfolio of capabilities: Innovation is very much a capability in its own right. For an organization to be innovative, all aspects of a capability must be considered and must be fine tuned. The greater an organization's capability to successfully and continuously develop innovation capabilities the greater the benefit the organization will obtain from such efforts. Most companies/departments/individuals consider innovation to be an \"event.\" Companies or departments within organizations will hold brainstorming sessions or hold contests to generate new ideas. If a good idea surfaces, there is some value added to the organization. In some instances, such as the invention of post-it notes by 3M, a tremendous amount of value. However, there is generally a huge amount of transformation between the idea generated in an event and its realization. As companies' capabilities of generating a portfolio of innovation capabilities matures, a great innovation is more than just an idea and becomes part of a process. That is, the organization has a structure in place to define problems, generate and evaluate ideas, and develop action plans to implement those ideas. The result is a valuable deliverable solution based on either client or organizational problems. However, the problem with both of these approaches is that innovation is reactive not proactive and discrete rather than continuous. Innovation that is driven by a portfolio of capabilities creates exponential value. Organizations that have developed a culture of continuous innovation are able to develop a portfolio of innovation capabilities and as a result continuously and sometimes radically improve their products, processes, and the competitive landscape of their organization as a whole (see Figure 1).\nMeasures and performance: Take a balanced approach to innovation risk. Innovation and risk are two sides of the same coin. There can be a tendency to try to manage risk out of a business, this approach will stifle rather than encourage innovation. Companies therefore need to recalibrate their attitudes to risk if they are to create an environment in which innovation can flourish. Three tools are required to effectively do this. It is critical to define the organizations existing risk appetite for innovating in the context of its overall strategy. Second, tolerating and embracing failure and judging risk across the whole innovation portfolio as well as on a case-by-case basis is essential. Lastly, the benefits of a failure should be evaluated, what has been learned, what capability has perhaps been developed or enhanced, even though the overall effort failed. Innovation capabilities need to be measured. But, how to measure innovation capabilities is critical. They should be measured in a way that does not discourage experimenting and penalize or scapegoat for failure to solve a problem.\nConclusion: The paper suggests that the very success of an innovation will draw competition and as a result the advantage will be short lived. So the firm has to discover what is going to keep the advantage fresh. As a result, developing a portfolio of innovations comprised of a healthy mix of disruptive and incremental innovations will create the internal DNA of innovation that is extremely difficult to imitate. This new \"innovation DNA\" can serve as a sustainable advantage. There are many challenges associated with synthesizing and injecting this innovative DNA into an organization. This \"innovative DNA\" must be mandated and nurtured by senior leadership. While senior executives cite innovation as an important driver of growth, few of them explicitly lead and manage it. About one half of the executives we consult state that they manage innovation on an ad hoc basis when necessary.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the value in developing a portfolio of capabilities to fuel innovation. The author's experience suggests that a disciplined focus developing a portfolio of innovation capabilities is critical in the global competitive landscape. Traditionally, the business world has always been focussed on developing sustainable competitive advantage. This is optimal, but we find more and more situations where this notion of building a sustainable competitive advantage is no longer possible. In 2013 it is rare for a company to maintain a truly lasting advantage. Many times, the very success of the initiative drives competition, which in turn weakens the advantage. Innovation as a portfolio of capabilities that can continuously morph based on the traditional forces of the market can prove much more powerful. This paper discusses what is needed in developing a strategy for developing a portfolio of capabilities and the challenges that companies face in undertaking this goal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: General viewpoint based upon over 20 years of consulting work experience by an expert in the field of innovation, new product development, and research and development.\nFindings: The relevance and importance of a novel approach to thinking about innovation is very creative and valuable to companies that are constantly struggling with the development of new products.\nPractical implications: This is a novel approach to thinking about developing new products, capabilities, or services within an organization.\nOriginality/value: The paper is extremely valuable in that it highlights a new way to think about developing innovation and new product capabilities, new product features, in a competitive global environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Six of the best	[ "Creative thinking", "Management strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: What does it mean to be creative at work? Talk to most people and they think of creativity as something to do with painting, playing musical instruments or writing. But if that is your assumption then think again. Creativity at work is not about getting in touch with your muse - rather it is all about developing new perspectives and solving practical problems - and that is why it is particularly relevant to managers and their teams.\nReverse thinking and empowerment: Clare Sadler leads a team of 16 people and has overall responsibility in shared financial services for corporate GSK. Her customers are both internal and external and her team consistently comes up against problems that they need to solve - problems which, within GSK's culture of continuous improvement, are as much to do with internal processes and ways of working as anything else.\"After three years in my role I knew there was a danger of getting stale,\" said Sadler. \"I wanted some creative input and so I booked myself onto a creativity course run by Illumine called The Illumination Programme.\"My concerns about the course were that it would somehow focus on how to be artistic but it didn't. It was very practical in looking at how to apply creative tools and techniques to the issues you face in your own workplace.\"In my case I particularly wanted to think about my team - and specifically how I could make more out of team meetings. We actually used this as a case example on the training day and applied a 'solution reversal' thinking technique to it. The way this worked was to start asking how I could ensure the meetings would be dull and worthless. This is the reversal part of the technique and as you can imagine all the delegates in the room had plenty of experience of attending exactly such meetings. As a result we came up with a host of ways in which we could turn people off.\"With this list I then had a pretty clear idea of what to avoid. When you see all the things that can go wrong it can become very clear what to do instead and I immediately realised there were a hundred ways I could go about enlivening these meetings. This included thinking about the environment, finding ways to engage people, sharing responsibility and giving everyone a voice. It's absolutely no surprise that this one simple technique has helped to transform the energy we have in these meetings.\"However, what Sadler also realised through this training was that for her, thinking creatively was actually the starting point for re-empowering her team.\"What I realised through the course was that I had become too fixed in my way of doing things,\" she said. \"I was trying to deal with problems in one particular way. The course helped me to be more open-minded and throw open the challenge of problem solving as something the whole team could get involved with.\"And these techniques have also helped me in the work I do 1:1 with team members. When it comes to people's development I am now looking at what they want to do and what opportunities there are for them if they just extend their own thinking. In this respect creative thinking provides extremely useful tools for managing change.\"\nThe many perspectives of Six Thinking Hats: Clive Lewis, creativity training guru and MD of Illumine Training emphasises that when it comes to applying creativity there is no \"best\" way. Different techniques suit different people. Some like structured techniques in which to generate new ideas while others find they get their breakthroughs from visual or metaphorical techniques. However one technique which he has found to be especially useful for participants is Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats.\"If we take the example of a customer issue that needs to be resolved by a team then you can guarantee that there will be a number of different views in the room. Everyone looks at things through their own lens and Six Hats simply acknowledges that many perspectives are better than one,\" said Lewis.\"The method itself is simple. The team leader or facilitator outlines six imaginary thinking hats, each with a different colour. When you 'put on' the hat as a team you then agree to operate exclusively in that mode of thinking. And when you change hats you change your thinking mode. So for example, 'white hat' thinking is like a white page and helps people to look at a problem from the perspective of 'what information do we need?' It provides a neutral, information gathering perspective. In contrast to this 'red hat' thinking provides the opportunity for the team to look at the problem from what they feel about it - from their gut instinct or intuition. Alternatively 'black hat' thinking gives the team permission to be overtly critical about the issue ... to say what won't work.\"The beauty of Six Hats is that it allows a team to have productive discussions based on different perspectives. Instead of adversarial thinking it promotes co-operative exploration,\" said Lewis.Another practical way of using Six Hats can be to take just one of them and use it at an appropriate time. For example some managers use the red thinking hat at the close of a meeting as an intuitive checkpoint. The way this works is for the manager to ask each team member to wear the hat and speak from it for a minute or two. The red hat is concerned with emotions and gives the speaker full permission to put forward their hunches and feelings. So team members might say: \"with my red hat on I feel that we have made a mess of this project\" or \"my intuition tells me that there is a real opportunity in this development\".In using such a structure the manager is doing two specific things. First, the red hat signals that this is just one of a number of useful but valid perspectives on the issue under discussion. Second, the red hat gives people an opportunity to express themselves freely. Feelings are also tied up with energy and in giving people the chance to say what they feel the team can get a valuable insight into how much momentum or drive the team currently has to resolve this issue.David Blenkinsop, Senior Regional Manager at Westpac Banking Corporation, agrees that such creative thinking techniques can be of real value at work - especially in a group or team scenario. \"You can't always change the organisational culture that you are working in but creative thinking techniques can help you to leverage the groups that you are working with. If you are a manager or supervisor this is especially relevant and techniques like Six Thinking Hats provide an interesting slant on problem solving. Getting people to look at an issue from one particular perspective can certainly get people working together effectively and successfully,\" he said.\nConclusion: What we can see quite clearly from the examples above is that managers who are able to stay open to new ways of thinking can really benefit their people and their area of business. Although this may sound self-evident there is a tendency for many of us that once we have tried something, and it has worked, to conclude that this is the best way of working at all times. But such fixed thinking can get us into real trouble. In this context creativity isn't a \"nice to have\", it's a \"must have\" for organisations that want to maintain competitive advantage.However there is also one final point to highlight here. When it comes to problem solving it is all fine and well to generate new ideas but that is only the beginning of the process. It's how such ideas are fostered, honed and applied that managers also need to consider and this requires both big picture and long-term strategies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To investigate practical methods of generating creative thinking in business. Includes De Bono's Six Thinking Hats approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To articulate issues and challenges, highlight some of the key techniques and how they work. Also to provide case study evidence to demonstrate measurable benefits of the techniques.\nFindings: - When creative thinking is applied it breaks through fixed thinking patterns but creativity also needs nurturing.\nPractical implications: - Simple techniques can generate new perspectives for people management and problem solving.\nOriginality/value: - Stimulates management thinking.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Predicting entrepreneurial intention across the university	[ "Entrepreneurial intention", "Entrepreneurship education", "Enterprise education", "Entrepreneurial characteristics", "Entrepreneurial orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The importance of the role of entrepreneurship in helping to achieve economic development, competitiveness, job creation and national prosperity has led to a marked global interest into the development of both business and entrepreneurship education, in the hope that that this will lead to an increase in social, economic and organisational development (Martinez et al., 2010; Singer et al., 2015). The creation of new enterprises is regarded as essential for the development of national economies (Fayolle et al., 2016). It is now generally accepted that entrepreneurship, or at least certain facets of it, can be taught and learned and that it is not restricted to those who are born with certain skills, attributes or characteristics (Harris and Gibson, 2008; Kuratko, 2005). Education can thus play a critical role in the development of enterprising graduates by identifying and generating aptitudes or by helping to promote entrepreneurial behaviours and intent (Ferreira and Trusko, 2018). This has led to an exponential increase in both the number and status of entrepreneurship education programmes in higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide (Fayolle, 2013; Neck and Greene, 2011). In the past, entrepreneurship courses have primarily been found in business schools within HEIs (Collins et al., 2006), often taught alongside traditional business disciplines. The scope of entrepreneurship education has widened more recently, from traditionally a business school topic, to include other departments and faculties (Karlsson and Moberg, 2013).\nLiterature review: Entrepreneurial intent and its measurement\nQuestionnaire development and data collection: This research uses a 40-item questionnaire to obtain information on students' demographics, entrepreneurial characteristics and EI, based on five-point Likert-type scales. In order to assess the students' entrepreneurial characteristics this research adopted the previously validated ten item measurement instrument developed by Bolton and Lane (2012) based on the three IEO variables (innovation, proactiveness and attitude to risk). In addition to these three entrepreneurial characteristics, this research also considered self-efficacy as an entrepreneurial dimension, as self-efficacy has also previously been found to be an important predictor of EI (Pruett et al., 2009). The questions used to measure self-efficacy were based on those validated by Florin et al. (2007) and were chosen as they were specifically developed to measure self-efficacy in university level students. In order to further strengthen this research, equivalent reverse worded questions were mixed into the questionnaire in order to minimise answering inertia, reduce boredom and to control for acquiescent response sets (Schriesheim and Hill, 1981). Although this increased the number of questions in the instrument, this further ensures the robustness of the measurement. EI was measured by two questions based on those used by Levenburg and Schwartz (2008) and adopted by Bolton and Lane (2012). The respondent's gender, current level of study, and whether they had previous work experience was collected so that these data could be controlled for in the regression analysis. These variables have been identified within the literature as having an impact on EI (Tsai et al., 2016).\nData analysis and results: Data screening\nDiscussion: This research was designed to quantify the relative importance of four entrepreneurial characteristics identified in the literature (proactiveness, attitude to risk, innovativeness and self-efficacy), in predicting students' EI across a range of faculties offering different subjects at a UK HEI. A summary of the results is shown in Table VI.\nConclusion: This research focussed on four well-researched characteristics, which could be developed, to determine their relative abilities to predict EI across six different faculties at a UK HEI. In short, this research sought to breakdown the level of analysis to individual faculties in order to investigate whether different entrepreneurial characteristics predict EI in different academic disciplines.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to quantify the relative importance of four key entrepreneurial characteristics identified in the literature (proactiveness, attitude to risk, innovativeness and self-efficacy) in predicting students' entrepreneurial intention (EI) across a range of faculties offering different subjects at a UK higher education institution (HEI). This approach will help to identify whether there are variations across the faculties in the predictors of EI. This enables recommendations to be made with regard to the development of educational delivery and support to encourage and develop the specific predictors of EI within the different subject areas.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research uses a 40-item questionnaire to obtain information on students' demographics, entrepreneurial characteristics and EI, based on a five-point Likert-type scale. Principle component analysis, correlation analysis and multiple hierarchical regression analysis are used to analyse the data from 1,185 students to develop models which predict EI for each of the six faculties.\nFindings: Individual models which predict EI are developed for each of the six faculties showing variations in the makeup of the predictors across faculties in the HEI. Attitude to risk was the strongest predictor in five of the six faculties and the second strongest predictor in the sixth. The differences, together with the implications, for educational approaches and pedagogy are considered.\nOriginality/value: This research breaks down the level of analysis of EI to the individual faculty level in order to investigate whether different entrepreneurial characteristics predict EI in different academic disciplines across a UK HEI. This enables entrepreneurship educational approaches to be considered at a faculty level rather than a one size fits all approach.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investor confidence and mutual fund performance in emerging markets: Insights from India and Pakistan	[ "India and Pakistan", "Investor confidence", "Mutual fund performance", "G110", "G150", "G230" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Mutual funds are investment vehicles that are funded by shareholders, trade in diversified holdings and are professionally managed by asset management companies (AMCs). The growth in mutual funds as important savings instruments has been robust, due to their various benefits: first, mutual funds condense the investment risk because of diversification; second, they are professionally managed by AMCs and investors can diversify their portfolios by pooling from the investment funds. Mutual funds benefit the majority of small potential investors who may be unable to invest directly in the financial markets due to their lack of financial knowledge and investment management skill.\n2. Market overview and motivation: The main focus of this paper is to examine the relationship between the performance of mutual funds and investor confidence through management effectiveness in Pakistan and India, with the aim of enhancing our knowledge of the role played by investors and fund managers. Due to the previous mixed results on the determinants of fund performance, there are further reasons to ascertain whether the effectiveness of mutual funds is different as a result of size effect, expense, turnover, patterns of fund flows and fund maturity. The effectiveness of management will be assessed through an examination of the association of mutual funds' returns with turnover, fund size, fund age, net cash flow (NCF) and operational expenses.\n3. Literature review: In the 1900s, research related to mutual funds first began in the USA when the influence of capital markets was realized. The existing data of mutual funds were employed to study the influence of the capital markets. Consequently, the renowned Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) was formulated, followed by other portfolio-related theories such as the Security Market Line and Arbitrage Pricing Theory, Fama-French three-factor model, Carhart model, etc.\n4. Data description and empirical strategy: In relation to the above discussion, in this section, we here present our data source and sample description, research design, estimation method and our testable hypotheses.\n5. Empirical results and discussion: This section discusses the impact of investor confidence on the performance of mutual funds in India and Pakistan. Table III provides variable descriptive statistics. Panel A shows that Indian mutual fund returns on average are 6.31 percent, while the standard deviation means fluctuate less compared to Pakistan, which measures 0.47 percent. The NAV of the mutual funds is Rs13.47bn and the median value of net assets is about Rs8.75bn, which indicates that there are extraordinarily large mutual funds. Moreover, the mean value of investor confidence is, not surprisingly, outsized, while expense ratios are lower compared to the size of funds that does not support the earning of larger returns.\n6. Conclusions: Mutual funds have developed into a dominant savings vehicle worldwide. According to practitioners, mutual funds are among the most robust investment sectors in the international financial markets. The growth in mutual funds reveals investors' preferences for this kind of investment. Over the last two decades, the mutual fund sector has grown remarkably; however, in developing financial markets, mutual funds are still a relatively modern phenomenon.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of investor confidence on mutual fund performance in two relatively vulnerable but leading emerging markets, India and Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A pooled ordinary least squared (OLS) model is used to look at two alternative measures of investor confidence and test for the relationship between investor confidence and mutual fund returns. To check the robustness of the findings, the authors also implement two-stage least squares and generalized method of moments techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity problems in the regressors.\nFindings: The paper finds that the returns of mutual funds are positively associated with investor confidence and an interaction effect exists between investor confidence and persistence in performance. The paper also confirms that returns from mutual funds are associated with different fund characteristics such as fund size, turnover, expense, liquidity, performance persistence and the fund's age. These findings remain robust to alternative model specifications and measures of investor confidence.\nOriginality/value: While the previous literature mainly focuses on mutual fund characteristics and the macroeconomic determinants of mutual fund returns, this paper demonstrates that investor confidence plays an important role in determining mutual fund performance. The authors attribute this finding to two relatively unique features of the emerging markets in the study. A lack of awareness of mutual funds as being a low-cost investment vehicle and the interplay of cultural and behavioral changes have prevented investor's savings from being channeled into investment products, away from gold or property.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding employees' informal workplace learning: The joint influence of career motivation and self-construal	[ "Self-identity", "Self-construal", "Career motivation", "Informal workplace learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Informal learning refers to those learning activities which are usually not institutionally sponsored, but initiated at the workplace by employees themselves with the purpose to develop their professional knowledge and skills (Lohman, 2005; Marsick and Watkins, 2001). An example of employee informal workplace learning is gaining new knowledge, skills and abilities by reading a book or article, asking each other for help and feedback, and sharing knowledge with each other. Informal workplace learning can benefit employees and organizations in several aspects. First, informal workplace learning reduces the cost of formal training. Formal learning activities organized in the form of workshops, training and management development programs have been criticized for being too expensive, time-consuming and disconnected from day-to-day work (Hall, 1996; Wilson and Berne, 1999). The fact that informal workplace learning is initiated by the employees themselves and takes place during work and at the workplace, makes it less expensive, less time consuming and more relevant to individual learning needs of employees than formal learning (Hoffman, 2005). Second, the knowledge, skills and abilities that employees gain by engagement in informal workplace learning activities facilitates their employability and helps them deal with the continual changes in and outside their work environment (e.g. Baruch and Bozionelos, 2010; Joo and Ready, 2012; Van Emmerik et al., 2011) Third, informal workplace learning also contributes to the human resources of organizations. The collective knowledge, skills and abilities which result from informal workplace learning provide a powerful source of sustainable organizational competitiveness (e.g. Barney and Wright, 1998).\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Checks for common method variance\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study is to unfold the dynamics of employee informal workplace learning from both motivational and self-construal perspectives. The findings support our assumption that career motivation has an overall positive effect on all three types of informal workplace learning activities. Further, they demonstrate that these positive relationships are refined by employees' self-construal: A strong individual self-construal strengthens the positive effect of career motivation on keeping up-to-date to a larger extent than a weak individual self-construal; a strong collective self-construal strengthens the positive effect of career motivation on knowledge sharing to a larger extent than a weak collective self-construal. In the following section, we will further discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, point out some limitations of this study and conclude with some practical suggestions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the joint influence of employees' career motivation and their self-construal on their engagement in three informal workplace learning activities: keeping up-to-date, asking for feedback from supervisors and knowledge sharing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through an online questionnaire from 323 employees from four Dutch Vocational Education and Training (VET) schools. Regression analyses were used to test the hypothesis.\nFindings: Career motivation is positively related to all three informal learning activities. Employees' individual self-construal strengthens the relationship between career motivation and engagement in the learning activity of keeping up-to-date, while employees' collective self-construal strengthens the relationship between career motivation and engagement in the learning activity of knowledge sharing. Contrary to expectations, employees' relational self-construal does not strengthen the relationship between career motivation and engagement in the learning activity of feedback asking from supervisors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The use of cross-sectional data collection made this study vulnerable to common method bias. Future studies should consider using a longitudinal research approach to overcome this limitation.\nPractical implications: The findings suggest that both the motivational issue of \"what do you want\" and the self-identity issue of \"who you are\" are important for employee informal workplace learning. For human resource (HR) professionals this suggests that they should stimulate employees' career motivation, while for employees this suggests that they should engage in informal learning activities in keeping with their own style.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first studies to provide empirical support for the joint influence of career motivation and self-construal on employees' informal workplace learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigation into the development and historical roots of collection development by referenced publication year spectroscopy	[ "Collection development", "Scientometrics", "Collection building", "CRExplorer", "Historical root", "Referenced publication year spectroscopy (RPYS)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Previous investigations and discussions of research studies play a pivotal role in new research studies, the relationship of recent research to past works always plays an important role: according to Bornmann et al. (2010), without references to the past, knowledge cannot be obtained. The past literature used in different documents as references of different research domains are important in research fields. To analyze the cited documents, Marx et al. (2014) introduced the method \"Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS)\". This method helps to disclose the main historical publications in a research field, the technique is built on analyzing the frequencies with which references are cited in the publications of a research field under investigation in terms of the publication years of the cited references. As per Marx and Bornmann (2014), RPYS could be used also to detect science legends in a scientific field under investigation.\nLiterature review: Till now many studies has been conducted to look over practice of collection development in universities such as (Harvey Chaputula, 2014) some have also conducted on review of literature on Collection Development from a particular year (Nisonger, 1998). Through this particular study, the investigator wants to know about the historical development of this concept through RPYS. In recent years, RPYS has been applied in a variety of contexts: Khasseh and Mokhtarpour (2016) used RPYS to examine the most important historic works written in the area of knowledge management, Wray and Bornmann (2015) examine the sub-field of philosophy of science. They have limited their data set to four key journals in the sub-field of philosophy of science, namely, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Erkenntnis, Philosophy of Science and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Elango et al. (2016) studied the historical roots of tribology. They used Science Citation Index-Expanded as a data source. Malik and Ali (2018) examined the historical root of Knowledge sharing behaviour. The data were collected from Web of Science (WoS) database, published during the period of 1974 to 2000. They divided the period of study into three parts and examined it separately. Marx et al. (2014) examined the origins of graphene and solar cell research, Rhaiem and Bornmann (2018) investigated citation classics in the area of academic efficiency studies, and Ballandonne (2018) studied the historical roots of contributions to ecological economics.\nMethodology: The study is based on papers published in the field of Collection Development. We used two phrases i.e. \"Collection Development\" and \"Collection Building\" with operator OR to collect the publications from WoS core collection. The data set consists of 1,682 papers published between 1974 and 2017 (covering 29,017 non distinct CRs). The retrieved papers from the WoS core collection were imported in the CRExplorer (Thor et al., 2016) for additional processing to clean the CR dataset using removing, clustering and merging functionalities of the software, particularly for variants of the similar CR. Variant clustering and merging results in a slightly decreased set of CRs. We also excluded 754 CRs, as their reference publication year was not provided. The final set of CRs were 24,488.\nResults and analysis: The extracted cited references data has been divided into two periods, pre-1900 period and Post 1900 period. The pre-1900 period exhibits three peaks, as shown in Figure 1 by the deviations from the median, the largest peaks appear in 1627, 1823 and 1894. The post 1900-period aggregate data for collection development shows a number of peaks between 1900 and 2000, a span of 101 years. The highest peaks occur in 1927, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1992 and 1996, as shown by the deviations from the median in Figure 2. We are going to concentrate narrowly on these nine peaks in our analysis. We think that some of the most important contributions to collection development in the past are likely to be brought to our attention by the nine highest peaks. Consider each of the nine peaks in sequential order, from the earliest peak in 1627 to the latest peak in 1996.\nPre 1900 period: Figure 1 demonstrates the distribution of cited references in the publications of CD on the basis of their year of publication. According to Figure 1, pre-1900 records of cited references in the area of CD have observed three different peaks, which occurred in 1627, 1823 and 1894, respectively. The particulars of the frequently cited references in these years are summarized in Table I.\nPost-1900 period: To get a deeper understanding of the CD's origins, we further assessed the CR in CD data and found that there are six larger peaks between RPY 1901 and 2000 (100-year span) Figure 2. As the deviations from the median in Figure 2 display, these peaks appear in 1927, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1992 and 1996. Table II lists the documents most frequently cited in the six peak years.\nConclusion & discussion: The study found nine peaks, which were divided into two periods, pre-1900 period and post-1900 period. The pre-1900 period exhibits three peaks while the post-1900-period consists of six peaks. These nine peaks highlight some of the most important contributions to the collection development research domain in the past. The aim of the study was to ascertain significant research contributions for the expansion of collection development research. Following are the findings of the study:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is the application of a recently developed quantitative method named Referenced Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) in the spectrum of Collection Development. RPYS portrays peak years to be recognized in citations in a research field that guarantees to assist in the identification of significant contributions and groundbreaking revelations in a research field.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Preliminary data of the study has been extracted from Web of Science (WoS) by using two phrases \"collection development\" and \"collection building\" to search in terms of the topic (comprising four parts: title, abstract, author keywords and KeyWords Plus). The search was restricted to the time period 1974-2017, which formulated a data set of 1,682 documents covering 29,017 cited references. The program CRExplorer (www.crexplorer.net) was used for the extraction of cited references from the data sets downloaded from WoS. Further analysis was performed manually using MS-Excel 2016.\nFindings: The present study identified seminal works, which contributed to a high extent to the evolution and development of collection development. The analysis of all cited references using the RPYS method showed nine peaks, which present historical roots of collection development and revealed that the basic idea of this very subfield of library science dates centuries back. Moreover, the results of the investigation on most effective documents (in the form of peaks) revealed that the field of collection development significantly influenced by the works of authors such as Gabriel Naude, Gabriel Peignot, Giulio Petzholdt, P L Gross, E M Gross, Richard Trueswell, Allen Kent, Ross Atkinson, etc.\nPractical implications: The analysis of works cited in publications helps to ascertain important intellectual contributions related to a particular domain of knowledge. It not only helps in extracting the most important works but also it helps to reconstruct the history of a specific research field by examining the specific role of the cited references. Therefore, the results of the study could be useful for researchers, practitioners, scholars and more specifically bibliophiles, bibliographers and librarians to gain a better understanding of seminal works in the spectrum of collection development.\nOriginality/value: To the best of authors' knowledge, the present research work is unique and novel in the spectrum of collection development, which explored and examined the pivotal works in the field by using the RPYS method.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Which are the sustainable attributes affecting the real consumption behaviour? Consumer understanding and choices	[ "Focus group", "Environment", "Food attributes", "Logistic approach", "Sustainable products", "Virtuous consumers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nowadays consumers are more and more interested in obtaining information about products, even if it means paying higher prices. Consumer choices depend on consumer preferences that are related to intrinsic and extrinsic product characteristics. Extrinsic product characteristics, though not physical, such as brands, indications of origin, traditional production processes, the use of organic agriculture, animal welfare, environmental protection and ethical requirements all play important roles in consumer choices. In this paper, we investigate the importance of the many dimensions of sustainability in the food products that affect consumer choices.\n2. Conceptual background: Consumers are affected by market imperfections, which may stem from the lack of information they have at the time of purchase. This sometimes leads them to make choices based on the quality perception of a product without having the possibility of reaching the desired level of food safety (Henson and Traill, 1993) and understanding which products are environmentally and socially friendly.\n3. Empirical analysis: The empirical research was conducted using both a qualitative and quantitative approach, through focus groups and a survey. We conducted two focus groups and administered a questionnaire to the household member in charge of food purchases. The aim was to understand consumers' motivation and behaviour in the choice of sustainable food products. The focus groups were allowed to investigate certain issues in-depth, which was also useful for providing more insights with regard to the existing economic literature in preparing the questionnaire, which served for the quantitative analysis.\n4. Results and discussion: The results according the socio-demographic characteristics reveal that the propensity to practice virtuous behaviour, irrespective of the presence of children, is higher among women and adults than in men and elderly people, especially if living in rural areas. Indeed, people living in the countryside are more conscious of nature and its products, respecting the seasonal food cycles. Let us remember that the response of the model contains the following variables: purchase of local products, habit of eating seasonal fruit and vegetables, attention to traceability and purchase in the place of production. According to the focus groups' major findings, the level of education increases awareness and therefore the need to have good behaviour, such that highly educated people are five times more virtuous than those with a lower level of education (see Table II).\n5. Conclusions: The research was designed to study and analyse consumer behaviour towards sustainable consumption and, therefore, which the factors are associated with virtuous consumer behaviour. To this end, after defining the variables of interest from literature we conducted two focus groups, divided into three rounds, to obtain some more insights for preparing the questionnaire.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This is an exploratory study on consumer information and behaviour towards green, health, local, social and environmental credentials on labels. It focusses on many dimensions of sustainability in the food products that affect consumer choices with a dual purpose: to identify and define \"sustainable consumption\" behaviour in broad sense and to investigate empirically the factors affecting the real consumption behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on consumers' understanding, motivation and use of sustainable labelling in order to understand the role sustainability information plays in the food products market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two focus groups in order to investigate consumer motivation and behaviour in-depth and to prepare the questionnaire. Identification of the outcomes that could summarize sustainable consumption combining: purchase of local products, consume only seasonal fruit, prefer products with recyclable packaging, attention to the fat content in foods, give importance to traceability and purchase products only in the place of origin. Identification of the \"at risk\" virtuous consumer, using a binary logistic regression approach, taking into account demographic characteristics, the food and nutrition value system, experience, knowledge, institutional factors and marketing.\nFindings: Results from the focus groups are mainly in line with the empirical analysis, highlighting the key role of education in influencing consumer attitude and behaviour. Consumers give little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection and have little knowledge of environmental problems. The virtuous consumer appears to give importance to a better food nutrition value system, to pay more attention to ingredients and instructions on the label, to be more attentive to environmental and sustainable attributes, to be concerned about product quality and to be slightly influenced by brands and special offers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings from the empirical analysis confirm the results from focus groups even if it was not possible from the empirical analysis to investigate in-depth the marketing aspects concerning the food choice. This limit probably comes from the low number of observations. Further research will focus on these marketing aspects.\nPractical implications: Products with sustainable attributes can become a strategic variable and allow companies to gain a competitive advantage, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. This may encourage the development of new marketing channels based on the direct relationship between producer and the new consumer demand, increasingly sensitive to the food security issues.\nSocial implications: There is a potential interest and sensitiveness to having sustainable behaviour in a broad sense, but there is a lack of knowledge about how to behave to be sustainable. In the absence of binding rules, it is necessary that government promote information and campaigns to generate greater awareness on sustainability, aiming at increasing knowledge to drive the consumer's choices. This may lead to virtuous results in terms of reducing social costs related to an unhealthy diet, food waste and unsustainable consumption.\nOriginality/value: The results show that despite the appearance of attention to the environment and to healthy food which is associated with this emerging critical consumer in the literature, there remains the problem of the consumer giving little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection. This is the problem of \"rules of thumb\" in purchasing decisions that prevail in the following situations: when consumers have an overload of information that exceeds their processing limits; when they tend to base their decision making on heuristics, focussing their choices on brands as a proxy for high-quality, product-related characteristics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Modelling resilience of truckload transportation industry	[ "Logistics", "Critical success factors", "Resilience", "Bayesian" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and background: The objective of supply chain management is to deliver superior value for the customer. Transportation is arguably the backbone of a supply chain. It refers to the movement of goods to different locations from the point of production to point of consumption. The efficiency and effectiveness of transportation processes play a significant role in the performance of supply chains. Optimization of transportation costs is very critical for the different players of the supply chain as products are rarely produced at one place and consumed at the same place. With supply chains becoming more and more globalized, this has assumed even further importance as goods are required to be distributed both domestically and across the globe, using different modes of transport, incurring huge costs.\n2. Literature review: This section of the paper presents a brief literature review on supply chain resilience in general and that applied to transportation systems, in particular. Being a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional concept, a unified definition of resilience may be missing in the literature and therefore its operationalization may also vary depending on its context. Ponomarov and Holcomb (2009) in their paper reported that researchers have defined supply chain resilience as withholding and recovering the system to original state during and after supply chain disruptions. They investigated the resilience from different discipline perspectives and defined resilience as a capability of the organization to recover quickly from the unforeseen situations. The organizational perspective emphasizes important aspects of resilience, such as adaptability, flexibility, maintenance and recovery. Resilience in any system can therefore be expressed as its capability to cope with uncertainties.\n3. Model development: In this paper, supply chain resilience has been considered as broadly consisting of two distinct capabilities, namely, reactive capacity and restorative capacity. The reactive capacity indicates how well the firm is able to identify the potential impact of disasters and its ability to absorb and withstand the impact of the disruptive events. Restorative capacity is the capability of the system to repair and return to former condition after the disruption. Resistive capacity of a firm helps it to adapt to changes and to enhance its sustainability, while restorative capacity enables the firm to recover from the impact of the disruptive events and to bring the system back to original state at a faster rate.\n4. Research methodology: The study focuses on developing a BN for analyzing the various truckload resilience factors. The various truckload resilience factors that were identified based on a thorough literature review was presented in the previous section. These factors have to be incorporated in a model establishing relationship between them. Section 4.1 provides a brief description of BNs methodology for the same.\n5. Research model: This research study employs a BBN model for quantifying resilience of truckload transportation in a supply chain. The factors that drive resilience were developed based on literature review and expert interviews. Five experts who are senior level managers in logistics and owners of third party logistics service providers were consulted and based on their feedback, the following model structure has been proposed for resilience quantification analysis. Model also shows the relationship between the various variables (resilience factors). Each node represents a resilience sub-factor and direction of the arrow signifies the relationship between them. This diagram showing structural relationship which is also known as influence diagram is presented in Figure 1.\n6. Data analysis and findings: The model was analyzed using HUGIN Lite software. The model examines the relational probability of a supply chains resilience based on the factors which are grouped into two broad categories of resistive and restorative capacity.\n7. Concluding remarks: Globally the transportation industry is growing at a very rapid rate. Transportation processes majorly impact the performance of supply chains. Truckload transportation is a key element that can help to achieve superior efficiency and effectiveness in a transportation process. However, disruptive events, which happen form time to time, affect the normal operations leading to huge losses for companies that provide truckload transportation services. To address this problem, many companies are now trying to build resilience into their supply chains to better adapt to the potential disruptions and recover quickly to the normal state of operations. Supply chains can incorporate resilience into their systems by improving their resistive and restorative capacities. Resistive capacity is defined as how well the company is able to identify the resilient factors and take necessary contingent steps in avoiding and containing the disruptive events, while restorative capacity captures the capability of the supply chains to return to the natural state of operations before disruption.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the supply chain resilience of Indian truckload transportation industry, in the event of potential disasters that affect the normalcy of their services. This study helped to identify factors affecting the two important dimensions of resilience, namely, resistive capacity and restorative capacity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: With the help of a comprehensive literature review, the different variables that capture both resistive and restorative capacities were identified. A framework for measurement of resilience was developed and an analytical model using Bayesian belief networks methodology was used to understand the linkages between the variables.\nFindings: The results also suggest that at present resilience of the supply chains in Indian trucking firms is very low and there is a need for companies to invest in resources to build both in resistive and restorative capacities to enhance resilience.\nPractical implications: The results of the model and the sensitivity analysis performed further helped to understand the major drivers that can enhance resilience of truckload firms.\nOriginality/value: The major contribution of this paper is to develop a quantitative model for resilience modeling in truckload transportation. This model can be updated when a new data arrives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The financial impact of retail store closure announcements	[ "Empirical research", "Event study", "Stock market return", "Retail channel" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Newspapers often report on retail store closures. For instance, The Wall Street Journal reported on August 11, 2016 that Macy's decided to close 15 percent of all stores in North America because of declining sales (Beilfuss, 2016). CNNMoney lists some of the retailers closing stores in early 2017 (Garcia, 2016). In another instance, in January 2010, Foot Locker's announcement to close more than 100 stores nationwide was reported in the news (Stynes, 2010). Deciding on the number of retail outlets in a specific geographic area is a key element of distribution channel management (Frazier, 1999), which is shown to have a significant effect on a firm's revenue (Bucklin et al., 2008). However, very few past studies have investigated the influence of distribution channel decisions on the shareholder value (Gielens and Geyskens, 2012). Our paper bridges this gap in the literature.\nTheoretical framework: Event study analysis is based on the efficient market hypothesis, which is one of the important paradigms in financial economics. An efficient market is one in which stock prices fully reflect available information. If stock prices reflect all past information, then the market is said to be weakly efficient. However, if stock prices reflect all past and current information the market is then said to be semi-strongly efficient. If stock prices quickly reflect all past, current and private information, then the market is said to be strongly efficient. There is evidence of market imperfection in various settings (see Lo and Mackinlay, 1988). However, there also exists some evidence in the literature that is in support of weak form market efficiency (see Keown and Pinkerton, 1981; Busse and Clifton Green, 2002).\nHypotheses: When a retailer decides to close some of the stores in its network, the sales being generated from those stores will be lost. However, the operational cost incurred for these stores can be saved. The retailer typically decides to close a particular store when the operating cost outweighs the sales generated from the store. Closures of underperforming stores may help the retailer to optimally allocate inventory across the supply chain (Vidal and Goetschalckx, 2000). Investors should acknowledge and welcome a retailer's effort of operational improvement. Therefore, we expect to see an improvement in the financial condition of the retailer after store closures; the stock price after the announcement should reflect that improvement. However, management literature found negative reaction for layoff announcements (e.g. Worrell et al., 1991). While we believe that the relative benefit of closing underperforming stores should be more than that for layoffs, it is interesting to test the following hypothesis:\nData and methodology: We employ the standard event study methodology to measure the financial impacts of store closure announcements. Following the seminal works of Fama et al. (1969), Brown and Warner (1980) and Brown and Warner (1985), event study methodology is widely being used in the business literature for corporate event analysis. For an overview of the related studies published recently in premier journals see Sorescu et al. (2017).\nAnalysis and results: Descriptive statistics for the sample firm's characteristics and industry characteristics are reported in Table I. Store closures may be industry-specific events. In regression analysis, we need a control for the industry fixed effect. If we use either three- or four-digit SIC code for industry fixed effect, we may have a problem with the degrees of freedom. For industry classification, we chose the Fama-French 10 industry scheme, which has been widely used in past studies (e.g. Yu and Yu, 2012). The grouping of our sample firms based on this classification is provided in Table II. The details of the Fama-French 10 industry classification scheme are provided in the Appendix.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Collective results from our analysis indicate immediate financial impact of retail store closure announcements is positive overall. The positive impact is stronger for the retailers that experienced positive growth in sales in the previous quarter. On the other hand, no significant stock price reaction can be identified for the retailers with negative growth in sales in the previous quarter. Industry competition acts as a negative moderator for the relationship between the announcements and the abnormal returns.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While store closure announcements frequently appear in newspapers, little is known about the financial impact of store closure decisions on the retailer's market value. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the stock market reaction to the announcements of retail store closure decisions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors collect data from news articles on store closure announcements in the USA during 1995-2016. Using the four-factor model in an event study, the authors compute the abnormal stock returns for the retail firms due to these announcements.\nFindings: Based on the authors' analysis for sample and matching control firms, the abnormal stock returns for store closure announcements are found to be positive overall. The authors find evidence that the positive effects of the announcements are stronger, particularly for the firms which have positive sales growth at the time of the announcements. The authors also report that industry competition acts as a negative moderator in the relationship between announcements and financial impacts.\nPractical implications: The authors' analysis implies the investors' positive sentiment of store closure announcements as a viable cost-cutting strategy, especially when it is done proactively by better performing retailers. The findings should be useful to the supply chain managers of retail industries in making store closure decisions.\nOriginality/value: This paper is believed to be the first to address the impact of retail store closure announcements on the stock market. The authors' approach of categorizing the firms based on their sales growth seems to be the first in the event study literature on corporate restructuring.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A brand foci model to explain achievement needs: a contradictory explanation	[ "Purchase intention", "Brand attitude", "Brand tribalism", "Brand pride", "Need for achievement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: For strategy development, loyalty programs, and marketing metric evaluation, business-to-consumer-brand relationships continue to rise in importance; research suggests favorable outcomes from these relationships including brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, purchase intentions, brand advocacy, and encouraging others to buy the brand (Badrinarayanan et al., 2014; Becerra and Badrinarayanan, 2013; Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978; Madupu and Cooley, 2010). While the union between consumers and their adored brands has been typified as brand communities (McAlexander et al., 2002) and brand tribes (the focus of this research) (Cova and Cova, 2001; Cova and Pace, 2006; Taute and Sierra, 2014), researchers have gone beyond the nature of the consumer-brand relationship to delve into its outcomes. Thus, understanding consumers' attitudes and behaviors associated with brand tribe membership is a valuable investigative domain for marketing researchers (e.g. Gruner et al., 2014).\nBackground literature: Brand tribalism\nHypotheses: Brand tribalism and PRIDE\nMethodology: Scale descriptions\nResults: Common method bias (CMB)\nDiscussion: With their psychological foundation, growing pervasiveness in the marketplace, and lucrative prospects, marketers cannot afford to disregard brand tribes in their strategy development; in fact, growing them should be an initiative. The interrelated process of engagement, imagination, and alignment by which these tribes grow (Goulding et al., 2013), offers marketers a spyglass to pinpoint their tactical efforts to capitalize on the pecuniary prospects of these consumer circles. Smartphone communities like that of iPhone and Android embody brand tribe relational and social rudiments, which move beyond mere brand loyalty, including defense mechanisms, established value systems, and swelled levels of brand enthusiasm (Taute and Sierra, 2014). Yet, brand tribalism's effect on smartphone users' brand-related responses is not fully understood. Using an under-researched sample type (i.e. South Korean consumers) in this context, the current research lends empirical and theoretical insights in this regard.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the indirect effect of smartphone-brand tribalism on the need for achievement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using survey data from 272 South Korean respondents, path analysis is used to evaluate the hypotheses.\nFindings: Only the sense of community dimension of brand tribalism affects brand pride (PRIDE), which in turn leads to a sequential process of brand attitude, purchase intention, and need for achievement (NACHIEVE).\nResearch limitations/implications: South Korean data may confine generalizability. As effect sizes in this context are understood, researchers have an additional benchmark for future brand tribalism and PRIDE research.\nPractical implications: The psychological underpinning and, the presence of brand tribes in society cannot be overlooked by strategists. Such tribal-laden following is also evident within smartphone communities. By further understanding brand tribalism outcomes, marketers and brand leaders are in an improved position to develop strategies that appeal to targeted customers, ultimately growing and strengthening their brand tribes.\nOriginality/value: Supported by the anthropological view of brand tribalism, this research contributes to the branding literature by examining the indirect effects of brand tribalism on the NACHIEVE through brand-related attitudes and behavioral intentions. Where previous research using westerners indicates the explanatory power of defense of the tribe on brand-related factors, no effect in this regard is found here using eastern smartphone consumers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
All glitter, no reflection: Should Bollywood change its formulaic approach to film production?	[ "Reflection", "Innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nA fly in the ointment?: The Hindi film industry is known affectionately throughout the world as \"Bollywood\". All the glitter and glamour of Hollywood can be found in Mumbai (formerly Bombay which provided the \"B\" in \"Bollywood\") along with prolific production surpassing anything Hollywood can hope to attain. While at one time the market for Bollywood films was mainly the South Asian sub-continent, the last two decades have witnessed an explosive growth in audiences, linked to a rapid increase in sales to overseas markets. There are several factors which may account for this success: economic migration from South Asia to Europe and North America, an increasing interest in Indian culture on the part of Western audiences (fueled in part by the success of Anglo-Indian films such as \"Bend it Like Beckham\" or \"East is East\") and the proliferation of satellite television. However, there is what could be perceived as a fly in the ointment of Bollywood's success. The genre of films produced by the major Mumbai studios is very limited, and as such can't hope to rival the more universal appeal of Hollywood films. While the Mumbai film industry demonstrates some aspects of growth and development, these tend to be in the realm of technical expertise. Creativity and experimentation in story line, subject matter, or plot development are noticeable by their absence.\nLooping the loop: strategic learning in an organizational setting: Moving away from Mumbai and the Hindi film industry, just how do successful organizations learn what they need to grow and develop? And how do they implement the lessons learned? There is a whole science of educational theory which can't be encapsulated in a few sentences. However, to briefly summarize how organizations learn: organizational learning can be roughly divided into adaptive or strategic learning. Adaptive learning is sometimes referred to as \"single loop learning\". It enables a firm to do what it does more efficiently or most cost effectively. It does not empower a company to do something that is different, innovative or creative. For example: an Indian firm making beautiful saris might introduce a more efficient shift system into the factory, or establish a bonus system for flawless work. Managers might invest in new computer-controlled sewing machines requiring additional staff training. These are examples of adaptive learning. They are all designed to enable the company to produce more of their current product (saris) to a higher standard. Now imagine that the firm has hired a new designer and an export manager who are given the freedom to direct strategic development. Suppose that these new employees act as a catalyst for the whole firm, inviting employee suggestions and helping to introduce a fresh creative buzz into a firm previously set in established patterns of design and production. The traditional sari company might be transformed into a cutting-edge firm using beautiful Indian silks to manufacture the latest designer styles in evening wear for the international market. This would be an example of strategic, or double loop learning. The competencies required to incorporate new ways of thinking and working would make this firm highly competitive (and likely to be copied by rivals!).An important facet of strategic learning is reflection. Reflection is a process enabling individuals and organizations to look back on what they have done and plan for the future in a systematic fashion. Reflection should always lead to growth and development. If reflective learning becomes an organizational principle, it can help to establish what some authors have termed \"organizational intelligence\". This is really about \"learning to learn\" and means that companies must recognize the importance of reflective learning and take steps to incorporate this into their organizational strategy.\nIf it ain't broke, why fix it?: The Mumbai film industry demonstrates adaptive learning. Innovation exists to make the existing product better, not to create a new product. But is this a problem? As the old saying goes: \"if it ain't broke, don't fix it\". Some Bollywood producers resent any comparison to Hollywood, pointing out that Mumbai is not Hollywood and therefore should not be judged by Hollywood standards. Bollywood films are highly stylized and tend to repeat two major themes. The first theme is the age-old story of the star-crossed lovers. This theme is also popular in the West and appears in countless dramas from the medieval ballad of Tristan and Isolde, through Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to more modern interpretations in the 1960s musical, West Side Story and the modern film, Pretty Woman. Although this theme is universally recognized and loved, it perhaps resonates more strongly in a society where the majority of marriages are still arranged by families and where sexual alliances outside of marriage are strongly discouraged.The other major theme beloved of Bollywood is the \"family drama\". Typically, the father of the family is the main protagonist and the drama revolves around how he has overcome some threat to the family. These films usually contain a strong moral or social lesson. The two major production houses studied by Minocha and Stonehouse both target the family market and aim to create films suitable for family viewing.Does Bollywood need to adopt a more strategic learning strategy and change the type of films it produces? Most organizations develop strategic learning to adapt to a changing market place, to retain or increase their market shares or to beat the competition. Bollywood, however has no competition. The various Hindi film companies can be seen as competitors, just as MGM and Universal are competitors in Hollywood. However, taking the Indian film industry as an entity, it is clear that it has little impetus for change. Bollywood is highly successful, producing approximately 1,000 films a year and is valued at over PS2 billion. A change in strategy towards the Hollywood type of blockbuster typified by explicit sexuality and casual violence would not only alienate Bollywood's traditional audiences but would be unlikely to woo international viewers. Rather than producing a clearly defined and internationally recognized product (the all-singing, all-dancing \"Bollywood\" film), Bollywood would be in danger of becoming a poor imitation of Hollywood. Whether Hollywood merits imitation is another discussion. It could be argued that Hollywood films are just as formulaic within a broader cultural context and encompassing a wider genre of film themes and production techniques.\nFor innovation in film-making, visit your local art-house cinema: Truly innovative films do exist in Asia as well as in Europe and the Americas. These are the low budget, small production-studio films often only screened at art house or other alternative cinemas. Some don't even make it past the film festival circuit as they are deemed to have limited mass-market appeal. South Asian alternative film-makers are often female and tackle topics which would be seen as \"taboo\" by the major film companies. They challenge stereotypes and ask demanding questions about family, culture, society and religion and how these affect women.\nConclusion: Bollywood has a formula that works. Trying to change it might only break it. True innovation is happening in Indian cinema but this occurs outside of main-stream production which is not ready for such radical departures from accepted formulaic film-making. Bollywood will change as Indian society changes and as such it is a barometer of Indian social and cultural values. Trying to relate any lessons learned from Minocha and Stonehouse's study of Bollywood to general organizational management is problematic as most organizations must embrace change to remain afloat. Perhaps the lesson is that all organizations should strive to reflect with change guided by the outcome of corporate reflection. Where changes need to be made, innovation must occur but where the product fulfils market requirements, industries shouldn't try to fix what isn't broken.\nComment: Sonal Minocha and George Stonehouse's article about strategic learning in a Bollywood setting manages to be both scholarly and playful at the same time. It was a very interesting read although I am not certain that lessons from Bollywood can easily be transposed into other areas of management. The authors' conclusion seems to be that innovation is restricted by tradition, cultural patterns and a top-down patriarchal management style that inhibits creativity. While Bollywood is hugely successful within a narrow genre of film-making, most industries in the modern world thrive on creativity and strategic learning. It might be difficult to find another thriving industry requiring such strategic restructuring.One small point that niggled: the authors discuss what is needed, as they say, to \"churn out\" an innovative film. I would suggest that \"churning out\" films is what Bollywood does well as one film resembles another in terms of plot, musical content and characterization. A truly creative and innovative film is unique. Its production requires much experimentation and reflection. By its nature, an innovative film can't be \"churned out\".While reading the article I felt it very much had the flavor of a PhD project. In doing further research, I discovered that it was, in fact, part of the work done by Sonal Minocha for her professional Doctorate in Business Administration, awarded at the end of 2006 by Newcastle Business School. Congratulations Dr. Minocha!\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 Hindi film industry is known affectionately throughout the world as \"Bollywood\". All the glitter and glamour of Hollywood can be found in Mumbai (formerly Bombay which provided the \"B\" in \"Bollywood\") along with prolific production surpassing anything Hollywood can hope to attain. While at one time the market for Bollywood films was mainly the South Asian sub-continent, the last two decades have witnessed an explosive growth in audiences, linked to a rapid increase in sales to overseas markets. There are several factors which may account for this success including economic migration from South Asia to Europe and North America, an increasing interest in Indian culture on the part of Western audiences fueled in part by the success of Anglo-Indian films such as \"Bend it Like Beckham\" or \"East is East\" and the proliferation of satellite television. However, there is what could be perceived as a fly in the ointment of Bollywood's success. The genre of films produced by the major Mumbai studios is very limited, and as such can't hope to rival the more universal appeal of Hollywood films. While the Mumbai film industry demonstrates some aspects of growth and development, these tend to be in the realm of technical expertise. Creativity and experimentation in story line, subject matter or plot development are noticeable by their absence.\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" } ]
A critical review on value co-creation: towards a contingency framework and research agenda	[ "Literature review", "Value co-destruction", "Contingency view", "Uncertainties of value co-creation", "Zooming-in scales of observation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of value co-creation (VCC) is attracting much research attention (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Vargo and Lusch, 2008; Vargo and Lusch, 2017). It refers to a collaborative value-formation process in which service systems interact to create values both materially and symbolically (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Galvagno et al., 2014). It is argued that the value of services is not intrinsically embedded in the offerings per se; rather, it is always \"uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary\" (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Under such logic, service encounters are characterised as resource integration from two interacting service systems (e.g. firms and customers), which create joint values unique to the beneficiaries (Jain et al., 2017). Compared to traditional service exchanges, VCC represents a radical re-conceptualisation of the market, reflecting a vibrant communication eco-system where services are jointly designed and experienced by firms and customers (Zwick et al., 2008).\n2. Method: In this paper, existing publications are located and evaluated. Synthesised insights are presented, and a contingency framework is proposed (Tranfield et al., 2003; Denyer and Tranfield, 2009). As the topic of VCC has been approached from different research streams, appropriate databases have been selected to ensure a comprehensive coverage of business-related peer-reviewed journals (Mustak et al., 2013). In line with such considerations, Scopus of Elsevier and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of Thomson Reuters are identified. Both are employed as search databases to obtain reliable, robust and cross-checked data (Galvagno et al., 2014). Following the guidelines developed by Denyer and Tranfield (2009) and Rowley and Slack (2004), we use a three-phase methodology for data mapping, refinement and evaluation.\n3. Review findings: zooming into the uncertainties in VCC: The organisation of the review findings is inspired by Leroy et al. (2013), in which a zooming-in-zooming-out approach is recommended. Specifically, zooming out allows the revelation of essential patterns, and zooming in captures the finer details of a phenomenon (Rod et al., 2014). With reference to Figure 2, the five-level scale of observation (SoO) proposed by Desjeux (1996) is adopted, allowing for the following varied granularities in observation (Leroy et al., 2013):\n4. Discussion and a unified framework: This study reviews selected the VCC literature that critically addresses the contingency factors of the collaborative value-formation process at various levels of observation. From conceptual divergences to perceptual complexities, our review reveals a broad range of controversies related to VCC research. A unified framework is thus proposed pertaining to VCC research at macro-social level, actor-to-actor interaction level and individual consumer level (see Figure 3). The framework shows that the value-formation process is characterised by a vast heterogeneity inherent to everyday service practices, making any straightforward interpretations of VCC overly abstract and simplistic. Instead of presuming that co-creation leads to collaborative value formation, we argue that a much nuanced and complicated picture should be considered. This consists of a variety of contingency factors that impact the value-formation process.\n5. An interconnected interpretation (within the same level) and managerial implications: With various contingency factors forming a unified framework of VCC, we can further infer the complex relationships among them pertaining to each level of observation. Valuable managerial implications can be generated through an interconnected interpretation of the proposed framework. Accordingly, we propose three value formation mechanisms based on an interconnected interpretation of the contingency factors within the same level.\n6. A multi-level interpretation and proposed research agenda: The formation of collaborative values should never be restricted to any specific level of interaction. However, with a few exceptions (Leroy et al., 2013; Frow et al., 2016), studies addressing the multi-level interconnections of VCC uncertainties are extremely limited, which offers rich avenues for future research. We thus propose a research agenda aimed towards a multi-level interpretation of contingency factors in the value-formation process.\n7. Conclusion: In conclusion, this review emphasises that uncertainties and heterogeneities are the key determinants that characterise collaborative interactions. Whereas VCC and VCD represent two extremes (optimistic and pessimistic) of value formation, a variety of value possibilities exist along the spectrum. To this end, our review contributes to the literature by zooming in on the \"halo\" of VCC caused by an overly optimistic and abstract assumption of service interactions. In so doing, uncertainties underneath the seemingly harmonious VCC are revealed. More importantly, this review further synthesises the scattered critiques of VCC as detailed in the five propositions on a contingency framework of VCC, which invites future research efforts for empirical validation. Finally, an organic integration is suggested towards interconnected and multi-level interpretations of VCC. Six value formation mechanisms are highlighted for both managers and future researchers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although a dominant marketing concept, value co-creation (VCC) is not without controversy. Inspired by value co-destruction (VCD), the purpose of this paper is to review the scattered literature on the uncertainties in collaborative value formation, synthesising contingency factors of value outcomes in VCC.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on an examination of 84 peer-reviewed journal articles. Recognising the drawbacks of the macroscopic abstraction in existing the VCC literature, the authors adopt a zooming-in approach to identify distinct patterns of contingency factors in the collaborative value-formation process.\nFindings: From a macro-social perspective, VCC may connote a sense of exploitation of \"consumers\" and a need for consumer control of \"producers\", impeding harmonious value formation. Zooming into actor-to-actor interactions, the collaborative relationship is found to be a source of uncertainties in value formation, which is further complicated by differences in the knowledge intensities of services. Finally, reviewing the individual consumer reveals a most nuanced picture that demonstrates heterogeneities of consumers' VCC involvement and complexities in their perceptions and behaviours. Five propositions and a contingency framework are proposed.\nResearch limitations/implications: Six value formation mechanisms are proposed based on interconnected and multi-level perspectives, providing implications for managers and future researchers.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to rebalancing VCC research by synthesising insights on the potential contingencies, which are relatively under-explored yet vital to keep the controversy alive and relevant, and re-invigorating business processes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Pedometers and participatory school-based health education - an exploratory study	[ "Physical activity", "Health", "Adolescent", "Health education", "Child", "Health promoting schools", "Participatory methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Changes in socioeconomic conditions of modern life not only have improved living conditions on a global scale but also have generated a worldwide problem with overweight and physical inactivity, along with a subsequent rise in lifestyle-related illnesses. This rising trend among young people becoming overweight in Europe is well documented (World Health Organisation, 2009). Hence, interest is increasing in identifying approaches to discourage sedentary behaviour, as it is an important cause in the growing prevalence of obesity occurring among children (Rasmussen and Due, 2011). For young people, sedentary activities, such as watching television (TV) and sitting at computers, form a central and valued part of everyday life (Pearson and Biddle, 2011). According to the Danish Survey on Health Behaviour among School-Aged Children, one-third of the children aged 11-15 years old spend four hours a day watching TV, and among 13 year olds, 28 per cent of boys and 9 per cent of girls spend at least four hours a day playing computer games (Rasmussen and Due, 2011).\nMethodology: Background\nFindings: When using pedometers to enhance primary school children's insights into, and abilities to reflect on, physical activity as an everyday practice, two themes were identified as the most critical:\nDiscussion: The purpose of this paper was to explore how pedometers can be used as educational tools in participatory health education to enhance primary school pupils' insights into, and abilities to reflect on, physical activity as an everyday practice.\nStudy limitations: This paper is based on our findings concerning how pedometers work as educational tools in the school setting. Only 74 pupils and four schools participated. Initial findings indicate that pedometers can be strong tools to engage pupils in educative reflections on physical activity. However, the approach needs further testing. The educational processes in Imove were strongly supported by the research team. More work is needed to investigate whether reflective processes may be encouraged sans researcher participation. Accordingly, a follow-up study of Imove has been conducted. In this subsequent study, step counts are restricted to school time, and shared reflections have been promoted as part of descriptive statistics in math lessons. It has been undertaken by teachers in their teaching of mathematics.\nStudy strengths: In this paper, we have discussed how simple measuring technologies (e.g. pedometers) can support school health education, with a focus on encouraging participation and learning. The project's aim was to promote pupils' abilities to reflect on physical activity as something done throughout the span of an entire day. The health educational drivers of the project were based on participation, investigations, and reflections on individual health practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how pedometers (simple gadgets that count steps) can be used as tools in participatory health education to enhance primary school children's insights into, and abilities to reflect on, physical activity in their daily life. The paper focuses on how using pedometers fosters participation and enhances reflection concerning physical activity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws on findings from an exploratory project with sixth-grade classes (12-13 years) in four Danish primary schools. The approach is called Imove. In Imove, pupils use pedometers to study their own patterns of physical activity, transform their data into statistics, and use the statistical representation to reflect on how physical activity is integrated into everyday life patterns, and how different activities constitute an active life.\nFindings: The paper concludes that pedometers support pupils' participation in studying their own health practices, and the step data provide new insights into, and encourage pupils to reflect on, the way physical activity is formed into everyday patterns.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is an exploratory one with four participating school classes. The findings need to be further explored by employing similar methodology in studies with more participants. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that pedometers support pupils' genuine participation in health educational processes.\nPractical implications: The findings identify simple measuring technologies, such as pedometers, as potent assets in health education learning processes and call for creative thinking in developing health promotion programmes for young people.\nOriginality/value: Measuring technologies play an increasingly critical role in health research, as well as in individual health regulating practices. This paper contributes with a new perspective by demonstrating the educational possibilities of applying pedometers in participatory school health education.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Survey of BPR experiences in Iran: reasons for success and failure	[ "Business failures", "Business process re‐engineering", "Organizational effectiveness", "Iran" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The present is full of changes, transformation, and unrest, an era in which, all the riches suddenly come into being and are gone, because transformation has also been change, and there is no escalating these changes.Gary Hamel calls managers to shatter old business patterns and strategies for new ones. He believes what undergoes change, must not be viewed available. It should be free from the appeal of the old patterns, and be viewed differently to create such a pattern different from what has been so far, and traditional competitors into struggle (Dudash, n.d.; Hague et al., 2003). One of the most recognized strategies that put this thought closer to operation is business process re-engineering (BPR).Another point is that its implementation and settlement is more complex than the other management approaches. On one side, re-engineering involves high potentials of productivity increase by reducing process time and cost, quality improvement and customer satisfaction, and on the other hand, requires a basic and fundamental change in the organization. For this reason, about 70 percent of the re-engineering processes fail in practice (Kala Naft Co., n.d.). Considering this fact, re-engineering is considered as a high-risk process. The scope of process effectiveness has been shown in Figure 1 (Hie Kim and Gang, 2002; Iran Management and Productivity Study Center, 2002).Re-engineering organizations is a new phenomenon which at least will continue existing until the majority of organizations have changed from old task models of Adam Smith, and Fredrick Taylor into new models (Davenport and Short, 1990; Gulledge and Sommer, 2002). Organizations that have successfully accomplished their re-engineering plan, while achieving basic outputs in the short term, will enjoy such a flexibility that enables them to change continuously.In this paper, activities such as data collecting and recording, data analysis of acquired information from consultants, executives, employers was done. Finalization and conclusion for the purpose of publishing experimental knowledge and best practices (successful or unsuccessful) of business process re-engineering projects in the country has been performed.\n2. Reasons for success and failure of BPR projects: Applying BPR projects is very complicated and the survey of several factors of success /failure is needed to assure successful application, so that it avoids falling into executive pitfalls. For the success of a BPR project, several factors must be provided. One of the most basic factors is the compliance of the vision of the organization and removing doubts on BPR efforts (Weske et al., 2004). Top managers of organizations must be in charge of BPR execution, so that more effort is made for its success. Another important factor for the success of BPR is the depth of efforts in proportion to basic changes required by the organization. These efforts in terms of types of activities defined for the BPR projects are determined and executed (Pears and Robinson, 1997).In spite of this, some effective factors for the success of BPR projects can be summarized as follow (Iran Management and Productivity Study Center, 2001; Safari, 2001):* Close relationship between project activities and main business objectives, and the organization's strategy.* Locating BPR projects in the strategic direction of the organization.* Project management and right team work.* Setting goals for radical redesign to stimulate stereotype thoughts.* Pilot execution to test new designs and the effects of their execution.* Allocation of suitable and competent executives to the re-engineering teams.* Use of appropriate tools and procedures.* Ability for implementing the required information, information technology infrastructures, and their adaptation with process re-engineering.Also to achieve success in these projects, the following aspects have to be considered (Dorsa, 2001; Iran Management and Productivity Study Center, 1995a, 2002):* The rate of success for BPR projects depends on their size, and scope of coverage. Projects with wider scopes are rather large with prolonged duration, so they have less chance to succeed for executive problems.* The current advancements in IT infrastructures and e-commerce will result in more dynamism of BPR projects and promotion of their position.* Like organizational change, and implementation of IT projects, the success of BPR projects highly depends on organizational elements and setting grounds for accompanying those elements.Different aspects cause the success and failure of BPR projects. These projects may seem successful because of reaching operational process advantages (time and cost reduction, or quality promotion); however, because there is no possibility of transferring advantages and profitability to the bottom of the organization or not developing the total organization performance, it may seem unsuccessful:* One obstacle for successful execution of the project is the resistance of elements that executives believe to have the most profit.* Unsuitable change management.In this regard, Al-Mashari and Zaire (1999), have focused on factors which output in BPR efforts. They have categorized these factors in sub groups that show different dimensions relevant to application of BPR. These dimensions are:1. Change management and culture of change.2. Competencies and support of management.3. Organizational structure.4. Project management and planning.5. IT infrastructures.The effective factors of success or failure of BPR projects in organizations have been illustrated in Figure 2 (Bain & Company, 2005; Kala Naft Co., n.d.).\n3. Goals, method, hypotheses of research, data collection and statistical sample: 3. 1 Research goals\n4. Survey of the outputs: Study outputs on BPR projects in organizations have been presented in three sections: \"survey of questionnaires outputs\", \"effective factors in BPR projects\" and \"survey of BPR characteristics\". The survey of BPR characteristics, the projects have been surveyed in terms of completion of different stages, and rate of efficiency and effectiveness for these projects, and have been compared with each other in model (Figure 4).The effective factors in projects studied, which have been extracted from interviews and documents have been separately collected and presented for each organization, also the priority for each one has been determined (Table I). Finally, the impact of these factors on success or failure of the project has been presented in the form of a conceptual model (Figure 5).4.1 Survey of BPR based on questionnaires' results\n5. Managerial implications: Today, organization managers in Iran against with competition, customer and change forces and have a serious challenges from inside and outside of organization. In the inside of organization there are some factors such as resistance against change, no flexibility, did not access to absorb the new expertise information technology for organization and employee, and produce products and services with low quality and high cost are serious challenges for management of organizations.On the other hand exist of competitors and high knowledge customers based on using new information technology creates earnestly threats for managers from outside of organizations. The main challenge for management is to design the organization structure base on functionality and upon to Adam Smith concept. This concept tells that organizations should give services to knowledge customers with new rules (competitive and change). So the managers should forget the previous traditional patterns and have a different approach to new business processes.Therefore managers must have the process approach and design organizations with new approach. The processes must have value added for customers. By this way it is expected that these organizations can produce product and services with high quality, low cost, high speed and have sufficient flexibility.\n6. Conclusion: Our organizations at the moment are facing many problems. The main part of them is rooted in uncoordinated business affairs. Processes function like veins whose task is running affairs inside the body of the organization. However in the executive system, for not reviewing mode of doing the jobs, variety and complexity of organizations, these processes have severely become inefficient. For this reason, to direct at efficiency increase, customer-centricity, and global competition, as the first step, organizations need to reengineer their business processes.According to the results achieved from this survey, it is observed that not exactly identifying the problem by employers, consultants, and lack of experience of the consulting companies and their experts, not paying sufficient attention to the stakeholders in redesigned processes, not prioritizing redesigned processed, no competition in Iran's special condition, and lack of necessary training, all make serious obstacles for process based organizations.So it is suggested that, prior to executing BPR projects, it is necessary every organization have an exact plan for accepting change, initially for managers, and later for the staff, and then BPR projects be executed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims at studying the success and failure of BPR projects executed throughout Iran. For this purpose, effective indices and also factors of success and failure are to be investigated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on statistical analysis of efficiency indexes mean value and project effectiveness, as well as the test outputs for the projects' total success, it was proved that except for the two organizations, the rest lack necessary efficiency and except for two organizations, the others lack necessary effectiveness.\nFindings: - The total success test outputs has verified the results of the two above-mentioned tests, so by 95 percent of assurance, it has to be commented that BPR projects executed in Iran have failed to reach predefined acceptable success.\nPractical implications: - The lack of data from organizations is a big problem in BPR projects in Iran.\nOriginality/value: - The article recommends that every BPR project before execution needs deployment of success factors such as: preparation for change, planning, recognition and design, evaluation, culture and change, information technology, and outcome in governmental organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
SCM system effects on performance for interaction between suppliers and buyers	[ "Supply chain management", "Channel relationships", "Contingency planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Pressed by keen competition in international market in the wake of globalization, enterprises started to recognize the importance of supply chain management (SCM). Functional activities, such as procurement, production, transportation, marketing and services, already crossed functional or companies boundaries. As the interaction increases, the buyer-seller relationship changes accordingly (Rahman, 2004). It is becoming more and more important for enterprises to strengthen the coordination and functional activities between supply chain members (Ballou et al., 2000; Foggin and Mentzer, 2003). In the recent past, SCM technique has been proved crucial to improve the cooperation between suppliers and buyers, and an imperative factor for boosting a firm's competitiveness.The benefits for implementing SCM have been widely recognized. Firstly, it helps reduce the production, delivery and distribution costs, and inventory, secures manufacturing flexibility, and drives for higher productivity. SCM synchronizes manufacturing processes in a supply chain, suppliers are able to participate in the product R&D (Lamming, 1993; Mason-Jones and Towill, 1997; Dyer et al., 1998; Christopher and Juttner, 2000) and reduce the lead-times and cost in R&D. With the use of SCM, enterprises can streamline manufacturing processes across functional or organizational boundaries, and possess up-to-date production schedule of suppliers and avoid the bullwhip effect and finally promote the product and service quality (Yu et al., 2001).Nevertheless, streamlining heterogeneous supply chains is not an easy undertaking, since each company has individual work structure, organizational structure, work flow, information flow, or culture. This is even more so when supply chain suppliers are located globally and are managed in different ways. Nevertheless, the environmental uncertainty may offset enterprises profits, and cast doubts on the effectiveness of SCM in improving a firm's operational performance. Meanwhile, whether implementing SCM system has a direct influence on the interactive performance between enterprises is not addressed by the existing research in SCM implementations. Therefore, our research is focus on the effects of SCM system to the interactions and integration between supply chain members. We hope our research finding may help researchers and practitioners to gain insights of how and why SCM system in improving firms' performances.Our research goals include the study of the relationships of major constructs defined in our research model:* Study the internal and external situational variables and their relationships to the gap in interaction process.* Examine the relationship between gap in interaction process and integrated-interaction performance.* Study the effect of SCM implementation to the relationship between gap in the interaction process and the integrated-interaction performance.\n2 Literature review: In this paper, the research model was developed based on contingency theory and socio-technical theory. To better understand the interactive performance between supply chain members, we utilized a case study approach. In-depth interviews with six firms in the IT/electronic industry were conducted. Test results were compared and analyze to enhance the reliability and validity of our research model.2.1 Contingency theory\n3 Research model and propositions: 3.1 Research model\n4 Conclusion and discussions: This research supports most of our propositions derived from contingency theory and socio-technical theory. The test results are summarized as following.4.1 Trust and support between supply chain members have a positive impact on the performance of SCM system\n5 Implications for further analysis: This research has several constraints that limited the applicability of the case study results. These constraints are:5.1 Subjects interviewed\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of supply chain management (SCM) benefits on the interactive performance between supply chain members.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The contingency theory and socio-technical theory were applied in the construction of the research model. Four constructs were adopted for the development of the research model: contingency factors, interaction process, interactive performance, and SCM system benefits.\nFindings: - To respond to the challenges in global markets, an increasing number of enterprises strive for better profits by working closely with suppliers. As the interaction increases, the buyer-seller relationship changes accordingly.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Empirical studies require further analysis and suggestions were also made for further explication.\nPractical implications: - The interaction between the manufacturing and marketing departments is a determinant for the firm's competitive advantages.\nOriginality/value: - Interviews with six case firms in the information/electronic industry show that external and internal factors affect the interaction between supply chain members and result performance improvement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
LMX quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment: A multilevel analysis approach	[ "Malaysia", "Team working", "Employee behaviour", "Team leaders", "Communication" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Management and communication scholars have long support the importance of communication between superior and their subordinates (Dansereau and Markham, 1987; Jablin, 1979). Within an organization for example, supervisor plays monumental role as information provider to his or her subordinates at various levels (Andrews and Kacmar, 2001; Connaughton and Daly, 2004). Several studies also have examined the supervisory communication within the framework of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. These studies mainly focus on antecedences and longitudinal explorations of LMX-communication links (Fairhurst, 2001; Fairhurst and Chandler, 1989; Lee, 1997; Lee and Jablin, 1995). Evidently, however, little research has been pursued towards understanding the supervisory communication and dyadic relationship that influence individual workers behavior in work group. This is important despite the fact that communication is the fundamental component in social relationships (i.e. development, maintenance, and demise (Duck, 1994)). However, surprisingly communication remains as the background element in LMX and management literature, as opposed to being the primary process in the LMX development (Lee, 2005).\nReview of literature: LMX theory\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Latent composite structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the measurement model for confirmatory factor analysis. This approach is preferred over a principal component analysis because SEM approach allows for the estimation of measurement error (Hu and Bentler, 1999). The measurement model was tested with AMOS 5.0. Model fit was assessed with fit indices recommended by Hu and Bentler (1999). The measurement model was estimated, to which the scale indicators were loaded onto their respective variables; LMX quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment. The measurement model generated excellent fit, X2=120.74, p=0.088, CFI = 0.99, NFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.03 (CI: 0.00; 0.04). Based on our confirmatory factor analysis, we include only items which load are statistically significant (p<0.001, Table II) to test our hypotheses.WABA results\nDiscussion: In summary, the results of all correlations tested were consistent with the theoretical model of work unit context and LMX. As predicted, the correlation between LMX quality supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment exists at the group level. All the hypotheses are accepted and WABA I and WABA II tests indicated that correlation between LMX quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment are operating at the group level in Malaysian organization setting. Simultaneously, correlation between supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment too, commission at the group level. The WABA analyses performed in this study demonstrated the importance of level of analysis for theorizing and hypothesis testing in Malaysian organization setting. The WABA results clearly showed that all variables examined in this study had an interpretation of group effects.Based on this study, it clearly shows that all behaviors takes place between dyad do affect one or more larger systems in organizations. Our findings support the proposition by communication scholars that the dyadic activities within a group does affect the overall group behavior (Kacmar et al., 2003; Kramer, 2004; Lee, 2005). Our finding shows that it seems relevant for managers to encourage his/her subordinates' commitment to the team, as commitment to team is related to higher level of superior-subordinate relationships quality and communication. As the WABA results show this kind of relationship occurring between groups, the emphasis should be placed on group process activities among work group members. Thus, within the group behavior (dyad) seems to have the whole group effects (Dansereau et al., 1995a, b; Yammarino et al., 2001; Yammarino and Jung, 1998).A study by Liden et al. (2000) based on US organization setting showed that, the LMX quality and work outcomes relationships are interpreted at the individual level of analysis. In another study in US organization by Cogliser and Schriesheim (2000), it showed that the LMX quality, group cohesiveness and organizational climate exist at both individual and group level of analysis. Similarly, study by Herold et al. (2008) showed that the link between transformational leadership and organizational commitment displayed at both individual and group level. Within the European organizations, comparable evident were found with US organizations, for example, study by Vandenberghe et al. (2007) in Belgium fast-food firm found the link between perceived supervisor support and commitment exists both at individual and group level of analysis, while study by van Yperen et al. (1999) on superior-subordinate relationships in The Netherlands medium-sized organization found that perceived supervisor support and organizational citizenship behavior related both at individual and department level.Within the Asian context, a study by Hui et al. (2007) based on Chinese organizations shows that supervisor's behavior and employee services quality only operates at the individual level. Similarly, another study by Liao and Chung (2007) in Taiwan organization found that transformational leadership was positively related to employee service performance at individual analysis. The current investigation however, suggests that the LMX quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment in a Malaysia organization exist at the group level. Unfortunately, the limitation of the current study is that it is one organization and taking into account the sensitivity of WABA to team size, making inferences about the directionality of that relationship must be made with caution: of whether high LMX and supervisory communication quality do encourage commitment among individual in the team as a whole. However, based on the findings in this study on a Malaysian organization setting, we may conclude that the correlations between LMX quality (perceived contribution, affect, loyalty and professional respect), supervisory communication (positive relationship communication, upward openness and job relevant communication) and team-oriented commitment were at the group level (interpreted as each group-differences effect).Our findings have implications for practices. Results of this study clearly demonstrated that supervisor-subordinate relationships quality and supervisory communication are important processes in influencing individual commitment in work group. Given the interdependent nature of relationships and communication, this process is best connected if individual workers in work group are encouraged to communicate their needs to supervisors. As such, the worker's ability to communicate about relationships (positive relationships communication) and work (upward openness and job relevant communication) implicate both personal fit and work group functioning. In communicating such desires, the supervisor needs to manage relationships and job-related communication with their immediate subordinate in work group especially for the benefit of the whole work group. The responsibility lies on supervisor to facilitate openness in communication, emphasize the importance of individual dyad relationships quality and work group goals, and discourage the types of communication (negative relationships communication) that leads to lower commitment to work group especially in a collective organization such as in Malaysia.\nLimitation and future directions: Perhaps, the main weakness of the study is the focus of commitment. Current investigations limit to team-oriented commitment. Thus, we do not know the direction of level of analysis for LMX quality and supervisory communication with organizational commitment or commitment to their respective superior in Malaysia organization setting. It would be desirable for future studies to combine commitment to organization and superior. Secondly, the current investigation limited to only Malaysian participants. As mentioned earlier, current description on Malaysian participants justify the hypotheses advanced in this study where the LMX-quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment exist at the group level of analysis. Therefore, a comparison study between high- and low-context culture should be considered.Finally, the results extend our understanding of LMX quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment by identifying the specific form levels of analysis. Researchers have already documented the direct effects of LMX quality and supervisory communication on work outcome (Mueller and Lee, 2002), yet in order to continue providing knowledge useful for managers, researchers must continue their efforts to identify specific form levels of analysis on LMX quality and communication behaviors within superior-subordinate relationship on work outcome. Of course, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution given the inherent limitations of the research design. Recent research views relationship development and communication activities within a dyadic relationship as interdependent complex process that is grounded within a group (Liden et al., 2000), and thus, a key limitation on this report is the cross-sectional nature of the data. Clearly, longitudinal research that tracks relationships development and communication activities within and between dyad is needed. Likewise, the use of self-report methods and the homogenous sample (e.g. Malaysian and government link corporation) warrant caution. The dyad represented in this report may under-represent the actual dyad population at large. In addition, statements of correlations based on the results of statistical techniques are useful for making inferences, but must be treated with caution given the sensitivity of WABA to group size.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Researches have documented the impact of dyadic communication and relationships on individual behavior in workgroups. However, communication remains as the background element in leadership and management literature as opposed to being the primary process in the leader-member relationships development. The purpose of this paper is to establish and interpret the appropriate level of analysis based on the correlation between leader-member exchange (LMX) quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment in a Malaysian organization setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey from a Malaysian organization (n=201) is analyzed on the relationships between LMX quality, supervisory communication and commitment using within and between analysis (WABA).\nFindings: - The individual dyad relationships and communication correlates with team-oriented commitment at the group level. Therefore, LMX quality and supervisory communication influence overall team-oriented commitment in a work group.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Given that the analyses are based on self-report in one organization, these results have to be handled carefully.\nPractical implications: - The results implied that the relationship between dyadic relationships quality, supervisory communication and team-orientated commitment is best connected if individual workers in work group are encouraged to communicate their needs to supervisors. As such, the worker's ability to communicate mutually about relationships (LMX quality and positive relationships communication) and work (upward openness and job relevant communication) with their immediate supervisor implicates both personal fit and work group functioning.\nOriginality/value: - The results extend the authors' understanding of LMX quality, supervisory communication and team-oriented commitment by identifying the specific form levels of analysis in a Malaysian organization setting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Towards a dynamic reinterpretation of C(S)R: are corporate responsibility and innovation compatible or contradictory?	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Innovation", "European Union" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The European Union, along with numerous other countries, has flagged high ambitions in innovation in order to maintain its competitive position in a globalizing world economy. The Lisbon strategy, launched in March 2000, aims \"to make the European Union the world's most competitive and dynamic economy by 2010\" (European Council, 2000)[1].This ambitious innovation policy initiative coincides with a strong orientation towards C(S)R[2]. In July 2001, the commission presented the green paper \"Promoting a European framework for corporate social responsibility\"[3]. In a communication that followed in 2002[4], the commission claimed that \"CSR can make a contribution to achieving the strategic goal of becoming, by 2010, the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world ... \", as well as to the European strategy for sustainable development. In other words, there is an implicit and to some extent also an explicit underlying premise that CR and the Lisbon innovation and growth agenda are, in general, mutually supportive.This paper questions the underlying assumption above as a general premise and explores in further detail the complexities of the interplay between innovation and C(S)R. Both innovation and CR are complex, multidimensional phenomena.The paper shows that while the assumption of compatibility and synergy may be reasonable for some types of innovation and some types of CR, it can hardly be argued on a general basis. We argue that some perspectives in the classical literature on entrepreneurship, for instance those associated with the term \"creative destruction\" (Schumpeter, 1943), hardly reflect the types of social concerns that are traditionally associated with CR, but rather support a contrarian contradiction hypothesis.In order to accommodate a closer fit, including the more disruptive perspective on innovation, the paper argues for a dynamic reinterpretation of CR. The paper shows that although CR is traditionally given a fairly static interpretation, much of the CR literature can also be read in a dynamic version, which can also be better aligned with the \"disruptive\" innovation literature. Arguments are put forward for a comparison between static and dynamic CR implications that provides an intake to a transition analysis that may provide important insights into the socio-economic realignment necessary to accommodate new technology and business models.The paper argues that the dualism of the relationship between the CR literature and different strands of the innovation literature indicates that there is a downside to pushing a static oriented CR too far. The paper first provides a brief overview of core parts of the C(S)R and the innovation literature and then analyses how these two literatures support either the mutually supportive or the contrarian contradiction hypotheses. In the final section, the paper raises normative and theoretical issues with respect to innovation and CR.\nDualism within the two literatures: A more nuanced or fine-tuned analysis of the compatibility between CR and innovation naturally starts with an examination of the conceptual variety within each of the two traditions. Broadly speaking, both the CR and the innovation literature are divided with respect to how the two agendas fit together. To some extent this also reflects an internal dualism within each of the two literatures.The innovation literature would appear to include theoretical arguments that allow both complementary/synergetic and contrarian/antithetic positions to CR. On the one hand, a basis for complementary, synergetic relations between innovation and CR can be constructed drawing on a broad strand of innovation theory that emphasizes the social and institutional embeddedness of the innovative process. On the other hand, a basis for contrarian antithetic relations between innovation and CR can be constructed, drawing on natural selection models of innovation and on models of \"break out\" entrepreneurship or of \"creative destruction\" and of \"disruptive technologies\".Similarly, there is also dualism in the CR literature with respect to how well CR corresponds with innovation. On the one hand CR, with its focus on industrial self-regulation, provides flexibility and sensitivity to industrial needs and thereby, in principle, represents a regulatory approach that supports innovation better than stiffer traditional government regulation. On the other hand, certain interpretations of CR pose demands on social responsibility vis-a-vis existing stakeholders that may limit the firm's capability to undertake major structural transformation. Such transformation may be a necessary condition for implementing new \"disruptive\" technologies or business models.In the following sections we shall explore core positions in the innovation and CR literatures and discuss how they relate to each other.\nInnovation theories that allow complementarity and synergy with CR: A basis for complementarity and synergy between innovation theory and CR can be found within several strands of the innovation literature, including the systems of innovation literature, both in its national, regional and sectoral extensions, as well as the socio-technical and the comparative political economy literature.A characteristic feature of the systems of innovation literature is its broad focus on the social organization of the innovation process whereby it implicitly also corresponds with the CR agenda. Within the broader systems of innovation literature, the focus varies from national to regional, sectoral and technological systems.National systems of innovation and the political economy approach\nInnovation theories that serve a contrarian position to CR: While parts of the innovation literature lend themselves to CR, other parts appear more likely to provide a basis for contrarian, antithetic positions to CR. This includes several literatures, such as the Schumpetarian analysis of \"creative destruction\", the literature on disruptive technologies and the comparative political economy literature, as well as the general variation, selection-retention model, with its strong analogies to functional biology.Innovation and technological competition as creative destruction[5]\nPerspectives on corporate responsibility and their implications for innovation: We have previously documented that the innovation literature contains perspectives that are supportive of or compatible with CR, but also perspectives that at first sight seem incompatible with CR. This section investigates the CR literature in greater detail and shows how it contains considerable variation with respect to transformation and stability. In addition, we will illustrate how a \"creative\" reading allows several positions to be interpreted in both a static and a dynamic perspective, thus opening up the possibility of different alignments not only with the social systems oriented innovation, but also with radical innovation.Freeman's stakeholder approach\nConclusions: The previous analysis documents the difficulties of assuming that innovation policy and CR policy can easily be mutually supportive. We have shown that both innovation and CR are complex, multidimensional phenomena/concepts/fields and while the assumption of compatibility and synergy may be reasonable for some types of innovation, and some types of CR, it can hardly be argued on a general basis.We have also demonstrated that both the CR and the innovation literature are split with respect to how the two agendas fit together. To some extent this also reflects an internal dualism within each of the two literatures.A core finding in our analysis is the need to differentiate between complementary static and dynamic views. While much of the innovation literature is dynamic in its nature, much of the CR literature has traditionally been given a static interpretation. Corporate responsibility is primarily addressed at present stakeholders, focused on present reputation issues and present cluster enhancing effects. Our analysis highlights the need to include a dynamic reflection in the CR analysis.The dualism of the relationship between the CR literature and different strands of the innovation literature indicates that there is a downside to pushing CR too far, at least in a static interpretation. Radical innovation may need degrees of freedom for entrepreneurial experimentation that transcend existing stakeholder interests, marketing and communication strategies. In such cases, excessively strong CR commitments to existing order would undermine the creation of new variation from which selection and retention processes would reconstruct subsequent value creating business models.Arguably, the systems of innovation literature has documented the importance of incremental innovation, learning by doing, by using and by interacting in the process of technical change and diffusion of innovations (Freeman, 1994). However, incremental innovation alone is hardly sufficient to unleash the potential of an innovation economy. Crevoisier (1994) thus argues that the exclusive reliance on incremental innovations \"would mean that these areas will very quickly exhaust the technical paradigm on which they are founded\". Long-term value creation and social and ecological welfare is dependent on allowing a certain degree of disruptive creativity. If this is suppressed, there will be welfare loss and ecological loss. We are therefore forced, in our opinion, to recognize the need for more radical and disruptive innovation that, in turn, forces us to consider a more dynamic CR agenda.As we have shown, however, much of the CR literature can also be read in a dynamic version, which can be better aligned with the \"disruptive\" innovation literature. If we recognize, with Schumpeter, that most of welfare creation comes from dynamic innovation and not from static optimization of the economy, a one sided static orientation of CR could represent an unproductive technological and social lock-in.In our opinion, the CR literature needs to formulate both the static and dynamic perspectives in order to be relevant in a modern innovation economy. However, even the radical innovation literature may benefit from relating to CR. Comparing static and dynamic CR implications gives an intake to a transition analysis that may provide important insights into the socio-economic realignment necessary to accommodate new technology and business models.In a dynamic perspective, the CR literature could link up to the transition management literature in regulation theory (Kemp and Rotmans, 2001), that emphasizes the need for institutional and regulatory reform to go hand in hand with technological and business transformation, in a mode of co-evolution. Major structural transformation may be a necessary condition for implementing new \"disruptive\" technologies or business models, and focused dynamic socio-economic analysis may facilitate responsible/humane and hopefully also productive ways of achieving this transformation.Finally, a dynamic analysis also highlights the need to address both corporate and public responsibility in tandem (Midttun, 2005). As radical innovation also potentially implies structural transformation and business failure, social responsibility must be taken beyond the boundaries of the firm. A broader perspective needs to be developed, allowing for the interplay of innovative public regulation with CR in a dynamic mode.In the context of radical innovation, a case could therefore be made for lifting social responsibility to a higher regional or national level, beyond the boundaries of the firm. While firms in many cases may (evt. are free to) grow and perish in the complex challenges of the innovation economy, human beings and our natural environment must survive. In such a context, responsibility at the corporate level is limited and clearly needs to be supplemented by responsibility at a higher societal level.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to explore the interplay between corporate social responsibility and innovation and questions the premise, often underlying EU communications, that the two agendas are in general mutually supportive. In order to accommodate a closer fit the paper argues for a dynamic reinterpretation of CSR.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is a conceptual paper that presents discussions and conclusions at the theoretical level. It provides a brief overview of core parts of the CSR and the innovation literature and then analyses how the perspectives on the firm in these two literatures fit together. The final section raises normative and theoretical issues with respect to innovation and CSR.\nFindings: - The paper documents the difficulties of assuming that innovation policy and CR policy can easily be mutually supportive. While the assumption of compatibility and synergy may be reasonable for some types of innovation, and some types of CR, it can hardly be argued on a general basis. A core finding is the need to differentiate between complementary static and dynamic views. While much of the innovation literature is dynamic in its nature, much of the CR literature has traditionally been given a static interpretation.\nOriginality/value: - The original value of the paper is that it highlights inconsistencies in the dominant static interpretation of CSR with important sides of the innovation economy. It also shows the way towards a more dynamic interpretation, but then also recognizing some of the important limits of CSR, even in a dynamic mode, calling for engagement from the state in certain types of industrial restructuration.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How social accounts and participation during change affect organizational learning	[ "Organizational change", "Social accounting", "Learning", "Change management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Agreement is broadening on the importance of generating organizational capabilities through the gradual building of firm-specific knowledge (Crossan and Berdrow, 2003; Henderson and Cool, 2003). This insight has led to an increased focus on organizational learning, which is seen as a collection of processes central to development of capabilities on which competitive advantage is built (Helleloid and Simonin, 1994; Liedtka, 1999; Kotabe et al., 2003). Learning is also an important vehicle for the ongoing adaptation of organizations to changing environmental requirements resulting in the maintenance rather than improvement of competitive position. Freeman and Perez (1988) see learning as firms' and other institutions' response to the need for adjustment in times of great uncertainty. Both outcomes of learning call for the creation of infrastructures where learning can be fostered and managed effectively. For example, Senge's (1990) construction of a learning organization concept is based on a set of assumptions regarding how organizational structures, processes and policies affect learning and how they can be actively managed in order to promote organizational learning. Much of the learning that takes place within an organization can, however, essentially be seen as by-products of the performance of tasks that are carried out for other purposes than generating new insights and new routines. As noted by Duncan and Weiss (1979), organizational structures and processes are seldom designed for improving learning, but for accomplishing core tasks effectively and efficiently. In this vein, literature on communities of practice is more concerned with learning as an outcome of ordinary work performed within an organizational context that may or may not facilitate learning rather than on how to develop optimal learning environments (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Raelin, 1997).If learning is important to organizational performance, but is the outcome of processes that have been developed for and are performed within structures designed for other purposes, the relationships between such structures and processes and learning becomes an interesting area for research.In this paper, a contribution to this area is made by focusing on how processes aiming at implementation of strategic change affect learning. More specifically, the aim is to advance the learning literature by exploring the relationships between organizational learning and the use of social accounting and employee participation during implementation of strategic change. Social accounts and participation are related, but still distinct aspects of a strategy implementation process. They are related, because both have been proposed as important determinants of reactions to change. Cobb and Wooten (1998) suggested that the process of giving accounts for important decisions that were considered as \"adequate\" by those affected would result in high perceptions of procedural justice. The use of participatory decision processes has also been argued to influence how those affected react to change. Participation has been hypothesized to increase commitment to the products of participatory processes, such as decisions made, and thus to exert a motivational effect on participants (Wagner III et al., 1997). Employees react positively to participation for many of the same reasons why they value social accounts. Social accounts and participation are conceptually related because both capture crucial aspects of information transmission and exchange between organizational members involved in and affected by change. The pick up and processing of information are key drivers of organizational learning (Huber, 1991).The context of strategic change was chosen because several authors have pointed to the close links between strategy and learning (DeGeus, 1988; Senge, 1990; Hendry, 1996). In fact, some organizational learning seems to be an inevitable outcome of strategic change. The core assumption in this paper is that more or less learning is likely to occur depending on how the implementation process is structured. The rationale behind this assumption is presented in the next section.\nTheoretical framework and hypotheses: The model to be examined in this paper is shown in Figure 1. It is argued that the level of organizational learning in the context of strategic change is positively influenced by the use of both participative rather than autocratic work styles and social accounting for communicating the rationale underlying the proposed change. Participation refers to a style of working whereby organizational members from different functions and hierarchical levels work together in order to develop and implement a solution to an organizational problem. Social accounting is the activities performed by those in charge of planning and implementing change to communicate the reasons for the change to those affected by the change. Thus, both approaches to change involve communication between change agents and change recipients, and this communication is seen as a driver of organizational learning. Communication between the two parties is assumed to affect both generative and distributive learning. Generative learning is the creation of knowledge that is new to the organization. Distributive learning is the process of knowledge sharing whereby some organizational units transfer knowledge that is new to other organizational units.However, the use of social accounting is seen as an inferior substitute for participation. Participation allows for interaction among organizational members, and this interaction is likely to affect learning in several ways. The use of participation creates arenas that facilitate dialogue among individuals and groups with different goals and experiential backgrounds (Chattopadhyay et al., 1999). By bringing together persons with diverse backgrounds to work on a common problem, both generative and distributive learning are favoured (Argote, 1999). The use of social accounts is seen as a way to fill communication needs of the organization that arise when change is developed in an autocratic manner. Autocratic processes leave change recipients with uncertainty concerning the rationale behind the change, why one particular change is favoured and with regard to the personal consequences of the change. Social accounts can alleviate some of these uncertainties (Cobb and Wooten, 1998), but they are less likely to arise when participation is used throughout the change process. Thus, the effect of social accounting on learning is believed to be negatively moderated by the use of participation. Also, the effect of social accounting is assumed to depend on how the account is framed. Negatively framed accounts are perceived as threats leading to individual and group level cognitive rigidity and are believed to reduce learning. Only positively framed accounts increase the level of organizational learning. In the following sections of the paper, the relationships specified in this model are elaborated.Organizational learning\nMethodology: Respondents and procedure\nResults: In addition to providing basic descriptive information about the analysis sample, Table II presents zero-order correlations among the analysis variables. High and positively significant correlations between participation and learning as between SAOpportunity provides some preliminary support for H1 and H2.A high intercorrelation between SAOpportunity and SAThreat observed (r=0.39), is a result that was not expected from the review of the previously cited literature on message framing. From this literature it was expected that messages usually are framed either as opportunities or as threats to the organization. The intecorrelation between the two construct indicates that change agents use more diverse arguments in their social accounts during change.A more formal test of the hypotheses was made by using hierarchical regression involving three models (Model 1-3). The first of these models regressed independent variables hypothesized to have a main effect on organizational learning. In the second model, the block of control variables were entered. In the third model, independent, control and interaction variables were all entered.According to H1, participation was expected to have a positive influence on organizational learning during strategic change. Findings are consistent with this hypothesis as the participation variable is positively and significantly related to the organizational learning variable. The results also exhibit stability across the three models. H2 stated that the use of social accounting would have a positive impact on learning. Also this hypothesis was supported by the data. In H3, we argued that framing the social account as a threat to individuals, groups, or the organization, would eliminate the relationship between social accounting and learning. The zero beta-coefficient found between SAThreat and learning is consistent with this theorizing. Finally, we proposed that when participation is used for implementing change, the effect of social accounting on learning would disappear. The negative beta for the interaction term found in Model 3 is also consistent with this hypothesis.\nDiscussion: In general, the theoretical framework we proposed for studying the interrelationships between social accounting, participation and organizational learning has received considerable support.A strong relationship between participation and organizational learning was found. This finding stands in some contrast to previous research on the putative effects of participative practices in organizations. As shown in several reviews and meta-analyses, researchers have had a difficult time substantiating the theoretical claims concerning benefits of participation with unequivocal empirical results. The finding that participation has a positive impact on learning, here defined as the development and dissemination of work-based knowledge that is perceived as useful for solving organizational problems, might provide a bridge between participation and performance. Learning thus defined concerns knowledge that is developed and distributed during the execution of organizational work processes. However, there is no necessity that the ensuing knowledge has led to manifest changes in behaviour at the time of measurement. As several authors have stated, there might be considerable time lags between the development and use of organizational knowledge. Knowledge can remain latent and not used for several years until a problem occurs that calls for application of knowledge from a particular domain. In our case it is likely that learning about how to manage complex change processes better will not have an impact on organizational performance until a new situation calling for strategic reorientation occurs. Cohen et al. (1973) in their garbage can model of organizational decision making illustrate this point by portraying decision making as a process by which solutions seek problems, and solutions are only applied when a problem occurs that matches the pre-existing solution (knowledge). In many studies, organizational performance has been tapped shortly after the completion of a participative process. If the participation-performance link is mediated by organizational learning in the way we propose, the effects on performance might manifest at a later point in time.Notable is also the differential effects of social accounts framed as threats and otherwise. The finding is consistent with theorizing about threat-rigidity effects in organizations (Staw et al., 1981; Dutton, 1993), but to a much lesser degree with work that assumes that perceptions of crises are useful for changing organizations. In fact, these findings seem to contradict theoretical points of view expressed in the literature that failure produces more search for new solutions than success (Cyert and March, 1963; Levinthal and March, 1993) and that organizations should explicitly design processes producing failure in order to increase the rate of learning (Sitkin, 1996).However, it is still possible that framing accounts as threat can have a positive impact on other change-relevant outcomes such as lowering resistance to change, shortening the time needed for completing the change process, and achievement of short- to medium-term change goal achievement.In sum, the results are reassuring for those who believe strongly in the positive effects of social accounting and participation for instrumental or ideological reasons. An important implication of our findings is that these widely advocated approaches to change have a positive, rather than negative influence on organizational learning. This is of significance as organizations become more and more concerned with how to develop processes and structures that facilitate learning.Limitations and directions for further research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine how the way change implemented effects organizational learning. More specifically, we study the relationships between the use of social accounts, participation and organizational learning in the context of strategic change. The use of social accounts and participation are often promoted during change, but up to this point, their influences on organizational learning have not been studied.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A multi-change and multi-organization study, using a critical incident technique (i.e. informants provide information from a specific change experience), provides the data for testing a set of theory driven hypotheses that link aspects of the change process to learning outcomes.\nFindings: - Findings show that social accounting and participation are positively associated with organizational learning, but that the influence of social accounting is negatively moderated by participation. Social accounts framed as threats to system survival were unrelated to organizational learning.\nPractical implications: - In order to maximize learning during change organizations should attempt to involve members with different values and expertise throughout the process. The use of formalized communication programs would add little to organizational learning if participative change processes are applied. Although threat appeals could be useful for creating readiness for change, their impact on organizational learning seem to be marginal.\nOriginality/value: - For knowledge intensive and learning dependent organizations, the study provides some guidance to change management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Perceived organizational support and organizational commitment among special education teachers in Pakistan	[ "Job satisfaction", "Organizational commitment", "Perceived organizational support" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Educational and rehabilitation facilities for children with special needs are not satisfactory in the developing countries including Pakistan (Ahmad and Yousuf, 2011). Commitment of special education teachers within their organization is the biggest challenge. Students with special needs are increasing, whereas the number of qualified special educators is at seriously low levels. In such situations, developing a skilled work force and building healthy work environments that maintain the special educator's involvement are crucial (Nance and Calabrese, 2009).\nMethodology: Participants\nResults: The authors have analyzed the data thoroughly; in spite of the small sample size, findings are consistent with the previous studies of the same field.\nDiscussion: The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between POS, organizational commitment and job satisfaction among special education teachers in Pakistan. Results showed that POS is positively associated with affective and normative organizational commitment. A number of published studies found that when an organization cares for its employees, they feel emotionally interconnected and attached to their organization. Organizational support satisfies their emotional, social and personal needs, which improves the relationship between the organization and its employees (Wann-Yih and Htaik, 2011; Bilgin and Demirer, 2012).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS), organizational commitment and job satisfaction among special education teachers in Pakistan. The data were collected from 85 special education teachers from different special education centers in Punjab, Pakistan. POS was measured using a survey of POS developed by Eisenberger et al. (1986). Affective continuance and normative commitment are measured by affective continuance and normative commitment scales developed by Meyer and Allen's (1984) and Allen and Meyer (1990), respectively. Results of the current study show that POS and job satisfaction are positively correlated with affective and normative commitment. POS and job satisfaction are not associated with continuance organizational commitment. This suggests that a teacher's commitment can be improved by increasing organizational support, underprivileged working environment and job satisfaction. Limitations and implication of the study are discussed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In the current study, cross-sectional research design and non-probability purposive sampling technique were used. A sample of 85 special education teachers was collected from different special education institutes of Punjab and federal, Pakistan. Inclusion criteria were teacher with specialization in all disabilities (mentally challenged, deaf, blind, physical handicapped and slow learners), informed consent and age range 20-55 years, at least 6-month teaching experience in special education. Exclusion criteria were teaching experience less than 6 months and age less than 20 or more than 55 years. The demographic characteristics of teachers are presented in Table II.\nFindings: Findings of the present study suggest a positive association between POS, affective commitment, normative commitment and job satisfaction, whereas there is no association between POS and continuance commitment as well as between job satisfaction and continuance commitment among special education teachers in Pakistan. Organization should consider the exclusive support of the special education teachers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The current study also has some limitation. The sample size is very small. In the current study, data are collected from 85 special education teachers from federal and few cities of Punjab, Pakistan. Hence, data are not true representative. Data for current study are collected through self-reported scales and only collected from academic staff.\nPractical implications: In the current study, special education teachers have identified factors that promote organizational support, commitment and job satisfaction, such as reasonable workloads, sound working environment, unbiased and fair working conditions, and administrative support. It has been found that decreased level of POS, commitment and job satisfaction damage the organization, special educators and special students. Therefore, special education department should develop and implement policies that strengthen these dimensions. A broad recommendation can be made on the basis of these findings: affective and normative commitment increases when individuals have satisfying experience with organization. Thus, this may be improved by providing special educators with the opportunity to work in a better work environment, with proper work load, as it would increase emotional and normative attachment of the individuals with their institutes. The current study would be helpful for policy makers in the field of education and administration in order to work on these dimensions to increase the teacher's job satisfaction and organizational commitment. It would also create awareness among the general public about the potential problems of special education teachers in Pakistan affecting the quality of life of children with special needs. Results suggest that by providing organizational support, appropriate work load and unbiased attitude, a teacher's commitment can be improved.\nSocial implications: The current research helps academics and administration to improve social functioning of special education teachers by improving their job satisfaction and organizational support.\nOriginality/value: The prevalence rate of children with disabilities is increasing rapidly in Pakistan. Since stigma is associated with individuals with disabilities, parents hide disabilities of their children so that other relatives may not face any problems, such as being doubted of carrying defective genes. Families have to cope with financial crises due to lack of institutional support, extra expense to deal with disabled person and loss of work. In such circumstances, special education institutions are only hopes for such people to assist them in dealing with their disabled children. However, the strength of teachers in these institutions is not enough to fulfill needs of such children. A number of researches have examined the role of organizational support, job satisfaction and organizational commitment of teachers in western countries (Makanjee et al., 2006; Alijanpou et al., 2013; Batool and Ullah, 2013). However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has yet investigated this serious issue in Pakistan. This study provides valuable information on organizational support, commitment and job satisfaction among special educators, and recommendation on how organizational commitment can be improved.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Review of the development of seafarers in Hong Kong	[ "Hong Kong ship", "Registered seafarers", "Seafaring profession", "Seafaring training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to the excellent geographical location and the deep sea, the port of Hong Kong has attracted international trade since the nineteenth century. In the twenty-first century, Hong Kong was once the largest container port in the world. International shipping has created jobs for 85,000 people. Every day, there are more than 1,600 ship movements in the Hong Kong harbour. There are more than 17,000 local crafts, such as ferries, yachts and launches in the Hong Kong waters. There are more than 100 high-speed ferries travelling from Hong Kong to/from Macau and China (HK Maritime Museum, 2015). With this background, there had been a lot of people being employed as seafarers in Hong Kong in the ocean-going, river trade or local vessel sectors. However, the number of seafarers has dropped over the years. Moreover, not many young people are interested in joining the seafaring profession.\nThree stages of development: Peak stage from 1960 to 1982\nThe present situation of Hong Kong seafarers: Lack of supply of Hong Kong seafarers\nConclusion and recommendations: Based on the throughput in 2014, the largest container port worldwide is Shanghai and is followed by Singapore, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Hong Kong is still a busy and important maritime port with a throughput of 22.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) (Statista.com).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the development of registered seafarers working onboard Hong Kong ships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data obtained from the Marine Department showing the number of registered seafarers from 1960 to 2015.\nFindings: The registered seafarers can be observed in three different stages, namely, the peak stage from 1960 to 1982, the declining stage from 1983 to 1996 and the reforming stage from 1997 to 2015.\nOriginality/value: Very few papers can be found in Hong Kong to review the development of registered seafarers from 1960 to 2015.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding internationalisation approaches and mechanisms of diaspora entrepreneurs in emerging economies as a learning process	[ "Entrepreneurs", "Developing countries", "SMEs", "Internationalization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Diaspora entrepreneurship is an emerging field of study (Jones et al., 2011; Newland and Tanaka, 2010). Diaspora entrepreneurs are migrants and their descendants who are engaged in entrepreneurial activities that span the national business environments of their countries of origin (COO) and countries of residence (COR) (Riddle et al., 2010). Diaspora entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to recognise opportunities in their COO, to exploit such opportunities as \"first movers\" and contribute to job creation and economic growth (Newland and Tanaka, 2010). This is echoed by Dana and Morris (2007) who argue that circular migration and transnational knowledge and social networks that it fosters create very specific opportunities for diaspora entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs often leverage unique cultural resources or market knowledge in their new ventures (Portes et al., 2002; Liu and Almor, 2016).\nThe theoretical framework: Bricolage theory of entrepreneurship\nResearch methodology: A qualitative research was chosen due to the nature of the research question which is to understand how diaspora entrepreneurs mobilise diverse entrepreneurial resources to foster internationalisation approaches in emerging economies. The qualitative method involved semi-structured interviews conducted longitudinally which involved visiting the companies twice over a period of one year (Buckley and Chapman, 1997; Andersson, 2002). The advantages of a qualitative research include the ability to learn directly from research subjects, thereby reducing measurement errors common in survey studies which often need to make assumptions (Dana and Dana, 2005; Ekanem and Uwajeh, 2017). Dana and Dana (2005) also posit that a qualitative research enables a detailed study of the environment, culture and the context of entrepreneurial behaviour.\nData analysis: The data analysis was inductive which involved recording, tabulating and coding the data and comparing the emerging codes and categories until it became meaningful and sensible. The categories emerged from the emphasis placed on each topic by the respondents as far as their learning and perceptions of internationalisation mechanisms were concerned. In the analysis, content analysis, pattern-matching and explanation-building techniques were used (Yin, 2014).\nFindings: The main characteristics of the business owners are summarised in Table I including age, gender, education, migration history (length of residence in the UK) and the frequency of visits to COO. The study consisted principally of ten case study firms as illustrated in the profiles in Table II, showing the size, number of employees, the year founded, turnover and sector. The oldest firm is a petrol chemical company founded in 2004 and the youngest is an information technology firm founded in 2013.\nDiscussion: The aim of this study was to investigate how diaspora entrepreneurs mobilise diverse entrepreneurial resources to foster internationalisation approaches in emerging economies and the advantage they have over domestic enterprises in the development of business enterprises. The study shows that they were learning through their experiences and those of their social or business networks. These learning opportunities were leveraged to enhance their international entry approaches. Hilmersson (2014a) argues that firms with a broad scope of international networks will be better equipped to diagnose market development and recognise warning signals in countries where symptoms of the recession are revealed at an early stage. This approach is conceptualised in this study as an experiential learning approach.\nConclusions: The evidence in this research reveals that diaspora entrepreneurs adopt mostly the network approach and, in some cases, the INV approach (or a combination of the two) for their international activities rather than the stage by stage approach as suggested in the literature (Coviello and Munro, 1995; Chetty and Campbell-Hunt, 2004). Thus, the network and INV approaches enhance the speed with which these businesses enter their foreign markets and are, thus, uniquely positioned in these emerging economies. This, in turn, enables them as born-globals and rapidly internationalising firms to be alert and flexible and better equipped to deal with sales fluctuations and changes in the developing environment (Hilmersson, 2014a; Ekanem and Uwajeh, 2017).\nThe implications of the research: The findings have implications for policy makers and practitioners who are involved in management development and training. Instead of focusing on formalised training courses, training activities should be geared towards practical problems, which are tailor made and specific to participating businesses. There is evidence in the study that successful diaspora entrepreneurs utilised networks to obtain key information that underpins learning to facilitate their internationalisation mechanisms. There is evidence also that the use of networks also facilitate the development of trust and rapport, facilitating the development of knowledge and innovation (Hakanen et al., 2016) and transfer of available resources (DeWever et al., 2005). Therefore, business support policy and mentoring should be directed towards creating awareness and understanding of the benefits of networks and eliminating perceived or real barriers to network inclusion.\nLimitations: The study has several limitations which suggest the implications for further research. The major limitation of the study is the extent to which the study can be generalised to wider population of small firms since it was based on only ten case studies drawn from different sectors, which were not randomly selected. It will be interesting to see if the results of the research hold true amongst other diaspora entrepreneurs from other emerging economies. Therefore, further studies on larger diaspora businesses and a larger sample size and preferably a more specified sector is necessary.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an exploration into the internationalisation approaches and mechanisms of diaspora entrepreneurs in emerging economies. It seeks to conceptualise the strategies as a learning process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is qualitative using a case study approach involving in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted longitudinally.\nFindings: The findings suggest that diaspora entrepreneurs adopt mostly the network or, in some cases, the international new venture (born-global) market entry approach rather than the traditional stage by stage approach. The findings also suggest that diaspora entrepreneurs have perceived advantages over domestic small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) because of their foreign exposure which has influenced their entrepreneurial behaviour in exploiting business opportunities.\nPractical implications: The main implication of the study is that entrepreneurs who are beginning to internationalise their activities should seek to exploit potential first-mover advantages in emerging economies by realising an approach of internationalisation at high speed.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to better understanding of the diaspora entrepreneurship and its dynamics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of perceived experiential advertising on customers' responses: a multi-method approach	[ "Perceived experiential advertising", "Brand credibility", "Advertising effectiveness", "Affective commitment", "FaceReader" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Experiential marketing has been a hot topic for a number of years now and is becoming a strategic tool for many organizations (Freeman, 2017). Gilmore and Pine (2002) define experiential marketing as memorable events or experiences that engage the consumer in a personal way. In fact, the core idea of experiential marketing relates to customers wanting more than functional features and benefits, product quality and positive brand image. Present-day consumers indeed seek out products, communications and marketing campaigns intended to deliver extraordinary experiences (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Schmitt, 1999). Many organizations conceive experiential marketing as a means of gaining competitive advantage through differentiation (Pine and Gilmore, 1998). It is even more critical for banks since they operate in markets with least differentiated products and stiff competition (Wasan, 2018). This added value has been proven to influence trust (Wu et al., 2019), brand love (Trivedi, 2019) and loyalty (Brun et al., 2017) in the banking sector.\nConceptual framework: Perceived experiential advertising\nStudy 1: Method\nStudy 2: The main goal of the second study entails empirically proving once again the important role of experiential advertising in marketing using a different analysis technique. This time, FaceReader, a real-time facial expression recognition software is used to evaluate various emotions triggered by advertisements that differ in terms of perceived experiences. Using neuropsychological approach is helpful to testing hypotheses in this study as it provides implicit (more \"objective\") measures. It therefore serves as a complementary method to the first study in which methodology is based on self-reported measures (via a questionnaire), often subjective. Specifically, through this methodology (study 2), we wanted to examine if more experiential (vs informational) ads could generate emotions (positive or negative) when measured \"objectively\" or \"automatically\" by specialized software such as FaceReader. This also explains the term \"multi-method approach\" used in the title of our manuscript. In addition, using more than one analysis technique to evaluate emotions in response of being exposed to advertising is strongly recommended (Micu and Plummer, 2010).The literature proved that eliciting positive emotions in consumers is crucial in marketing consumer impact on product/service evaluation (Kim and Gupta, 2012), purchase intentions (Koo and Ju, 2010), impulsive purchases (Ozen and Engizek, 2014), word-of-mouth (Schnebelen and Bruhn, 2018), and building strong brands (Morrison and Crane, 2007). In advertising, research on emotions is still a hot topic (e.g. Poels and Dewitte, 2019). For the last decades, researchers have well recognized that emotion is a customer's response to advertising (Batra and Ray, 1986; Holbrook and Batra, 1987, Edell and Burke, 1987). In fact, Holbrook and Batra (1987), as well as Olney et al. (1991), found that emotions can clearly mediate the effect of ad content and attitude toward the ad and brand. In addition, it has been demonstrated by neuroscientists that emotions are essential for rational thinking and behaviour (Damasio, 1995; LeDoux, 1996). Consequently, nowadays, the types of reactions that advertising evoke is a concern (Poels and Dewitte, 2019; Chang, 2017).Study 2 proposition is based on Lewinski et al.'s (2014b) study showing that amusing advertisements tend to produce happier emotions than less amusing advertising pieces. Using FaceReader, this study shows that advertising perceived as highly experiential can generate positive emotions. The study at hand seeks, on an exploratory basis, to illustrate that advertising perceived as experiential will produce more positive emotions than advertising perceived as less experiential.Method\nDiscussion of overall findings: The results of this study, based on Canadian respondents, are congruent with those of Chang and Chieng (2006) (coffee brand/ad context) in relation to respondents in Taipei. In both cases, perceived cognitive/affective/sensory ad significantly influences positively consumer-brand relationship (commitment) whereas relate advertising has no impact.In a banking context, it is interesting to contrast the results of this study with those of Rajaobelina et al. (2019). It is important to note that the cognitive/affective/sensory advertising dimension remains the most important one (highest impact on ad credibility for Rajaobelina et al. (2019) vs. on affective commitment/brand credibility for this study). On the other hand, relate advertising has no impact on affective commitment/brand credibility, whereas this variable influences ad credibility for Rajaobelina et al. (2019). This study confirms the marginal effect of perceived behavioural ad on affective commitment but significant one on brand credibility. For Rajaobelina et al. (2019), its effect is marginal on ad credibility. Results in the present article confirm the importance of considering the different dimensions of experiential advertisingAdvertisements can stimulate the cognitive, affective, and sensory side of the brain. They can trigger a sense of relationship and spur people to action. However, few academic studies to date investigate the impact of advertising designed to elicit experiences of the like in consumers. Notable exceptions include works by Couwenberg et al. (2017), Lewinski et al. (2014a, b), and Zarantonello et al. (2013), which make insightful contributions to the body of knowledge on experiential advertising, as do the two studies in this article.The first study presents a comprehensive portrait of how experiential advertising can impact consumer affective commitment to a brand. The study provides novel insights into advertising by asserting affective commitment as a consequence of exposure to advertising perceived to be rich in experiences. In the literature, consumer experience is readily acknowledged as impacting loyalty (e.g. Brakus et al., 2009) and affective commitment - a crucial variable - as mediating loyalty and substantiating consumer emotional attachment to a brand (Maheswari et al., 2014). Affective commitment can be deemed to anchor loyalty. Hence, this study makes an important contribution to marketing literature. Moreover, considering the important role brand credibility plays in explaining how experiential advertising impacts affective commitment, this study sheds new light on what drives consumers to engage with brands.More specifically, upon evaluation of the effects of the three dimensions of experiential advertising - cognitive/affective/sensory, relate and behavioural - on affective commitment, results indicate that only cognitive/affective/sensory advertising impacts affective commitment. However, the mediated effects reveal the significant role played by brand credibility as mediator of the relationship. Our results are in line with those of Jung and Soo (2012), who stressed the importance of the mediating role of credibility between brand experience and commitment. Firstly, complementary mediation is found to exist between cognitive/affective/sensory advertising and affective commitment. Inclusion of the mediator is in keeping with the hypothesized framework, but points to the need to add another mediator to the model (Zhao et al., 2010). Secondly, relate advertising fails to impact affective commitment either directly or indirectly. This result can be explained by the fact that in our empirical validation sector (banking), it may be more difficult for customers to perceive bank advertising as resonating with their lifestyle. Thirdly, indirect-only mediation is found between behavioural advertising and affective commitment, meaning that the direct impact is not significant but that the indirect impact is significant. These mixed results indicate that the dimensions of experiential advertising differ from one another, and either do or do not impact affective commitment. Therefore, these different dimensions of experiential advertising do not follow the same paths in positively impacting affective commitment.Other results illustrate the direct impact of cognitive/affective/sensory and behavioural advertising, but not relate advertising on brand credibility. Results closely resemble those obtained by Rajaobelina et al. (2019) who find that cognitive/affective/sensory advertising positively and significantly influences advertising credibility, whereas relate and behavioural advertising exert only a marginally significant impact. As expected, and consistent with findings in the literature, brand credibility positively impacts affective commitment (Boateng and Narteh, 2016). Overall results point to the relevance of examining the impact of the different dimensions (cognitive/affective/sensory, relate, and behavioural) of experiential advertising on affective commitment. More importantly, the study highlights the crucial role of brand credibility in explaining this influence. In this regard, the model explains a substantial percentage (73.4%) of the variation in affective commitment.For the second study, the use of FaceReader makes it possible to demonstrate the superiority of experiential advertising over less experiential or more functional forms of advertising by scrutinizing specific facial expressions. The pretested experiential advertisement, with respect to the cognitive/affective/sensory advertising dimension, is indeed found to elicit more facial expressions of happiness. Despite a marginally significant difference (r = 0.06), this finding is ripe with promise for future research. To our knowledge, only one study has employed FaceReader in an advertising context to draw distinctions between facial expressions of happiness in amusing and non-amusing video advertising segments (Lewinski et al., 2014a). The study at hand provides additional input regarding emotions in advertising through the use of a broader spectrum of experiences. The cognitive, affective, and sensory dimensions of experiential advertising prove effective in differentiating advertising capability to generate emotions of happiness.Both studies confirm the importance of the cognitive/affective/sensory advertising dimension, which proves the only dimension to impact affective commitment in Study 1. In Study 2, the two video advertising pieces exhibit significant differences with respect to this dimension, resulting in respondents experiencing marginally different feelings of happiness.Managerial implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This article proposes two studies to demonstrate the impact of three dimensions of perceived experiential advertising - cognitive/affective/sensory advertising, relate advertising and behavioural advertising - on consumer behaviour (brand credibility, affective commitment and emotions) in the banking sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For study 1, a total of 506 online panellists of a recognized Canadian research firm were asked to evaluate a local bank advertisement using an online self-reported questionnaire. For study 2, a total of 65 Canadian respondents recruited through Facebook and Google adverts were asked to watch two video advertisements (one more experiential and the other less experiential). After viewing the advertisements on a computer equipped with FaceReader software by Noldus, participants completed a short online questionnaire.\nFindings: Using structural equations modelling, the first study shows that brand credibility explains the positive impact of perceived cognitive/affective/sensory advertising (complementary mediation) and perceived behavioural advertising (indirect mediation only) on affective commitment. The second study illustrates that the cognitive/affective/sensory dimension is more important for experiential advertising than experiential advertising. Employing FaceReader facial expression recognition software results indicate that the bank advertisement with a higher score of perceived cognitive/affective/sensory advertising produces a higher level of happiness among respondents.\nOriginality/value: Both studies provide new insights into perceived experiential advertising and the impact of the latter on consumers. Benefits to scholars and practitioners include an enhanced understanding of advertising effectiveness in the banking sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving patient safety in two French hospitals: why teamwork training is not enough	[ "France", "Hospital management", "Qualitative research", "Teamwork", "Patient safety" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Patient safety and teamwork training\nMethods: This paper draws on data from a longitudinal (2015-2019) ethnographic study of two hospital units having participated in PACTE (Programme d'amelioration continue du travail en equipe), an experimental French program aimed at improving teamwork that ran between 2014 and 2016. Beyond proximity, the selection criteria for the included hospitals were \"unit diversity\" (acute care & rehabilitation) and \"hospital status\" (private & public). The goal was depth of information rather than representativeness of all the hospitals having participating in PACTE. We developed case studies of the two hospitals (Yin, 2014) identified as INST and VARG in this paper to maintain confidentiality.Case study setting\nFindings: By December 2019, all that remained of PACTE in the two units we studied was an old, tattered poster in the staff lounge on the dialysis unit at INST and a teaching tool for stroke patients developed for the rehabilitation unit at VARG. Most staff having participated were gone and the communication tools and surveys were no longer in use. Although PACTE appeared to be a distant memory, teamwork remained a high priority for staff on the two units. Nonetheless, three other challenges were found interfering with patient safety: divergent perceptions of what constituted a patient safety risk, upper management's paradoxical injunction to do more with less and tensions between organizational and unit-level priorities.Patient safety is in the eye of the beholder\nDiscussion: Our exploration of the micro-dynamics of organizational life in two hospitals following the implementation of a team training program highlights the inadequacy of relying primarily on frontline clinicians to meet patient safety goals. We identified three challenges that confounded teams' patient safety efforts despite having participated in PACTE. The first vignette reveals perspectival variations between healthcare stakeholders. This has been noted in other studies (Parand et al., 2011; Wiig et al., 2014), with some focusing particularly on differences between clinicians and managers (Pate et al., 2010; Sanner et al., 2018). In Wiig et al. (2014), definitions of quality of care varied according to stakeholder group, whereas in Parand et al. (2011) and Sanner et al. (2018) divergences occurred according to the impact actors perceived patient safety initiatives might have. All note that perceptual differences within organizations have significant implications for patient safety programs and contend that shared understanding is a necessary first step in improvement efforts to bridge disagreements between stakeholders. Perceptions play an integral role in hospital performance because they provide the underlying logic for action (Macfarlane et al., 2013). Shared understanding and agreement across groups enables more coordinated actions toward patient safety (Evans and Baker, 2012). Yet in many studies, including this one, upper management and administrators tend to be under-represented (Waterson, 2009).The second vignette illustrates what has been occurring in most hospitals across Europe facing sweeping budgetary cuts while simultaneously caring for increasing numbers of sicker patients (Mossialos and Le Grand, 2019). This leads to managerial pressure for productivity and performance and interferes with professionals' patient safety goals, thus generating conflict (Kyratsis et al., 2019). The last vignette is a consequence of this conflict and highlights decision-making challenges when it comes to prioritizing and allocating resources. To better understand decision-making consequences in complex organizations, systems theory has been used to provide insight, representing hospitals as multiple interconnected components and agents interacting in a dynamic process, simultaneously affecting and shaping the system with often unintended outcomes (Reason, 1995; Begun et al., 2003).Examining the hospital as a complex system exposes the risk of short-term decision-making at the expense of long-term strategic planning, which can have a paradoxically negative long-term effect on hospital performance (Barasa et al., 2017). Similar results were found in a study examining hospital priority setting practices using complex adaptive systems theory. The authors found that upper management's decision to allocate resources to a high revenue-generating unit led to staff demotivation in other units and an overall reduction in organizational performance (Barasa et al., 2017). Staff began feeling frustrated and disengaged from organizational projects, either by no longer carrying out their duties, or by demonstrating \"feigned compliance\" (p. 109).Viewed through a systems perspective lens, PACTE can be categorized as a \"Safety-I\" approach that perceives errors as linear cause-effect chains that are susceptible to \"found and fixed\" approaches (Mannion and Braithwaite, 2017, p. 686). This traditional approach focuses on locating the cause of failures (teams) and introducing interventions to attempt to eliminate or attenuate their causes (through training). However, as we observed, this does not correspond to the reality of hospital work and can at least partially explain why over the last two decades there has been a lack of sustained improvements following implementation of patient safety programs. Patient safety interventions focusing on single system elements rather than trying to understand interacting relationships and dependencies between people and other components of the system risk unintended consequences in other parts of the system (McNab et al., 2020).\"Safety-II\" approaches, on the other hand, adopt a wider view of the system with a focus on organizational learning, extending patient safety to include conditions under which people succeed rather than fail (Mannion and Braithwaite, 2017). This can potentially resolve the intractable problems associated with complex systems by focusing on what works so the organization can learn from this and staff can be mobilized around a common goal. This approach requires all relevant stakeholders get involved in consensus building with an accent on framing the patient safety movement as a greater organizational goal that aligns with individual interests and captures their \"attention and intention\" (Bate et al., 2004, p. 64). As previously mentioned, arriving at a shared perspective or alignment is a critical success factor for patient safety initiatives (Battles et al., 2006; Pannick et al., 2016; Parand et al., 2011). Such \"frame alignment\" has a further advantage of winning the \"hearts and minds\" of all involved (Bate et al., 2004).The concept of shared mental models (SMM) (Rouse and Morris, 1986) has been extensively used in the team performance literature (Salas et al., 2015). SMMs are purported to enable members of a team to coordinate actions and adapt behaviors to the demands of the situation (Cannon-Bowers and Salas, 2001). While the SMM literature focuses almost exclusively on clinical teams (McComb and Simpson, 2014), it should be extended to non-clinicians and upper management (Pannick et al., 2016; Horwitz and Horwitz, 2017). Creating such a system-wide SMM is an essential objective if actors traditionally in patterns of conflict are to engage in collaboration toward the common goal of patient safety (Evans and Baker, 2012). Such a \"harmonization of goals in the system\" would consider the long-term welfare of the entire system and seek out mutually satisfactory ways for these goals to be realized (Meadows, 2008, p. 16). It also allows improvement goals to be institutionalized within the cultures of both clinical and managerial work (Bate et al., 2004).PACTE's inclusion of a CRM workshop and safety-culture survey demonstrates a recognition of the value of having SMMs, yet the program was still unsuccessful. We surmise that this may be due to an overly narrow perception of what was required to elicit sustained change (a focus on one \"team\" within a wider system) and a commitment to a pre-defined Safety-I quality improvement framework. In a case study of the adoption of social movement tools in a quality improvement project, Waring and Crompton (2017) found that even in overtly bottom-up approaches, managers showed little evidence of wanting to foster truly \"grassroots\" change. Rather managers used the tools to the extent that they aligned with their pre-defined view of approved quality improvement activities. Similarly, PACTE claimed to \"empower\" teams to elicit unit-specific, bottom-up patient safety changes yet the tools imposed emanated from the HAS. Moreover, as noted in Waring and Crompton (2017), the clinical leaders (such as the CNO at VARG) were more concerned with creating alignment with the organization rather than allowing clinicians to shape the organizational patient safety strategy.Arriving at shared meaning and values requires multi-pronged, multi-level and sustained efforts (Burnett et al., 2010). Extending CRM to all relevant stakeholders could help actors negotiate consensus around \"what constitutes patient safety in the first place?\" in a hospital (Danholt, 2010, p. 33). Next, common goals could be set and each actors' roles and responsibilities outlined explicitly (Cannon-Bowers and Salas, 2001). This would entail coming to a mutual understanding of \"patient safety\" as a shared responsibility (Evans and Baker, 2012). Sharing the responsibility of patient safety does not mean sharing the same functions or dividing the work, but rather specifying each actors' contributions, individually and collectively, that together account for safe patient care (Infante, 2006).Our study of PACTE's teamwork improvement program in two hospital units over four years provides a unique look at a failed effort at organizational learning. While the strengths of this study are our prolonged engagement in the field, the richness of the data and a micro-level analysis, there are some limitations. First, upper management is poorly represented in our findings. Despite numerous attempts, access to these actors remained elusive. Second, a lack of quantitative data did not allow us to objectively evaluate PACTE's impact on patient safety. Third, navigating between the different levels within a hospital system was challenging. This difficulty may explain why research examining the dynamics across system boundaries and interconnections linking decisions, policies and change at one level with other levels of analysis has remained limited. More research is needed to examine hospitals as complex systems and how healthcare professionals adapt to daily problems while continuing to deliver safe care (Sujan, 2015). Understanding the adaptations and dynamic trade-offs that enable healthcare professionals to deliver safe care despite constant disturbances, tensions, contradictions and competing organizational priorities could help with organizational learning, further contributing to the Safety-II literature (Sujan, 2015; Mannion and Braithwaite, 2019). Leaving room for more informal \"social movement\" approaches can inspire staff to get involved (Bate et al., 2004) as long as their is institutionalized organizational support that avoids losing previously engaged staff who no longer find that their values, aspirations and identity align with those of their organization.\nConclusion: The results from this study challenge the reliance and efficacy of traditional patient safety interventions and point to three organizational issues interfering with teams' efforts to ensure safe care for their patients. To address these barriers we contend that meeting patient safety goals requires that hospitals be viewed as complex systems with mental models acknowledged as contributing to individual behaviors within them. Creating a shared mental model around patient safety is a necessary first step demanding explicit and sustained actions from all relevant stakeholders. This paper is an invitation to decision-makers at all levels to consider how to broaden patient safety responsibility to include all stakeholders, from the bedside to the boardroom, and cease relying on clinical teams alone to shoulder the burden.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The persistent challenges that healthcare organizations face as they strive to keep patients safe attests to a need for continued attention. To contribute to better understanding the issues currently defying patient safety initiatives, this paper reports on a study examining the aftermath of implementing a national team training program in two hospital units in France.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were drawn from a longitudinal qualitative study analyzing the implementation of a French patient safety program aimed at improving teamwork in hospitals. Data collection took place over a four-year period (2015-2019) in two urban hospitals in France and included multiple interviews with 31 participants and 150 h of observations.\nFindings: Despite explicit efforts to improve inter-professional teamwork, three main obstacles interfered with healthcare professionals' attempts at safeguarding patients: perspectival variations in what constituted \"patient safety\", a paradoxical injunction to do more with less and conflicting organizational priorities.\nOriginality/value: This paper exposes patient safety as misleadingly consensual and identifies a lack of alignment between stakeholders in the complex system that is a hospital. This ultimately interferes with patient safety objectives and highlights that even well-equipped, frontline actors cannot achieve long-term results without more systemic organizational changes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
IDOM engineers a knowledge culture: Learning processes embedded in business	[ "Knowledge management", "Knowledge sharing", "Communication", "Organizational culture", "Learning organizations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Some bosses have a problem when one of their team is promoted, especially if he or she demonstrates capacities that they do not possess themselves. Not so at Spanish engineering firm IDOM, where the company culture results in bosses feeling pride and admiration at such successful staff development.\nKnowledge sharing attitude necessary condition for employment: The company, with 22 offices in Europe, South America and Africa, provides engineering services, with hundreds of employees including engineers, architects and consultants. Staff numbers and company turnover have doubled in five years and, after this spectacular growth, the business now has sights on the US and Asian markets. IDOM is owned by 200 partners, all with at least ten years' experience in the company, who share responsibilities for the work and business performance as well as ownership.The company has a formal knowledge management strategy, linked to its business strategy. As a knowledge intensive company that considers knowledge a strategic asset, it requires a knowledge sharing attitude in its employees. A specific department is in charge of knowledge management issues, and different information systems have been implemented to facilitate knowledge sharing. For instance, a database - the \"technical library\" - has been created to keep all the information and knowledge generated in each of the projects the company has developed. Criteria have been established to assess the way knowledge is shared and exploited within the organization.An organizational culture based on trust and commitment is the basis for promoting tacit knowledge management at IDOM. The basic organizational unit is the order or project. The management and development of each order must be carried out in such a way that the real needs of the customer are perfectly dealt with and he or she is fully satisfied; learning among individuals taking part occurs, and the economic results envisaged are consequently obtained.A specific project team, formed from a joint decision of managers from the technical and geographical areas involved, is set up for each order received. The selection of candidates for a specific project is carried out according to, among other things, the possibilities of professional development.The assignment of individuals to a specific job is perhaps the most important managerial task for the development of individuals in a company providing professional services. It is within the framework of the development of a specific project that the greatest possibilities of exchange of tacit knowledge occur.\nCreating conditions to meet short and long-term development objectives: Managers of technical and geographical areas must, among other things, show an attitude of service and co-operation, have an integrating capacity, motivate people, contribute towards the professional development of their teams, and assume a responsible role in transferring knowledge.The company's commitment to developing its personnel includes creating conditions that address both short and long-term objectives. A tutor (who may be an immediate superior or another person) guides and observes someone who has recently joined the company. In addition, career advisers guide people in designing their career, complementing the work of their immediate boss. In fact, both adviser and boss should agree on joint action about the appropriate development of someone's career.In addition to other courses and training activities, IDOM employees run their own courses in spheres where they have expertise. They design and deliver training that is open to the whole company, facilitating the transmission of know-how to the organization as a whole.\nComment: This review is based on \"Promoting people-focused knowledge management: the case of IDOM\", by Nekane Aramburu and Josune Saenz, 2007. This case study of a Spanish engineering-services company provides an overview of how to promote knowledge management, and achieve socialization and collective learning, by clearly articulating and encouraging a knowledge-sharing culture.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reveals how Spanish engineering company IDOM promotes people-focused knowledge management, socialization and collective learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Draws on interviews carried out by the authors.\nFindings: - Highlights the importance of articulating a knowledge-sharing culture throughout the organization, and the importance of management setting the right example.\nPractical implications: - Puts forward the view that the assignment of individuals to a specific job is the most important managerial task for the development of individuals in a professional-services company, as it is within the framework of the development of a specific project that the greatest possibilities of exchange of tacit knowledge occur.\nOriginality/value: - Shows knowledge-management specialists how one organization has succeeded in achieving an open and co-operative culture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer-led experience customization: a socio-spatial approach	[ "Co-creation", "Experience", "Space", "Socio-materiality", "Consumer practices", "Experience customization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As consumer demands have become more fragmented and markets have evolved, marketers and service providers have attempted to appeal to various kinds of consumer segments by creating customized offerings (Gilmore and Pine, 2000). In addition to the deployment of customization techniques, research has pointed to the role of consumers in co-creating value with organizations (Heinonen et al., 2013; Rihova et al., 2013). Despite the advances in the academic and practical understanding of customization and the growing focus on co-creation in services, existing research on the subject has conceived of customization as an organization-centric process orchestrated by service providers (Bettencourt and Gwinner, 1996; Levesque and Boeck, 2017; Silvestro and Lustrato, 2015). In contrast, this study proposes a consumer-centric conception of customization, arguing that this helps to account more clearly for the practices through which consumers use, abuse, subvert, transform, or complement the organization's resources in (re)constructing their consumption experiences.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Customization and co-creation\n3. Methods: 3.1 Research context\n4. Findings: The multi-staged, interactive processes of data (re-)analysis helped to distinguish between three different modes of consumer-led customization, which operate on a continuum: cooperative co-production, compatible co-creation, and subversive co-creation (see Figure 1). At one end are activities involving consumers' actions and uses of organizational resources that correspond to the organization's experiential propositions and expectations. These actions require consumer participation but are not necessarily creative or disruptive. At the other end of the continuum are activities that are far less predictable and require increasingly complex and creative actions by consumers, leading to experiences that diverge from the organization's expectations.\n5. Discussion: Existing research has promoted a conceptualization of value creation in service experiences as practices operating across multiple domains of activity and highlighting the spatial dimensions of value creation. In this conceptualization, consumers are crucial to enacting and realizing the value of an organization's experiential propositions (Gronroos and Voima, 2013; Lugosi, 2014). Researchers have also considered the various ways in which consumers may actively engage with service spaces to create unique experiences, although the emphasis has been on the servicescape as a distinct unit of analysis (e.g. Aubert-Gamet, 1997). The findings of this study expand these lines of inquiry by (re)conceptualizing customization to account more clearly for: the role of consumers in shaping customization in service experiences; and the socio-spatial and material dimensions of consumers' customization practices, particularly as they operate in relation to, but not exclusively in, the servicescape. More specifically, the data show how multiple spaces, in both the customer and joint (organization-consumer) spheres of activity (Gronroos and Voima, 2013), may be brought into customization processes.\n6. Conclusion: This paper sought to challenge organization-centric approaches to customization by developing a consumer-centric conception and focusing on the socio-spatial aspects of their practices. It has been argued here that customization involves the transformation of an organization's existing service propositions and resources, through multiple practices, ranging from the re-sequencing of services, attractions or resources, the re-inscription of alternative meanings attached to consumption practices, and the creation of new uses or activities in existing service spaces. Furthermore, this paper proposed that some of the consumer activities complemented the existing goals and expectations of service providers, while others sought to challenge and transform them in more radical ways. Specifically, three modes of consumer-led customization were articulated based on the extent to which they enhanced or challenged existing practices: cooperative co-production (non-disruptive consumer activities that modified aspects of the service space and processes in line with the organization's propositions); compatible co-creation (creative activities that re-used organizational resources in novel ways that enhanced existing service propositions); and subversive co-creation (radically transformative acts that challenged the organization's service and experiential propositions).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Adopting a socio-spatial approach, this study develops a consumer-centric conception of service experience customization. In contrast to existing service customization research, which has focused on company-centric approaches, the purpose of this paper is to examine the practices through which consumers use, abuse, subvert, transform, or complement organizational resources to construct their consumption experiences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical context for this study is a Meetup group: a consumer network organized around members' shared interests and activities in theme parks. The research utilized participant observation of members' face-to-face activities during two years and over 80 events, interviews with key informants, and content analysis of online interactions.\nFindings: The findings outline how consumers interact across physical and virtual spaces utilizing technologies and material objects. The data are used to propose a new consumer-centric conceptualization of experience customization, distinguishing between three modes: collaborative co-production, cooperative co-creation, and subversive co-creation.\nOriginality/value: It is argued that the three modes of customization provide a way to understand how consumers mobilize and (re)deploy organizational resources to create experiences that may complement existing service propositions, but may also transform them in ways that challenge the service provider's original goals and expectations. Furthermore, this study identifies the factors that shape which modes of customization are possible and how they are enacted. Specifically, the discussion examines how experiential complexity, governability, the compatibility of consumer and organizational practices, and the collective mobilization of resources may determine the scope and form of customization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A project portfolio selection framework for transforming Iranian universities into entrepreneurial institutions	[ "Entrepreneurial university", "Strategic management", "Project portfolio selection", "DEMATEL-based ANP", "Linear programming" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Iran's economy has relatively low productivity. The annual budget of the country is mostly dependent on the sale of raw materials. Also, transfer of capital and technology from the developed countries to Iran is associated with many difficulties (World Bank, 2017). There is a large number of university graduates looking for a job in Iran, and the market is incapable of creating enough new job opportunities for them. Also, the education system does not teach entrepreneurial and self-employment skills to the students (Almonitor, 2015). Most of the economists believe that the technology-based entrepreneurship and adding knowledge and creativity to businesses and products are the best solutions for improving the economic situation of Iran (Karimi et al., 2010). In the near future, those countries which have proper infrastructure for creating knowledge-based added value will be the main players in the global economy (Vrateovska et al., 2014). Due to the increasing demand for self-employment training, the need for establishing entrepreneurial universities is more than ever before (Alexander and Evgeniy, 2012). The most important and influential producers of knowledge are universities. Commercializing the knowledge of universities has several benefits for the economy. It increases the rate of job creation, improves the competitiveness of the country in the world, stops the brain drain phenomenon in the developing countries' domestic production, prevents the sale of natural resources in raw form and decreases the outflow of capital for importing technologies (Kalar and Antoncic, 2015). An entrepreneurial University is the place for training expert human resource. These experts should be systematically able to transfer their ideas and thoughts to the society. The society should also be able to use these new ideas. Many of the country's issues and challenges, including security, employment, healthcare, cultural development and social welfare require new and technological ideas urgently. Also, the authorities need scientific and professional solutions for social, economic and environmental problems of the country. University is the best source for obtaining these solutions (Sooreh et al., 2011).But, developing an entrepreneurial university is a very complex and time-consuming program. In such a situation, failure will be inevitable without a strategic plan and a portfolio selection framework. This study aims to develop a comprehensive framework to help traditional universities move toward third-generation universities. The proposed framework answers two important questions including the following: 1. How to set the strategic goals and priorities? 2. How to define a portfolio of projects and programs to reach strategic goal?\n2. Literature review and theoretical framework: Entrepreneurial universities are one of the most important constituents of knowledge-based economies. After the second academic revolution, the third mission was added to teaching and research which were the traditional missions of the university. This new mission is entrepreneurship and the universities that have developed the needed infrastructures for this mission are called entrepreneurial universities. Etzkowitz described the third-generation university as an institution that has many research contracts and strategic partnerships with other organizations and is financially independent (Etzkowitz, 1984). Clark insisted on the concept of innovation as a key feature of the third-generation universities (Clark, 1998). Chrisman added the idea of founding spin-offs by academics, graduates and students to the main concept of the entrepreneurial university (Chrisman, 1995). Dill focused on the commercialization of university researches and suggested university technology transfer (UTT) (Dill, 1995). According to Ropke, an entrepreneurial university should have three features: It should be an entrepreneurial institution, provide its members with knowledge and skills needed for being an entrepreneur and set its relationships with other entities based on the policy of entrepreneurship (Ropke, 1998). Sporn paid attention to the interaction of entrepreneur universities with their environment and determines how they should adapt to the dynamic environmental situation (Sporn, 2001). Poole listed the failure and success factors of the international strategy of an entrepreneurial university (Poole, 2001). Audretsch et al. conducted a comprehensive research about entrepreneurial finance and technology transfer. The study is focused on the role of governmental venture funds, subsidy programs and patent-friendly regulatory. They also discussed the impact of technology transfer offices on university entrepreneurship and regional competitiveness (Audretsch et al., 2016). Zhoa et al. introduced four characteristics that can be seen in all of the entrepreneurial universities (Zhoa, 2004):Revenue generation through the transfer of knowledge and technology and the sale of patents.Considerable influence on regional industries and economy.Adoption of the entrepreneurship ideology among the academics.Strong and systematic relationship with the industry and government.O'Shea et al. explored the reasons for the success of some universities in developing and running spin-offs (O'Shea et al., 2007). D'Este et al. researched about the incentives and motivations that can stimulate academics to follow the mission of entrepreneurship. They concluded that the managers should not exclusively focus on the monetary incentives and it is better to consider a wider range of incentives to improve the level of interaction between academia and industry (D'Este and Perkmann, 2011). Jacob et al. claimed that the success of the transformation toward entrepreneurship depends on the national climate and the internal policies of the universities. They mentioned the infrastructural and cultural changes needed for this gradual transformation process. They also pointed out that the universities face a kind of role uncertainty when they start to carry out the third mission. Flexibility and diversity in both macro and micro levels are necessary for solving this issue (Jacob et al., 2003). Kirby listed seven critical barriers to entrepreneurship in universities as follows: (Kirby, 2006)Relationships are typically impersonal.Structure of the universities is hierarchical and bureaucratic.Rules and procedures are constraining and anti-creative.Organizational culture resists innovation and diversity.The need for immediate results contradicts the time-consuming nature of becoming entrepreneurial.Lack of talented human resource.Lack of a suitable strategic plan and road map.He also proposed some strategies to overcome the mentioned barriers. These strategies are summarized in Table I:Guerrero et al. categorized the factors affecting the development of entrepreneurial universities into formal and informal factors. They also proposed a set of indicators and measures to ease monitoring and assessing the transformation process toward entrepreneurship. Table II shows the overall form of the assessment method (Guerreo et al., 2006). According to Nelles & Vorley, five critical elements form the fundamentals of an entrepreneurial university. These elements are shown in Figure 1Salamzadeh et al. claimed that for transforming to entrepreneurship, universities should revise and improve their processes. The most important processes which must be considered are teaching, research, managerial, logistical, commercialization, selection (for students, university professors and staff), funding and financial, networking and multilateral interaction processes (between students, university professors, staff, industrial researchers, entrepreneurial centres, industries, policy makers and society) (Salamzadeh et al., 2011). Rhoades expanded Clark's theories about entrepreneurial university by relating the considerations of systems analysis and organizational studies (Rhoades, 2017). According to Etzkowitz, becoming an entrepreneurial university takes place in three stages:University entrepreneur one: The university must determine its strategic direction, start acquiring the needed abilities, develop a facilitative legal framework and set its own priorities.University entrepreneur two: The research activities of the members must actively get commercialized. Facilitating the technology transfer, enhancing the research corporations, preserving the intellectual properties and supporting the start-ups are also the important tasks of this stage.University entrepreneur three: The university takes a leading role in innovation, has a tight relationship with the regional industries and government and makes a significant contribution to both regional and national economy (Etzkowitz, 2016). In this research, initial list of projects is created based on the Etzkowitz model.\n3. Methodology: This study aims to propose a project portfolio selection framework that facilitates the transition toward university entrepreneurship. This framework consists of five stages including the following:Stage 1: Evaluating the status of the academic entrepreneurship indicators.Stage 2: Determining the strategies and goals.Stage 3: Identifying the relationships between the final-level goals and rankings the goals.Stage 4: Creating a list of candidate projects and programs to meet the objectives.Stage 5: Creating a portfolio of projects by a multi-objective mathematical model. 3.1 Evaluating the status of the academic entrepreneurship indicators\n4. Case study (Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran): Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) is the first and most experienced school of engineering in Iran. Admission to this university is done through the national entrance exam and is considered very competitive. The university has developed nine strategies in three dimensions as follows: the content, structure and environment for becoming a third-generation university (Table III).As mentioned earlier, these goals are not independent and can have positive or negative effects on each other. The direct influence matrix for these nine goals is shown in Eqn 36. (Based on the expert judgment).(36)D=[43.292.282.152.683.473.312.901.262.0543.072.243.522.640.210.903.360.853.8941.131.212.600.971.513.932.071.140.6141.942.172.862.720.380.402.152.951.2342.962.271.902.402.893.112.751.892.8440.073.241.993.761.712.260.260.373.5641.223.082.161.740.942.071.422.363.0240.542.070.612.622.880.950.361.890.434]After completing the DANP steps, the weight is obtained for each of the goals. Table IV contains the weights obtained for each of the nine strategies.Also, to implement each of these nine strategies, there are a number of proposed solutions that can be seen in Table V.By collecting information about the project costs and the associated risks of them as well as the total budget of the organization and its maximum tolerable risk, it is possible to prioritize the projects and form the project portfolio. The costs and risks of projects can be expressed in deterministic, fuzzy, grey numbers or probabilistic form. Depending on the conditions and type of projects, other constraints can be added to the proposed model of this research. If a part of the projects can be done and another part can be postponed to subsequent periods, continuous variables can be used instead of binary variables. Table VI shows the parameters which are gathered for this case study.The parameters are replaced in the model and the obtained results are shown in Table VII.\n5. Conclusion: Because the entrepreneurial university (third generation) is one of the core requirements of the knowledge-based development, all universities need to have a comprehensive plan to transform them into entrepreneurial universities at the lowest possible cost and risk. The need for such a plan is more vital in developing countries, such as Iran, due to poor industry and poor university connectivity. This paper suggests a framework that help universities make such a plan. This framework consists of five steps including evaluating the status of the academic entrepreneurship indicators, determining the strategies and goals, identifying the relationships between the goals and rankings them, creating a list of candidate projects and programs to meet the objectives and creating a portfolio of projects and programs by a multi-objective mathematical model. The output of this framework is a portfolio of projects that according to the budget and other university conditions have the highest priority in terms of transforming traditional universities into entrepreneurial universities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research proposes a framework by which universities can define and implement projects that transform them into entrepreneurial universities. The framework helps decision-makers identify suitable goals and strategies, gather a list of projects to fulfill the goals and strategies and prioritize the projects and form a portfolio.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In the proposed framework, importance-performance matrix, hierarchical strategic planning, Delphi technique, DEMATEL-based ANP and a multi-objective model are used. The mathematical model consists of four objective functions including efficiency, quality and balance maximization and also cost and risk minimization. The proposed framework is applied to Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, and the results are brought in this paper.\nFindings: The output of the proposed framework is a portfolio of projects that aims to transform a traditional university into a third-generation one. Although the final portfolio must be customized for different universities, the proposed steps of the framework can be helpful for almost all cases.\nOriginality/value: The suggested framework is unique and uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques for project portfolio selection.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring power assumptions in the leadership and management debate	[ "Leadership", "Management", "Power", "“Becoming”", "“Being”", "“Doing”" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper reflects on the leadership and management debate and develops a conceptual framework based on underlying power assumptions that are made within the literature. For example, when trying to make the concepts of leadership and management distinct from each other or, indeed related in some way, power relations are assumed. We make a contribution to this debate by introducing the work of Watson (2001) and others that promote a non-positional perspective of management into the debate. This then helps in the development of a conceptual framework that sets out four distinct paradigms regarding the leadership and management debate.\n2. Relating leadership and management: Described by Bedeian and Hunt (2006, p. 198) as \"a longstanding enigma\", the literature on leadership and management has, for a number of years now, swayed from theorising the concepts as the same (Drucker, 1988), mutually exclusive (Bennis and Nanus, 1985; Zaleznik, 1977) or connected (Bass, 1990; Hickman, 1990; Kotter, 1988, 1990; Mintzberg, 1980; Rost, 1991). Either way this has led to a number of cliched and vague distinctions (see Cammock et al., 1995 for a critical review). We contend that even recent distinctions based on transactional and transformational leadership (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1998; Antonakis and House, 2002; Bryman, 1992; Gill, 2006; Sadler, 1997), emotional engagement (Young and Dulewicz, 2008), culture (Schein, 2004) or problem solving (Grint, 2005, 2008; Weick, 1993) offer little help in understanding the similarities and differences between leadership and management based on practical experiences within organisations. This is because they still demarcate the distinction based on basic notions of change in organisations (Brocklehurst et al., 2009), relating largely to Kotter's (1990) distinction that leadership is about creating useful change in organisations whilst management is about producing orderly results. This view, in the least, denigrates management as a concept (Rost, 1991) to the extent that recent research with an Executive MBA group in the UK found that they actively avoided calling themselves managers (Brocklehurst et al., 2009). At the most, this view does little for our understanding of complex concepts such as leadership, management and change in organisations. As Brocklehurst et al. (2009) point out, this view is unsurprising given the sine qua non of the current business world is change (Sturdy and Grey, 2003). The view has also been challenged by contemporary notions of leadership in the resistance of change (Levay, 2010; Zoller and Fairhurst, 2007) which further contends the view that leadership is about creating change (Kotter, 1990). In addition, and for the purposes of this paper, more importantly, these cliched and vague distinctions do not recognise assumptions about power that underlie how both leadership and management are constructed in theory and practice.\n3. Exploring underlying power assumptions: In this paper, therefore, whilst recognising the issues of change, we explore assumptions regarding power as a point of departure for further theoretical debate, empirical research and practice in organisations. Although we recognise that other concepts such as language (Jepson, 2010), culture (Schein, 2004) and identity (Ford et al., 2008) may contribute to the understanding of leadership and management, our paper concentrates on the assumptions around power. As Clegg and Ross-Smith (2003) highlight, it was the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1938) who said that just as the fundamental concept in physics is that of energy, so power is the fundamental concept in social science. The term \"power\" is highly contested in itself and can be conceptualised from a behavioural perspective (French and Raven, 1959; Raven, 1992, 1993) and a charismatic perspective (Yukl, 1994). It further includes perspectives on gender, networks, decision processes, boundary management, uncertainty, control of technology, control of counter-organisations power (Morgan, 1986), sexual power (Foucault, 1984), knowledge and information (Jackson and Carter, 2000; Morgan, 1986; Pettigrew, 1972), ecological control (Cartwright, 1965; Oldham, 1976), and truth (Jackson and Carter, 2000). In addition, there are the more sociological and post-structural perspectives, such as disciplinary and bio-power (Foucault, 1979, 1984), informational social influence (Festinger, 1954) and symbolic power (language, symbols, settings, stories and ceremonies) (Bourdieu, 1991; Pfeffer, 1981; Pondy, 1978; Weick, 1979).\n4. Framing the leadership and management debate through power perspectives: Up to this point the paper has shown that both management and leadership can be constructed and misconstrued through differing assumptions about power. Using a distinction of power assumptions as the basis for discussion, a four-part conceptual framework has been developed. These constructs are represented by four quadrants in the framework that include: managers \"doing\" leadership, managers \"becoming\" leaders, \"being\" leaders and managers, and leaders \"doing\" management (see Figure 1).\n5. Implications for further research: There are a number of implications stemming from this framework of the leadership and management debate. First, the framework proposes that it is crucial that researchers make explicit which construct of leadership or management they are discussing or researching, a need highlighted by Bedeian and Hunt (2006). This impacts on how leadership and management are viewed and clarification may reduce the confusion highlighted at the beginning of this paper. We believe that the framework provides a useful tool that might reduce the possibility of confusion or cross purposes when studying leadership and management. The paper also provides a reference for researching the relationships between leadership and management in practice. For instance, further research and theory development could develop an understanding of the transition between the concepts of \"doing\" and \"being\" a leader or a manager or leadership and management in practice. Here we recognise the use of ethnographic (e.g. Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007) and auto-ethnographic (e.g. Chang, 2008) forms of data collection to further develop an understanding of the \"lived\" experience of doing, being and becoming managers and leaders in organisations (e.g. Kempster, 2009; Kempster and Stewart, 2010).\n6. Conclusions: This paper has reviewed the literature around conceptualising leadership and management. The paper has provided a potential solution to this problem by uncovering a \"missing link\", omitted from the leadership literature; where assumptions about power related to management are of a personal or \"non-work\" perspective. From this discussion a four-part framework of how leadership and management can be conceptualised was developed. This framework enables more clarity in understanding attempts to distinguish leadership and management and has potential in providing a common method for categorising leadership research within management studies. The paper contributes by providing a framework that reduces the complexity and confusion that has been endemic in both literatures. This could provide the impetus for developing meaningful connections between psychological and sociological approaches to the study of management and leadership in organisations - linking action - \"doing\" - and identity - \"being\" - through a process of \"becoming\" based on lived experiences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to take a fresh look at the leadership and management debate through exploring underlying power assumptions in the literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is a conceptual discussion that draws on the power-based literature to develop a framework to help conceptually understand leadership in relation to management.\nFindings: The paper highlights the historically cliched nature of comments regarding conceptual similarities and differences between leadership and management. The paper draws attention to a problem within this debate - a confusion regarding assumptions of power. As a result the paper brings to the forefront perspectives of management that are of an emergent and non-work perspective which enables the development of a framework of the literature that includes managers \"doing\" leadership, managers \"becoming\" leaders, \"being\" leaders and managers, and leaders \"doing\" management. The paper goes on to explore the meaning and potential behind each part of the framework and suggests a need to develop an understanding of \"doing\" leadership and management and \"being\" managers and leaders through an exploration of \"becoming\" in organisations.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a new perspective on the leadership and management or leadership vs management question by introducing a non-work, emergent or personal perspective on management. Furthermore, this paper concludes that whether leadership and management are similar or different is dependent upon which power construct underlies each phenomenon, a consideration that has been neglected in the leadership and management debate for some time.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Supervisor transgressions: a thematic analysis	[ "Leadership", "Supervisors", "Transgressions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes (Oscar Wilde).\nLeader transgressions: As defined by Shapiro et al. (2011), leader transgressions include, \"leaders' actions at work, whose appropriateness is questionable when judged by norms associated with workplace-related policies, procedures, or practices and/or with codes of interpersonal conduct\" (p. 412). In conceiving of leader transgressions in terms of norm violations, this definition aligns with descriptions of unethical leader behavior, which consider perceptions of unethical leader behavior to be a function of disconnections between or encroachments upon leader and follower relational norm models (Giessner and van Quaquebeke, 2010).\nNature of leader transgressions: While researchers have not yet devoted sufficient attention to the topic, a few scholars have begun to study the nature of leader transgressions. For instance, Shapiro et al. (2011) recently examined the content of general leader transgressions. Finding leader transgressions to vary widely, Shapiro et al. (2011) noted everything from instances in which leaders treated certain customers, vendors, or employees with favoritism to occasions in which leaders intentionally sabotaged coworker projects for personal gain. Despite this diversity, Shapiro et al. (2011) were able to tease out several commonalities. In particular, seven core leader transgression themes were uncovered: absenteeism/negligence of duty; verbal or physical abusiveness; discrimination, demographically oriented differential treatment; favoritism, relationally oriented differential treatment; dishonesty; incompetence; and interpersonal sabotage, along with an eighth \"miscellaneous\" category including responses too non-specific to be categorized (Shapiro et al., 2011). Reflecting perceptions of the manner in which leaders violate workplace norms, these themes illustrate the range of organizational leader transgressions (Shapiro et al., 2011).\nSupervisor transgressions as a subset of leader transgressions: Drawing from Shapiro et al.'s (2011) conceptualization of leader transgressions, supervisor transgressions can be conceived as supervisors' actions in the workplace that are perceived to violate work norms, including those relating to policies, procedures, practices, or interpersonal conduct. Recognizing that people may hold different relational norm models (Giessner and van Quaquebeke, 2010), it is important to note that this study conceives of supervisor transgressions as judged by their subordinates. This approach, in which transgressions are evaluated as they are perceived by others rather than labeled as fundamentally offensive in their own right, is a common practice (Tumasjan et al., 2011).\nMethod: A critical incident technique was employed to record and examine actual instances of supervisor transgressions at work. This approach allows for the assessment of the nature of supervisor transgressions - the aim of this study. As recommended by Flanagan (1954), incidents were designed to capture \"observable human activity that is sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions to be made about the person performing this act\" (p. 327). Adhering to this critical incident approach, study participants read and responded to the following prompt, adapted from Aquino et al.'s (2001) research:\nAnalysis: Three subject matter experts (SMEs) analyzed responses according to Strauss and Corbin (1998) open coding techniques, an approach which has been frequently used to uncover thematic trends in qualitative data (e.g. Harwood et al., 2009; Julien and Genuis, 2009; Nettleland et al., 2007, Shapiro et al., 2011). Adhering to Strauss and Corbin (1998) open coding guidelines, themes were not determined prior to analysis but rather emerged from participant responses. Also, to ensure emerging themes reflected only trends uncovered in the data, SMEs were not exposed to Shapiro et al.'s (2011) research before data analysis, as familiarity with Shapiro et al.'s (2011) themes might have influenced SME findings. Each SME independently read every response, assigning each response one or more descriptive category labels as appropriate (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). SMEs then compared and contrasted their labels, a process which reduced the original labels into a smaller set of themes (Strauss and Corbin, 1998).\nResults: Altogether, 11 supervisor transgression themes were identified: performance criticisms, demeaning insults, false accusations, undue demands, unfair employment decisions, inconsiderate treatment, inequitable behavior, inappropriate contextual selections, disregard of opinions, undersupplied resources, and underprovided recognition. While most instances encapsulated a single theme, some responses included multiple themes. Table I presents an in overview of these themes, defining the characteristics and properties of each.\nInappropriate contextual selections: Employees also frequently noted inappropriate context when describing supervisor transgressions, critiquing their supervisors for selecting an inappropriate audience or setting for their behavior. While often these employees described a supervisor transgression encapsulated by a different theme, they appeared to find the inappropriate context surrounding this transgression particularly bothersome, meriting its inclusion as a separate theme. As depicted in the examples below, this theme often involved a public shaming or embarrassment, which employees felt would have been more appropriately conducted in private, or a failure to make amends with all parties involved in the incident:\nDiscussion: Research findings\nImplications for practice and research: These 11 themes, along with their classification on a continuum of supervisor action, offer insight into the nature of supervisor transgressions committed at work against subordinates. These themes provide important implications for practice and society. Also, though addressing this study's core research question, this initial exploration into the content of supervisor transgressions raises even more questions than it answers, thus providing exciting opportunities for future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the harmful impact of supervisor transgressions, they have received little empirical attention. The purpose of this paper is to addresses this important gap, examining the nature of transgressions committed at work by supervisors against subordinates.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A critical incident technique was employed in which employees described a transgression committed by their supervisor. Qualitative responses were then analyzed, resulting in the emergence of supervisor transgression themes.\nFindings: In total, 11 themes emerged, including: performance criticisms, demeaning insults, false accusations, undue demands, unfair employment decisions, inconsiderate treatment, inequitable behavior, inappropriate contextual selections, disregard of opinions, undersupplied resources, and underprovided recognition.\nResearch limitations/implications: While this approach is not without limitations, including the potential for participant memory error and researcher analytical bias, it offers a necessary initial exploration into the content of supervisor transgressions. Findings open new areas for continued research exploration into the nature and functioning of supervisor transgressions.\nPractical implications: Practitioners also stand to benefit from this work, as this identification of supervisor transgression themes affords organizations knowledge about how to best target supervisory interventions.\nOriginality/value: Though researchers have just begun to examine the nature of leader transgressions, they have yet to analyze the content of supervisor transgressions. This study offers an original investigation into how supervisors transgress against subordinates at work.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Debunking the benchmarking myth: The pitfalls of failing to compare like with like	[ "Benchmarking", "Surveys", "Information research", "Employees" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: When interpreting the results of their employee-satisfaction survey (ESS), many employers want to compare them with other employers' results to see if they are doing better or worse than the competition.\nComparisons with \"equivalent\" questions are unreliable: If you find that your ESS results fall short of whatever benchmark you are offered, it might be because some of the employees in the benchmark had been surprised to be treated so well, while your people have learned to take it for granted.Then again, our questions may not be expressed in exactly the same way as in the benchmark surveys. Any change to the wording leads to different responses, so comparisons with \"equivalent\" questions are unreliable. Subtle changes to the wording of a question can bring about profound changes to the way that people respond. Sometimes, they can reverse the result of the research, for example see Table I.This was a \"split half\" study, in which half the informants were asked the question one way, and half the other way. In each case, the percentage predicting that the US would join the second world war is in the second column of percentages. We could conclude that, among those who had any opinion on the subject, the majority thought it would - or would not - depending on how the question was put.If the benchmark data you compare with your ESS results are based on the use of exactly the same wording as in your questionnaire, this concern does not apply. But if it also employs \"equivalent\" items or questions, the comparisons could be misleading.The response to any question is influenced by the conditioning effect of the questions that precede it in the questionnaire. Only by using the whole questionnaire in exactly the same form can we be sure that comparisons are meaningful.Imagine that we put these two items in a questionnaire (Table II).We would expect to get different answers to the two items, because the questions are about different aspects of informants' lives. What if we put the questions the other way round (Table III)?This time, the answers will not be so different. By asking the specific question about the relationship first, we narrow informants' perception when they try to respond to the wider question. Having been asked about our \"significant other\", it is hard to keep in proportion this morning's harsh words or loving farewell and give an objective, rounded answer to the question of life in general.Even if the normative data you compare with your ESS results are based on the identical item wording, do you know what questions preceded it in each case, and what effect those preceding questions might have had on informants' responses to this one? Unless your survey, and every survey in the normative data, uses exactly the same entire questionnaire, you are not comparing apples with apples.Of course, while the same question or statement might be used, employees might be asked to respond on a different scale. Even assuming a common approach, such as an agreement scale like the one in the last example, there is no standard number of points on the scale - different employers may have offered four, five, seven, or sometimes nine or 10 points on the scale. A common response to this is to convert all the scales to a common base, such as a scale of 100 points, but converting scales is a rough and ready process, so the result will be rough and ready comparisons.If your results appear to be less good than the benchmark, you will probably make strenuous efforts to improve. But if you operate a policy of continual improvement, you were doing that anyway without any benchmarking comparisons to prompt it. Alternatively, you are unlikely to stop trying to improve if your results are better than the benchmark.\nGenerate information that drives management decisions: Your ESS should produce management information about how your people feel about being employed in your organization. That means generating information that drives management decisions that contribute to the organization's success. An ESS that produces data which are nice to know, but do not lead to action, has not earned its keep. Normative comparisons too often fall into the \"nice to know\" category.The information that is most valuable in informing management decision-making comes from the internal comparisons your survey should permit. When you can demonstrate a statistically significant difference of opinion, or different level of satisfaction between one department and another, or between groups defined by length of service, age group, gender, ethnicity, location and so on, that difference can help you to make the case for initiatives to bring about improvement, targeted on the areas where improvement is most needed.You can identify areas where something is working better than elsewhere, investigate the reasons and then transfer the effective practices to other parts of your organization. You can target and improve the areas most in need of improvement. Then after an interval, you can use your survey questionnaire again, to produce a new set of data. As well as the comparisons between groups, you will be able to make comparisons between this time and last time, to measure the change your initiatives have produced.Used in this way, your ESS becomes a valuable source of management information that facilitates effective management of your relationship with your people.\nNote: David Lusty is founder and principal consultant of Quantify! which develops and operates employee- and customer-satisfaction research. He worked in management services for several local authorities before moving into personnel management. After 11 years in local government, he joined Avis Rent a Car Ltd, became head of the UK personnel department, and was director of personnel and management services by the time he left. He can be contacted at Quantify! Parkway House, Sheen Lane, East Sheen, London, SW14 8LS. Tel +44 (0)20 8876 8680; e-mail: david@quantify.co.uk; web: www.quantify.co.uk\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to highlight the pitfalls of failing to compare like with like when undertaking employee-satisfaction surveys.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Reveals how answers can be affected by people's expectations, slight changes in the wording of a survey, the order in which questions are asked, or the scoring system used.\nFindings: - Demonstrates why like-for-like comparisons with other employers' surveys are almost impossible and puts forward the view that the information that is most valuable in informing management decision-making comes from the internal comparisons a survey should permit.\nPractical implications: - Puts forward ways in which to make an employee-satisfaction survey into a valuable source of management information.\nOriginality/value: - Advances the view that an employee-satisfaction survey that produces data which are nice to know, but do not lead to action, has not earned its keep.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Show me your expertise before teaming up: Sharing online profiles predicts success in open innovation	[ "Computer-mediated communication", "Social media", "Open innovation", "Crowdsourcing", "Team assembly" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Today, crowd-driven open innovation - the act of outsourcing an organization's internal research and development tasks to a distributed crowd of individuals through an open call - has become a rapidly growing practice among businesses, organizations and governments (Abhari et al., 2018; Bothos et al., 2009; Chesbrough, 2006; Howe, 2008; Tien and Cheng, 2017). As a result, an industry of open innovation has emerged as many online platforms are now dedicated to organizing crowd-based open innovation. In the USA alone, this industry was already valued at $6.5bn in 2016, with an astonishing annual growth rate of 45.5 percent (Weinswig, 2016). Many platforms promise to solve some of today's most challenging problems, from machine learning (Dissanayake et al., 2015) and biochemistry research (Cooper et al., 2010) to human genome sequencing (Kedes and Campany, 2011). For example, Netflix's million-dollar challenge attracted 51,051 contestants and 41,305 teams from 186 countries and managed to improve the accuracy of its movie recommendation algorithm by 10 percent (Hallinan and Striphas, 2016). XPrize awarded $10m to the teams who accurately sequenced 100 human genomes within 30 days (Kedes and Campany, 2011). On FoldIt, a game-based open innovation contest platform, thousands of participants collectively generated protein-folding solutions that outperformed computer-generated answers (Cooper et al., 2010).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Performance of open innovation\n3. Theory and hypotheses: 3.1 The effects of sharing online profiles\n4. Data and method: 4.1 Study context\n5. Results: Prior to conducting regression analyses, a statistical diagnosis detected that the variance of the error terms did not meet the homogeneity of variance assumption. To solve the problem, the analysis used a heteroscedasticity-consistent (HC) standard errors inference technique, which generates robust variance-covariance matrices for inferring HC standard errors (Zeileis, 2006). VIF tests were conducted to check for multicollinearity. No violation of assumption was detected, with the highest VIF value being 1.36.\n6. Discussion and implications: As tasks in open innovation contests become increasingly complex and specialized, participants frequently face the need to self-assemble into teams. However, open innovation contests are computer-mediated social environments characterized by anonymous, voluntary participation that lacks top-town control and coordination (Benkler, 2006; Faraj et al., 2011; Garton et al., 1997), making it difficult for participants to collect and evaluate information about one another. The current study examined the effectiveness of sharing online personal profiles on team assembly and performance outcomes in open innovation contests. It investigated team assembly effectiveness as a mediator of the relationship between online profile sharing and performance; and compared the influence of sharing professional SNS profiles vs sharing personal websites.\n7. Conclusion: While team collaboration has become increasingly common in open innovation contests, little research has examined how communication practices may help facilitate this practice by mitigating the difficulties in team assembly in anonymous and computer-mediated environments. The current study investigated the effects of sharing online profiles on team assembly and performance in open innovation contests and compared the effects of professional SNSs and personal websites sharing. The results suggest that sharing online profiles positively predicts individuals' likelihood of becoming team leaders and their improved performances achieved in teams. Team assembly effectiveness mediated the relationship between online profile sharing and performance. Further, compared to sharing professional SNSs, sharing personal websites was more beneficial for obtaining leadership roles and boosting individual performances in open innovation teams.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how communication practices influence individuals' team assembly and performance in open innovation contests.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study analyzed behavioral trace data of 4,651 teams and 19,317 participants from a leading open innovation platform, Kaggle. The analyses applied weighted least squares regression and weighted mediation analysis.\nFindings: Sharing online profiles positively relates to a person's performance and likelihood of becoming a leader in open innovation teams. Team assembly effectiveness (one's ability to team up with high-performing teammates) mediates the relationship between online profile sharing and performance. Moreover, sharing personal websites has a stronger positive effect on performance and likelihood of becoming a team leader, compared to sharing links to professional social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn).\nResearch limitations/implications: As team collaboration becomes increasingly common in open innovation, participants' sharing of their online profiles becomes an important variable predicting their success. This study extends prior research on virtual team collaboration by highlighting the role of communication practices that occur in the team pre-assembly stage, as an antecedent of team assembly. It also addresses a long-standing debate about the credibility of information online by showing that a narrative-based online profile format (e.g. a personal website) can be more powerful than a standardized format (e.g. LinkedIn).\nPractical implications: Open innovation organizers should encourage online profile sharing among participants to facilitate effective team assembly in order to improve innovation outcomes.\nOriginality/value: The current study highlights the importance of team assembly in open innovation, especially the role of sharing online profiles in this process. It connects two areas of research that are previously distant, one on team assembly and one on online profile sharing. It also adds new empirical evidence to the discussion about online information credibility.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A study of development mode in green campus to realize the sustainable development goals	[ "Green campus", "Sustainable development goals", "STARS assessment", "Sustainable community", "Development mode" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the continuous deterioration of the global natural environment, as countries continue to develop, the concept of sustainable development has reached a consensus in the world and become a common construction goal related to the future destiny of mankind. Among them, \"sustainable\", which is composed of three core elements of \"environment,\" \"economy\" and \"society,\" has been continuously improved in its connotation and its objectives have been continuously clarified and refined (AASHE, 2017). When the concept of \"environmental protection\" was put forward, the concept of \"environmental education\" was elevated to the same important position. Subsequently, the former one has gradually developed into a discussion of sustainable development related to the common destiny of mankind, while the latter has developed into the construction practice of green campus with global universities as the pioneer. Therefore, the connotation of \"green campus\" is in the same line with the concept of \"sustainability,\" which also includes three dimensions of \"environment,\" \"economy\" and \"society.\" \"Sustainable development\" and \"green campus\" develop simultaneously and promote each other (Figure 1). Among them, the exploration of sustainable development has never stopped because the universities, as the base of advanced concept promotion and new technology experiment, play an important role in the process of achieving the global sustainable development goal.\n2. The development between sustainable development goals and sustainability tracking, assessment and rating system on campus: 2.1 Sustainable development goals\n3. Methodology: In this paper, the method of selecting typical case - Stanford is used to study. It is divided into three steps (Figure 5).\n4. Results on the case of green campus: 4.1 Selection of a typical case: Stanford\n5. Discussion on the community construction from green campus: 5.1 Campus and community complementary development\n6. Conclusions and implications: So far, compared with the benchmark year 2000, the GHG emissions have decreased by 72%, energy intensity by 26%, domestic water use by 45% and landfill water by 26% (Stanford Sustainable, 2019a). It has achieved remarkable results in construction, won platinum level in STARS evaluation, and became the highest score of global green campus. The commitment is to function on 100% renewable electricity by 2021, reducing campus GHG emissions by 80%. It is also preparing and aligning this year for a zero waste Stanford by 2030, defined as 90% diversion from the landfill or higher (Stanford Sustainable, 2019a).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on the way to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Through the introduction and learning of a specific case, this paper summarizes the specific process of green campus's development and construction and directly discusses how to achieve the goal of sustainable development. By analyzing the achievements and measures of its construction, on the one hand, the experience and shortcomings of its green campus construction are summarized; on the other hand, the impact of Stanford's own green campus construction on the local community is discussed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper takes Stanford, one of the best green campuses assessed by sustainability tracking, assessment and rating system (STARS), as a case study in three steps. First, it introduces the academics, energy supply and demand, water and land, waste, management, food and living, buildings and transportation of its campus construction in detail; second, it uses the STARS to make a comprehensive sustainable evaluation of Stanford; finally, it discusses the development relationship between Stanford and local community.\nFindings: The four characteristics of its green campus development model are summarized, namely, based on its own scientific research; from the aspect of environmental friendliness; to achieve joint participation; and forming complementary development with the community. The construction of green campus has changed from a single triangle framework composed of SDGs, STARS and universities to a compound triangle framework composed of SDGs, universities and communities on the existing basis, greatly expanding the way to realize SDGs.\nPractical implications: This development mode will have direct guiding significance for the sustainable construction of other campuses.\nSocial implications: This paper also discusses the development concept from green campus to sustainable community to provide positive reference to achieve the global SDGs from the perspective of colleges and universities.\nOriginality/value: According to the historical track of its development, this paper combines the two (SDGs and green campus) to discuss by using campus construction as an effective way to achieve the SDGs. On the basis of literature research and case study, STARS sustainable assessment is introduced. This will lead to quantitative analysis of sustainable construction in the discussion of the specific case, judging the specific sustainable degree of all aspects of campus construction, to provide a scientific basis for summarizing its characteristics of development mode.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sexual harassment and customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors: The role of burnout and psychological safety of deluxe hotel employees	[ "Sexual harassment", "Burnout", "Customer-oriented boundary-spanning behavior", "Psychological safety", "Deluxe hotel" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sexual harassment (SH) triggers unique and particular problems within an organization: it lowers the quality of the organizational lives of female employees, builds obstacles that disable employees from fully immersing themselves in their organization, and creates additional special costs to the organization (McDonald et al., 2011). Among the different types of collective harassment that occur within an organization, SH is insidious because it has a tremendous influence on the health hazards of employees. The problem is particularly noticeable in women and sexual minorities (Menard et al., 2010). Numerous research studies have noted the negative relationship between SH and an organization's macroscopic performance (Clarke et al., 2016; Salman et al., 2016). Given the numerous harmful influences of SH, the issue requires a profound examination and serious consideration within organizations (Merkin and Shah, 2014). In this study, the researcher focused on the premise that SH regularly occurs within an organization because assailants have greater power than victims, rather than SH being an example of corrupt power (Maypole, 1987).\nTheoretical background: Sexual harassment and hospitality industries\nResearch methodology: Data collection and procedure\nResults: Measurement model\nConclusions and implications: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the recognition of sexual harassment (SH); to describe the relationships among SH, employees' burnout, customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors (COBSB); and to verify the moderating effect of employees' psychological safety (PS), all within deluxe hotels in South Korea.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Prior to verifying the hypotheses, reliability and confirmatory factor analysis were managed, and correlation analysis was used to confirm the directionality between the hypotheses. The hypotheses were analyzed using a structural equation model and multi-group analysis was used to analyze the moderating effect.\nFindings: Perceived SH was significantly related to employees' burnout and COBSB. Also, the employees' burnout was significantly related to COBSB. The moderating effect was significant; low PS greatly increased relative to the effects of SH on COBSB.\nOriginality/value: All types of companies consider unethical behaviors, such as SH in the workplace, as crucial problems that degrade the individual quality of life, and some firms have devised active measures to prevent and relieve damages. Companies should implement employee-centered policies that enable employees, the victims, to formally report and testify to what they have suffered from without revenge from their assailants. All the factors that contribute to the institutional control of SH within the working environment should be taken into consideration, and strict standards should be applied on a company level by criminalizing such behaviors. Employees should be trained on how to effectively cope with diverse types of SH.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Factors influencing intentions to take precautions to avoid consuming food containing dairy products: Expanding the theory of planned behaviour	[ "Taiwan", "Consumer behaviour", "Dairy products", "Students", "Cluster analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In September 2008, the Chinese Government admitted that the food giant, Sanlu Group, had added melamine to infant formula and liquid food containing dairy products in attempts to create false protein levels. Milk tainted with melamine not only caused kidney stones and agonizing complications, but also sickened and killed many infants in China, which worsened the image of food products from China (Buckley, 2008).In recent decades, food safety has emerged as a highly salient and emotive consumer issue (Coulson, 2002), resulting in trade bans, price fluctuations, decreased consumption of products and damage to confidence in the food industry (de Jonge et al., 2007). Milk powder produced by Sanlu Group had been used in many popular food items in Taiwan such as milk tea and bread. Thus, due to the growing concern and the intense media interests over melamine-adulterated milk powder from China, the Taiwan Government, in large part due to its proximity to China, imposed recalls or bans on some food products from China (Buckley, 2008).Because the Chinese melamine milk scandal created a crisis of confidence among Taiwanese consumers, it provides a snapshot of determinants of consumer intentions regarding consuming food containing dairy products. Prior studies indicate that the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), which emphasizes that subjective norms, attitudes, and perceptions of behavioural control are predictive of behavioural intentions or actual behaviours, is a useful tool for predicting food choices or consumption (Cook et al., 2002; Dennison and Shepherd, 1995; Spence and Townsend, 2006). Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to elaborate the impact of subjective norms, attitudes, and perceptions of behavioural control on precautionary behaviour to avoid food containing dairy products, especially given the threat of milk powder contamination.We recognize that food choice and consumption patterns are affected by many factors, including physiological, nutritional, and socio-cultural factors (Miles and Scaife, 2003). Scholars argue that widespread information about food safety can be detrimental toward demand, purchasing, and consumption (Piggott and Marsh, 2004). Thus, consumer attention to news and the perceived credibility of news related to the milk scandal cannot be ignored when considering factors influencing precautionary behaviour about dairy product consumption. The TPB is amenable to the inclusion of additional components in order to better predict variance in behavioural intentions and/or actual behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). This study, therefore, developed a modified TPB that focused on attention and perceived credibility of milk scandal-related information as additional determinants of precautionary behaviour to avoid consuming food containing dairy products.Coulson (2002) found that young people are consumers in their own right who have considerable discretion regarding their food choices. In Taiwan, college students are especially concerned with food safety because they often eat out (e.g. in restaurants or cafeterias) (China Broadcasting Network, 2008). How Taiwanese college students handle risk uncertainty regarding food containing dairy products becomes intriguing. Based on the above evidence, this study examines the specific population of college students in an attempt to elucidate factors affecting their precautionary behaviour regarding consumption of food containing dairy products given the melamine milk scandal.\nLiterature review: The 2008 milk scandal\nMethods: Design, participants and data collection\nResults: This study tested five hypotheses (noted in the Literature review section) regarding the factors associated with intentions to take precautionary behaviour concerning consumption of food containing dairy products. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses were employed to test the research hypotheses proposed in this study. In the regression model, demographic variables (e.g. gender, age, and family income) were entered first as control variables; in the second block, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioural control were entered; the final block included attention to news and perceived credibility of information.The H1-H3 predicted that intentions to take precautions to avoid consuming food containing dairy products would be predicted by:* attitude;* subjective norms; and* perceived behavioural control in line with the theoretical assumptions of the TPB.Given the effects of other variables, subjective norms (b=0.36, p<0.001), attitude (b=-0.10, p<0.001), and perceived behavioural control (b=0.21, p<0.001) were significant predictors of the intention to take precautionary behaviour, respectively. Therefore, H1-H3 were supported.H4 and H5 hypothesized that attention to news and perceived credibility of information would be predictive of intentions to take precautionary action, respectively. After controlling for the influence of other variables, attention to news (b=0.13, p<0.001) and perceived credibility of information (b=0.15, p<0.001) significantly and positively predicted the intention to take precautionary behaviour. Therefore, H4 and H5 were supported.The results in Table I show the correlation between control and predictor variables. Additionally, the analytical results in Table II indicate the demographic variables associated with intentions to take precautionary measures (e.g. gender, age, and family income), subjective norms, attitude, perceived behavioural control, attention to news, and perceived credibility of information. Overall, the hierarchical regression model showed that gender, age, and family income, subjective norms, attitude, perceived behavioural control, attention to news, and perceived credibility of information accounted for 35 percent variance in the intention to take precautionary measures.\nDiscussion: In recent years, the TPB model has been broadly applied to explain behaviours in various domains (e.g. smoking, drug use, oral hygiene, and food choice/healthy eating). These studies generally indicate that subjective norms, attitude, and perceived behavioural control significantly predict behavioural intentions. In this study, the TPB model was applied as a theoretical framework for exploring the determinants related to intentions to take precautionary behaviour regarding consumption of food containing dairy products. The analytical results of this study are consistent with those of the prior studies by Spence and Townsend (2006) in showing that subjective norms, attitude, and perceived behavioural control significantly predict the intention to adopt precautionary behaviour. That is, the evidence indicates that increased influence of subjective norms and increased perceptions of behavioural control tend to be positively associated with intentions. As positive attitude toward food containing dairy products increases, the likelihood of taking precautionary behaviour decreases. Overall, the standard TPB model accounted for 29 percent of variance in the intention to engage in precautionary behaviour after controlling for demographic variables (e.g. gender, age, and income). Although the TPB model has been criticized for its failure to account for affective influences on behaviour (Conner and Armitage, 1998), again, the findings of this study indicate that TPB provides an appropriate rationale for identifying factors associated with behavioural intentions.However, contrary to the finding of prior meta-analyses (Notani, 1998; Rivis and Sheeran, 2003), this study found that the impact of subjective norms and perceived behavioural control on intentions to take precautionary behaviour overrode that of attitude, which is reportedly among the strongest predictors of behavioural intentions among all TPB antecedent components. A possible explanation is the effect of living in a collectivistic society. Culturally, eating is considered important in daily life in Taiwan (a collectivistic society), and healthy eating is a social norm to follow and conform. The importance of eating safety may be more important to Taiwanese than are other behaviours (e.g. breast cancer screening, online shopping, and game playing). People in a collectivist society tend to openly demonstrate their conformity to social norms (Hofstede, 1983) in order to remain accepted by others. The above discussion may explain why the relationship between subjective norms and intentions to take precautionary behaviour was stronger than that between attitude, perceived behavioural control, and intentions to take precautionary behaviours.As to why the relationship between perceived behavioural control and intentions to take precautionary behaviour is stronger than that between attitude and intentions to take precautionary behaviour? Since college students are well educated, they may be more confident in their ability to avoid risk-taking. Perceived behavioural control, therefore, increases confidence in taking preventive behaviour among college students. It is not surprising to know that perceived behavioural control is a stronger predictor of intentions to take precautionary behaviour than attitude.From the perspective of methodology, the questions measuring intentions to take precautionary behaviours directly related to a specific point in time (e.g. after the outbreak of the milk scandal in China...). Although only two months has passed in some cases between the scandal breaking and the data collection, the issue may be less-salient with respect to the report of attitudes and so could impact on the strength of the relationship between the two variables. This maybe another possible explanation related to why the relationship between perceived behavioural control and intentions to take precautionary behaviour is stronger than that between attitude and intentions to take precautionary behaviour.Regarding the significant relationship between attention to news and the intention to take precautionary behaviour observed in this study, the analytic results indicated that the greater their intentions, the more likely they were to take precautionary behaviour. The finding is consistent with the McGuire (2001) information-processing model, which suggests that attention to news-related media is a necessary prerequisite for an effect on behaviour. That is, the extensive and overwhelming news coverage concerning the milk scandal served as stimuli to consumers. Attention enables consumers to focus on milk scandal news and then enhances their ability to judge risks as well as intentions to take precautionary behaviour (which, although it cannot be generalized to the entire population, might be encouraging to those designing public health messages during public health crises).In accordance with the literature, this study also found that perceived credibility of information was significantly predictive of respondent intentions to take precautionary behaviour. As Coulson (2002) argued, food risk communication cannot be dissociated by the consumers from the social context in which information is embedded. Even though participants apparently perceived very little risk from milk product (participants reported a mean score of 4.80 on a seven-point scale of attitude toward consuming food containing dairy products), trust in food safety information (milk powder is tainted with melamine) may increase respondent awareness regarding the safety of food (de Jonge et al., 2007), which in turn enhances their intentions to take precautionary behaviour (e.g. avoiding food containing dairy products or seeking information regarding milk scandal). This finding may seem unintuitive; however, it was supported by the empirical evidence in this study.The results reveal that the intention to take precautionary measures is significantly related to subjective norms, attitude, perceived behavioural control, attentions to news, and perceived credibility of information, which is not completely unexpected given the solid evidence in the literature and the demographics of this subpopulation. Nevertheless, this study provides a better understanding of the likely response (at least by this group) to future public health crises and the findings suggest that is would be useful for future research to investigate factors increasing the likelihood that people will pay attention to health messages.Finally, the inclusion of attention and perceived credibility of information constructs enabled a better model fit than that of the TPB model. However, a potential limitation of this study is that, although the total variance explained in the intention to take precautionary behaviour was high (35 percent), more variables such as knowledge, social trust, and involvement, should have been incorporated. This issue should be addressed in future studies. In addition, it should also be noted that this study did not measure behaviour, but rather behavioural intentions. Future research should include measures of actual behaviour.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The melamine milk scandal caused a crisis of confidence in food containing dairy products. The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of precautionary behaviour to avoid food containing dairy products among Taiwanese college students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Of the total respondents selected using a multistage cluster sampling plan, 1,213 respondents completed the questionnaire.\nFindings: - The survey results showed that subjective norms, attitude, perceived behavioural control, attention to news, and perceived credibility of information are significantly associated with the intention to take precautionary behaviour.\nOriginality/value: - The paper developed a modified theory of planned behaviour (TPB) that focused on attention and perceived credibility of milk scandal-related information as additional determinants of precautionary behaviour to avoid food containing dairy products. The inclusion of attention and perceived credibility of information constructs enabled a better model fit than that of the TPB model.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interactive effects of quality of government and family firm governance on R&D output: Empirical research on the listed family firms in China	[ "Family firms", "Family control", "Agency problem", "Family management", "Quality of government", "R&D output" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovation is considered a primary engine of economic growth and a significant source of wealth. Innovation is pivotal, particularly in high-tech firms; however, innovation requires research and development (R&D) (Bunn et al., 2002). Evidence suggests that family firms constitute a significant source of technological innovation and economic development (Astrachan and Shanker, 2003; Zahra, 2005). A firm governance structure has been recognised as a crucial intrinsic determinant of R&D, due to behavioural agency issues that reflect different long-term attitudes, levels of risk-aversion and social-emotional wealth perspectives (Baysinger et al., 1991; Lee and O'Neill, 2003). The literature has shown that agency problems exist in family businesses (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Schulze et al., 2001). Agency problems may give rise to information asymmetry (Sharma, 1997) and moral hazard problems (Campbell and Marino, 1994) between owners and managers or dominant and minority shareholders (Block et al., 2013; Chang et al., 2010; Chrisman et al., 2004; Fernandez and Nieto, 2006; Zahra, 2005). Although loss aversion with regard to social-emotional wealth has predictive value for family firms' R&D decisions, Gomez-Mejia et al. claim that family owners may be influenced by the potential for social-emotional wealth gains when making R&D investments. This approach has proven useful for explaining family underinvestment in R&D (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2014). In addition, Matzler et al. (2015) suggest that because active family control has two components--the management of strategic decisions and day-to-day operations, and the board's monitoring and advising function--large shareholdings by families would not appear to influence innovation efficiency. Once the family is engaged in management and governance, positive effects can be expected. And Cucculelli et al. (2016) assert in their recent study that the family firms managed by both family members and external managers are observed the negative correlation on patents which signal the presence of enhanced risk-aversion. When firms are run by external managers, in particular, they engage in less risky investment. However, no definite conclusion has been reached about the complicated relationship between family firm governance structure and R&D behaviour.\n2. Theoretical framework and hypothesis development: Innovation is considered a significant factor in economic growth. Higher levels of R&D enable firms to accumulate stronger technological and market capabilities for their process and product innovations, which may lead to increases in sales, market share and profits (Tsai and Wang, 2004). R&D facilitates the advancement of corporate innovation in products, technologies and services and is widely considered to be critical in gaining and sustaining competitive advantage (Ettlie, 1998). R&D is also relevant to the economy as a whole because it creates new knowledge and jobs and fosters general social prosperity. However, R&D has specific characteristics, such as long-term investment (Mansfield and Romeo, 1980), resource endowment (Lee and O'Neill, 2003), complexity and professionalisation (Hall et al., 2005; Raz et al., 2002), uncertainty (Baysinger et al., 1991; Dahlin and Behrens, 2005; Scherer and Harhoff, 2000) and lag-effect (Griliches, 1998). It is difficult to objectively measure the achievements of R&D due to its high uncertainty and lag-effect.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Independent variables: family firm governance\n4. Sample selection and data resources: The data are collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database; the research sample includes all non-financial family firms listed in China from 2001 to 2010, and the data of firms that simultaneously issued A shares and B shares are dropped. The 5,010 firm-year observations contain 814 family firms. Financial data are also collected from the CSMAR database. Patent data are collected from the Chinese National Patents Office from 2001 to 2010, based on official reports and records. Typically, the patents include invention, utility and design patents. Only invention and utility patents are counted in this paper because design patents are not regarded as a critical factor in financial performance. The analysis uses data on QOG from a World Bank (2006) survey, and firm-level replies are aggregated into city-level average indexes (Chen et al., 2014). In this research, QOG is assumed to be static during the research period.\n5. The empirical design: The data set is organised as an unbalanced panel. This study exploits random-effects GLS regression, analysing both cross-sectional and time variation and estimating the mean effects. The GLS model corrects the variance- and sequence-related problems of linear model random items and remains consistent and robust when the error term is heteroscedastic and non-normally distributed. This study also adopts the Heckman two-step treatment effects models for binary response data analysis by dichotomising the observations of patents (1 or 0). See Figure 1 for the conceptual model design. All t-statistics reported in the tables are based on robust standard errors clustered at the firm level (White, 1980). All variables are winsorised at the 1 and 99 per cent levels to restrict the influence of outliers.\n6. The results: 6.1 Summary of variables\n7. Conclusions: 7.1 Implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on the interactive effects of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on R&D output by analysing Chinese-listed industrial family firms. It proposes modelling the moderating influence of quality of government (QOG) on the relationship between family firm governance types (family control and family management) and R&D output from the \"twin agency\" perspective (Stulz, 2005).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data set is organised as an unbalanced panel. This study exploits random-effects GLS regression, analysing both cross-sectional and time variation, and estimating the mean effects. The GLS model corrects the variance- and sequence-related problems of linear model random items and remains consistent and robust when the error term is heteroscedastic and non-normally distributed.\nFindings: The findings provide several empirical conclusions: in areas with a higher QOG, family firms with greater family control (i.e. voting rights of the board) achieve more R&D output than firms with less family control; and QOG has no significant interactive effects with family management (i.e. the ratio of family managers among top managers) on R&D output. The main contribution of this paper is to show that in areas with a higher QOG, greater R&D output for family firms depends on greater family control rather than family management. These findings give a better understanding of the interactive influence of inside and outside agency problems in family firms in general and their R&D output in particular across different cities, and may help both family firms' leaders and government policy makers to foster innovation by controlling intrinsic and extrinsic agency problems.\nResearch limitations/implications: To date, most family firm innovation research has concentrated upon governance and R&D behaviour (Block, 2012; Brinkerink and Bammens, 2018; Chrisman and Patel, 2012; Lee and O'Neill, 2003). Few studies, however, have been performed from the major strategic (control) and operational (management) orientations, into the influence of outside (QOG) and inside (governance) factors upon innovation. This study attempts to fill that gap. It uses patent counts to measure the economic and technological importance of innovation. It argues that different QOG may lead major controllers or executives in family firms to have different motivations, and hence to approach innovation differently from the agency perspective.\nPractical implications: The main contribution of this study is to show that in areas with a higher QOG, higher R&D outputs of family firms depend on higher family control rather than family management, due to the interactive influence of inside and outside agency problems. When family management is high, the direct effect is high, because family management may reduce the principal-agent agency cost (PAAC), but the interactive effect of QOG and family management is not significant. In areas with high QOG, although family management may reduce the PAAC, principal-principal and altruism agency costs may increase. Based on the twin agency theory, differing inside expropriation issues between strategic (family control) and operational (family management) orientations are the main differentiator, one accentuated by the external expropriation issues of QOG.\nSocial implications: These results contribute to a better understanding of family firms in general and their R&D output in particular across different cities. The findings also show of interest for government policy makers who should be aware of the significance of FFs' characteristics for innovation and their incentives to conduct R&D projects.\nOriginality/value: The research uses Stulz's (2005) \"Twin agency\" concept to analyse the interacting effects of state-level agency problems of governments with firm-level agency problems of family firms on R&D output. This paper answers the main question: What are the interactive effects of QOG and family firm governance on R&D output? The main contribution of the paper is to bridging the current gap in the literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Science and technology policy management in China	[ "Technology led strategy", "Innovation", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The rapid development of science and technology (S&T) has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of China economy. In China, its rapid development in term of speed, scale and scarcity has posed a great challenge on S&T in controlling national security, food supply, environment and energy scarcity, dangerous technology and low quality of goods. Today, China has received much attention in the popular literature as China's economic growth increased by leaps and bounds on average annual growth rate approximately 10 percent over the last 28 years which accelerated by the development of S&T (China National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). Although people have accessed the benefits from S&T advancement in different disciplines, S&T itself has also the potential to create irreversible consequences which will bring human lives to a level of danger. As a consequence, this will outweigh the benefits that could be provided from the advancement in S&T. The understanding of S&T elements enables us to encounter the problems resulted from S&T. Today, the development of S&T evolves the product life cycle from \"search goods\" to \"experience goods\" and further to \"expert goods\". Therefore, policy formation in fostering S&T development is important as it has greatly contributed to the economy as a whole. Indeed, the understanding of S&T in forming policy to handle the irreversible consequences has become a prominent concern for policy makers. As such, instead of forming policy to enhance the S&T development, the implications of S&T have alerted the policy makers on the importance in tackling the threats with the understanding of science and technology. Thus, the concern of this paper is to lay out the conceptual framework for S&T policy management in China which able to serve as a basis for policy formulation as well as policy analysis for the policy makers. The structure of this paper has divided into five sections. Section 2 presents the analytical framework. Section 3 presents the mathematical model of the impacts of S&T policy. Section 4 proposes the conceptual framework of S&T policy management in China. Finally, conclusions will be presented in Section 5.\n2 Analytical framework: 2.1 Innovation process theory, product life cycle, types of goods and product development route\n3 Mathematical model of the impacts of science and technology policy: The impact of S&T on economic growth is conceived by different analysis (Fagerberg, 1994). Although S&T has a significant contribution towards economic growth, it cannot easily be integrated into the economic growth theory. This is because the growth theory excludes non-instrumental concern when analysing the impacts of S&T. Higher economic growth can be achieved not only from actual outcomes, but also from the effects which lead to these outcomes. Therefore, this section presents the mathematical common to examine the impacts of S&T policy on the expected utility which largely ignored in the economic growth theory. From the economic point of view, utility has to be inferred from observed behaviour. Let Zs be the strong S&T policy implementation and Zn be the weak S&T policy implementation. Generally, strong S&T policy will contribute more benefits (p(Zs)+B) than the weak S&T policy (p(Zn)-D):Thus, Equation 1 where p(Zs) and p(Zn) are the expected return from strong and weak S&T policy, respectively. B indicates the benefits received from the implementation of S&T policy such as job creation, knowledge spillover, higher productivity and efficiency. Conversely, D indicates the losses incurred with weak S&T policy such as low productivity and efficiency. Therefore, the impact of S&T policy on expected utility can be expressed by equation 2.Expected utility: Equation 2 where, V(Zs) is the utility with strong S&T policy; V(Zn) is the utility with weak S&T policy; X(B) is the benefits received with strong S&T policy; Y(D) is the losses incurred with weak S&T policy; r is the probability; and X and Y are increasing over time t with X'(0)=Y'(0)=0. In order to examine the relationship between S&T policy and the expected utility, the expected utility of equation 2 is maximized subject to equation 1.Hence: Equation 3 Next, obtain the first and second order conditions for equation 3: Equation 4 Equation 5 Equation 6 Equation 7 Equation 8 From equation 6, it shows that the utility function is concave. This indicates that strong S&T policy will increase the expected utility. However, the condition is not necessary at the optimum. The Hessian second order condition for a maximum is where: Equation 9 and: Equation 10 Equations 6-8 show that the Hessian's condition of: Equation 11 is not satisfied. Therefore, the expected utility function to be at an optimum is not necessarily be satisfied.From the above analysis, it shows that S&T has unintended side effects in its application. Therefore, it requires a control to keep the system operating properly. If the policy is well controlled, the expected benefits will be greater than the expected cost and ultimately increase the expected utility.\n4 A conceptual framework of science and technology policy management: 4.1 The impacts of S&T on China's development\n5 Conclusion: China has taken a number of measures in its quest to leap from a natural resource-intensive economy to a knowledge-intensive economy. S&T is a major catalyst in economic growth and development if the goals of the contribution towards economic development are to be achieved. The economic benefits of S&T become an overriding concern as there are different benefits achieved from the spillover of the S&T. Although S&T has improved our quality of life, it produces unintended consequences on our lives. These issues arise as the decision take place in light of poor scientific knowledge. As a consequence, these threats have to be handled with a relatively sophisticated understanding of science. Therefore, the issues of \"science for policy\" has not been addressed in the past literature, has now become too prominent an issue in our society to be ignored. Hence, an unified policy framework where the concept of \"science for policy\" and \"policy for science\" have to be incorporated and synchronized in tackling the challenges faced by current practices. The increased industrial production in China has been encouraged by the burgeoning external and internal market demand as a result of economic growth. This has been made possible by the production methods which heavily rely on the S&T. Setting policy to promote S&T is essential. However, understanding of S&T elements especially the technical content to handle the outcome should not be neglected. In order to achieve the optimum benefits from S&T, policy makers should participate in facilitating the consequences, applications and results. There is no perfect design for S&T policy as scientists, mathematicians and engineers are not able to provide solutions for all problems. The framework does not ensure that the best S&T policy is designed but serve as a platform to raise key questions that certainly helpful in decision making. Furthermore, policy should be aligned to narrow the gap in the latest technology breakthroughs. In conclusion, \"science for policy\" and \"policy for science\" has to be integrated and synchronized to reduce the detriments.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Science and technology is the bedrock in developing a knowledge-based economy. Immense changes will be spawned by the development of science and technology. Today, China's remarkable growth has brought a great interest to the rest of the world in fostering her economic development through scientific research and technology acquisition. Whether China will be the world leader in science and technology remains a puzzle. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges of the science and technology development in strengthening China's economic growth. In this context, the purpose of the study is to provide a conceptual framework for the strategic management of science and technology policy in China.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study was conducted based on the past and present observations and literature review.\nFindings: - Although the concept of \"policy for science\" plays a pivotal role in the technology progress in China, the concept of \"science for policy\" should be emphasized. Hence, a unified policy framework where the concepts of \"science for policy\" and \"policy for science\" have to be incorporated and synchronized in tackling the challenges faced by current practices.\nOriginality/value: - The commitment in developing an \"innovation-oriented society\" in the twenty-first century, it is essential to lay the foundation for the framework to understand the science and technology policy management in stimulating the Chinese economic growth. The framework could be served as the basis for policy formulation and policy analysis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
From service for free to service for fee: business model innovation in manufacturing firms	[ "Business model", "Manufacturing firms", "Multiple case study", "Service innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many manufacturing firms infuse services in the value proposition to create a competitive advantage (Gebauer et al., 2010; Neu and Brown, 2005; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003). This process is often referred to as service infusion (Gustafsson et al., 2010), suggesting that services are becoming a greater part of offerings and influence the organisation of manufacturing firms (Gebauer et al., 2010). But, focusing on technology, products and the value of exchange gave rise to a tradition of including free services in the product sales (Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003). For manufacturing firms adding services to the value proposition, a key question is if a product-based business model is consistent with the competitive advantage of the firm. Visnjic Kastalli and van Looy (2013) show that increased service sales has a positive effect on product sales, suggesting a dual effect of charging separately for services.\nTheoretical framework: Most research described service infusion as a strategy that manufacturing firms use to improve profits in highly competitive industries (Fang et al., 2008; Neely, 2008). However, service infusion is not a certain way to profitability (Krishnamurthy et al., 2003). The decision to infuse service in the business influence profitability, while the extent of service infusion has a negative effect (Neely, 2008). The positive results of service infusion reappear only when the extent of service infusion achieves a critical mass (Fang et al., 2008). But, the results of Visnjic Kastalli and van Looy (2013) suggest that a transition strategy from service for free to service for fee could have an indirect effect on the sales of products.\nResearch methodology: This research emphasises the identification, description and analysis of alternative strategies that manufacturing firms use for business model innovation. Through industry contacts, cases were identified in which manufacturing firms either began to charge for services that previously were free or created new business models for new services.\nResults: All firms in this study provide basic, product-related services directly to their customers. To handle a market in which free service erodes products' profit margins, manufacturing firms began to charge directly for the services they provide. Some firms changed their business model for the entire range of services, whereas others are testing changes to the business model for individual services or for only new services. Based on the empirical data, eight transition strategies for breaking free from free service were identified. The next sections describe the identified transition strategies to move from free to fee (Table II).\nAn analysis of transition strategies from free to fee: The eight identified transition strategies from free to fee show how to change business model and involve specific changes of the business model (Table III). In particular, we analyse degree and type of innovation, and how building blocks in the business model change. In our case studies we identify three degrees of business model innovation:\nConclusions: The research contributes to the literature on service infusion in manufacturing firms (Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003; Fang et al., 2008) and business model innovation (Osterwalder, 2004; Amit and Zott, 2012) by investigating strategies for transitioning from service for free to service for fee. Several studies have identified business model innovation as a key to perform service infusion profitably; but few studies have investigated the transition strategies manufacturing firms use to change the business model for services.\nTheoretical implications: The research presents different transition strategies that manufacturing firms use to change the business model for service from free to service for fee. The strategies are based on performing:\nManagerial implications: Eight transition strategies for breaking free from free services were identified. These strategies provide alternatives for manufacturing firms that want to increase the range of services with a fee. Customers react differently towards the alternative strategies, and the short-term effect of \"Yesterday it was free - today it has a price!\" can be devastating for a firm with scarce resources since it reduces existing product and service volumes. The most certain way to disengage from free services is \"Our new partner cannot work for free!\", which is the transition strategy that has the least short-term effects. Manufacturing firms often use strategies that create reverse reciprocity because the change is driven by necessity instead of as part of a deliberate strategy for becoming a solution provider.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the present research is to identify how business model innovation can be used to make the transition from service for free to service for fee. In particular, the focus is on identifying, describing and analysing alternative transition strategies, degree and type of innovation, and how building blocks in the business model change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multiple case study of six manufacturing firms was performed. Data were collected through interviews with CEOs, service managers and sales managers. In addition, two workshops were performed with the participating firms.\nFindings: The present research identified eight strategies for transitioning from service for free to service for fee. These strategies represent change in the business model, incremental business model innovation and radical business model innovation. It is suggested to change the content and structure to perform incremental business model innovation and change the governance to perform radical business model innovation.\nOriginality/value: In most models for service infusion, the change of business model is seen as a necessary step and focus is placed on that a change of business model is needed. The present study elaborates on what approaches manufacturing firms use to make the change from one business model to another.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Additive manufacturing technology: mapping social impacts	[ "Customization", "Organizational change", "Additive manufacturing", "Manufacturing competences", "Work organization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Different from the traditional manufacturing processes of subtracting material, additive manufacturing (AM) is a process where the material is added layer-by-layer to create a product. It emerged in the 1980s, through the work of Charles Hull (1986, 2015) in stereolithography, and the technological advances of the last decade have made this technology accessible to industry. With AM technology, new objects, with personalized designs and made of several materials, could be manufactured in new productive contexts. It is expected that this technology will revolutionize the current industry, creating many challenges in different domains, such as technological development, materials research, product design, operations management and economic, environmental and social adaptations. This last domain has been explored by several authors (e.g. Despeisse et al., 2017; Sutherland et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2015; Gao et al., 2015; Huang et al., 2013), who analyzed the AM impacts within the sustainability and social perspectives, but knowledge about AM technology social impact assessment continues to be scarce. Due to the complexity of the assessment of social aspects of AM, a limited number of studies were found (Chen et al., 2015; Huang et al., 2013). However, impact assessment is an established practice in the global socio-economic context, being a fundamental element in support of decision-making processes (Vanclay, 2002; IAIA, 2003). In the case of social impacts, the influence of psychological and cultural factors that condition the individuals' behavior make these impacts more complicated and difficult to predict (Vanclay, 2002).\n2. Overview of social impacts assessment: Social impact assessment emerged in the 1970s jointly with the environmental impact assessment, but the growing perception of the difference between social and environmental issues led to it being considered as a different type of evaluation. To the International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA, 2015), there is a differentiation between a social change process and a social impact: not all social changes cause social impacts, and the objective is to anticipate, to prepare and to manage the impact to minimize its negative effects and maximize its potential benefits. A social change is \"an identifiable process of change in project-affected communities which is created, initiated, enabled, facilitated and/or exacerbated by a planned intervention. The social change process is not in itself a social impact, but may or may not result in the experience of social impacts depending on the local context\" (IAIA, 2015, p. 94). On the other hand, \"social impacts include all the issues associated with a planned intervention (i.e. a project) that affect or concern people, whether directly or indirectly. Specifically, a social impact is considered to be something that is experienced or felt in either a perceptual (cognitive) or a corporeal (bodily, physical) sense, at any level, for example at the level of an individual, an economic unit (family/household), a social group (circle of friends), a workplace (a company or government agency), or by community/society generally. These different levels are affected in different ways by an impact or impact causing action\" (IAIA, 2015, p. 2). is so dynamic and so emergent, that its ambiguity and the lack of operational definitions difficult the identification of the impacts (Vanclay, 2002; Vanclay and Esteves, 2011; IAIA, 2015).\n3. Methodological approach: The objective of this paper is to map keywords (\"pointers\") for AM technology social impacts. To this end, the relevant literature was scrutinized to identify which of the topics, presented in Table I, appear in the context of AM.\n4. Results: 4.1 Overall distribution of AM social impact findings\n5. Additive manufacturing research agenda: The identification of significant topics related to the social impacts of AM is an important contribution, but there are still a considerable number of gaps in the available AM literature; thus, a set of challenges related to AM technology development within the industry context remains without answer. After this research study, the fundamental challenges in the AM technology field can be summarized as follows:\n6. Conclusions, limitations and contributions: This paper presents an overview of AM technology potential social impacts. It is focused on the analysis of the most relevant publications on AM social impacts and, therefore, it does not take into account other challenges faced by the society concerning technological, social, political, economic and environmental factors that can influence how social impacts are reflected in a global society.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Recent developments in additive manufacturing (AM) technology have emphasized the issue of social impacts. However, such effects are still to be determined. So, the purpose of this paper is to map the social impacts of AM technology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodological approach applied in this study combines a literature review with computer-aided content analysis to search for keywords related to social impacts. The content analysis technique was used to identify and count the relevant keywords in academic documents associated with AM social impacts.\nFindings: The study found that AM technology social impacts are still in an exploratory phase. Evidence was found that several social challenges of AM technology will have an influence on the society. The topics associated with fabrication, customization, sustainability, business models and work emerged as the most relevant terms that can act as \"pointers\" to social impacts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research on this subject is strongly conditioned by the scarcity of empirical experience and, consequently, by the scarcity of data and publications on the topic.\nOriginality/value: This study gives an up-to-date contribution to the topic of AM social impacts, which is still little explored in the literature. Moreover, the methodological approach used in this work combines bibliometrics with computer-aided content analysis, which also constitutes a contribution to support future literature reviews in any field. Overall, the results can be used to improve academic research in the topic and promote discussion among the different social actors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Pathways for the co-evolution of new product development and strategy formation processes: Empirical evidence from major Austrian innovations	[ "Case studies", "Product development", "Strategy", "Product innovation", "Complexity science", "Self-organization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The development of new products and the formation of corresponding innovation strategies has been conceptualised quite differently in the literature, either as rational and linear processes or as non-linear emergent processes. The traditional rational and linear perspective on innovation and strategy formation are embraced, for instance, by the stage-gate model (Cooper, 1987) or classical strategic planning approaches (Hofer and Schendel, 1978). Moreover, the existence of a formal innovation strategy is considered as a success factor for new product development (NPD) (van der Panne et al., 2003). In contrast, Mintzberg and Waters (1985) have highlighted the emergent nature of strategy making. Likewise, Quinn (1985) proposes that strategy formation as well as NPD is inherently incremental. While literature has shown that product innovations are often the outcome of formal planning and strategic intentions (e.g. Cooper, 1987) there is also empirical evidence that unplanned behaviour, serendipity and bootlegging (e.g. Reid and de Brentani, 2004; Augsdorfer, 2005) are also relevant up to a certain degree. However, there is little evidence about the relative role and importance of both phenomena in different industrial and organisational contexts. Moreover, innovation and strategy processes have often been treated in isolation in the literature (Sminia, 2009) and hence there is little evidence to verify to what extent new products are necessarily the direct outcomes of specific corporate or innovation strategies and how new innovations shape the development of strategies. For this question only fragmented empirical evidence has so far been provided in the literature, focusing on specific high-tech industries (e.g. Robinson and Stern, 1997; Akgun et al., 2014) and for corporate venturing (Burgelman, 1996). The aim of this paper is to examine the co-evolution of strategy formation and NPD processes by empirically analysing innovations in different industries and organisations. Therefore, we identify different process models, described as innovation pathways in this paper, which elucidate how the NPD and strategy formation influence each other over time, i.e. how formal strategies are developed and guide the innovation process and how successful bottom-up driven product developments enable the creation of new innovation strategies.\n2. Theoretical framework: By reviewing theoretical and empirical literature about the product innovation and strategy formation process the theoretical framework for this paper is provided. In both strands of literature, scholars have adopted a complexity science-based perspective which is the starting point for this research. We present arguments to conceptualise different process models for both, NPD and strategy development. We thereby provide theoretical arguments for conceptualising possible pathways which describe how NPD and strategy formation co-evolve over time. We first discuss innovation process models and then deal more specifically with the formation of strategy.\n3. Methods and data collection: We follow a qualitative research approach with a multiple case study design which is well-suited to capture the rich features of social complex systems and permit theory building and initial theory testing (Eisenhardt and Bathia, 2002). In order to analyse the co-evolutionary process of NPD and strategy formation, we have identified a sample of 50 cases of highly innovative new products developed by Austrian firms in different industries. To select the cases, first, a research team identified a list of 600 potential innovations based on analysing various sources (e.g. innovation awards, trade journals, patent databases, etc.) and conducting interviews with several national experts in various fields such as industry associations, academics, and inventors. On the basis of a multi-criteria set consisting of factors such as financial return, entrepreneurial achievement, technical solution, economic impact and originality, an expert group consisting of members of the project team and national innovation experts selected the 50 most innovative Austrian product developments, which all had a very high novelty and were new-to-the world products. Similar procedures for selecting product innovations were carried out, for instance, by Wallmark and McQueen (1991) who investigated 100 major Swedish innovations, or by Cozijnsen et al. (2000) who examined 50 Dutch innovation projects. However, no specific quantitative data such as the volume of product revenues or profits were used. Such multiple-criteria sets are commonly used to select radical product innovations (McDermott and O'Connor, 2002), hence we did not use a single specific criterion such as turnover. One crucial criterion was that the innovations had been successful on the market for at least three years. In fact, almost all innovations were still on the market in 2013.\n4. Results: 4.1. The fuzzy front end of innovation: identifying emerging opportunities\n5. Discussion and conclusions: Models and notions of complexity sciences have gained attention within the innovation literature in the last few years in order to explain the development and diffusion of innovations. Innovation, strategy and organisation scholars have used concepts and notions from the complexity sciences for the understanding of and thinking about organisations which could shift the attention to previously only peripheral relevant phenomena (Tsoukas, 1998). We have adopted such a perspective to study and conceptualise NPD and strategy making as co-evolutionary processes where emergence and self-organisations are important phenomena. We aimed to investigate its role in the development of new highly innovative products in a broad range of industries and different organisations covering a period of two centuries proposing that such phenomena are not only relevant in entrepreneurial firms or high-tech firms competing in highly dynamic industries. Thus, we also contribute to the long debate in the innovation literature about the relative role, balance and need of formal versus informal planning in NPD in different organisational settings (e.g. Brown and Eisenhardt, 1995; Amabile, 1997; Tidd and Bessant, 2009; Song et al., 2011).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the intermingling of new product development and strategy making which are interpreted as co-evolutionary processes where self-organisation and emergence are significant phenomena.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on an empirical study of 50 major Austrian innovations in various manufacturing industries developed by small and large firms in the 1980s and 1990s. The theoretical arguments for studying the innovation and strategy process are based on the findings of the complexity science.\nFindings: The paper shows that emerging opportunities, self-organisation and strategic intentions are equally important for the development of new major product innovations as deliberate search processes and rational decision making. The author identifies three strategy paths concerning the innovation and strategy process which are described as \"strategically managed innovations\", \"strategically enabled self-organized innovations\" and \"purely self-organised innovations\".\nOriginality/value: While empirical studies investigating the emergent nature of strategy and innovation have so far mostly been analysed for very specific industries and firm types, this paper aims to deliver a broader empirical base for the question as to how strategy enables and guides the emergence of product innovations and how the development of new products contributes to the formation of innovation strategies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Semantic overlays in educational content networks - the hylOs approach	[ "E‐learning", "Internet", "Data handling", "Assets management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Since hypermedia systems have been introduced to teaching and learning environments, the composition and reception of learning material have undergone a shift in paradigm. Linear instructional designs manifested in books or scripts are now complemented by meshed knowledge networks. Content access no longer follows a single, predefined path, but multiple, associative rules driven by individual inquiries. In addition, portable electronic formats and hyper-references stimulate content exchange and interrelations between authors. Following these changes, a new perspective on content as a net of confined, self-consistent \"knowledge nuggets\" has been developed.In the field of educational content management, the concept of atomic, self-consistent content units became standardised as IEEE LOM eLearning Objects (eLOs) (LOM, 2002). eLOs may combine rich media content, a significant set of metadata and structural relations. eLO content itself may be composed from other eLearning objects, constructing a self-similar knowledge tree for navigation in this fashion. The LOM metadata subsume technical, textual and educational information, which are complemented by a set of named relations. The latter can be exploited for constructing a dense mesh of inter-object guidance to the learner. LOM has been chosen as part of the high-level exchange format SCORM, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (ADL Technical Team, 2004).LOM named relations form a key concept to content coherence. While single eLearning content objects should remain isolated, and content composition only allows for hierarchical structuring following a single perspective, the relational part gives rise to a semantic net interconnecting different objects from mutually unaware authors. However, an author adding any eLO to a repository faces the challenge of discovering and defining relations between his object and the remaining repository. This task becomes intractable for large eLO collections. As part of our presently ongoing work on automated eLO recording and processing, we formalised the semantic of eLO relations within an ontology and with an additional set of inference rules. Starting from some initial relations, any new object entering a repository can then automatically harvest named links to any other object through concurrent processing of an inference engine.In this paper, we first discuss the eLearning-object approach to content management and briefly introduce the Hypermedia Learning Object System (hylOs), our eLearning content platform used for all implementations. In Section 3, we propose extensions to the LOM relations and their semantic and discuss automated inference processing. These procedures are shown to naturally extend beyond repository limits, facilitated by standard metadata transport protocols. Finally, Section 4 is dedicated to a conclusion and outlook.\n2 eLO content management: 2.1 eLearning objects and related work\n3 An ontology-based approach to constructing educational semantic nets: 3.1 Advancing LOM relations\n4 Conclusions and outlook: In this paper, we discussed key aspects of eLO-based educational content networks and automated content augmentation. Starting from an introductory discussion of IEEE LOM eLearning objects, we introduced our hylOs, and ongoing activities of eLO generation and management. Focussing on the application of an educational semantic net, a detailed evaluation and a suggestion for improvement of the LOM semantic relations has been presented. It was shown that by turning the inherent relational logic into operational reasoning, a semantic learning net will actively evolve and monitor its consistency.The approach of generating a learning net can be extended to inter-repository overlays in a straightforward way, by using standard metadata transport protocols such as OAI. Our future work will concentrate on the design of semantic peer-to-peer networks formed between distributed eLOs, delivering content on demand within individual educational contexts of learners and authors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper, aims to introduce an educational content management system Hypermedia Learning Objects System (hylOs), which is fully compliant to the IEEE LOM eLearning object metadata standard. Enabled through an advanced authoring toolset, hylOs allows the definition of instructional overlays of a given eLearning object mesh.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In educational content management, simple file distribution is considered insufficient. Instead, IEEE LOM standardised eLearning objects have been well established as the basic building blocks for educational online content. They are nicely suited for self-explorative learning approaches within adaptive hypermedia applications. Even though eLearning objects typically reside within content repositories, they may propagate metadata relations beyond repository limits. Given the explicit meaning of these interobject references, a semantic net of content strings can be knotted, overlaying the repository infrastructure.\nFindings: - Based on a newly introduced ontological evaluation layer, meaningful overlay relations between knowledge objects are shown to derive autonomously. A technology framework to extend the resulting semantic nets beyond repository limits is also presented.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper provides proof of concept for the derivation and use of semantic content networks in educational hypermedia. It thereby opens up new directions for future eLearning technologies and pedagogical adoption.\nPractical implications: - The paper illustrates capabilities of the hylOs eLearning content management. The hylOs is built upon the more general Media Information Repository (MIR) and the MIR Adaptive Context Linking Environment (MIRaCLE): its linking extension. MIR is an open system supporting the standard XML, CORBA and JNDI. hylOs benefits from manageable information structures, sophisticated access logic and high-level authoring tools like the eLO editor responsible for the semi-manual creation of meta data and WYSIWYG like XML-content editing, allowing for rapid distributed content development.\nOriginality/value: - Over the last few years, networking technologies and distributed information systems have moved up the OSI layer and are established well within application-centric middleware. Most recently, content overlay networks have matured, incorporating the semantics of data files into their self-organisational structure with the aim of optimising data-centric distributed indexing and retrieval. This paper elaborates a corresponding concept of semantic structuring for educational content objects. It introduces and analyses the autonomous generation and educational exploitation of semantic content nets, providing proof of concept by a full-featured implementation within the hylOs educational content management system.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Coaching leaders in middle and executive management: goals, performance, buy-in	[ "Middle management", "Senior management", "Coaching", "Management development", "Recruitment", "Leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Coaching of leaders engages these individuals in a process of working toward enhancement of leadership abilities and skills (Stern, 2004; Wright, 2005). Because of the difficulties inherent in transferring learned skills from a single training to the work environment (Hesketh, 1997), it has been repeatedly demonstrated that training alone may not lead to optimum performance (Schmidt and Bjork, 1992). Coaching can help to redress this transfer problem by encouraging coaching recipients to practice leadership skills and to develop them more fully with the help of constructive feedback (Olivero et al., 1997). Goal-based coaching also may help to create a work environment characterised by continuous learning (Veale and Wachtel, 1996).\nMulti-faceted goals for coaching: For recruiters in any organization, production quotas are critical goals. Apart from these organizationally imposed goals, managers must also find a way to sustain their quality of life and the leadership development if they hope to remain successful over time. Within military organizations in particular, effective leadership is essential in meeting congressionally mandated personnel strength requirements. Indeed, existing research on the motivational power and self-regulation assistance from goals speaks to the importance of participative and challenging goal setting within work environments (Locke and Latham, 1990, 2002). In practice, the identification of goals that are specific, measurable, assignable/actionable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) is becoming increasingly popular (Rubin, 2002; Dembkowski and Eldridge, 2003; Doran, 1993). This is also supported by academic research, which has highlighted the importance of setting goals that are specific (Smither et al., 2003), have measurable results (Ducharme, 2004), are actionable (Niemes, 2002), realistic (Doran, 1993), and time-bound (Doran, 1993; Locke and Latham, 1990).Based on this research, performance-based coaching (Thach, 2002) should involve some form of goal setting and development. In many cases this is probably the case, but due to the small number of empirical studies on coaching, the relationship between coaching and goal setting and achievement is unclear (e.g. Thach, 2002). This leaves organizations questioning the potential return on investment in coaching activities and wondering about the true effectiveness of coaching (Bowles and Picano, 2007). Initial evidence does suggest that goal setting as part of coaching may facilitate a more complete transfer of knowledge and skills from training to the actual job environment (Olivero et al., 1997). The present study evaluates a separate goal-based coaching process for its influence on recruiter performance.The present coaching engaged middle and executive managers as participants in a goal-setting process designed to improve their abilities to manage work teams as they attempted to achieve organizationally set recruiting quotas. In doing so, participants demonstrated a desire to simultaneously work on issues related to their performance as leaders, but also to their ability to maintain a high quality of life. The specific goals, and therefore the specific form of coaching received by each participant, was largely dictated by his/her personally set objectives.Because of this, it was expected that middle and executive managers might tend to emphasize different types of goals because of their different management levels within the organization. This degree of customization was permitted in an effort to maximize the positive impact of coaching for each coaching participant. To support the importance of allowing participants to set personally relevant goals as part of the coaching process, the following proposition was tested:P1. The number of quota-objective, quality of life, and leadership goals will differ between middle and executive managers.Support for this first proposition would advance existing knowledge regarding the multiple and sometimes different needs of middle and executive level managers. Although the needs of participants at these levels may differ, most leaders could benefit from focused coaching and it is important to consider the ways in which such benefit can be optimized for managers at both levels (Feldman and Lankau, 2005).\nThe influence of buy-in on coaching effectiveness: In patient- or client-centered therapy situations, that individual's engagement in the therapy process is often referred to as adherence or the, \"active, voluntary collaborative involvement of the client in a mutually acceptable course of behavior to produce a desired preventative or ameliorative result\" (Meichenbaum and Turk, 1987, p. 20). Because no clear-cut adaptation of this notion of adherence has been developed in the coaching literature (Kilburg, 2001), Meichenbaum and Turk's (1987) definition was adapted to apply to the present study of coaching for middle and executive managers. This definition can also be applied to a more widely used term within the coaching literature and business world of participant \"buy-in\", which refers to the active involvement of participants in the coaching process (Peel, 2004). Such buy-in has been highlighted as a critical factor in the success of educational training programmes (Diamante and Giglio, 1994).Preliminary work by Kilburg (2001) supports the importance of participant and coach buy-in within the executive coaching process, and indicates that further research is needed. In the present study, it was expected that participant buy-in to coaching would influence the degree to which participants were able to develop leadership competencies and improve performance through coaching. In other words, participants who demonstrated a stronger degree of buy-in during coaching were expected to benefit more strongly from coaching (as measured by percentage of production and quality of life goals met, as well as leadership competencies mastered). This possibility was explored with respect to each of the outcomes, as indicated in Proposition 2.\nEvaluating coaching effectiveness: Coaching, as currently practiced, is a relatively new approach to leader development. Its evolution from previous methods such as executive or supervisory development (Maier et al., 1957) or developmental counseling (Tobias, 1996), is usually traced back to the late 1980s (Tobias, 1996) or 1990s (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Kilburg, 1996), and it is likely that coaching-style activities were utilized prior to the establishment of current coaching terminology (Harris, 1999).In the literature detailing the history of coaching (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001) an unpublished thesis by Gegner (1997) is often cited as one of the earliest empirical studies of coaching effectiveness. In this study of 25 executives, participant reports of satisfaction with coaching outcomes indicated a general satisfaction with self-development outcomes of coaching and a sense that coaching had a positive impact on their personal lives (Gegner, 1997). Although this evidence offers some support for coaching effectiveness, it leaves much to be desired. Unfortunately, recent developments in the empirical coaching literature have often failed to move beyond the self-reported survey methodology to more systematic and evidence-based studies that can more completely document coaching effectiveness (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001).However, there is a small amount of support for the effectiveness of performance-based coaching (Kilburg, 1996; Peterson, 2002). For example, positive self-reported behavior change and satisfaction with the overall coaching experience was identified in a study of 75 coached executives (Hall et al., 1999). In addition, qualitative research in a medical setting suggests that coaching may directly improve productivity (Olivero et al., 1997). Although limited, these findings and publications in the popular and practitioner-related press (Olivero et al., 1997; Peterson and Miller, 2005) do suggest that coaching may positively influence middle and executive managerial performance, leading to a positive return on investment for the organization.Empirically demonstrating this return on investment has been a continuing challenge though. When coaching interventions target complex behaviors and personal qualities related to job performance/productivity, evaluation of these interventions must consider outcomes that are relevant to an organizations' overarching goals (e.g. evaluating coaching effectiveness in terms of participants' performance evaluations or critical job-related competencies). A simple model for understanding this complex relationship is presented in Figure 1; this model was originally developed by the first author based on previously collected data within a military setting (Bowles and Picano, 2007). In general, this model suggests that participants' buy-in to coaching will influence their competency development, which will then influence their performance as leaders.\nIdentifying learned leader competencies from coaching: The present coaching intervention was designed to provide developmental opportunities to participants who occupied middle and executive management positions. As an indication of coaching effectiveness, coaches rated participants' growth (over the coaching period) in terms of participants' abilities to successfully engage in behavior critical to meeting organizational goals such as scheduling activities in advance, prioritizing tasks, and utilizing existing management tools and effective leadership behaviors. Combining the organization's regulations with their personal experiences as senior leaders in the same organization, coaches identified nine key competencies for recruiter effectiveness. These competencies, along with a behaviorally anchored rating scale, are summarized in Table I.Two propositions regarding these competencies were developed to guide the initial tests of the present goal-based model of coaching effectiveness (illustrated by Figure 1):P2. Participant buy-in will: (a) positively relate to growth in the nine competency areas for all participants; and (b) positively predict participant performance.P3. Performance differences among middle and executive manager participants will be related to participants' degree of leadership competency development, such that participants excelling with respect to leadership competencies will demonstrate higher performance.In keeping with past efforts to demonstrate the impact of coaching on desired organizational outcomes (McGovern et al., 2001), efforts were made within the present study to examine the impact of coaching on participants' performance as leaders (as indicated by the number of recruits obtained by participants' subordinates over a 12-month period, compared to organizationally set quotas). The goal-related nature of the coaching and its emphasis on competency development was expected to translate into improved recruiter performance. In addition to the primarily exploratory goal of demonstrating how participant buy-in might serve as a process variable in explaining the relationships outlined in Figure 1, it was expected that differences in the job levels and responsibilities of the two participant groups would lead to different effects of coaching for middle as opposed to executive managers. The closer relationship of middle managers to actual recruiters in charge of meeting quota objectives led to the expectation that:H1. Coaching will enhance the effects of middle managers' leadership efforts (i.e. recruiting performance) to a greater degree than it will improve the effectiveness of executive managers' leadership.\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Coaching and goals\nDiscussion: The primary goal of the present study was to use the proposed model of competency-based coaching (Figure 1) to help explain the effectiveness of a brief coaching intervention (i.e. approximately six hours spread over the course of 12 months and an additional ten hours of initial face-to-face development in group or individually) designed to improve leadership effectiveness and station performance among middle and executive managers within a military recruiting organization. This involved consideration of the importance of participant buy-in and competency development through coaching as intermediary factors leading to managers' increased effectiveness as leaders.Most of our proposed and hypothesized relationships were confirmed in this initial evaluation of this competency-based coaching intervention. With regard to P1, participant-set goals differed as expected between middle and executive managers. All participants were asked to select the goals they would like to work on and interestingly selected from three broad goal categories (leadership, quality of life, and quota-objective) while accomplishing the highest percentage of leadership goals. The second most frequently accomplished type of goal was related to quality of life.These results suggest that coaching may be a mechanism by which managers could be helped in improving and maintaining a high quality of life (see also, Whitworth et al., 1998). This could be achieved in concert with efforts to improve leadership abilities and performance, but might focus on developing broader life skills such as prioritization abilities and role-transitioning strategies (e.g. learning how to better segment work and family life from each other, while enhancing each as well). The prevalence of quality of life goals and the demonstrated performance benefits of coaching for sales management suggest a potential positive interface between general leader wellbeing and performance (Bowles and Picano, 2007). This is an outcome toward which future studies of coaching can turn in considering a broader class of outcomes beyond performance when evaluating coaching effectiveness.An important element of the present study was the development of nine competency areas that were used in evaluating participant growth through coaching. These competencies reflected critical dimensions of leadership in the present occupation, although several would be relevant to leaders within any environment (e.g. planning for objectives, time management, analytical abilities). Results pertaining to these nine competencies indicated that participants' buy-in to coaching was related to five of the nine competencies, such that more engaged participants (i.e. those with a higher degree of buy-in) demonstrated more growth in the competency areas of task-goal planning, time management, daily progress reporting (DPR), analysis, and general leadership (supporting P2a).Future efforts to coach leaders of sales personnel and recruiters may be able to leverage this model of goal-based, competency driven coaching. From a performance perspective, results supported the central hypothesis of the present study, that coaching would positively impact performance and that this impact would be more noticeable at the level of middle as opposed to executive managers. Although participant buy-in was not shown to be a significant predictor of performance (in contrast to P2b), participants in the present coaching did demonstrate significantly higher levels of quota achievement than their non-coached counterparts who had simply learned from experience in the job over time. In addition, a comparison of percent of recruitment quotas met between coached participants and organization-wide averages revealed that performance was higher for coached middle managers than coached executive managers, and that both demonstrated performance that was equal to or greater than the organization averages.These latter findings are perhaps the most critical in that the present study is among only a few to empirically demonstrate a significant increase in productivity for individuals engaged in coaching. In the present study we have also been able to demonstrate that additional criteria apart from productivity can also be considered when evaluating the effectiveness of a coaching intervention (i.e. achievement of goals, development of leadership competencies). Other possible outcomes to be studied further in future studies might include quality of life perceptions as well as managerial flexibility (Jones et al., 2006).Implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This article aims to test the effectiveness of coaching for middle and executive level managers within a large recruiting organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Participants set goals to achieve during a 12-month coaching programme. The sample consisted of middle managers (n=30) and executive managers (n=29) involved in US Army recruiting. Outcomes included measures of coached participants' achievement of quota and personal goals, and assessment on nine leader competencies and buy-in over the one-year coaching period.\nFindings: - Coached managers outperformed un-coached, but experienced/incumbent counterparts. The strongest impact of coaching on performance was for middle managers and their subordinates (as opposed to executive managers). Both groups of participants demonstrated growth on some dimensions of recruiter-leader competencies and achievement of self-set goals.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A small and nontraditional sample of military recruiters was used. Future researchers can build on the approach outlined here to more concretely evaluate the impact of their coaching efforts in other populations.\nPractical implications: - Coaching all recruiter managers could translate into a return on investment of several thousand additional recruits. In addition, the achievement of personally relevant goals with the help of coaching, the development of leader competencies indicates real benefit associated with this form of goal-based coaching.\nOriginality/value: - We offer one of the first empirical evaluations of the effectiveness of a goal-based leader coaching intervention. Practitioners and researchers can benefit from this approach by using it to improve coaching effectiveness and demonstrate value to the clients they serve.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing allied health leaders to enhance person-centred healthcare	[ "Health", "Leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Effective clinical leadership at all levels of care is required to improve the delivery of healthcare services, enhance clinical teamwork and to improve safety. It is also needed to promote innovation and to produce desired leadership outcomes (Snodgrass et al., 2008; Wylie and Gallagher, 2009; Leonard and Frankel, 2010b). Leadership is an essential requirement for high-quality healthcare and is necessary for healthcare systems to manage the increasing complexities faced by healthcare services and to sustain change (West et al., 2015).\nMethod: This study aimed to evaluate an approach to leadership development of AHPs using the SESLHD Allied Health Leadership Development Program. The program was delivered from May 2014 to March 2015.\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: Leadership in healthcare has been described as being important for achieving high-quality, safe and compassionate patient care (West et al., 2015). The focus of this study was on allied health leaders and leadership development, with the hypothesis being that leadership skills of AHPs could be enhanced, leading to improved person-centered clinical care. The study sought to generate information about allied health leadership, an area underinvestigated in the literature (Bradd et al., 2017; Joubert et al., 2016).\nConclusion: Leadership in healthcare is essential for achieving quality, person-centered patient care (West et al., 2015; Berwick et al., 2008). Results from this study have provided new empirical evidence about allied health leadership development which has not been previously described in the literature (Leggat and Balding, 2013; Joubert et al., 2016).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a mixed methods study investigating leadership development of allied health practitioners within a large public healthcare organization in Australia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The South Eastern Sydney Local Health District Allied Health Leadership Development Program was undertaken with an allied health cohort (n=16) between May 2014 and March 2015 and comprised all-day workshops, action learning sets and individual coaching. Using experiential learning, the program tested whether practice development methods and action learning approaches developed the leadership skills of participants compared with a control group (n=17). Descriptive statistics were collected to evaluate participant and program outcomes. Leadership, workplace culture and engagement measures were analyzed as part of the study.\nFindings: The Allied Health Leadership Development Program received high ratings by participants. They reported enhanced skills in leading self and others through mechanisms such as critical reflection and facilitation, and greater confidence managing change and with engaging staff, colleagues and patients in decision making, affecting the quality and safety of healthcare. Statistically significant differences were found with transformational leadership elements, leadership outcomes, and measures of workplace culture and engagement after program completion for intervention group participants, compared with the control group.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results provide new empirical evidence about the effectiveness of using practice development for allied health leadership development.\nPractical implications: This low-cost leadership program can be replicated by other organizations.\nOriginality/value: Outcomes from an Allied Health Leadership Development Program have not been previously reported in the literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Modeling brand market share change in emerging markets	[ "Growth", "Brand strategy", "Loyalty", "Emerging markets" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic slowdown in most major developed countries has accelerated interest in emerging markets (Sheth, 2011). Indeed, it is said that emerging markets are becoming marketing's new frontier (Burgess and Steenkamp, 2013). Emerging markets have two important characteristics: large and young populations and positive economic growth levels that outpace most of the developed world (NationMaster, 2016). These characteristics have created new sizable middle classes that fuel the demand for branded products and services and, in particular, consumer-packaged goods (Kumar et al., 2015). For example, McKinsey's report on mapping China's middle class predicts that 75 percent of China's urban consumers will earn middle-class incomes by 2022 (Barton et al., 2013), while the Boston Consulting Group claims that Indonesia's middle class is set to double to more than 140m people in the next seven years (Rastogi et al., 2013).\n2. Background and literature review: We first discuss the key metrics that are central to this paper: market share, penetration, loyalty, as well as price. A brand's market share reflects strength relative to competitor options. While it is calculated based on the brand's total sales in the category, it is distinct from total brand sales, as a brand's market share can increase or decrease while total category sales remain stable, for example through stealing sales from competitors. Also, a brand can remain stable in market share but grow in sales, if category sales also increase due to seasonality or simply expand over time. An increase in a brand's market share means the brand is performing better than competitors, while a decrease reflects the opposite. Market share is a crucial performance metric that companies should monitor (Rust et al., 2004; Ambler, 2002).\n3. Research method: To address the hypotheses, we draw on panel data collected by Nielsen and Kantar Household panels. While the coverage of these panels is not as complete as in western markets, the data are more comprehensive and accurate than other options available, such as survey data. Our data span China, Malaysia and Indonesia, covering 17 product categories.\n4. Results: Stage 1 results\n5. Discussion: This research examines the relative importance of changes in penetration, PF, SCR and pricing to year-on-year market share change across 17 packaged goods categories, in three emerging markets. The results show that changes in penetration or the number of buyers a brand has is the major contributor to changes in market share; with loyalty having a weaker relationship. This finding is extremely robust, as it was apparent for the majority of cases, across the different categories, countries and for both volume and value market share.\n6. Future research: While our main finding is consistent across three country-markets, emerging markets are diverse. Therefore, we encourage future research to extend this fundamental analysis to more countries and more categories. Broader understanding of the basics of market dynamics in a wide variety of contexts, will lead to more impactful future research and more effective marketing practice. We recommend that future research should compare countries with different retail structures, to clarify the role of retail structure in brand growth (and decline). The fact that the underpinnings of change in value share are different to those for volume share change is intriguing, and an obvious avenue for further work. Future research should also consider the influence of category growth. Differing rates of category growth between categories in emerging markets/between categories in emerging markets and western markets may change the pathways for brand growth.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine what happens to key brand performance metrics as brands change in market share, in the context of packaged goods. The metrics are: penetration--the number of buyers a brand has; and loyalty--measured as purchase frequency (PF) and share of category requirements (SCR).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study utilizes 24 data sets in 17 packaged goods categories in three emerging markets: China, Malaysia and Indonesia. The authors examine changes in penetration, loyalty and SCR in the context of volume and value market share change. In addition, the authors examine whether initial price point and price movements influence the results.\nFindings: The primary finding is that market share change is accompanied by a greater change in penetration than in any other metric. This finding is very consistent across categories and countries. The relative importance of the two loyalty metrics varies by country. SCR was a stronger factor in Indonesia, while PF was stronger in Malaysia. Analysis indicated that pricing strategy (initial price and promotional depth) did not alter the main pattern of results, suggesting the results hold for brands with different price levels and tactics.\nPractical implications: Irrespective of circumstance, to grow in value or volume market share, brands should aim to grow in penetration, while the importance of changes in specific loyalty measures depends on market conditions.\nOriginality/value: This research extends past research on brand growth to the very different economic, geographic and cultural conditions of three crucially important emerging markets. Its main value lies in recommendations on how much to invest in building the size of the customer base vs consumer retention.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Motivations of enterprise social media feature set usage	[ "Enterprise social media", "Proactive motivation", "Feature sets" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Enterprise social media (ESM), as a tool of office automation in the era of Web 2.0, has been increasingly deployed in organizations. Previous studies have shown that ESM can promote communication and collaboration among employees and improve their work performance (e.g. Kwahk and Park, 2016; Lu and Pan, 2019; Sun et al., 2019). Because of such desired results, the adoption of ESM among organizations has grown. However, contrary to the rapidly growing trend of ESM adoption, many organizations battle to leverage ESM and realize benefits (Liu and Bakici, 2019). Researchers and practitioners have attributed this situation to employees' underuse of ESM and not actively participating in it (Liu and Bakici, 2019).As a highly user-driven information system (IS), ESM requires users' proactive participation and information sharing (Engler and Alpar, 2017; Wang et al., 2014). ESM may be successful within organizations only by active usage (Liu and Bakici, 2019) but the proactive motivations of employees to use ESM have not received much attention. Although prior studies analyzed ESM usage from different theoretical perspectives, they did not directly address how users may proactively use ESM. Further, the interactions between personal and environmental factors in influencing ESM usage have not been examined in prior literature, which could potentially limit our understanding of information technology (IT) usage (Peng et al., 2018).This research aims to understand employees' proactive motivations and the moderating influence of work context characteristics on their motivations to use ESM. This research appeals to the model of proactive motivation (MPM), which identifies different motivational states that may prompt individuals to be proactive and proposes work context to moderate the relationships between motivations and behaviors (Parker et al., 2010). Also, two work context characteristics - task interdependence (TI) and perceived organizational support (POS) (Lin and Huang, 2008; Mitchell et al., 2012) - are examined in this study.Furthermore, since ESM is a constantly evolving technology and the features may change over time, this research also appeals to the notion of feature sets (James et al., 2019). The conceptual advantage of feature sets over single features is that they enable ESM research to have greater independence from platform changes (Leiner et al., 2018). Categorizing ESM features into various feature sets may also facilitate a more stable understanding of technology usage by individuals.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Enterprise social media feature sets\n3. The research model: Figure 1 depicts the research model examined in the study. Specifically, the model proposes three types of motivations to influence communication (CF) and task collaboration feature set usage (TF). The effects of motivation are not hypothesized but assumed to be positive based on theoretical and empirical support in prior literature on technology usage. However, the work context characteristics are proposed to moderate the effects of two of the three motivations on ESM usage. Since positive affect can help to enhance flexible thinking, invoke feelings of energy, encourage individuals to focus on possibilities and opportunities rather than constraints and maintain positive attitude about technology (Lam et al., 2014; Parker et al., 2010; Tsai et al., 2007), leading to greater ESM usage regardless of the work context. 3.1 Motivations and feature set usage\n4. Research methods: 4.1 Technology\n5. Results: 5.1 Reliability and validity of measurements\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Findings\n7. Limitations and future research: A few limitations of the study should be noted. First, due to time and financial constraints, this research employed a cross-sectional design and thus, the results may only be applicable for the short-term. As existing ESM platforms are constantly improving and introducing new features and as new ESM platforms continue to emerge, long-term observations of individual behaviors may be more appropriate. Second, this study employed the MPM and conceptualized motivations using constructs typically found in prior literature on IS usage. It is possible that other constructs unique to ESM may provide additional insights but may not be found in this study. Future research studies may focus on other related theories to further contextualize research on ESM usage. Finally, the motivations in this study were common for both types of feature sets examined in the context of ESM usage. Future research studies may consider motivations that may be unique to the different types of ESM feature sets.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Enterprise social media (ESM) are widely adopted in the organizations with the aim of improving employees' work performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effects of work context characteristics on the relationships between proactive motivations and usage behaviors of ESM communication and task collaboration feature sets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Questionnaire surveys were used to gather data from 307 randomly chosen Chinese employees, who were also ESM users. The research model was examined using linear regression methods with the SPSS 24 software package.\nFindings: The results indicate that work context characteristics (i.e. task interdependence and perceived organizational support) had significant moderating effects on the relationships between proactive motivations and usage behaviors.\nOriginality/value: By extending the model of proactive motivation to the ESM context, this study directly addresses how users can be energized to use ESM features.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The application of household expenditure data in the development of anti-smoking campaigns	[ "Tobacco", "Health education", "Cigarettes", "Expenditure", "Addiction", "Australia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Forty years of anti-smoking campaigns\nMethods: Data\nFindings: Prevalence\nExpenditure: Table II presents data on average weekly household expenditure on tobacco products as well as an estimate of the total annual expenditure by selected characteristics of the household heads. In terms of weekly household expenditure on tobacco, it appears that household heads who were less than 35 years or more than 65 years spent significantly less than the others. Overall, the expenditure on tobacco varies with income quintile. This may be due to the reduced expenditure on tobacco products among households in the lowest quintile, because the second through fifth quintiles spent approximately the same dollar amount. Tobacco expenditure appears to be only slightly income elastic, so higher income earning smoking households spent a smaller proportion of their income on tobacco products than lower-earning smoking households.Tobacco is different from many other categories of household expenditure. It should not be considered discretionary because the addictive nature of nicotine (Stephenson, 1996; Cameron, 2000) removes the smokers' control over this part of their expenditure. If expenditure on tobacco products is determined by the addiction, this would explain why the amount of expenditure appears to be constant across income groups.It appears that the white collar occupations, with the exception of Intermediate clerical, sales and service workers, spent around 31 Australian dollars per household per week compared to the blue collar occupations who spent around 37 Australian dollars.In terms of the estimated total annual household expenditure on tobacco, half of the expenditure was incurred by those between the ages of 35 and 54, and about 30 percent by those below the age of 35. The lowest income quintile incurred only 12 percent of the total expenditure. The remainder was more or less evenly distributed in the other four quintiles. Household heads belonging to white collar occupations accounted for 40 percent of the total expenditure followed by the blue collar occupations (33 percent). The balance was incurred by the no occupation/no response group.Overall it is estimated that the smoker households reported expenditure of about 4 billion Australian dollars annually on tobacco products. This compares with a National Accounts report of 7 billion dollars (Australian National Accounts Report 5206.0, Table 58). In arriving at the Australian National Accounts estimates, the ABS used a variety of data including HES and other surveys as well as data on excise tax receipts from the sale of tobacco products. A comparison of the two estimates indicates that the HES data were under-reported by more than 40 percent.\nDiscussion: Our finding that approximately 2.4 million Australian households reported expenditure on tobacco products indicates that tobacco smoking and the consequent damage to the community remains a major community health issue. The higher prevalence of smoking expenditure among households with a female head is consistent with other data indicating that smoking is no longer a male dominated activity (ABS, 2000a). Health educators need to reflect this change in smoking demographics when selecting targets for initiatives to address this issue.The age gradient found among smoking households confirms that younger rather than older people continue to take up smoking. This suggests that while pressure must continue to be applied to help adult smokers to quit, more effective prevention strategies must be developed for young, potential smokers, to avoid replacing the smokers who have been helped to quit.Our finding that greater levels of prevalence of tobacco expenditure among households with lower social status occupations has important implications for health educators' communication strategies. Targeting people with both lower incomes and lower social status obscures the fact that social status is not always correlated with income level. It is not lower income that is associated with increased smoking prevalence, it is the social status of the occupation of the household that is of interest.Our analysis indicates that expenditure on tobacco products is not income-elastic. Lower income smoking households tend to spend the same amount on tobacco as those with higher incomes. Lower income households therefore spend a greater proportion of their income on tobacco products. This suggests that an important portion of the smoker's expenditure could be controlled not by the smoker but by the addiction to tobacco. It is possible that one of the one of the important demonstrations of a young person's emerging autonomy is control over the allocation of their limited resources to the range of expenditures open to them. Charlton and Bates (2000) suggest that a significant number of young people are choosing to spend their money on mobile phones rather than smoking. A potent potential message strategy for preventive campaigns aimed at these young people might involve convincing them that an addiction to tobacco will rob them of control over this proportion of their expenditure. Money will be taken away from more desirable, less harmful purchases such as mobile phones or music and spent on tobacco.Estimates of the cost of smoking are often very complex as they usually operate at the community level, and not just the individual or household levels. Approaches to the problem come from a wide variety of disciplines including epidemiology (Peto et al., 2000) and economics (Collins and Lapsley, 2001; Ridolfo and Stevenson, 2001). These community-based estimates ignore many of the costs at the household level as these are regarded (especially by economists) as transfer payments within the community. Focusing on the community as a whole may tend to suggest that the problem is one for the whole community to address and not for the individual smoking household. This paper attempts to identify the direct, monetary cost of tobacco smoking to the smoking households.It appears that the HES respondents may have underestimated their expenditure on tobacco by as much as 40 percent. If smokers underestimate the extent of their smoking, they will continue to fail to recognise the extent of their problem and the need to take steps to deal with it. Previous anti-smoking campaigns may have communicated the threat that smoking causes damage to the health of the smoker and those around them. Future campaign strategies need to focus on making these threats more salient to the smoker so that they recognise the need to take action. Awareness of the extent of one's smoking may not by itself, be sufficient to reduce prevalence but it is an essential first step in most hierarchical models of health education and health promotion.Further research is necessary to uncover the origins of smokers' underestimates of their tobacco expenditure so that it too can be dealt with. It is possible that this underestimation might be a function of a desirability bias in the research (Johnson and Fendrich, 2005), the context in which it is administered, inherent optimism or unconsciously biased estimations on the part of the smokers. McKenna (1993) suggests that smokers have a particular form of optimism bias that makes them reluctant to accept that they will suffer harmful consequences of their smoking, the individual smoking respondent has some sort of immunity that will protect them from the consequences visited on other smokers. An unconscious underestimation of the extent of the respondent's smoking and therefore exposure to these harmful consequences may be connected with this optimism in some way.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Despite widespread anti-smoking campaigns, prevalence and the consequent damage to the community remains high and are therefore of concern to health educators. Several studies have identified a clear socio-economic status gradient in smoking prevalence. One purpose of this paper is to re-examine this gradient to assist in the more accurate targeting of anti-smoking campaigns. Another purpose of this paper is to examine the financial cost of smoking from a household perspective and also to compare survey data with data compiled by other means to test whether smokers are accurately reporting their smoking behaviour. This can assist in the refining of anti-smoking message strategies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data from a large-scale survey of Australian households - the Household Expenditure Survey - was analysed and compared with data from other sources to examine demographic correlates and self-reported estimates of smoking behaviour.\nFindings: - Approximately one third of households reported expenditure on tobacco. Expenditure is more prevalent among households with a female head and among lower status occupations. Young people are continuing to take up smoking. Smoking households appear to underestimate their expenditure on tobacco by more than 40 percent.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Data are drawn from households, not individuals; therefore exact estimations of smoking prevalence and individual smoking behaviour are not possible.\nOriginality/value: - The findings provide important guidance for health educators developing anti-smoking campaigns. The findings provide assistance in the development of targeting and message strategy guidelines.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do black lives really matter in the workplace? Restorative justice as a means to reclaim humanity	[ "Organizational culture", "Workplace", "African Americans", "Black Lives Matter", "Restorative justice", "Perspective taking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Overwhelming evidence suggests that black lives do not matter in the American workplace. Historically, individuals, private enterprises, prisons and corporations have enslaved, illegally detained, coerced to work and underpaid (or not paid) black people. Today, black employees are persistently paid less (Pew Research Center, 2015) than their white counterparts and experience more wage theft (e.g. forcing overtime work but not paying for it, violating minimum wage laws, etc.) (Bernhardt et al., 2009; UCLA Labor Center, n.d.). Additionally, black people are underrepresented in senior leadership positions and on corporate boards (Catalyst, 2016a, b; McGirt, 2016); are underrepresented relative to Caucasian males in the highest paying jobs (Bertrand and Hallock, 2001; Oakley, 2000); and face discrimination in hiring, evaluation, promotion and other employment domains (e.g. Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004; Milkman et al., 2012; Pager et al., 2009).\nWhat was/is the harm of racism against black people in the workplace?: Restorative justice toward black workers first requires an understanding of the cumulative harm of enslavement. Indeed, black bodies long fed the engine of the US economy. In the first 60 years of the nineteenth century, raw cotton, almost exclusively grown by enslaved people, comprised more than half of the US exports (Beckert and Rockman, 2016). Enslaved people themselves represented one of the largest US \"commodities,\" valued at $3.0 billion according to the 1860 Census. Thus, the value of enslaved people was roughly equivalent to the value of all capital invested in manufacturing, railroads, banks and currency in circulation (valued at $3.1 billion) (Deyle, 2006).\nWhat challenges may thwart the repair of harm done by workplace racism against black workers?: If organizations desire to foster a cohesive, equitable and inclusive workplace, restorative justice seems to be a helpful path to both surface and resolve issues of workplace racism, providing employees with the tools necessary to reduce workplace racism against black people. Yet, organizations may find it difficult to implement restorative justice to address workplace racism because of the denial of racism, controversy about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) language, perceived threat to existing racial power dynamics in the workplace and diversity diversions. We detail these challenges in the following section.\nWhat can be done to eliminate workplace racism and rebuild trust between workplace stakeholders?: It is critical that organizational leaders and facilitators encourage open and honest discourse that reflects varying perspectives. We propose three ways to help organizations make black lives matter in the workplace.\nConclusion: Black people have a unique history in the USA that originates in the social and economic exploitation of African enslaved peoples and their descendants. The distinctiveness of the black experience in the US labor market and workforce has persisted post-emancipation over 150 years ago. Much can be learned about resilience, ingenuity, sacrifice, oppression and liberation through the lens of black peoples' experiences in the US workplace. Through systemic, intentional initiatives directed toward understanding and acknowledging harm, taking steps to repair the harm, and rebuilding trust, organizations and their members will be able to confidently assert that black lives do, indeed, matter in the workplace.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Overwhelming evidence suggests that black lives have not and do not matter in the American workplace. In fact, disturbing themes of black labor dehumanization, exploitation and racial discrimination appear throughout history into the present-day workplace. Yet, curiously, organizations and organizational scholars largely ignore how racism and slavery have informed management practice (Cooke, 2003) and contemporary workplace racism. The authors address this gap, using the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as a platform. BLM is a social justice movement created in response to the pervasive racism experienced by black people. The purpose of this paper is to accomplish five goals, which are summarized in the following sections.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, the authors outline historical themes of black labor dehumanization, exploitation and racial discrimination, providing specific examples to illustrate these themes and discussing their contemporary workplace implications. Second, key challenges that may arise as organizations seek to make black lives matter in the workplace are discussed. Third, the authors provide examples of organizations where black lives have mattered as an inspiration for how workplaces can affirm the humanity and self-actualization of black people.\nFindings: Fourth, the authors provide organizations with helpful tools to truly make black lives matter in the workplace, using restorative justice as a framework to remedy workplace racism. Finally, while the paper is largely focused on business organizations, as two management scholars, the authors felt compelled to briefly articulate how academic scholarship might be influenced if black lives truly mattered in management scholarship and management education.\nOriginality/value: This paper begins to articulate how black lives matter in the workplace. The goal is to intervene and upend the exploitation of black workers so that they are finally recognized for their worth and value and treated as such. The authors have provided historical context to illustrate that contemporary workplace racism is rooted in the historical exploitation of black people from enslavement to contemporary instances of labor exploitation. The authors offer a restorative justice framework as a mechanism to redress workplace racism, being careful to outline key challenges with implementing the framework. The authors concluded with steps that organizations may consider as they work to repair the harm of workplace racism and rebuild trust amongst employees. Specifically, the authors discuss the benefits of organizational interventions that provide intergroup contact with an emphasis on perspective taking, and present a case example and suggested key indicators that black lives matter in today's workplace.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Between product development and mass production: Tensions as triggers for concept-level learning	[ "Product concept", "Production concept", "Tension", "Networks", "Mass production", "Learning intervention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today's companies may choose among a wide variety of production concepts that should help them operate in global markets. These concepts typically emphasize the companies' capability to respond quickly to the preferences of customers and to establish partnerships with suppliers as a way to improve the value of their products in customers' eyes (Duguay et al., 1997). The transition from an old production concept to a new and more efficient one is often described as implementation of a set of management instruments, such as \"toolbox lean\" for adopting a lean production concept (Pettersen, 2009). However, the move from one production concept to another may be seen as a tension-laden learning process (Virkkunen, 2006a) implying a profound change in the companies' work practices, not least in relationships with customers and suppliers. This article analyzes tensions and learning in two young companies that were moving from research intensive product development toward commercial mass production. This move represented a concept-level transformation challenging the companies as well as their network partners to develop their practices.\nTransformation of production concepts in two young companies: This research was carried out as a part of a national funding program aimed to develop competitive production concepts for Finnish manufacturing industry. We searched for two companies operating in a production network for which the development of production concepts would be a timely challenge. Both case companies that joined in the research project were struggling with transforming their activity from research and development toward commercial mass production. The research collaboration attracted them because they wanted to develop tools for mastering their networked production. We will call these companies Fipak and Enerfi.\nConcept-level tensions and learning in organizational transformation: Production concepts and product concepts\nData and methods: Data: workshop dialogues\nConcept-level tensions in the case companies: The concept-level tensions of Fipak\nRelationships between production concepts and product concepts: In both of the young companies, the most influential concept-level tension arose from the dynamics between two distinct but co-existing production concepts that had evolved in the company's activity. We interpret other concept-level tensions to stem from this key tension. We identified three types of tensions in the companies:\nFrom concept-level tensions to concept-level learning: Companies search for novel and genuinely customer-centered production concepts to maintain competitiveness in global business. The involvement of customers and end users in the whole lifecycle of the product and its production is characterized as a co-configuration concept (Victor and Boynton, 1998). The move to co-configuration represents a concept-level change for companies; empirical examples of companies going through this transformation exhibit the process as complex and tension-laden (Virkkunen, 2006b). The case companies' contradictory relationships with their suppliers indicate that co-configuration, requiring long-term relationships with partners (Engestrom, 2004), was still somewhat embryonic. The powerfulness of concepts was manifested by the dominance of \"mass production\", which partly restricted the workshop participants from envisioning new kinds of collaboration with partners crucial in co-configuration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze learning in organizational transformations by focusing on concept-level tensions faced in two young companies, which were searching for a reorientation of activity with a production network between innovative product development and efficient mass production.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An intervention-based research project was carried out with two manufacturing companies. The data originate from workshops, whose aim was to identify learning needs based on the discussion of practices of networked production. Concept-level learning is analyzed by examining the dynamic relationships between production concepts and product concepts.\nFindings: The most influential concept-level tension stemmed from the co-existence of two production concepts, product development and mass production, which manifested as ambiguity about proper actions in the production network. Other focal tensions were identified between the production and product concepts and within the companies' network relationships. The dominance of the mass production concept restricted the envisioning of new modes of collaboration and mutual learning in the production network.\nResearch limitations/implications: The workshop participants did not include representatives from the case companies' production network. Nevertheless, researchers brought the network partners' conceptions into the workshop discussion through the presented mirror data.\nPractical implications: Companies striving to develop novel production concepts that call for continuous collaboration with customers and suppliers need forums for mutual learning to create solutions to concept-level tensions.\nOriginality/value: Companies may develop two production concepts over lengthy periods. The tensions that manifest due to incoherent guiding logics may be overcome by engaging in incremental and expansive concept-level learning, directed at the identification of relationships between production and product concepts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Use of AHP in decision-making for flexible manufacturing systems	[ "Analytical hierarchy process", "Decision making", "Flexible manufacturing systems", "Advanced manufacturing technologies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Flexible manufacturing system (FMS) has received considerable attention in the literature over the last several decades. Hence there is literally a huge amount of published literature on FMS. A dominant theme in these writings is that FMS is a highly automated production system consisting of automated material-handling and transferring machines working together under a comprehensive computer control system (Inman, 1991; Boer and Krabbendam, 1992a, b; Evans and Haddock, 1992; Maccarthy and Liu, 1993; Rao and Deshmukh, 1994; Kaighobadi and Venkatesh, 1994; Maffei and Meredith, 1995; Lee, 1998; Koltai et al., 2000; Mohamed et al., 2001; Shamsuzzaman et al., 2003; Fan and Wong, 2003).Several studies are devoted to examining the potential benefits of FMS implementation. The common conclusion of these studies is that the advantages associated with the FMS implementation are numerous. Successful implementation of FMS could generate reduced labor costs, increased flexibility and product variety, productivity improvement, improved responsiveness, and increased machinery utilization (Inman, 1991; Boer and Krabbendam, 1992a, b; Evans and Haddock, 1992; Kaighobadi and Venkatesh, 1994; Maffei and Meredith, 1995). Many firms have installed FMSs and gained such benefits. However, many other firms have failed because of successful FMS implementation require effective operation. A number of studies have addressed the issues related to the success of an FMS installation and implementation, since FMSs are highly capital intensive and installation may take several years. According to those studies, management commitment, people involvement, technological changes, and organizational requirements are critical issues to the success of FMS implementation (Inman, 1991; Boer and Krabbendam, 1992a, b; Evans and Haddock, 1992; Kaighobadi and Venkatesh, 1994; Lee, 1998).The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique is one of the approaches used in determining the relative importance of a set of attributes or criteria. AHP is designed to solve complex multi-criteria problems. Many quantitative methods have been in an attempt to evaluate new technology implementation. The AHP has previously been used in evaluating advanced technology by Shang and Sueyoshi (1995), San and Tabucanon (1994), Albayrakoglu (1996), Shamsuzzaman et al. (2003) and Chan et al. (2000).In this study, a very comprehensive application of AHP in a real-world case for assessing FMS is presented along with sensitivity analysis. The objective of this paper is to determine whether Turkish Tractor Manufacturing (TTM) should implement FMS throughout the plant by utilizing the AHP. This paper is organized into six sections. First, the research carried out at TTM and then the attributes affecting the decision are presented. The third section introduces the application of the AHP and describes its application in TTM whereas the fourth section introduces the sensitivity analysis and application for checking the authenticity of results obtained by AHP. Finally, the overall conclusion is given in sensitivity analysis section with future scope of further research.\nResearch methodology: TTM was established in 1948 located in Ankara, Turkey as a main tractor manufacturer. It has continued to be the industry leader in the manufacture of tractors in Turkey. In the last six years TTM has invested $100,000,000 in acquiring the latest technologies such as computer aided design (CAD), computer numerically controlled machines (CNC), and FMSs. TTM is currently one of few companies that partially implements FMS in Turkey. Seven flexible manufacturing lines have been established in TTM.TTM is now considering the implementation of FMS throughout the organization. Although, considerable benefits were gained by having an FMS such as reducing set-up time, increasing customer satisfaction, increasing flexibility, etc. they had also had some difficulties during the FMS implementation. Therefore, the management of TTM wanted to find out whether they should implement FMS in entire plant. We ran an AHP study on the problem in order to provide a systematic approach. We met with the managers of the company for several hours to decide on the best alternative. A team of TTM decision makers consisted of quality control manager, production manager, operations manager, purchasing manager, sales manager and plant manager. First, the AHP methodology was presented to the decision-making team since the decision-making team was not familiar with the approach. Then we formulated the model and determined the criteria. Thirty-nine criteria were initially identified. However, after further evaluation decision-making team has eliminated insignificant ones to the problem and considered 28 factors as the primary ones. Also, two alternatives were identified:1. implementing flexible FMS; and2. not implementing FMS.After deciding the criteria, pairwise comparisons were performed including all the combinations of criteria/sub-criteria/alternatives relationships by the decision-making team. Since the decision concerns FMS implementation in the entire plant, the criteria were determined based on the decision makers' experience on partial FMS implementation. Hence, the criteria shown in Table I for evaluating the decision were identified and used in the AHP model.\nAnalytic hierarchy process: The AHP is based on the innate human ability to make sound judgments about small problems. It facilitates decision-making by organizing perceptions, feelings, judgments and memories into a framework that exhibits the forces that influence a decision. The AHP is normally implemented in conjunction with the use of Expert Choice(c) and it has been applied in a variety of decisions and planning projects in nearly 20 countries (Saaty, 1990).Three steps of AHP methodology\nAHP in TTM: In this section, the work carried out to use AHP for assessing importance priority of \"implementing FMS\" over \"not implementing FMS\" in TTM is briefed.Structuring the hierarchy\nSensitivity analysis: A series of sensitivity analyses were conducted to investigate the impact of changing the priority of the criteria on the alternatives' ranking. Dynamic sensitivity of Expert Choice(c) was performed to see how realistic the final outcome is. Dynamic sensitivity analysis is used to dynamically change the priorities of the criteria to determine how these changes affect the priorities of the alternative choices (Saaty, 2001). We investigated the impact of changing the priority of four main criteria on overall results. As shown in Figures 7-10, the results indicated that the alternatives' ratings are not sensitive to changes in the importance of the advantages, while it is sensitive to changes in the importance of disadvantages and risks and a little sensitive to changes in the importance of opportunities. When the importance of advantages was increased up to 0.623, overall rank of the final outcome was preserved. When the importance of disadvantages was increased from 0.248 to 0.461, not implementing FMS became the best alternative. We performed a third sensitivity analysis where the relative importance of risks was increased to 0.438. Similarly in this analysis, not implementing FMS became the most preferable one. In the fourth scenario, only when the importance of opportunities was increased from 0.207 to 0.567, not implementing FMS turned out to be the best one.The sensitivity analysis indicated that when the importance of the main criteria was changed up and down by 5 percent in all possible combinations, the ranks of the alternatives remained stable in all cases. In this respect TTM should choose implementing FMS as the best alternative for the decision.\nConclusion: Since FMSs are highly capital intensive and installation may take several years, only a limited percentage of companies have made a serious attempt to install FMS in Turkey. TTM is one of the companies which have achieved a successful partial implementation of FMS. In this study, we proposed an AHP model to guide the management of TTM who are contemplating a decision about whether FMS should be implemented in the entire plant. We found most important factors, and their relative importance and influences on the objective of our decision-making model. To invest in FMS is a complex decision involving many criteria. The AHP enabled us to incorporate 28 factors that were both qualitative and quantitative to assess the FMS implementation. We concluded that implementing FMSs is the most preferable alternative with an overall priority score of 0.546. This alternative is not as overwhelmingly preferable to other alternative as we expected prior to our study, which was a surprising outcome. In our judgment the main reason for this is, in spite of advantages and opportunities to be gained by implementing FMS, there are numerous risks and disadvantages.\nFurther discussion: Our literature search indicated that most studies found the best solution and ignored sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analysis is very important for practical decision-making. We performed sensitivity analysis to see how realistic the final outcome is. The sensitivity analysis indicated that when we varied the weights of the main criteria up and down by 5 percent in all possible combinations, the ranks of the alternatives remained stable in all cases. It also indicated that the alternatives' ratings are not sensitive to changes in the importance of the advantages; while it is sensitive to changes in the importance of disadvantages and risks and a little sensitive to changes in the importance of opportunities. When we increased or decreased the importance of disadvantages and risks, not implementing FMS became the most preferable alternative. We attribute this result to FMS's high risks and disadvantages.The actual process of conducting this analysis helped us prioritize the criteria in a manner that otherwise might not be possible. The decision-making team was far more confidant with their decision as this study showed them, even if the importance of certain criteria changes, overall ranking does not change; even though the degree of preference rating is strengthened or weakened. Bounded rationality and limited cognitive processes make it impossible for the decision maker to adequately consider all of the factors involved in a complex screening decision. Without decision support methodologies such as AHP, managers might base their decisions on only a subset of important criteria while not understanding their relative importance and interactions.AHP has some limitations. AHP assumes linear independence of criteria and alternatives. If there is dependence among the criteria, analytic network process (ANP) (Saaty, 2001) is more appropriate; yet ANP requires far more comparisons which may be formidable in practical decision environment. We were able to acquire the cooperation of the decision-making team to structure the model and apply it. We attribute our success mainly to the ease of use of AHP and the existence of easy-to-use commercial software Expert Choice.We needed a methodology that is well supported with powerfully developed software conducive to real-life applications easily understandable by the managers. AHP would be appropriate whenever a goal is clearly stated and a set of relevant criteria and alternatives are available. When there are numerous criteria involved, AHP is one of the very few multiple criteria approaches capable of handling so many criteria, especially if some of the criteria are qualitative. With Expert Choice software, AHP enables sensitivity analysis of results which is very important in practical decision-making. This study showed the researchers that AHP can be used to manage complex problems to evaluate advanced manufacturing technologies. For future research it would be interesting to see comparative evaluations of ANP and AHP.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To provide a good insight into the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) that is a multiple criteria decision-making methodology in evaluating flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this study AHP is used to the decision by a tractor manufacturing plant to implement FMS. Also sensitivity analysis is conducted to see how realistic the final outcome is.\nFindings: - Information on the use of AHP in assessing advanced manufacturing technologies is provided and an AHP model is proposed to guide the management of tractor manufacturing plant. Most important factors, and their relative importance and influences on the objective of the decision-making model are found. By performing a sensitivity analysis, it is also found that the final outcome remained stable in all cases when the weights of the main criteria affecting the decision are varied up and down by 5 percent in all possible combinations.\nResearch limitations/implications: - When there are dependencies and interactions among the criteria in a decision-making model, analytic network process is more appropriate methodology; yet AHP assumes linear independence of criteria and alternatives.\nOriginality/value: - Proposes a decision-making model to guide managers for assessing advanced manufacturing technologies such as FMS. Also sensitivity analysis conducted in this study is very important for practical decision-making.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effectiveness of development aid for agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa	[ "Agriculture", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "Official development assistance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Previous research shows that agriculture plays a pivotal role in the development of the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as the major source of income, food, employment and in its effectiveness in reducing poverty. For instance, the African Development Bank Group (2016) disclosed that in 2014, over 60 percent of the people in Africa lived in rural areas and relied on agriculture for their livelihoods, and that women in Africa made up at least half of the agricultural labor force (Dao, 2009). According to Mellor (2001), Dercon and Christiaensen (2005) and Christiaensen et al. (2010), growth in agriculture has a larger poverty-reducing effect than growth in non-agricultural sectors, particularly among the households below the poverty line. They find that both consumption and employment increase if households use fertilizers to raise farm productivity. Others who find agriculture productivity growth to have a greater effect on poverty reduction than industrial productivity growth include: Timmer (1997), Ravallion and Datt (1999) and Diao et al. (2007). Despite its crucial role in development, governments, donors and foreign investors have underinvested in African agriculture, and the sector continues to have low levels of productivity.\n2. Theoretical highlights and brief literature: This section discusses three main strands of literature: the theoretical underpinnings of the relevance of development assistance; contemporary foreign aid studies in the light of the post-2015 development agenda; and some recent agricultural literature on agro-allied industrialization. We substantiate the three strands in a chronological order. First, the concern about whether foreign aid has positive externalities on the development of recipient nations is traceable to the two-gap model developed by Chenery and Strout (1966), which is one of the most influential theoretical foundations of the relevance of development assistance in the catch-up process of developing countries. The underpinning of Chenney-Strout model maintains that developing countries are confronted with the lack of savings and \"export earnings\" may not be appropriate for enhancing investment. Despite the apparent shortcomings underlying its postulations, the model provided the basis for empirical papers on development assistance in the past decades (Easterly, 1999). In essence, the Solow- and Harrod-Domar growth models allow for the idea that aid is necessary to stimulate investment and to reduce inequality. These theoretical underpinnings are consistent with the need to reinvent foreign aid for more inclusive and sustainable development (Asongu, 2016).\n3. Data description and estimation methodology: Following De Janvry and Sadoulet (2016), a general production function for agriculture may be specified as follows: Y=AF(K, L, N), where Y is agricultural output, A is total factor productivity (technology) which is land saving and/or labor saving, K is capital, L labor and N is land. These factors of production represent the broadest channels through which ODA can be used to enhance agricultural productivity. The data set is made up of 36 SSA countries, covering the 2002-2015 time period[1]. The country sample is determined by data availability, especially data on ODA for agriculture. The data for the leading recipient sectors in agriculture are sourced from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Creditor Reporting System database. The key recipient sectors are: agricultural development, agricultural policy and administrative management, food crop production, industrial crops or exports crops, agricultural inputs, agricultural co-operatives, agricultural education or training per worker, and ODA for rural development. All the ODA flows are real gross disbursements from all donors, and have been converted into the recipients per worker in the agricultural sector. Table II reports the summary statistics of the key variables.\n4. Estimation results and discussion: Table III reports results from a number of regressions of AVPW on ODA for agriculture. The statistical significance of lagged AVPW is quite high, indicating persistence in agricultural productivity. For example, agricultural value added, lagged by one year, has a marginal impact on current year agricultural value added of 1.033, implying a long-run multiplier of 33.33 [= 1/(1-1.033)]. Ceteris paribus, agricultural value added is inelastic with respect to agricultural aid per capita. This finding is similar but of opposite sign to that obtained by Alabi (2014) most likely because the latter considered all aid, not ODA for agriculture as such. Similarly, in absolute terms, the coefficient of elasticity of agricultural value added relative to ODA for rural development per capita lies between 0.009 and 0.016. Across all the regression results, ODA has a statistically significant elasticity with respect to agriculture value added. The response of agricultural value added to ODA for agricultural development per worker, currently and lagged by one year, ranges from -0.02 to +0.02.\n5. Conclusion and future research directions: This paper has assessed whether the ODA for agriculture and rural development are helping to boost agricultural productivity in 36 SSA countries for the period 2002-2015. The empirical evidence is based on a system two-step, i.e. generalized method of moments. It finds that across all regressions presented in Tables III-V, summary statistics are reasonable; the regressions are well-estimated, and the estimates are as efficient as possible. It is understandable that some estimates may be biased, especially in light of the small sample and a short study period. This weakness represents one future research opportunity. For now, the results show that ODA is neither an automatic panacea nor an immutable curse (constraint). Its effects vary across areas receiving it, and those likely differ within and across individual countries in SSA. Many factors determine the allocation of ODA; in this paper, we identified \"need and effectiveness\" as the joint determinant of allocation. Areas that need ODA do indeed get aid, but the allocations are higher if the anticipated effectiveness is high. Unfortunately, the substitution effects discussed above make ODA for rural agricultural development damaging to the very same people it was supposed to help, and most people in SSA live in rural areas and depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihoods. Technically, speaking for the urban household income effects dominates substitution effect; for rural households substitution effects are greater than income effects, except that there are no substitutes. This is simply an indirect characterization of poverty. Here, too, we find ourselves in agreement with Islam's (2011) assertion that \"the task of measuring, analyzing, and evaluating aid to agriculture in all is components, principles and implications remains a challenging task for researchers, policy analysts and policy makers\" (p. 41). Moreover, other determinants of agricultural productivity such as agricultural research and effects of climate change to productivity are fruitful areas for future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Agriculture is the major source of livelihood for the majority of population in Sub-Saharan Africa but its productivity is not only low it has started showing signs of decline since 2012. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether official development assistance for agriculture is effective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data for development assistance for agriculture are broken down into the major agricultural sectors in receiving countries. The empirical evidence is based on the two-step system, i.e. generalized method of moments, to assess the degree of responsiveness of agricultural productivity to development assistance.\nFindings: There is a positive relationship between development assistance and agricultural productivity in general. However, when broken down into the major agricultural recipient sectors, there is a substitution effect between food crop production and industrial crop production. Better institutions and economic freedom are found to enable agricultural productivity growth, and to increase the effectiveness of development assistance. The structural economic transformation associated with agricultural development assistance is also found to be weak.\nPractical implications: Allocation of development assistance for agriculture is primarily determined by need, although expected effectiveness also increases the assistance receipts. Agricultural assistance policies could focus more on building productive capacity to reduce the need while boosting effectiveness.\nOriginality/value: Breaking down data into agricultural recipient sectors and controlling for the potential spurious correlation under the assumption that more development assistance could be allocated, where agricultural productivity is already increasing due to some other factors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The march towards infinity - the impending era of deep thinking	[ "Strategy", "Dynamic capabilities", "Changing environment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The dynamic capabilities (DC) framework (Teece et al., 1997) was proposed more than two decades ago to address the deficiencies of the extant strategic management frameworks in addressing the issue of renewing internal and external competences of firms in rapidly changing technology environments. In late 1990s, certain high-technology industries such as semiconductors, electronics and software were experiencing a disruptive change and the strategic management field had no answer to it. DCs was not a theory by itself but was proposed as a framework based on earlier theories of creative destruction, evolutionary economics and the behavioural theory of the firm. It represented major advancement over the resource-based view (Barney, 1991) which was deemed insufficient by many scholars at that time to address the needs of firms in times of rapid change driven by technological factors. The very next year, the concept of disruptive innovation was published (Christensen, 1998), which once again focused on the technology aspect, so as to how a new technology can replace older technologies and give rise to new industries. This was perhaps the commencement of the era of technologies which displayed a non-linear and exponential growth, very different from technologies of the twentieth century.\n2. The era of transition: 2.1 The evolution of energy regimes\n3. Review of literature: Note: the relevant literature on regenerative DC is insufficient. Also keeping the ongoing economic revolution and counterintuitive implications in mind, this paper deems, definition of regenerative capability, learning as a DC and strategic innovation (SI) as relevant strands of literature to build the concept of deep thinking. There is a vast and rich literature on organisational learning, review of which is beyond the scope of this paper and also literature on organisational learning is not always focused on building competitive advantage and strategy.\n4. Building the deep-thinking construct as a regenerative dynamic capabilities: 4.1 The three pillars of deep thinking\n5. Examples of deep thinking in practice: More than a century ago, Henry Ford created new reality by making the car a product of the masses with Model-T. The Model-T was launched in 1908, Ford figured out that instead of the car being stationery as was the practice of the day, if the worker remained stationery and the car moved on an assembly line, he can using extant technologies make a car at a much cheaper price and the initial price of the Model-T was just around $800, which was eventually bought down to $260 with learning curve effects by 1924. Thus, was born the twentieth century mass production industry (Zuboff and Maxmin, 2002). In 1920s another US company - GM invented a critical accounting measure - return on capital employed, thus was born one of the greatest management innovations of the twentieth century - management accounting and Alfred P Sloan created the multidivisional structure, which became the basis of modern twentieth century MNC enterprise, P&G redefined marketing with brand management practices in 1930s (Hamel, 2006). Nearly 90 years later Nokia saw discontinuities in the telecom sector, namely changes in telecom policy of various governments in various countries, allowing private operators to flourish and relevant technologies to assemble a mobile phone at a fraction of older cost existed. Thus, the mobile revolution happened (Doz and Kosonen, 2008). Even later, Steve Jobs combined hardware, software and services to create the iPod, iPad and iPhone - sparking a revolution in mobile space. Thus, we see that creating new reality has been happening all the time. It existed!\n6. Discussion: linking theory to practice: As per DC theory, it is the organisational routines (Zollo and Winter, 2002) that give rise to a new set of DCs. Hence as per this routinised view of DCs, the three principle DCs comprise a specific set of processes, that helps a company to build DCs. The processes may themselves vary from organisation to organisation. At times of high uncertainty, where everything is up in the air and past knowledge and experience is not useful in countering something completely unfamiliar, as discussed in Section 2, the organisational routines or processes themselves may prove counterproductive and intuitive thinking or reflexive thinking in such times can take the organisation down the wrong path.\n7. Conclusion: The paper commenced with the premise that today we stand at another historic turning point more than a century after the twentieth century industrial capitalism was born with the Model-T. The needs of the consumer are changing faster than ever before with exposure to social media and plethora of choices offered to him and the changing and evolving consumer is ushering in a new economic revolution, just as meeting basic needs at a fraction of the older cost, including discovering the joys of motoring ushered a new economic revolution more than a century ago. This once in a century challenge unfortunately or fortunately has dawned on us in our times, history is repeating itself.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The theory of dynamic capabilities (DC) was originally proposed as an improved alternative to the existing resource-based view theory of strategy to address the issue of renewing competences in fast changing environments. However, in an era of transition, how will the theory address the multiple challenges arising on technology, social and energy regime front? The paper aims to address this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper takes the approach of theoretical proposition building, supported by real-life examples.\nFindings: Findings include a set of managerial practices that will help building DCs in rapidly changing environments.\nResearch limitations/implications: The theoretical propositions offer further scope of research for other scholars to test and build the theory further.\nPractical implications: The interplay of three forces outlined in the paper has significant strategic implications for firms.\nOriginality/value: The paper proposes a framework called deep thinking which has not been proposed before and which particularly addresses how firms can meet the challenge of transitioning into a new era with the help of this framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Modeling risk governance and risk perception in personal prevention with regard to food safety issues	[ "Risk perception", "Food safety", "Risk governance", "Theory of reasoned action", "Risk prevention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food safety has become one of the most concerned public issues in both developed and developing countries, as a number of crises related to food have occurred over the past 30 years. These crises have included outbreaks of Escherichia coli in hamburgers, Salmonella in eggs, the dioxin contamination crisis, various avian flu viruses and other toxic additive crises (Houghton et al., 2008; Banati, 2011). Specifically, in 1996 the UK's Health Minister admitted the connection between human Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), causing great public panic (Yeung and Morris, 2001). Meanwhile, customers' thoughtout are also concerned about new technological products such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and cloned animals (Banati, 2011). The series of food safety scares decreased customers' confidence in the health of food products (Chen, 2008), and accordingly many customers have changed their consumption patterns to prevent risks. For example, when BSE first occurred the meat consumption in Germany dropped by 40 percent within one year and the consumption volume had still not recovered by 2005 (Banati, 2011). The Eurobarometer opinion survey indicated that 66 percent of Europeans feel anxious about GMOs in foods and do not want to buy them (European Commission, 2010).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Risk perception and risk prevention behavior\n3. Method: 3.1 The survey and sampling\n4. Results: 4.1 Preliminary results\n5. Discussion: This study is one of the first to integrate the TRA and advanced TRA of RP and PRP in relation to RG. The study was conducted in food safety in Taiwan, with an aim to capture how RG has an impact on PRP. The results were consistent with previous findings, suggesting that RG can affect RP and PRP (Chen, 2017; Prati et al., 2012; Chen and Li, 2007). In particular, this study reveals further details about how RG affects customers' risk response.\n6. Conclusions: This study set out to investigate how RG acts on PRP with regard to food safety issues in Taiwan. The results further demonstrate the utility of the TRA and the advanced TRA in predicting PRP. Influencing factors such as PA, SN and RP were also examined to understand PRP. The results suggest that RG institutions can affect RP and PRP through SN. To the best knowledge of the authors, this study represents one of the first attempts to examine the RG effects on RP and PRP of food safety issues in Taiwan. The results and findings may be helpful for RG institutions to issue regulations that can contribute to SN to increase RP and PRP when facing risk. This study also sheds some light on systematic understanding of the paradox that strict regulations do not improve public confidence in food. There are at least four major reasons for this paradox: distrust in RG, low SN, low PBC and distrust in the media.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to model how risk governance (RG) influences risk prevention behaviors toward food safety issues, considering the perception of related risks in the Taiwanese context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The national representative data on risk society modules from the Taiwan Social Change Survey data were used (sample size = 2,005). The procedure for the analysis consisted of investigation of the model fit indices of structural equation modeling, incorporating the mediation effect. Multiple-group analysis was used to examine the moderation effects.\nFindings: Results show that the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the advanced TRA can accurately explain personal risk perception (RP) (R2=0.40) and risk prevention (R2=0.42). Results also suggest that RG institutions can affect personal RP and risk prevention through subjective norms. In addition, moderation effects of media and gender were found.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first attempts to examine the RG effects on RP and risk prevention behavior of food safety issues in Taiwan. The results and findings may be helpful for RG institutions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Employees' attitudes toward change with Lean Higher Education in Moroccan public universities	[ "Change management", "Resistance to change", "Readiness for change", "Lean Higher Education (LHE)", "Public higher education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational change has been defined as \"the process of adjusting the organization to changes in the environment\" (Michael, 1982, p. 68). In other word, change (organizational change) is the movement from the current known state to a future unknown state (Canning and Found, 2015). To manage change in an organization, senior management uses change management that is based on change models. Among these models, there are the classic models or linear approach to organizational (i.e. Lewin's, 1947 three-step model; Kotter's, 1996 eight-step) which founded on a predictable, reducible steps that allow senior management to move from a current state toward a future state. As time passes, other models have been developed as punctuated equilibrium models (i.e. Tushman and Romanelli's, 1985 model) and models of change dynamic (i.e. Sastry's, 1997 model). The study of employee's attitudes toward organizational change has attracted the attention of several researchers who have studied the readiness for change and resistance to change (Cinite and Duxbury, 2018; Thakur and Srivastava, 2018). But, there are other researchers who are interested only in readiness for change (Antony, 2014; Choi, 2011; Holt et al., 2007; Mueller et al., 2012; Vakola, 2014) which is considered as a prerequisite for a successful change, and others on the contrary, their studies are focused on resistance to change (Bovey and Hede, 2001; Canning and Found, 2015; Fritzenschaft, 2014; Nakhoda and Tajik, 2017; Pereira et al., 2019) which is an obstacle to change. The only study of readiness for change or resistance to change of employees in the first stage of any change process represents a weakness because there is the negligence of one of the two attitudes and which are in fact contrary. So, the success of the first stage is based on increasing readiness for change and reducing resistance to change. Thakur and Srivastava (2018) investigated in their study the relationship between employee's resistance and readiness for change. They found that there is a significant and negative relationship between employees' resistance and employees' readiness for change.\nLean and change management: Application of Lean to services\nMethodology: Data collection\nResults: From the cluster analyses, two different employee profiles emerged from the employees who accept the change and also two profiles emerged from the employees who refuse the change. In this study, beyond two profiles, reading of groups of employees is difficult and these groups are not interpretable. The choice of two profiles is adopted because their reading is easy that it is for employees who accept change or who refuse it. The characteristics of the respective profiles will be presented quantitatively. As a broader description, a summary based on frequencies and cross-tables is provided of the general characteristics of employees accepting or refusing change. Table III shows the attitude toward change with Lean of employees and demographic variables. For example, women represent more than half (53 percent) of the total sample. Nearly 60 percent of employees were aged between 25 and 45 years old, so these employees are young and are in an age range characterized by a high performance. Most respondents have a high qualification because HEIs require a high level of qualification when recruiting.\nDiscussion: The current study was conducted to find answers to what factors that have a positive impact on higher education employees' attitudes toward change with Lean in the public higher education system in Morocco. What are the reasons why employees choose to participate in a Lean project? What are the reasons why employees refuse to participate in a change project with Lean? Both the variable-oriented analysis and the more person-oriented cluster analysis show that employees in public higher education are characterized by possessing motivation factors to make change or resistance to change.\nConclusions and implications: Higher education employees who accept the change with Lean represent a homogenous group; their motivation for making change with Lean is related to individual, organizational and group motivational factors. This motivation to do change did not relate to personal factors such as age and work experience. The individual motivators are four: High level of education, dissatisfaction with working conditions, good impression on change projects and curiosity. The organizational motivators are two: good relationships with management and the absence of routine. Finally, group motivators are also two: good relationship with work colleagues and their positive impact on employee choices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the attitudes of higher education employees to the change with Lean at public universities in Morocco in order to determinate the factors of resistance to change and to look for the motivating factors that encourage these employees to participate in change project with Lean.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire sent to all administrative and technical staff of higher education at five public universities in Morocco during year 2019. This study has analyzed both a person-oriented approach and a variable-oriented approach and characterized by using Lewin's change model to manage change with Lean.\nFindings: The results show that individual, organizational and group factors have a positive impact on employees' attitudes toward change with Lean but individual factors are more important than other factors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is limited to universities in Morocco and mainly public universities. It is only interested in the first stage in the change process with Lean (unfreezing). Understanding employee attitudes, determining motivation factors and the causes behind resistance to change before embarking in change journey with Lean Higher Education (LHE) enables the public universities in Morocco (management) to better prepare for change by reducing resistance to change to create a favorable climate to implement LHE.\nOriginality/value: The majority of research works to date focus on implementation of LHE without giving interest to the preparation of the organizational change, this last is very much requested to determine the driving and restraining forces in order to reduce the resistance to change that is the main reason of failure of many change programs. This paper attempts to determinate the factors of resistance to change which allows to the public universities in Morocco to overcome them before moving to the changing stage.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Brazilian parents' perceptions of children's influence on family food purchases	[ "Family", "Food products", "Consumer research", "Home shopping", "Children" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For decades, the role played by children in the family's consumer behavior was ignored or little mentioned by scientific literature (Lee and Marshall, 1998). Many important modifications happened in the family core and made children recognized as potential consumers. Among them, the increased purchase power of families due to women's income, decrease in fertility rates, delayed family formation and the fact that both parents work (McNeal, 2000). All these factors stimulated parents' indulgence in order to warrant that their children lack nothing (Valkenburg and Cantor, 2001). As a consequence, children got involved in many market segments acting as primary consumer, spending their own money according to their wishes, and also as influencers, dictating how parents should spend the family money (McNeal, 2000). Stimulated by their families, children influence the purchase of innumerous product categories, although requisitions for parents tend to be more frequent for items they want for themselves, such as foods (McNeal, 2000). Their influence over family shopping may be as high as 60 percent of the purchased goods (Turner et al., 2006). Influence over what is spent on foods occurs mainly regarding processed ready-to-eat products, densely energetic, rich in sugar, fat and salt, and with poor fiber content (Wilson and Wood, 2004; O'dougherty et al., 2006; Norgaard et al., 2007; Gram, 2010). The tendency of children to choose and request these products may be explained by physiological sensations (such as satiety) provoked by ingestion of energy-dense foods (Birch, 1998), or the mere availability of such products in the home environment (Patrick and Nicklas, 2005). Besides, food ads exhibited in television are widely recognized as capable of influencing children's preferences and requests for advertised food items (Hastings et al., 2006). Together with the high frequency of food ads directed to children, advertised products are often of low nutritional value (Chapman et al., 2006; Batada et al., 2008; Kelly et al., 2010).\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Participants' characteristics\nDiscussion: We verified differences in the way parents perceived direct and indirect influences by their children on family food purchases. The results also provide an overview of the main factors that influence children's purchase requests as perceived by parents, emphasizing the role of different school feeding environments in shaping children's consumer behavior.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Qualitatively ascertain perceptions of parents regarding their children's influence on family food purchases. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Content analysis of the transcripts of 31 semi-structured interviews conducted with parents of students from public and private institutions in Brazil. The public school provided meals supplied by the National School Feeding Program, and discouraged the consumption of foods brought from home. The private school did not receive any governmental subsidies for school feeding, and students were responsible for bringing their own school snacks.\nFindings: Parents perceived children's influence especially of energy-dense nutrient-poor food purchases. Parents from the public school students, with lower income and educational levels, showed greater concern with quality and frequency with which requested foods were made available to the child. Only the parents from the private school students mentioned perceiving peer influence over their children's requests.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results enabled an overview of the main factors that influence children's purchase requests as perceived by parents. School environment seemed to influence requests, reinforcing the need for strategies similar to those present in the public school to be employed in private schools, where government programs that encourage healthy eating are not in place.\nOriginality/value: Qualitative study conducted with parents of Brazilian school children found that those with lower income and educational level were actually more concerned about their children's eating habits and perceived less peer influence over their children's requests for foods. Initiatives in the public school environment that effectively reduced access to certain kinds of foods in favor of healthier food choices reinforced the school's role as a health promoter for students and also their families.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"We're not uber:" control, autonomy, and entrepreneurship in the gig economy	[ "Attitudes", "Motivation", "Qualitative research", "Entrepreneurship", "Job satisfaction", "Communication", "Psychological contracts", "Management attitudes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: No boss. No shifts. No limits.(Uber)Find jobs you love. At rates you choose. Make a schedule that fits your life.(TaskRabbit)Mimic a restaurant experience [...] without all of the chaos and uncertainty.(Kitchensurfing)\nIntroduction: The gig economy markets entrepreneurship by promising workers that a flexible schedule, a self-directed workplace and limitless earnings can be at their fingertips through app-enabled work. Nearly a quarter of workers earned money by working in the gig economy in 2015 (Smith, 2016). The sharing economy may soon grow to exceed the US restaurant industry (Cannon and Summers, 2014). Intriguingly, while the platforms market entrepreneurship, a number of workers view themselves as part-time employees, rather than entrepreneurs (Ravenelle, 2017; Smith, 2016). Management attitudes and styles can affect worker satisfaction (Ayres, 2014; Edmans, 2012; Lim, 2010), yet, as noted by Kuhn (2016), little is known about \"platform service providers' attitudes toward platform firms and their work\" (p. 159).\nBackground on entrepreneurship and gig work: As noted by Bennett and Dann (2000), the term entrepreneurship has been used inconsistently, at various times indicating small business ownership, self-employment through freelance work, the use of innovative approaches to approach market opportunities (Schumpeter, 1934) or the creation of a new organization (Drucker, 1985). Linking back to its French root, entreprendre, meaning \"to undertake,\" this paper utilizes Cantillon's (1755/1931) original definition of an entrepreneur as an individual who is engaged in self-employment and assumes the risk of a business venture.\nLiterature on Theory X and Theory Y: Douglas McGregor's The Human Side of Enterprise, which focuses on the impact of managerial mindsets on worker behavior, has been described as one of the most influential management books ever written (Bedeian and Wren, 2002). McGregor's theory can be summed up as follows: managers operate under assumptions about human behavior that can be grouped into two categories of Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X managers operate under three primary assumptions:\nMethodology: The data for this paper are drawn from qualitative interviews with 22 TaskRabbit workers and 19 Kitchensurfing chefs. Participant recruitment into this study was conducted via the apps, allowing for the use of platform algorithms in order to increase the likelihood of sample randomness. Workers were hired through the services between March and November 2015 and then told about the project in a face-to-face conversation after rapport had been developed. Phone numbers and email addresses were requested, and interviews were solicited and scheduled at a later time in order to reduce potential pressure to participate. Three TaskRabbit participants were recruited through snowball sampling, and one tasker was recruited through contacts at local colleges.\nKitchensurfing: Kitchensurfing was started in 2012 as a way to hire professional chefs for home dinner parties. The platform was originally a marketplace; chefs were recruited through online advertisements and vetted by passing a sample meal \"audition\" within the company's test kitchen. Approved chefs could post a profile and sample menus (ranging from an intimate dinner to a cocktail party for more than 100) and related food images. In addition to providing marketing and advertising, Kitchensurfing processed client payments and served as an escrow service in exchange for a 10 percent commission.\nTaskRabbit: TaskRabbit was started in 2008 and originated as a bid-focused marketplace. Clients posted tasks ranging from taking headshots, to assembling Ikea furniture, to cleaning, and the workers bid on the work, giving short marketing spiels about why they were the best choice. In the Summer of 2014, TaskRabbit \"pivoted\" from an open-bidding market to more of a temp agency format with workers providing availability in pre-set 4-h increments, roughly equal to morning, afternoon and early evening. Potential employers chose a job category and time window, provided a task overview and were prompted to hire from an algorithm-selected listing of up to 15 potential workers.\nResults: Under Theory X, workers are believed to dislike work and avoid it if possible. As a result, companies must coerce workers and threaten punishment in order to get workers to work. After the 2014 pivot, TaskRabbit began enforcing strict responsiveness requirements and requiring workers to accept 85 percent of their tasks. Workers who previously had the luxury of bidding on interesting tasks found that their autonomy and ability to choose work was adversely affected and those who did not hew to the new expectations were punished with lower ratings and less desirable tasks.\nY: trusting workers to work: Within the Theory Y perspective, workers are assumed to be interested in work, \"to be self-directing and to seek responsibility [...] [and] to be creative in solving business problems\" (Morse and Lorsch, 1970). Within the Theory Y assumptions, work is a source of achievement and respect, a view that seemed to be highlighted by Kitchensurfing's policies regarding a chef's response time to prospective work. Gig offers that were sent via the marketplace did not automatically deactivate until a relatively generous 48 h had passed. When the request was deactivated, an email sent to the requestor included the chef's first and last name. Marketplace requestors could also include their contact information in their emails to chefs without it being redacted by the platform, suggesting that chefs were trustworthy enough to not go off-platform[1].\nDiscussion and conclusion: The gig economy promises to bring entrepreneurship to the masses, yet little is known of the role of management constructs and concepts in the platform-based economy or the impact on recruiting and/or motivating workers. Given the growth to date of the gig economy - with nearly a quarter of American workers earning money through the gig economy in 2015 (Smith, 2016) - partnered with unemployment at historic lows, studying the issue of worker recruitment and motivation is of special importance. Additionally, this study represents one of the first academic investigations into how the Theory X and Theory Y management perspectives may be applied to independent contractors within the gig economy, and to examine how gig worker attitudes toward distinct platforms - and views of themselves as entrepreneurs - are affected by algorithm-implemented management policies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Unlike the effect of management styles on employee attitudes, little is known about the effect of managerial assumptions on workers within the gig economy. The purpose of this paper is to utilize McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y as a framework to discuss two gig economy platforms and how their differing management assumptions affect worker perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author utilized qualitative interviews and demographic surveys with 41 contract workers from TaskRabbit, a personal assistant platform, and Kitchensurfing, a \"rent-a-chef\" service, to examine the impact of differing management assumptions on independent contractor perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.\nFindings: The Theory X management assumptions and correlated behaviors directly contradict the entrepreneurial ethos marketed by the platforms, resulting in a psychological contract violation for workers and negative responses to the platform. In comparison, Theory Y managerial assumptions and correlated behaviors can be utilized to encourage worker innovation, creativity and sense of self as an entrepreneur.\nPractical implications: As the gig economy continues to grow, algorithms are likely to take on increased importance as a management tool. Although some have suggested that such algorithms may reduce the impact of a capricious manager, the fact remains that algorithms are created by management. If the gig economy intends to encourage entrepreneurship, additional attention must be paid to how differing management assumptions, and their resulting behaviors and algorithms, affect worker attitudes and experience.\nOriginality/value: This study represents one of the initial academic investigations into how the Theory X and Theory Y management assumptions and correlated perspectives may be applied to independent contractors within the gig economy. Additionally, this study is among the first to examine how gig worker attitudes toward platform firms, and views of themselves as entrepreneurs, are affected by algorithm-implemented management policies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How mental simulation evokes negative affective misforecasting of hedonic experiences	[ "Mindfulness", "Hedonic consumption", "Affective misforecasting", "Extraordinary experiences", "Mental simulation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: \"'Well,' said Pooh, 'what I like best', and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called\".- A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh\nTheoretical development: Affective misforecasting\nPilot study: Investigating mental simulation and affective misforecasting in the field: The purpose of the pilot study is to provide preliminary evidence of the effect of mental simulation on affective misforecasting (H1) of an extraordinary experience in a natural setting.\nStudy 1: Effect of mental simulation of a virtual tour experience: Study 1 investigates H1 using a virtual tour of an extraordinary experience: Machu Picchu, which is an uncommon and relatively unfamiliar destination to our participants. Before the tour, participants were shown still pictures of the destination or pictures of food, such as appetizers, entrees and desserts, associated with that destination. We reasoned that participants would be more likely to mentally simulate the extraordinary destination when viewing pictures of the destination itself than when viewing pictures of food, and that this mental simulation would result in negative affective misforecasting.\nStudy 2: Effect of mental simulation on a food tasting experience: In Study 2, we sought to test our propositions using a real consumption experience in a lab setting. Thus, we had participants engage in a food tasting. We ensured that the food tasting was more extraordinary than ordinary by choosing a food item that was unfamiliar for most participants: baked cinnamon apple snack sticks. A manipulation check confirmed that the snack sticks were unfamiliar to participants (see Appendix for stimuli and materials). To add robustness, Study 2 also used a different manipulation of mental simulation. Specifically, participants read descriptions of the food they would be tasting rather than seeing pictures of the food.\nStudy 3: Manipulating experience type and measuring mindfulness: In Study 3, we manipulate whether the experience is ordinary or extraordinary to determine whether affective misforecasting is greater for extraordinary than ordinary experiences (H1). We also explicitly investigate the underlying process by measuring mindfulness (H2-H3).\nGeneral discussion: Across four studies, we found that mentally simulating an upcoming experience causes greater negative affective misforecasting, at least in part because it makes people process those experiences in a less mindful manner. Three lab studies and one field study, using virtual tour experiences, food tastings and vacations, showed the negative consequences of mental simulation for the enjoyment of hedonic experiences. Specifically, we found that mental simulation can cause greater negative affective misforecasting (all studies), and that this is mediated by less mindful processing (Study 3). We further found that, in comparison to low mental simulation, high mental simulation does not result in negative affective misforecasting for ordinary experiences with which people are extremely familiar, at least when the typically ordinary experience is presented in a new and unfamiliar way (study 3). Taken together, our findings suggest that mental simulation can cause people to anticipate more positive affective responses than they will actually have from an upcoming extraordinary hedonic experience and that mental simulation evokes less mindful processing.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between mental simulation and affective misforecasting of hedonic consumption experiences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors present a series of lab and field studies that manipulate mental simulation and experience type (ordinary versus extraordinary) and measure affective misforecasting and mindfulness. Data were analyzed using a combination of ANOVA and PROCESS.\nFindings: Mental simulation before an experience causes negative affective misforecasting to occur for extraordinary experiences but not ordinary experiences. The authors further show that mindfulness mediates the effect of mental simulation on affective misforecasting.\nPractical implications: The findings provide insight into how thinking about experiences before consumption affects consumers' actual engagement with the experience. This paper suggests that, by encouraging consumers to mentally simulate their experiences before consumption, marketers may cause consumers to miss out on enjoying their experiences to the fullest. Instead, marketers may want to maintain some mystique by encouraging consumers to \"come see for themselves\".\nOriginality/value: The authors demonstrate a novel cause of affective misforecasting: mental simulation before the experience and provide initial evidence in support of a novel psychological process explanation (i.e. mindfulness) for the effect of mental simulation on affective misforecasting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social innovation success factors: hospitality and tourism social enterprises	[ "Social innovation", "Social enterprises", "Hospitality and tourism sector", "Social business models" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research on social entrepreneurship has gained increased attention in the past years spurred notably by the current fragile state of the global economy and the growing inequities and dilemmas that are threatening social cohesion. In this context, innovation plays a crucial role, lying at the heart of social entrepreneurs who seek business solutions to social problems (Chell et al., 2010). Innovation is conceived not only as a vehicle to maintain competitive advantage in the marketplace but also as the way to stimulate social change, contribute to growth and improve peoples' lives (Mulgan, 2006).\nSocial enterprises and business models: It is widely accepted that innovation has become a requirement to achieve business sustainable success (Chesbrough, 2010). Indeed, innovation processes and mechanisms have attracted much attention in the literature (Sawhney et al., 2011). However, little attention has been paid to the social dimension of innovation, despite representing an effective, efficient and sustainable way of responding to social needs.\nMethodology: To identify the success factors of a social business model of a company, it is necessary to conduct a detailed analysis of its structure and organization; therefore, an inductive multiple case study method was chosen (Eisenhardt, 1989). The setting of the study is WISEs. WISEs are a category of social enterprises that train disadvantaged people with psychological, social or physical disabilities to permanently integrate or reintegrate them into the workplace (Borzaga and Defourny, 2001).\nIcaria: Background\nPila: Background\nResults and discussion: Icaria and Pila cases were chosen because of their initial similarities but their divergent outcome. Both companies were WISEs dedicated to manufacturing labor, one in printing and the other in assembly. Both decided to innovate to increase their revenue generation and, as a consequence, increase or maintain the number of jobs for people with disabilities. However, one of them (Icaria) achieved the proposed objective, while the other did not. Analyzing the differences between both scenarios can shed some light in what factors influence success in social business model innovations, a field still under-researched. The most relevant differences identified are the following five: value proposition, market research, stakeholder involvement, social need and managerial trust on employees. The first three, value proposition, market research and stakeholder involvement, had been already identified in the literature, while the latter, social need and managerial trust on employees, constitute the main contribution of our paper.\nConclusions: In this paper, we have examined two WISEs in the field of tourism and hospitality. Both firms undertook a business model innovation to overcome a severe crisis that compromised their economic and social impact. By comparing both cases, with different performance results, we have been able to identify several critical factors that influenced the success of the social business model innovation.\nLimitations and further research: Due to its exploratory nature, this paper presents some limitations that must be taken into consideration. First, the selection of a case-based approach allows for an in-depth knowledge of the companies studied, but it also entails some limitations so further research on the factors that help explain business model innovation in social enterprises is needed. Although the authors have visited, interviewed and studied 18 WISEs s, the paper is based on the two more representative ones. The idea of the paper was to serve as a first approach to social business innovation in the hospitality and tourism sector, and we encourage further research in the area. Second, theoretical foundations in the area of social enterprises are still in an early stage; much more research is needed to build a solid field. This paper is just a small step in that direction.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on social enterprises and business model innovation. Particularly, it sheds some light on those factors that turn a social innovation initiative into a success, both in terms of meeting social needs and achieving economic sustainability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By using a grounded theory approach, an inductive comparative case study is conducted. Two work integration social enterprises in the hospitality and tourism sector are selected. Both companies are located in Barcelona (Spain) under the same legal regulation and economic situation and initially run a manufacturing business. Due to the economic crisis they were forced to reinvent themselves to survive. Data were collected from different sources and coded using content analysis procedures.\nFindings: Results indicate that three factors, namely, value proposition, appropriate market research and stakeholder involvement, heavily contributed to firm's success, corroborating previous studies. Furthermore, our study reveals that social need pressures and managerial trust on employees are additional factors that drive social business model innovation.\nPractical implications: Changes in the demand, the rules governing the market or economic downturns are external drivers for demand-pull innovations. In such context, firms need to reformulate their business models if they wish to survive. Acknowledging the factors that help firms overcome these obstacles is of great interest for both academics and entrepreneurs.\nOriginality/value: Social innovation in business models is a topic still poorly defined in the literature, yet, its boundaries to other fields are still fuzzy. This paper aims to fulfill this gap by presenting the theoretical domain in which this topic fits in and evidencing those successful factors that should be considered when designing and implementing a business model innovation which may help other firms facing a similar process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Diversity in the spotlight	[ "Equal opportunities", "Drama", "Grievances", "Conflict", "Discrimination", "Prejudice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There are those who still have their doubts about the benefits of using theatre in the training arena. It's all cheap champagne and \"luvvies\" in cravats. Partly perhaps, but there are others who hold the belief - and I may be pushing my luck here - that like any art form, theatre has a responsibility to challenge and provoke.\nWhat's in it for the organisation?: The case for effective diversity training remains undisputable, of course. The potential benefits have been well documented. As well as helping to spare organisations the embarrassing and damaging upheaval of the public tribunal, there are benefits for the working environment. Organisations that embrace diversity are happier places to work because they necessarily promote openness and creativity, and consequently they enjoy lower staff turnover and increased productivity.Not only that, by valuing diversity an organisation opens itself up to a wider client base as well as a greater talent pool through its recruitment processes. Indeed, rather than being simply a reactive measure, the diversity development process should be viewed as the first step in addressing an organisation's values and long-term goals and developing a culture in which differences are embraced and valued, not feared.Quite a compelling case, then. But is it realistic to be looking at culture shifts? After all, it's one thing to establish a diversity policy and communicate the reasons behind it to the masses, but it's another to get people to buy into the principles behind it. Consider the nature of prejudice. The fact is, to a greater or lesser extent we all have them. As a result of our upbringing, our parents, our friends and any other number of influences, we establish beliefs from an early age; beliefs that are often based on a lack of knowledge, fear and assumptions.\nHearts and minds: So how do you begin to address such deep-seated beliefs? Clearly, you can't expect to win hearts and minds overnight, but an effective learning programme is the first step. There are many approaches to diversity development to choose from, of course. And in recent years, more and more organisations have used drama as a means of raising awareness and promoting ideals.So why drama? What's all the fuss about? Is it just a tempest in a teacup? It would be true to say that drama-based learning techniques have suffered from bad press in the past. At the merest mention of roleplay, delegates have been known to recoil in fear and run for the hills.The fact is though, far from being an excruciatingly embarrassing or touchy-feely training tool, drama-based learning works on many levels and has countless practical applications in the areas of assessment and development. Central to it is experiential learning, or learning by doing. By empowering learners to take risks and try new approaches to existing problems, you make the development process more relevant and meaningful.A roleplay workshop, for example, typically takes the form of a one-to-one encounter requiring a learner to interact with a character played by an actor. It's a tool that is immediately responsive to the individual's style and development needs and provides the delegate with the opportunity to test newly-acquired skills and techniques in an entirely safe environment before applying them in the workplace \"for real\".\nForum theatre: Another drama-based tool, used widely in diversity training, is forum theatre. Forum theatre is essentially a piece of interactive theatre based on a scenario which reflects key learning points, and requires the audience to direct the actors in order to resolve their conflict. As such, delegates become the directors and their decisions determine the course and outcome of the scene.For many reasons, forum theatre lends itself particularly well to development in diversity. For one thing, it does not require delegates to put themselves in the spotlight, something many are reticent about doing in-group situations, particularly when the subject matter addresses emotions and feelings. Forum theatre avoids this potential embarrassment by using actors as the performers.Furthermore, it allows you to present serious and potentially sensitive issues in a light-hearted way. And while it's important not to trivialise the message, it's also vital for delegates to engage with the process from the beginning. By presenting and facilitating forum theatre effectively, you can address emotive issues in a fun and interesting way, thereby getting buy-in from delegates and making the learning points more memorable.Forum theatre is entirely non-directive. As a learning tool, it does not prescribe best practice, impose opinions or push delegates towards any specific conclusion. So it's ideal as a means of illustrating the issues related to diversity, which by their nature we will all approach from a slightly different standpoint. Indeed, because forum theatre is replayable in an infinite number of ways, it is responsive to opinions and learning needs at both individual and group level. What's more, by influencing the way the characters interact - through changes in language, body-language and voice tone, for example - delegates are more likely to take ownership of the issues and retain them outside the training environment. It is therefore an extremely powerful learning tool.Forum theatre also seeks to promote empathy and understanding, as well as encourage delegates to explore all points of view. Indeed it's an opportunity to focus not only on the affects of prejudice but also the reasons for it. The reality is, what people regard as acceptable is bound to vary to some extent. While company policy is necessarily black and white, the issues at the heart of it are most definitely not. And though knowledge of and adherence to company policy is vital, you cannot hope to develop understanding and acceptance of differences within a workforce without addressing the root causes of prejudice.\nHarnessing conflict: Imagine a scene in which a woman confronts a sexist male colleague. You assign ownership of the female character to one half of the delegates, and ownership of the male character to the other half. Each group must then script their relevant actor and justify their arguments to each other.This method throws up some interesting points. First of all, it creates a conflict between the two groups of delegates within which the effects of and reasons for sexism can be explored. Without conflict, it's all too easy for the learning process to focus solely on best practice. After all, in an environment in which sensitive issues are raised and political correctness scrutinised, it's understandable that delegates may prefer not to contribute for fear of being labelled or misconstrued.But by establishing a debate based on the conflict between the fictional characters in the scene, opposing points of view can be voiced and their relative merits discussed. The point being, that any opinions given are representative of the characters, not the delegates. This avoids disputes becoming personal and ensures that differences of opinion do not spill over into the workplace.Crucially, though, this type of forum theatre allows you to focus less on what official policy prescribes as right and wrong and more on the human issues - the reasons for prejudice, the emotional effects, ways of challenging prejudice and instances of unintentional discrimination. It's through a clearer understanding of such issues that you can begin to develop a working culture in which differences are not just tolerated but valued. For many organisations, such culture changes represent a significant challenge, yet bring with them huge benefits.The Jerry Springer - The Operas and the Behztis of this world may be controversial works of art, but they fill an important role in society. For we may disagree with their content and be offended at the opinions they represent, but the crucial point is we get the opportunity to decide for ourselves rather than have the decisions imposed on us. Using drama as part of the diversity process offers the same opportunity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to address the problems that diversity, by its nature, throws up for training professionals, and to highlight the various ways in which drama, as a learning tool, offers solutions to those problems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The theory of experiential learning forms the back-bone of the arguments proposed by the paper, and has many applications in the development and assessment of groups and individuals. While it focuses on a technique called \"forum theatre\", all forms of drama-based learning are founded on the theory of \"learning by doing\".\nFindings: - The findings of the paper focus on the benefits of illustrating learning points through drama; encouraging creative thinking, risk-taking, empathy and the use of conflict in a simulated environment to examine issues from all points of view.\nPractical implications: - These findings point to a need for an artistic and non-directive approach to diversity training, one that is responsive to the sensitive and emotive nature of the subject. It also calls for organisations to encourage the embracing of differences within their workforces.\nOriginality/value: - The learning points discussed offer a fresh perspective to diversity trainers. It suggests opportunities to address the root causes of prejudice without the risks that traditional training methods necessarily bring with them, and it is relevant to anyone involved in the design and delivery of diversity training.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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