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Job satisfaction and job performance in the media industry: A synergistic application of partial least squares path modelling
|
[
"Job performance",
"Job satisfaction",
"Malaysia",
"Demographic variables",
"Moderation",
"Media industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the media industry, employees learn a lot from their routines and if they experience dissatisfaction with their job, it will cause a great loss to the organization (Ireri, 2015). Research has shown that job satisfaction impacts several organizational factors such as change (Smith, 2009), turnover (Poon, 2004), strategy (Kaarst-Brown et al., 2004), teams (Recardo and Jolly, 1997), and ethics (Gebler, 2006). Consecutively, these factors have an effect on the organization's performance (Erdogan and Enders, 2007). Research also indicated the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007) as well as between organizational commitment (Valaei and Rezaei, 2016). Previous studies found the role of demographic variables on job performance such as income (Lemieux et al., 2009), age (Ng and Feldman, 2008), and gender (Semadar et al., 2006). The literature rarely addressed the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance, particularly in the context of media companies and the extent to which demographic variables could impact this relationship remains a question. Only a few empirical studies exist to date and even in these, the effect of job satisfaction on employee performance was not the primary research focus. \"Small number of studies have examined the effect of job satisfaction on job performance\" (Yang and Hwang, 2014, p. 7).\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: Job satisfaction is related to one's state of mind or his/her feelings concerning the nature of the job (Spector, 1997). Job satisfaction can also be referred as emotional work orientation towards one's current situation (Lincoln and Kalleberg, 1996). Cranny et al. (1992, p. 1) defined job satisfaction as \"an affective (that is, emotional) reaction to a job that results from the incumbent's comparison of actual outcomes with those that are desired (expected, deserved, and so on)\". Finally, Spector (1997, p. 2) defined job satisfaction as \"how people feel about their jobs and different aspects of their jobs and it is the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs\". These definitions are similar in that job satisfaction is viewed as the worker's emotional orientation towards the job role.\n3. Methodology: The target population consists of all employees who work in the media industry in Malaysia. A list of employees was acquired from the official database of the media industry (Media Planning Guide Malaysia, 2011). This specific list is this study's sampling frame. Cooper et al. (2006) stated that \"a sample frame is the listing of all the population elements from which the sample will be drawn upon\". A number of 245 paper-and-pencil questionnaires were issued from amongst Malaysian media companies. Of these, 232 questionnaires were returned and a total of 220 cases were accepted for data analysis. Job satisfaction is measured with the instrument developed by Spector (1997) and job performance is measured with the instrument developed by Tsui et al. (1997) (see Table AI) (Table I).\n4. Results: 4.1 Goodness of model fit\n5. Discussion and conclusion: Job satisfaction is a complex construct and several types of relationships form job satisfaction (Alegre et al., 2016). The findings of this research indicate that all facets of job satisfaction are positively related to job performance except fringe benefits, contingent rewards, and communication. Considering the supported hypotheses, co-workers generated the highest path coefficient, followed by operating conditions, payment, and promotion. Job satisfaction facets significantly predict employees' job performance with a substantial R2 value of 84 per cent. Amongst the proposed moderating effects, the hypotheses on marital status and income are rejected.\n6. Managerial implications: Job satisfaction has been the main variable of interest in various studies on journalists and it can have an impact on journalists' attitudes and behaviours in producing news and information (Ireri, 2015) where big companies place their advertisements about their portfolio of brands such as in magazines, newspapers, books, and so forth. This signals the importance of job satisfaction-job performance relationship in the media industry, because it indirectly influences other industries as well. Findings of this research have significant implications to managers in the media industry in particular and other related industries in general. Managers should note that the significance of job satisfaction-job performance relationship differs across cultures (Ng et al., 2009). Top management can identify which facets of the work environment should be modified to generate higher performance results. The findings are useful to human resource development researchers and practitioners by providing empirical evidence that the increase in job satisfaction meets the needs and improves the performance of employees and also increases human resource development professionals' contributions to the organization.\n7. Limitation and future research: Several limitations might be present in this study, though every effort was made to ensure the integrity of the research. First, cultural discrepancy might cause some findings that are invalid. This research directly uses some generally practiced Western theoretical structures, models, and constructs, initially developed mainly by US scholars within the US contexts that might not fit in the Malaysian context. Nevertheless, the findings still cannot completely perceive the cultural nuances of the Malaysian workforce and may not fully catch the essence of the interrelationships between the two constructs in the native Malaysian media environment. Third, there are numerous aspects that influence employees' job performance in an organization. While this research thoroughly investigated only two variables, it is understood that the variables analysed are not comprehensive. Several other components that could affect job performance are not included in this research.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between job satisfaction and employee performance in the media industry as well as the role of demographic variables, namely, age, gender, income, marital status, and the level of education as categorical moderators on this relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 220 valid questionnaires were collected from employees in the Malaysian media industry to examine the goodness of model fit, sign indeterminacy, measurement model, and structural relationships between constructs. Using partial least squares (PLS) path modelling, this study introduces a full-fledged structural equation modelling approach by applying ADANCO 1.1 advanced composite modelling and SmartPLS 3.2.3. PLS-multi-group analysis is applied to examine the heterogeneity of data and test the hypotheses on moderating variables.\nFindings: Payment, promotion, supervision, operating conditions, co-workers, and nature of the work were found to be conducive to employees' job performance, among which co-workers generated the highest path coefficient followed by operating conditions, payment, and promotion. Hypotheses on the relationships between fringe benefits, contingent rewards, communication, and job performance were rejected. Age, gender, and level of education were found as moderators to the relationship between facets of job satisfaction and employees' job performance.\nPractical implications: The results of importance-performance map analysis can help managers and decision makers to prioritize their actions. The findings show that co-workers and operating conditions have the highest importance and payment and contingent rewards have the highest performance on job performance in the media industry.\nOriginality/value: This study is among the few that investigates the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance in the media industry by considering demographic factors as the moderating variables. This study also contributes methodologically through the introduction of a synergistic PLS approach.\n",
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Explorations into sex, gender and leadership in the UK Civil Service Part 1. Introduction, background and theoretical considerations
|
[
"Leadership",
"Gender stereotypes",
"Training and development",
"Sex differences",
"UK Civil Service"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This three-part paper explores the intersection between sex, gender and leadership in the UK Civil Service. It describes research carried out by the authors into differences in the behaviour of men and women managers in the UK Civil Service. It also includes a consideration of differences in 360 degree assessments of these behaviours and variations in the behaviours and assessments in different organisational contexts. This research is a by-product of training and development activities carried out by the authors.\nBackground: We work in the fields of management, education and training. Since the late 1970s, we have provided a wide range of training and development services for organisations in the UK Civil Service. These have included one-to-one coaching, open training courses and specific courses for particular clients. Clients included the National School of Government, formerly the Civil Service College, as well as a wide variety of Government Departments, Agencies and other governmental bodies.\nPublished theory and research on the intersection of sex, gender and leadership: There is an extensive body of theory and research into the intersection of sex, gender and leadership. To help us define our terms and make sense of and structure this literature, we have drawn heavily on the excellent recent overview of this subject by Powell (2012).\nConclusions and conjectures: In conclusion, the evidence presented here refutes the stereotypes that men are better leaders and better leaders are masculine. Effective leadership today requires a combination of masculine and feminine behaviours. In addition different situations may favour men or women as leaders. Nevertheless, the so-called \"glass ceiling\" continues to exist despite some indications, such as changing attitudes towards women managers, suggesting that some cracks may be appearing in it.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This is the first of a three-part paper exploring the intersection between sex, gender and leadership in the UK Civil Service. The purpose of this paper is to introduce research by the authors into differences in the behaviour of men and women managers in the UK Civil Service, differences in 360 degree assessments of these behaviours and variations in the behaviours and assessments in different organisational contexts. This part of the paper sets the scene, and provides a literature review and a series of conjectures, derived from this review.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This part of the paper outlines the training and development activities carried out by the authors and explains the target populations, the context in which managers operated and the part played by psychometric assessments in such activities. It then provides a literature review on the intersection of sex, gender and leadership. This looks at: the glass ceiling; leader preferences; gender stereotypes; gender stereotypes and leaders; attitudes towards women as leaders; leadership theories and gender stereotypes; sex differences in psychological traits; sex differences in leader behaviour and effectiveness. Finally, it presents a series of conjectures, derived from the literature review.\nFindings: The literature review shows that the playing field that constitutes managerial ranks continues to be tilted in favour of men and behaviours associated with the male stereotype, despite what leadership theories and field evidence would suggest.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research was also a by-product of the authors' training and development work, not a purpose-built research programme to explain the \"glass ceiling\". It relates to the UK Civil Service and may not be relevant in other contexts.\nPractical implications: Later parts of the paper present prescriptions for minimising the impact of gender stereotypes, along with an evidence-based leadership framework. Training and development implications are presented. Findings are relevant to leaders, would be leaders and human resource professionals, including training and development specialists.\nSocial implications: The vast majority of top leadership positions across the world are held by males rather than females. This prevents women from moving up the corporate ladder. This literature review describes the \"glass ceiling\" and explores what lies behind it.\nOriginality/value: Research on sex differences in behaviour, gender stereotypes and situational differences in both, in the UK Civil Service, are all original. Of particular importance is the new evidence-based framework of leadership competences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Investments in the Brazilian Space Agency and the patenting process: a correlation analysis
|
[
"Innovation",
"Patent",
"Correlation",
"Space agency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The issue of patents has been seen as a national development strategy for countries seeking to protect the results of investments in research and innovation. Knowing what to protect, as well as when and how to protect it makes it possible for a country to protect itself from a peripheral economy, since it results in increased business productivity and improved competitiveness. The common understanding is that patenting protection is a means of encouraging innovation and technological development, boosting technology transfer and promoting scientific, economic, social and technological progress (Almeida, 2014; Lima, 2013).\nRegistration of patents in the world and in Brazil: The copyright system was developed over the past centuries. In 1734, engravings became the first art form to be protected by the Copyright Law. In 1814, fabricated sculptures were added into the copyright system by copyright law in the year 1833. This means of protection has been extended to cover the public performance of musical and dramatic compositions. In this context, the United Kingdom was the first country to recognize the copyright. The essence of copyright can be deduced from the name. The owner of copyright in a work has the right to copy and therefore the right to prevent others from copying it (Mingaleva & Mirskikh, 2015).\nThe government demands and space programs: In this context, it is important to highlight the emergence of technologies such as microwaves, radars, communication systems, among others. However, for that to happen, the US Government invested in the emergence of innovative companies and projects that had the support of universities and companies that were directly financially supported. One example was the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the increase of the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF), essential to enable the first manned mission to land on the Moon in 1969 (Brazil, 2013).\nThe Brazilian space agency and government investments: The BSA was established in 1994 with the purpose of coordinating the Brazilian space policy. The BSA is a federal agency under the control of the MCTI to promote the autonomy of the Brazilian space industry. It is important to note that the Brazilian space program is placed among the top 10 world economic powers (Moltz, 2015).\nMethodology: This study has a deductive and quantitative character (Gil, 2008; Saunders, Lewis, & Thornill, 2007), using secondary data as a source of information. In the study in question, we carried out a bibliographical research using government reports, scientific papers published in periodicals and books on the subject.\nResults: After a brief explanation of the terms of patenting applications, we carried out a correlating test comparing information between MCTI investments in the BSA and the previously described patenting applications terms. In this regard, the following information was considered:\nConclusion: This study aimed to analyze the correlation between the investments in the BSA and the filing of patenting. In order to conduct this research. We opted for the analysis of statistical correlation and linear regression considering information on investments accomplished in the BSA retrieved from the Transparency Portal of the federal government and the filing of patenting retrieved from the data available on the INPI.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to analyze the correlation between the investments in the Brazilian Space Agency (BSA) and the patenting process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology used was a statistical analysis through correlation and linear regression between the secondary data of investments made by the federal government, retrieved from the Transparency Portal, in the BSA and the patenting process, taking into consideration the number of invention, utility model and certificate of addition of invention.\nFindings: After a brief presentation of the emergence of innovation and patent applications with the investments of governments in space agencies, this study presents the analysis of information in different times of investment that showed positive correlation between the two variables adopted.\nOriginality/value: One can point to the value of this study as strategic investments in space agencies to boost the filing of patents in a nation in the most diverse areas.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Brand extension evaluation: real world and virtual world
|
[
"Consumer attitudes",
"Avatars",
"Brand extension",
"Virtual worlds"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the early 1990s,\n2. Virtual worlds and marketing: review of relevant literature: There are various definitions of virtual worlds in literature. For example, Bell (2008) defined virtual worlds as synchronous, persistent network of people, represented by avatars and facilitated by networked computers. Schroeder (2008) clarified virtual worlds as persistent online social spaces or virtual environments that people experience together with others as a world of social interaction. Virtual worlds are also defined as persistent, synthetic, three-dimensional, non-game centric social spaces (Spence, 2008). Castronova (2005) observed that synthetic worlds are indeed separated from the real world with a membrane but that the membrane (\"almost-magic circle\") is porous and serves the \"objective of retaining all that is good about the fantasy atmosphere of the synthetic world, while giving users the maximum amount of freedom to manipulate their involvement with them\". In a similar vein, Denegri-Knott and Molesworth (2013) note that virtual worlds are \"liminal space[s] - somewhere between the imagination and the material\". In this paper, virtual worlds are understood as synthetic, non-game centric, synchronous, persistent, three-dimensional social spaces that are inhabited by avatars. There exists more than a dozen such virtual environments in digital space but a popular example for the virtual world could be Second Life. It is important to note that unlike other fictional environments, the virtual worlds are inhabitable and participatory (Damer et al., 2003; Klastrup, 2003), meaning that one can live inside it, have an identity and role and actively contribute to its culture. Hence, consumption motivations of the inhabitants based on their needs and desires in this alternative life can be an important characteristic of virtual worlds. Motivations for people from the real world to enter the virtual world as avatars could be the search for diversion, the desire to build personal relationships, the need to learn, and the wish to earn money (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). Avatars, thus, with the specific needs and desires play role of consumers in the virtual worlds.\n3. Virtual worlds as product-markets for business growth: This paper views virtual worlds as product-markets for business growth. Such a view is supported by the three aspects discussed below:\n4. Brand extensions from real world to virtual world and virtual world to real world: review of relevant literature and propositions: Studies on consumer evaluation of brand extensions have focused on a variety of factors concerning parent brand (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Dacin and Smith, 1994), parent brand and the extension fit (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Park et al., 1991), extension product category characteristics (Kardes and Allen, 1991; Volckner and Sattler, 2007) and consumer traits (Klink and Athaide, 2010; Klink and Smith, 2001). Most of the literature, however, is focused on the influence of parent brand characteristics and types of brand extension fit on consumer evaluation of brand extensions (Czellar, 2003; Grime et al., 2002), and accordingly this paper contrasts the influence of parent brand characteristics and parent brand extension fit between the real-world and virtual world contexts. It can be conceptualized that the well-established relationships between the consumers' attitude toward extension and its antecedents (and also relationships between the revision of attitude to the parent brand and its antecedents) would vary in strength from the real-world context to a virtual world context. The following subsection 4.1 theorizes the moderating influence of contexts (the real- or a virtual world) on the relationships between consumers' attitude toward the extension and its established determinants, and subsection 4.2 theorizes the moderating influence of contexts on the relationships between consumers' revision of attitude toward the parent brand and its established determinants.\n5. Conclusion: While there are studies in marketing that attempt to explain virtual worlds as alternative channels for brand communication and consumer research, very rarely virtual worlds have been understood by marketers as a new market. As virtual world economies gather strength and become key product-markets for businesses to diversify, managers need to examine if extending the existing brand into a virtual world makes sense or not. This paper amalgamates well-researched domain of brand extensions in the real world with emerging understanding of virtual worlds as product-markets to propose moderating influence of the context. Based largely on the idea of Hemp (2006) that the consumers in a virtual world are avatars - alternative identities of the real world individuals, the paper proposes that the known antecedents influencing the consumer attitude toward the extension and the post-extension revision of attitude toward the parent brand are likely to have much higher influence when the extension is within a world. The known antecedents influencing consumer attitudes toward the extension and the post-extension revision of attitude toward parent brand are likely to have less stronger influence in case of across-the-world extensions (the real world to a virtual world and virtual world to the real world).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to help marketing scholars view virtual worlds as new product-markets and trigger serious investigations on consumer evaluation of brand extensions when a brand is extended from the real world to a virtual world and vice versa.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper makes an extensive review of studies on virtual world. Further, it amalgamates understanding from well-established literature on consumer evaluation of brand extensions into the emerging virtual world understanding to conceptualize moderating influence of contexts - the real world context and a virtual world context - on how consumers evaluate brand extensions.\nFindings: Through logical arguments supported by existing literature, the paper provides 14 well-conceptualized propositions that argue that the real world and virtual world contexts moderate the well-established relationships in brand extension literature. It broadly proposes that the relationships between the consumer evaluations of brand extension and its known determinants are stronger in case of within-the-world extensions and weaker in case of across-the-world extensions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper introduces to the marketing scholars an entirely new area of enquiry as it challenges the known brand extension knowledge when a brand is extended across the worlds.\nPractical implications: Marketers considering launching new offerings across the contexts of real or virtual world would have implications on whether to extend the brand or not.\nOriginality/value: Virtual worlds have largely been construed in marketing literature as fictional worlds. There is not much explored in terms of virtual worlds as new product-markets. The study offers unique value in conceptualizing differences among within-the-world brand extensions and across-the-world brand extensions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Impacts of organizational knowledge sharing practices on employees' job satisfaction: Mediating roles of learning commitment and interpersonal adaptability
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Interpersonal adaptability",
"Knowledge sharing practices",
"Learning commitment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Knowledge is a significant resource for achievement and sustainability of competitive advantage in businesses (Drucker, 2001). Knowledge management and knowledge sharing (KS) at workplace have turn out to be a topic of great interest for organizations (Ozlati, 2012). Organizations are committed to create, expand and apply both quality and quantity of knowledge within organizational boundaries. This magnitude is even obvious for the firms which trade in knowledge itself and have a high proportion of qualified staff (Blackler, 1995). Alvesson (1995) referred such organizations as \"knowledge-intensive firms\".\n2. Literature review: Knowledge management literature conferred \"Knowledge\" in numerous ways. In the views of Lee (2009), knowledge is taken as what a person knows. Davenport and Prusak (1998) discussed knowledge as a mix of experiences, values, background evidence and expert vision, whereas organizational knowledge tends to be ambiguous in nature and absolutely attached to the people who keep it (Nonaka, 1994). Data, information and knowledge are not exchangeable concepts (Wiig, 2012). Knowledge tends to be subjective in nature and is extremely rigid to be codified (Lee, 2009), as it is difficult to imitate knowledge, so individuals' information transfer has ideal significance (Reychav and Weisberg, 2010). Information has sense, but it is just like a message for which meanings are dependent on the perceptions of its sender and receiver, whereas knowledge is a mixture of different elements that range from contextual information, individual experiences to values and insights of a knowledgeable person (Davenport and Prusak, 1998).\n3. Research model and hypothesis: Present research is an attempt to empirically investigate proposed relations among KS and employee benefits by Becerra-Fernandez et al. (2004) in the context of service sector of Pakistan. At first, impacts of KSP (independent variable) are hypothesized for JS, LC and IA as dependent variables. Second, IA and LC are proposed as mediating variables that mediate impacts of KSP on JS. Hypothesized research model of the study is illustrated in Figure 1.\n4. Research methodology: This research was based on deductive method. To validate the associations among variables, a positivistic approach and quantitative research strategy were used.\n5. Results: 5.1 Sample descriptions\n6. Discussion: Emphasis of present research was to evaluate the impacts of organization's KSP on its workforce, whereas another vital aspect proposed in this research was to check the interrelations of employee's outcome variables. Therefore, an attempt has been made to check the mediating effects of IA and LC among the relation of KSP and JS. However, such researches have been formerly reported, but the proposed mediation effects are not investigated in previous studies. Almahamid et al. (2010) empirically substantiated relations among KSP, LC, JS and all kinds of employee adaptability in manufacturing companies at Jordan. Hegazy and Ghorab (2014) in a study on UAE university academic and administrative staff discovered positive associations among KS by means of a corporate portal and individual's learning and adaptability. Hussain et al. (2016) identified impacts of KS behavior of teams on service novelty and performance in Malaysia. Therefore, no empirical evidence is available from service sector to check such relations. Moreover, this study is first of its kind in the context of service sector of Pakistan. Present study engaged employees of banking, insurance and telecom companies serving in various cities of Punjab province of Pakistan for collection of primary data. Proposed impacts of KSP on JS, LC and IA were empirically tested.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically impacts of organizational knowledge-sharing practices (KSP) on employees' job satisfaction (JS), interpersonal adaptability (IA) and learning commitment (LC). Indirect effects of KSP on JS are also confirmed through mediating factors (LC and IA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Knowledge workers from service sector organizations were taken as population of study. Therefore, three types of institutes (banks, insurance and telecom companies) from services sector of Pakistan were selected for sampling purpose. A sample size of 435 employees, comprising 145 employees from each type of institute, was selected. Linear regression analysis and mediation analyses were performed for statistical analysis.\nFindings: Organizational support for knowledge sharing fosters learning commitment (LC), and interpersonal adaptability (IA) among workforce that ultimately grounds employees' job satisfaction. Therefore, in our findings, the mediating role of IA is greater than the mediating effect of LC.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study presents a firm reasoning to decision makers for implementation of KSP in the organizations. Findings of study offer several subjects for discussion in the field of KS by academics and research. Present research is limited to test the composite effect of KSP for some selected employee outcomes only.\nOriginality/value: This research attempts to provide empirical evidence about impacts of KSP on employee outcomes. Research work on such issues was lacking in Pakistani context. Therefore, this paper supplies ample of theoretical base for future research as well as management decision makers to maximize the benefits of implementing KSP at their organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Managers dare to be different at Dixons: Program develops creativity and a "can do" attitude
|
[
"Innovation",
"Management development",
"Retailing",
"Organizational culture",
"Retention",
"Training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An electrical retailer has the perfect answer to those who believe that creativity cannot be taught. It has developed a \"can do\" approach and an attitude of \"daring to be different\" among managers who were previously seen by senior executives as rather too \"risk-averse\".\nStates of mind that are essential to innovative thinking: Trading directors nominated eight middle managers for a new \"What If?\" program of management development. The managers were considered excellent in their current roles and capable of coaching others, but had displayed only limited creative skills themselves and had not fostered a culture that encouraged creativity in others.Based on how the brain is constructed and how it receives and processes information, the What If? program highlighted the states of mind that are crucial to innovative thinking, and how to achieve these.\"The sessions were radically different from any training previously done with this population,\" said Joe Butcher. \"They included the use of props, costumes, stimuli of the four senses, informal room layouts, fairy lights, beanbags ... and even flowers and pizza. The method and style of training were they key to engaging the group. It was all about being spontaneous, childlike, playing games and having no boundaries.\"The rationale was that if you surround yourself with inspiration you will be inspired, but if you sit in a cold and grey meeting room you will have cold and grey ideas.\"The first workshop, entitled \"Touch\", involved gaining and using insight from any project or new-product development activity the managers had been involved in. Lasting four days, it aimed to change mindsets and behaviors. This was followed by a three-day workshop on \"productive creativity\", which examined the skills and understanding that fire enthusiasm for personal creativity and innovation.Post-workshop projects were organized to provide immediate application of the learning. One project, for example, was to design an award scheme for innovation.Monthly meetings were held between the learners and the head of training and development, to record and support progress. Progress was also recorded through the company's learning-management system.\"The program inspired creativity in people who didn't think they were creative,\" Joe Butcher explained. \"It helped them to develop different mindsets, empowered them to take risks and made them less reactive and less stressed\".\"The managers are no longer focused only on their role, but work together in teams on ideas. New processes have been introduced to get ideas implemented, and cultural barriers have been overcome. The managers are more confident to lead creative sessions with their teams. There is more fun and energy in the workplace. People are still under pressure, but they are using their time more productively.\"The managers, who had initially been lukewarm about taking part in the program, were enthusiastic about its value on completion. Among their comments were:The What If? way gives everyone a voice to get their thoughts across, openly challenge, discuss and work through ideas before making a judgement. I now involve more stakeholders when seeking buy-in to ideas.In one session we were surrounded by fancy-dress items and rubber chickens! This translates at work into getting away from the desk to tackle issues. We put together a bag of our own props to use.Events were run in relaxed environments, the emphasis on being involved, speaking your mind and allowing others to do the same.The trainers made it truly exceptional. They were obviously well trained, very enthusiastic and believed in the processes they were instilling.\nCascading the training: The managers designed \"away-day\" activities with their teams, to cascade the What If? techniques throughout the organization.\"Team members liked being 'given permission' to think outside the box and to generate ideas,\" said Joe Butcher. \"There was no hierarchy on the day. All ideas were evaluated and the whole team was involved. Good outputs are always occurring - better communication and more effective team working. Very enthusiastic and energetic teams are trying new things. They are creative, having fun - and taking a very different approach, which is being passed on to the stores.\"Peter Keenan, managing director, commented: \"People are cutting through barriers with more courage and confidence ... I want to put all mixed electricals commercial people through program. The participants have a can-do approach and pride themselves on it. Nothing gets in the way. I hold them out in many meetings as an example of what is possible when you get some momentum.\"Other comments include:Other managers ring me asking, \"Why are my people asking questions about their products?\"Team members no longer need to revisit processes, they just go, gather clues, come back with presentations remembering everything- it is a natural way of working innovatively.The learners' innovative techniques have led to improved performance over and above the sales target the company set. A key driver, profit margin, is much improved.A new award scheme, with six categories ranging from most successful product launch to most outstanding retail flair, has so far generated more than 200 new ideas. The winning entry in a new \"design a product\" competition is currently being manufactured and is due to enter stores later this year (2007). \"It was considered a risk worth taking,\" Joe Butcher explained.The learners have been using the new approach all the time since the training. They have courage and confidence to be different. A good example of this is the \"Don't Forget\" brand. The display used new design packaging to attract customers and mixed different product essentials together, making it a more cost-effective way of merchandising.The learners are now role models and are influencing other teams in the commercial sector to think and work differently. As a result, more investment has been forthcoming to run more training and the first learners have agreed to mentor future delegates:What this population does is well executed, has driven sales and margins, and has been cost effective - all this from directly applying techniques learned on the program. The learners have succeeded in making it happen - actually putting ideas into practice by being original and overcoming cultural barriers.The new managing director and commercial directors have made innovation training an absolute priority for the company.\"More has come from the learning events than we anticipated, justifying 'risks' we took in terms of budget spent on a small number of people,\" said Joe Butcher. \"Last year it took five months to organize training for the original eight delegates. Participants in this year's program asked for the dates first, so they could arrange their holidays around them.\"\"Our business wouldn't be achieving as much today if our managers hadn't had the opportunity to undertake this development. We have shifted from a culture that saw the need to undertake training as potential sign of weakness to one where people see our solutions as effective and relevant to the business.\"\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Examines how electrical retailer Dixons developed a \"can do\" approach and an attitude of \"daring to be different\" among managers who were previously seen as by senior executives as a little too cautious.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Describes the \"What If?\" training program, which highlighted the states of mind that are crucial to innovative thinking, and how to achieve these.\nFindings: - Shows that the program inspired creativity in people who did not think they were creative. It helped them to develop different mindsets, empowered them to take risks and made them less reactive. The managers are no longer focused only on their role, but work together in teams on ideas. New processes have been introduced to get ideas implemented, and cultural barriers have been overcome. The managers are more confident to lead creative sessions with their teams. There is more fun and energy in the workplace.\nPractical implications: - Provides a practical example of how creativity can be taught.\nOriginality/value: - Reveals a radically different approach to training, involving the use of props, costumes, stimuli of the four senses, informal room layouts, fairy lights, beanbags ... and even flowers and pizza.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Mothers' non-standard working schedules and family time: Enhancing regularity and togetherness
|
[
"Qualitative",
"Lone mothers",
"Coupled mothers",
"Family time",
"Non-stand working schedules"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Working hours have important implications for the daily life of working families. This is especially the case when one or both parents work evenings, weekends and nights, as families may then lose the possibility to participate in hobbies, spend family time and have family meals. Although children whose parents work non-standard working schedules (NSWS) need non-parental childcare, day-care centres and schools do not usually operate outside office hours. Hence, the fit experienced by parents between working time patterns and family life is crucial from the perspective of family well-being. This study addresses working mothers' experiences of the effects of NSWS on family time in two family forms, namely, coupled and lone parent. Furthermore our aim is to find out what meanings mothers with NSWS attach to family time paying particular attention to the circumstances in which mothers experience NSWS positively.\nNSWS and maternal employment in Finland: A NSWS refers to working time that falls outside standard office hours (8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday). It also refers to long periods of work requiring parental absence from home (see Strazdins et al., 2006). Despite the lively media debate on the spread of the 24/7 economy in Europe, researchers disagree over whether or not individual European countries can be characterized as 24/7 economies. Yet it is undisputable that a considerable proportion of employees work outside standard office hours (e.g. Parent-Thirion et al., 2007).\nPractical and symbolic dimensions of family time: Time is one of the core dimensions around which families organize their life. Time and temporality in family life comprises several aspects, such as coordinating and sequencing the timetables and rhythms of the individual family members (Ronka and Korvela, 2009). Parents can choose to desynchronize their schedules, or be forced to do so (Lesnard, 2005). De-synchronization means that the partners' schedules diverge from each other. But even then, routines and practices, such as family meals and bedtime rituals, offer a cornerstone for the functioning of daily life (Strazdins et al., 2006). Family time is also affected by the timetables of the various societal institutions with which different family members interact daily (Ronka and Korvela, 2009).\nAims of the study: In this study, we do not focus solely on time use, as the previous quantitative studies have done, but instead consider it crucial to address the ways family members construct meanings and actively create and recreate family practices in the NSWS context (Daly, 2001; Morgan, 2011). We focus on the experiences of working mothers since, in addition to paid work, women carry the main responsibility for household tasks and \"time management\", that is, for the organization of daily family life (Daly, 2002; Bianchi et al., 2000). This not only affects mothers' use of time but also their experiences of time. For example, multiple time-related responsibilities at work and home may cause feelings of time pressure.\nMethods: Data collection and participants\nResults: In answer to the first research question on the effects of maternal NSWS on family time three positive and three negative themes emerged. The themes relating to positive experiences were: satisfaction with family time; favourable work conditions; and successful childcare arrangements, and those relating to negative experiences were: dissatisfaction with family time (coupled mothers), concern over child well-being (lone mothers); unfavourable work conditions; and childcare-related concerns.\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study focused on working mothers' experiences of the effects of NSWS on family time in two family forms, coupled and lone-parent families. The results showed that whether mothers experience NSWS positively or negatively is highly dependent on how successful they and their families are in creating and promoting regularity and togetherness. One way to cope with the temporal demands of NSWS is to actively maintain routines as flexible a way as possible in order to protect family time. Finally, the results also highlight the more problematic situation of lone-parent families.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate Finnish working mothers' experiences of the effects of non-standard working schedules (NSWS) on family time in two family forms, coupled and lone-parent families. Furthermore the aim is to find out what meanings mothers with NSWS attached to family time paying particular attention to the circumstances in which mothers experienced NSWS positively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews was used to investigate mothers' experiences of the effects of NSWS on family time.\nFindings: The key factor generating positive experiences was the ability to maintain regularity and togetherness, which was enhanced by specific features of work, such as autonomy and regularity, and successful child care arrangements. Also important were the values mothers associated with family time. The results highlighted the more problematic situation of lone-parent families.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study was the small sample size.\nPractical implications: The findings show how the parents of small children benefit from the regularity and flexibility in their working hours. Owing to irregular and varying working times, flexible around-the-clock childcare is needed. In Finland, an important question is how to organize the care of small school-aged children. Lone mothers, especially, may need services to help with domestic chores and childcare.\nSocial implications: A non-resident parent can also be an important source of childcare. Therefore policymakers should take into account family type, including consideration of the rights to childcare of non-resident parents.\nOriginality/value: This study adds to the literature by explaining more in depth, through the richness of qualitative data, the circumstances in which mothers experience NSWS positively.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The role of species for the acceptance of edible insects: evidence from a consumer survey
|
[
"Consumer acceptance",
"Visibility",
"Food neophobia",
"Insect food",
"Insect species",
"Willingness-to-try"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the past 10 years, there has been an increasing interest in the use of insects as food. As shown by Muller et al. (2016), the number of published articles about edible insects has increased exponentially in the last decade and, at the same time, there is a growing number of companies dedicated to the mass production of edible insects (Dunkel and Payne, 2016). Recently, edible insects have been accepted in Europe under the classification \"novel food products\" (EU, 2018) and nowadays they can be even found in some European supermarkets of the countries that tolerate their marketing (House, 2016; Schouteten et al., 2016). Moreover, according to Berg et al. (2017), the sales of insects as food and feed is predicted to grow in the coming years. The growing interest in insects as a new food has stemmed from the various benefits that make them a sustainable meat alternative (Marone, 2016). Considering the potential of insects as a sustainable food option, most companies and associations have focused their efforts on the promotion of two main aspects of insects: their benefits for health and for the environment (Dossey et al., 2016).\n2. Literature review: The low acceptability of edible insects remains the main barrier for the introduction of entomophagy in Western countries (van Huis, 2013a). In light of this, several authors have addressed the numerous factors that might influence consumers' acceptability of insects as food (e.g. Barsics et al., 2017; Cicatiello et al., 2016; Caparros Megido et al., 2016; Hartmann et al., 2015; Schlup and Brunner, 2018; Verbeke, 2015; Verneau et al., 2016). In the following, the main predictors are presented.\n3. Materials and methods: A self-administered personal survey with a total of 342 valid participants selected randomly was carried out with the help of electronic tablets in the city of Kassel, Germany. The characteristics of the sample can be found in Table I.\n4. Results: From the initial sample of 370 participants, a total of 11.7 per cent considered themselves vegetarian and 0.7 per cent vegans. Out of this initial quantity, 52 per cent of the vegetarians and all vegans were cleared from the final data since they would avoid insects because of their diet. Thus, 342 participants remained for further analysis.\n5. Discussion: The variables in the linear regression explained 37 per cent of the variance in the willingness-to-try edible insects, similar to the study of Tan et al. (2016). Thus, it is assumed that the present study succeeded in covering important determinants of insect consumption which have been identified through an extensive evaluation of the state of the art prior to the design of the survey.\n6. Conclusions: In general, consumers seem to be reluctant to try edible insects. By using the carrier dish as a reference, it becomes clear that the average willingness-to-try for insects remained low in all cases. This indicates that consumers tend to choose the \"traditional\" product instead of a meat substitute prepared with insects. However, certain combinations of factors could make a significant difference in consumers' acceptance. The difference between the willingness-to-try for grasshoppers as meatballs and mealworms as whole insects can be taken as an example of how to increase consumers' acceptance. Therefore, a successful introduction of insects in the European market should account for highly preferred species. Thereby, insect food producers should respect that the choice of the species is specifically relevant for whole insects. Moreover, the degree of processing is a key factor in enhancing consumer acceptance, regardless of the species.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Even though insect products increasingly receive attention as a sustainable food alternative to meat, consumer acceptance remains low. The purpose of this paper is to test consumer acceptance of two different insect species with varying degrees of processing which led to different degrees of insects' visibility.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Insect dishes that varied according to species and degree of visibility were presented to participants of a self-administered personal survey within a meal context. Consumer acceptance was measured through the willingness-to-try the different dishes, and a hierarchical linear regression was applied to estimate the role of insect species.\nFindings: Consumer acceptance can be improved by focusing on different forms of food processing and different insect species. The lower the visibility of insects, the higher the consumer acceptance, independent of insect species. However, this is not sufficient to overcome consumers' widely held rejection. Main barriers for consumer acceptance seem to be low social and cultural acceptance, fear of trying unknown products and a lack of taste experience.\nOriginality/value: A huge body of literature has examined determinants of insect consumption, but the majority of these studies did not consider the effects of insect species. The study's main objective is to close this research gap while checking the most relevant individual traits as identified through a literature review: food neophobia and familiarity, social and cultural norms, awareness of benefits of insect production, meat consumption and socio-demographics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Development of a design performance measurement matrix for improving collaborative design during a design process
|
[
"Design",
"Performance measures",
"Design management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Design has been recognized as one of the critical factors for business success. It contributes to promoting a business by improving customer interface with the product, enhancing product functionality, and increasing product quality (Hertenstein et al., 2005). Design is a complex process which always involves many participants from different disciplines to work together during the design process (Girard and Robin, 2006). Therefore, design collaboration becomes a crucial element in the design process and has a great effect on the final design performance. Consequently, a great deal of research has paid attention to improving collaborative design performance (Bstieler, 2006; Lahti et al., 2004; Qin et al., 2003). However, only a small amount of research has concentrated on increasing collaborative design performance by operating performance measurement, although it can improve design effectiveness significantly (Busseri and Palmer, 2000). Implementing an appropriate performance measurement has many advantages, such as motivating people, supporting decision-making, fostering organisational learning and continuous improvement (Chiesa et al., 2009).Additionally, performance measurement can be operated to influence project staff's behaviour to achieve a positive business outcome (Neely et al., 2005). Thus, many companies have spent considerable time and resources redesigning and implementing performance measurement to reflect their current environment and strategies positively (Kennerley and Neely, 2003). Such a positive influence will be especially useful in the collaborative design process.In relevant design performance measurement (DPM) research fields, many studies focused on exploring key factors of success and failure of new product development (NPD), such as market share, investment return rate, and customer feedback (Hart et al., 2003; Loch et al., 1996; Hultink and Robben, 1995). However, little research has specifically concentrated on collaborative design, especially from a design process perspective. As design process is a wide ranging research field, covering marketing, design specification, conceptual and detailed design, manufacturing, sales and after sale services and disposal, etc., the existing DPM indicators are developed based on information crossing a product development lifecycle. However, when we focus on a design process at either the conceptual or detailed design stage, the available DPM information is limited. Therefore, existing DPM indicators are not suitable for measuring collaborative design during a design process. For example, some existing DPM criteria are difficult to apply during a design process because they are highly dependant on products' after-launch information, such as market share, investment retune rate, and customers' feedback. Thus, it is still a challenge to measure and improve collaborative design during a design process based only on information typically available at design stages (TSB, 2009).Therefore, our research aims to investigate how to measure collaborative design performance and in turn to improve the final design output during a design process, with a clear objective to develop a DPM matrix to measure design project team members' design performance. A design matrix has been selected as the format of the final research result due mainly to two reasons. First, different tools have been developed from existing DPM research such as New product development (NPD) success factors (Kusar et al., 2004; Salter and Torbett, 2003; Montoya-Weiss and Calantone, 1994), guidelines for performance measurement system design (Folan and Browne, 2005; Neely et al., 1997) and modelling of design development performance (O'Donnell and Duffy, 2002). Compared with these types of research results, a DPM matrix can provide a compact representation of collaborative design indicators, showing detailed DPM criteria for measuring collaborative design performance and associated value among the criteria tabulated in a row-column format (Sharif and Kayis, 2007). Furthermore, NPD success factors, guidelines or frameworks approaches generally focus on providing practical recommendations for a certain phenomenon in a single dimension. However, because of the dynamic features of collaborative design, a performance measure tool is required that can be applied in various situations during a design process (Feltham and Xie, 1994). Further, the typical format of a matrix is a structured analysis within two or more dimensions which can produce more decision supports to users for diverse circumstances, increase efficiency of DPM operation, and provide better maintenance of the DPM during a design process (Chen et al., 2002). Therefore, a DPM matrix has been selected as the format of the final research results.There are two research questions in this study:1. What are key DPM indicators which can be used to demonstrate and measure collaborative design performance?2. What detailed criteria can be used for measuring each of the collaborative design indicators during a design process?To answer these two research questions, literature review, focus group studies and questionnaire studies have been conducted to identify key DPM indicators and detailed DPM criteria for measuring collaborative design performance during a design process. As a result, a DPM matrix has been developed with 25 detailed DPM criteria which address five key DPM indicators: efficiency, effectiveness, collaboration, management skill, and innovation. On the one hand, the matrix can support design managers to improve collaborative design performance by evaluating design collaboration, learning from DPM results, and encouraging design team members to improve themselves during the design process. On the other hand, the matrix can also support designers to better explore their strength and weakness, and, in turn, improve design collaboration by conducting self-development. It is thus offered as a measurement and motivating tool to support collaborative design at a design stage.This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents related work of collaborative design and design performance measurement research. Section 3 illustrates the overall research methodology. In sections 4 and 5, the development process and results of the DPM matrix are described. Finally, the conclusion is drawn.\n2. Related work: Design has been regarded essentially as an application of human creativity to a purpose of creating products, services, buildings, organisations and environments which meet people's needs (Moultrie et al., 2006a; Bruce and Bessant, 2002). The complex process of integrated product design and development involves many participants from different disciplines and requires team members with various aspects of knowledge and experience to work together (adapted from Girard and Robin, 2006). Due to the complexity feature, collaborative design has been regarded as a key factor for the success of NPD and business performance (Chu et al., 2006). Collaborative design is considered as a process in which design team members actively communicate and work together in order to jointly establish design goals, search through design problem spaces, determine design constraints, and construct a design solution (Zha and Du, 2006). Numerous studies have paid attention to improving collaborative design from different perspectives in the past two decades. These studies can be divided into two categories. One is technical-based collaborative design research, which focuses on collaborative design supporting tools, while the other is management-based, which addresses team management and project management issues (Bstieler, 2006; Zhang et al., 2004; Tay and Roy, 2003; Chen et al., 2002). According to Busseri and Palmer (2000), collaborative design can be improved by conducting performance measurements regularly for the team functions. They concluded that conducting performance measurements through a design process can lead to higher levels of self-rated and observer-rated group effectiveness; higher levels of self-rated group satisfaction and double the number of positive comments (compared to negative comments) from team members. In other words, performance measurement actions do help in improving the design team collaboration performance.With the rapid growth in awareness of design, DPM has attracted more attention from academia since 1990. Most of the DPM research has concentrated on exploring essential indicators for measuring the success of product design, and discovering detailed criteria for measuring these indicators, such as actual against planned time for design efficiency, delivering to the brief for design effectiveness, sharing information for design collaboration, and technology novelty for design innovation (Bart and Pujari, 2007; Hull, 2004; O'Donnell and Duffy, 2002; Chiu, 2002; Tatikonda and Montoya-Weisis, 2001; Pawar and Driva, 1999). For instance, design efficiency has been regarded as an important factor of design due to the fact that it can support companies to deliver high quality products and services on time and at a lower cost than that of their competitors (Naveh, 2005). Salomo et al. (2007) highlighted that innovation plays a critical role in building competitive advantages and can contribute significantly to a firm's growth and profitability. Regarding the detailed DPM criteria, role-taking ability, openness, communication skills, and leadership have been highlighted as key criteria for measuring effectiveness in design collaboration (Bstieler, 2006; Bond et al., 2004).Furthermore, the existing DPM research can be classified into two categories: product-focused and process-focused (Bruce and Bessant, 2002). The former concentrates on measuring design performance based on the final product, with measurement factors such as aesthetics, novelty, function, integrity, reliability, and longevity. The latter focuses on measuring design performance derived from the design development process with measurement factors, such as time, cost, effectiveness, communication, and fitness for the design purpose. For example, Moultrie et al. (2006b) developed a product-focused design audit tool, which provided design checklists regarding novelty, desirability, usability, and producibility, to assess perceptions towards product characteristics, while the others (Maier et al., 2006) developed a process-focused grid-inspired assessment approach to improve collaborative design communication. More specifically, ten key factors have been highlighted and grouped into five categories: organisation, team, product, information and communication, to build up a communication grid for an assessment of design communication (Maier et al., 2008).Although many DPM indicators and criteria have been established in the NPD context, little research has focused on improving collaborative design at a design stage. According to the study from MacBryde and Mendibil (2003), while the existing DPM frameworks enable companies to measure the design performance from both product and process viewpoints, at the grass roots level, they were struggling to find a way of managing their design team collaboration. Therefore, our research on measuring collaborative design performance during a design process contributes to the improvement of the design team collaboration.\n3. Research methodology: According to the aforementioned two research questions, there are two phases in this study:1. investigation of collaborative design performance indicators; and2. exploration of detailed DPM criteria for measuring these indicators during a design process.The following research methods: literature review, focus group and questionnaire, have been carefully selected for this study (Table I).In phase one, the literature review and focus group have been conducted in a sequential process to investigate key indicators of collaborative design performance. Specifically, a literature review was applied to collect possible DPM indicators from previous studies. Afterwards, a focus group was implemented to identify the most crucial indicators for collaborative design based on results of the literature review. The literature review was chosen as a research method due to the fact that it can better support researchers to establish subject background, learn from other research, formulate research problems, synthesise the work of others, and compare with other research strategies (Ridley, 2008). Moreover, the focus group was selected because it is a quick means to obtain rich data from participants' opinions and deeper insights (Krueger, 2000). In addition, the participants in a focus group are able to build on one another's responses and generate new ideas (Morgan, 1997). Thus, it can provide more information to support the discussion and analysis of collaborative design performance measurement, and, in turn, identify the most important DPM indicators for it.In phase two, the literature review and focus group were conducted to explore and classify detailed criteria for each of the collaborative design indicators resulting from phase one. Subsequently, a questionnaire study was applied to explore what are the most important DPM criteria for each indicator and how many detailed criteria should be involved to establish an effective DPM matrix. The questionnaire has been selected as a research instrument because it offers a very flexible way of collecting large volumes of data from large participant samples (Stanton et al., 2005). Furthermore, it has been widely used for large-scale investigations and has the potential to collect cognitive and affective data quickly and easily (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002; Kinshuk, 1996). In addition, many researchers have indicated that the questionnaire is cheaper to administer than other methods, and data collection is less time consuming (Stone and Collin, 1984). Due to these advantages, the questionnaire is an appropriate method to explore participants' opinions about what are the most important DPM criteria for each DPM indicator, and the appropriate number of DPM criteria for an effective DPM matrix. The following sections will describe the research process and results in detail.\n4. Investigation of collaborative design performance indicators: In phase one, we wanted to discover the collaborative design performance indicators. Two steps were designed in this phase:1. exploration of the possible collaborative design indicators; and2. identification of the most important indicators for collaborative design performance measurement.4.1 Exploration of relevant collaborative design indicators\n5. Investigation of collaborative design performance measurement criteria: In order to explore detailed criteria for collaborative design performance measurement, a literature review, focus group study and questionnaire were conducted in phase two. The study in phase two includes three steps:1. investigation of potential DPM criteria for each collaborative design indicator;2. exploration of suitable DPM criteria for each collaborative design indicator; and3. identification of the most important DPM criteria for each collaborative design indicator.The following sections will describe these three steps in greater detail.5.1 Investigation of potential DPM criteria\n6. Conclusions: Performance measurement has been increasingly developed and operated to improve project and business performance, especially for some complex and large-scale projects (Vaneman and Triantis, 2007). Because of the great complexity and uncertain features of the product collaborative design process (Twigg, 1998), there is a necessity for implementing performance measurement to control the project development, minimize collaboration conflicts, and reduce management risk during the design process, and, in turn, improve the final performance of the project.The major contribution of this study is the investigation and development of a DPM matrix to measure collaborative design performance during a design process. Specifically, 25 DPM criteria, which address five DPM indicators: efficiency, effectiveness, collaboration, management skill, and innovation, have been highlighted as the most critical factors for collaborative design performance measurement. The results indicate that decision-making efficiency is the most important DPM criteria for collaborative design efficiency; delivering to the brief for effectiveness; clear team goal/objectives for collaboration; decision-making ability for management skill; and competitive advantage for innovation. These results can be used to conduct a DPM tool based only on information available at design stages in order to measure collaborative design performance during a design process. Owing to the limitations of the work presented in this paper, further research is focused on the extended DPM matrix development and the implementation of the DPM matrix.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to measure collaborative design performance and, in turn, improve the final design output during a design process, with a clear objective to develop a design performance measurement (DPM) matrix to measure design project team members' design collaboration performances.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology adopted in this research uses critical literature reviews, in-depth focus group interviews and a questionnaire survey.\nFindings: - The main finding of this study is a DPM matrix that addresses five DPM indicators: efficiency, effectiveness, collaboration, management skill, and innovation, and 25 detailed DPM criteria. It was found that decision-making efficiency is the most important DPM criterion for collaborative design efficiency; plus delivering to the brief for effectiveness; clear team goal/objectives for collaboration; decision-making ability for management skill; and competitive advantage for innovation.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As the present study was focused on exploring DPM during a design process, some key DPM criteria which are not measurable during a design development process were not included in this study. The proposed multi-feedback approach for DPM matrix implementation needs to be validated in future research.\nPractical implications: - The DPM matrix can be applied to support a design manager in measuring and improving collaborative design performance during a design process, by reviewing and modifying collaborative design development, identifying the design team strengths and weaknesses, improving team communication, and suggesting suitable responsive actions.\nOriginality/value: - The major contribution of this study is the investigation and development of a DPM matrix to measure collaborative design performance during a design process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Barriers to master data quality
|
[
"Data handling",
"Quality management",
"Information media"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Almost all activities in organizations involve the use of data, which is the foundation for operational, tactical and strategic decisions. Therefore, if a company aims for efficiency, it is critically important that the data of the company is of adequate quality, i.e. high-quality data is crucial to a company's success (Madnick et al., 2004). Unfortunately, many industry expert surveys indicate that data quality is an area which many companies seem to overlook or at least not give sufficient attention (Marsh, 2005). This paper aims to identify which are the major barriers preventing companies from achieving high data quality. Being aware of which barriers to focus on, companies are provided with a much stronger basis for achieving high quality data. Such insights may also be of great importance for research focusing on methods and techniques for data quality improvement.Vayghan et al. (2007) classify the data that most enterprises deal with into three categories: master data, transactional data, and historical data. Master data is defined as the basic characteristics of instances of business entities such as customers, products, employees, and suppliers. Typically, master data is created once, used many times, and does not change frequently (Knolmayer and Rothlin, 2006). On the other hand, transaction data describes relevant events in a company, e.g. orders, invoices, payments, deliveries, storage records, etc. Since transactions use master data, if the master data is not correct, the transactions do not fulfil their intended purpose. Errors in master data can have significant costs; for instance, if the address of a customer is wrong, this may result in orders and bills sent to the wrong address; if the price of a product is wrong, the product may be sold below the intended price; if a debtor account number is wrong, an invoice might not be paid in time; and so on. Therefore, even a slight amount of incorrect master data can absorb a great part of the revenue of a company. In this context, Knolmayer and Rothlin (2006) argue that capturing and processing master data are error-prone activities wherein inappropriate information system architectures, insufficient coordination with business processes, inadequate software implementations, or inattentive user behaviour may lead to disparate master data.The data quality problems that many companies face today may be related to technological development in the last decades. The development of information technology has enabled organizations to collect and store more data than has ever before been possible. But, as the data volumes increase, so does the complexity of managing it. Thus, it has been argued that the risk of poor information quality has increased, since larger and more complex information resources are being collected and managed in organizations today (Watts et al., 2009).As later revealed by the literature review of this paper, academic research based on empirical evidence from multiple companies in relation to data quality is rather sparse despite the importance of having correct and adequate data in a company. However, since there seems to be general agreement that the lack of data quality is a great problem in many companies, this paper seeks to provide empirical insight into why this is the case. More specifically, the paper focuses on identifying the main barriers for achieving high data quality in industrial companies. Since, the ways in which master data and transaction data are created and used are fundamentally different, this paper focuses only on master data in the empirical part, in order to be able to obtain more exact answers from the respondents of a questionnaire study. Thus, the research question this paper addresses is, \"What are the main barriers for achieving high master data quality in industrial companies?\"The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. First, the research methodology of the paper is described. Next, Section 3 reviews and organises literature on data quality. Section 4 presents and discusses the findings from the questionnaire survey. The paper ends with a conclusion in Section 5.\n2. Research methodology: The paper consists of two main steps in relation to investigating the question in focus. The first step is to review and organise literature, while the second step is a questionnaire study. The research methodology is shown in Figure 1 and subsequently further described.2.1 Literature study\n3. Literature review: 3.1 Data quality\n4. Questionnaire survey results: In the questionnaire, the companies were asked to evaluate the consequences of poor master data quality in their company. More specifically, the respondents were asked to estimate their level of agreement with the listed consequences of poor master data quality on a scale of 1 (fully disagree) to 5 (fully agree). The answers are shown in Tables V and VI, in which the column furthest to the right shows the average rating on this scale.As shown, only a small part of the respondents did not find that incorrect master data has any negative effects on their company. In both datasets the use of extra administrative resources was assessed as the main factor among those listed. In fact, the order of importance of the factors is almost identical in the two datasets. The data gives a clear picture of that the consequences of poor quality data are significant. For instance, more than 85 per cent in the two datasets combined agree that poor quality master data to some extent (scores 3-5) implies the use of extra resources at their company, while a bit more than 65 per cent mostly or fully agree on this issue (scores 4-5).Although \"extra use of administrative resources\" received the highest scores, the numbers for the other five areas may be even more interesting. All companies experience poor data quality in varying extent. Ideally, such data are corrected before passed on and therefore do not have any negative consequences other that a little administrative work. However, the survey showed that most of the companies in focus experienced consequences relating to extra production recourses, longer lead times, decreased document quality, decreased product quality or decreased performance. Thus, this is a clear indication that data errors are allowed to move through business processes without being corrected until it is too late.The respondents were asked to assess their agreement with the listed barriers for achieving high master data quality on a scale of 1 (fully disagree) to 5 (fully agree). The answers are shown in Tables VII and VIII.As seen, \"lack of delegation of responsibilities for maintenance of master data\" occurs in both datasets as the factor considered most important, while \"lack of rewards for ensuring valid master data\" was considered least important. In fact, as for the consequences of poor master data, the order of importance is also very similar on the topic of barriers for master data quality. In fact, around 80 per cent in the two datasets combined agrees that a lack of delegation of responsibilities to some extent (scores 3-5) is a major barrier for ensuring high quality master data, while almost 70 per cent mostly or fully agree on this issue (scores 4-5). The barrier considered second most important is control routines, which around 50 per cent mostly or fully agree on (scores 4-5), while the others barriers were perceived that important in less than 40 per cent of the companies.The implication of the results is that it seems that a delegation of responsibilities may be the first place to focus if to improve master data quality. The good news is that a delegation of responsibilities for master data quality may be the cheapest of the five barriers to implement (excluding control routines). Even without control routines, the placement of responsibilities for certain data may have a great effect, since when data quality issues eventually are discovered it is clear who did not do their job properly. However, to better ensure that these data quality responsibilities are fulfilled, control routines may be implemented. Extensive control routines may not be necessary, since simply the awareness of that the data quality is controlled may have a motivating effect on the ones responsible. Thus, given the great costs that can be associated with poor quality data, the introduction of simple routines may have high payback rates. The central issue in this context is to identify a proper balance between data quality improvement costs and costs steaming from poor quality data.When analysing the company size in relation to consequences of poor quality master data or master data quality barriers, no significant correlations were identified.\n5. Conclusion: There seems to be a general consensus that poor quality data is a costly problem for many companies. This paper aims at identifying the main barriers to ensuring high data quality and clarifying which of these are the most important. Since the ways in which master data and transaction data are created and used are fundamentally different, the empirical part of the paper focuses only on master data in order to produce more precise results. Based on a literature review, the paper defines five overall data quality barriers:1. Lack of delegation of responsibilities for maintenance of master data.2. Lack of rewards for ensuring valid master data.3. Lack of master data control routines.4. Lack of employee competencies.5. Lack of user-friendliness of the software that are used to manage master data.To investigate the relevance of the defined data quality barriers from a master data perspective, the paper presents a parts of a questionnaire study of two rounds. The first round of the questionnaire study resulted in 54 useful answers and the second round in 36. Both datasets showed that almost all the companies believe that they experience significant negative effects when encountering poor quality master data. In both datasets, the use of extra administrative resources was given the highest rating, followed by decreased document quality and decreased performance. The interesting aspect about this part of the survey is that if poor quality of master data is corrected instantly, this only results in additional administrative costs. However, since the companies reported other experienced consequences of poor quality master data, it seems that poor quality data only to a small extent are checked and corrected before it is too late.Next, the respondents were asked to consider the importance of the five defined master data quality barriers encountered during operations. The answers in both datasets showed that the barrier, which is believed to have the greatest effect, is \"lack of delegation of responsibilities for maintenance of master data\". This is followed by \"lack of control routines\", while \"lack of rewards for ensuring valid master data\" was considered least important. The implication of the results is that delegation of responsibilities may be the first place to focus if the objective is to improve master data quality. The paper argues that, besides being a relative cheap initiative (if not including control procedures), the placement of responsibilities for certain data alone may have a great effect, since when data quality issues eventually are discovered someone is responsible. However, initiating other data quality initiatives may further help raise data quality levels. The central issue when choosing initiatives is to identify a proper balance between data quality improvement costs and costs steaming from poor quality data.For both the consequences of poor master data and barriers for master data quality, the order of importance is similar in the two datasets. This supports the validity of the findings. On the other hand, the way the sample was selected and the low response rates raises some questions regarding the generalizability of the sample. However, although the data retrieved from the questionnaire are not strong enough to make generalising claims, they provide strong indications of certain barriers being more important than others.The contributions of this paper, i.e. identification of barriers for ensuring high master data quality and providing empirical support of the importance of these, represent a step towards a better understanding of how to raise the level of master data quality in companies. Thus, the paper provides a better understanding of the barriers for master data quality, which can help companies in the creation of master data quality policies and other data management related tasks. Furthermore, the paper may stimulate future research on the topic, including better solutions for dealing with data quality problems. Given the significant negative consequences of poor quality data, which many companies experience, such work may have a great impact on the efficiency and competitiveness for such companies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - While few would disagree that high data quality is a precondition for the efficiency of a company, this remains an area to which many companies do not give adequate attention. Thus, this paper aims to identify which are the most important barriers preventing companies from achieving high data quality. By improving awareness of barriers on which to concentrate, companies are put in a better position to achieve high quality data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - First, a literature review of data quality and data quality barriers is carried out. Based on this literature review, the paper identifies a set of overall barriers to ensuring high data quality. The significance of these barriers is investigated by a questionnaire study, which includes responses from 90 Danish companies. Because of the fundamental difference between master data and transaction data, the questionnaire is limited to focusing only on master data.\nFindings: - The results of the survey indicate that a lack of delegation of responsibilities for maintaining master data is the single aspect which has the largest impact on master data quality. Also, the survey shows that the vast majority of the companies believe that poor master data quality does have significant negative effects.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The contributions of this paper represent a step towards an improved understanding of how to increase the level of master data quality in companies. This knowledge may have a positive impact on the data quality in companies. However, since the study presented in this paper appears to be the first of its kind, the conclusions drawn need further investigation by other research studies in the future.\nPractical implications: - This paper identifies the main barriers for ensuring high master data quality and investigates which of these factors are the most important. By focusing on these barriers, companies will have better chances of increasing their data quality.\nOriginality/value: - The study presented in this paper appears to be the first of its kind, and it represents an important step towards understanding better why companies find it difficult to achieve satisfactory data quality levels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Trade policy and health implication for Pacific island countries
|
[
"International trade",
"Food",
"Gravity model",
"Non-communicable diseases",
"Pacific island countries",
"Pseudo Poisson maximum likelihood"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The long-term economic performances of several Pacific island countries have been less than satisfactory for a number of years compared to countries at similar levels of development. Other than their poor economic performance, a number of Pacific island countries do not fare well in terms of the level of their human development achievements. Aggregate measures of human well-being such as the human development index (HDI) indicates that a number of the Pacific island countries fall in the low- and medium-human development category (United Nations Development Program, 2013) and none are in the high-human development category. In fact, several dimensions of the HDI as well as other measures of population well-being do not reveal an impressive picture.\n2. Processed food imports in Pacific island countries: Processed food imports have increased significantly in the Pacific islands amounting to approximately US$9,264 million between 2003 and 2013. A significant increase has been recorded since 2006 with an exception 2009, as the effects of the global financial crisis took its course. Food imports increased afterwards, although slowed down in 2013. At the product level, Pacific island countries largest category of food import is meat products (20 per cent), followed by cereals, rice (19 per cent), canned meat or fish (10 per cent) and beverages (8 per cent). Figure 1 depicts the food import shares. With the exception of rice, the other major food imports are high in salt, sugar and fat (SSF).\n3. Literature review: It is now well known in the trade literature that trade has a positive impact on the prosperity of nations. Countries throughout the world are aiming to expand their trade structure with the aim of greater integration and participation in the global trading environment in order to achieve higher levels of economic growth (Chang et al., 2009). International trade has also positively contributed to rapid economic transformations of several developing economies including large countries like China and India. Much of the extensive empirical literature on trade provides strong evidence that international trade in goods and services delivers a positive impact on the long-term economic growth and development of nations (e.g. Santos-Paulino, 2005). The economy-wide effects of trade have been comprehensively addressed in the theoretical and the empirical literature, for example, Yanikkaya (2003), Santos-Paulino (2005), Kneller et al. (2008), and Chang et al. (2009). Singh (2010) provides an extensive survey of the microeconomic and macroeconomic evidence on the gains from trade. The above review generally reveals that international trade brings about national gains. However, international trade can also have some downside consequences on population's welfare, in particular on health, which is often neglected in the trade liberalisation literature.\n4. Empirical model and data: Tinbergen (1962) popularised the basic gravity model. Improvements on the gravity model have been largely driven from microeconomic theories based on the assumptions where income[12] and tastes for differentiated products[13] determine bilateral trade flows. Therefore, the generalised gravity trade model states that trade (import in monetary value, USD) by country i from country j is a function of their incomes (GDPs) and their distances from each other (transportation costs proxy). Other sets of variables are incorporated into the model were found to either facilitate or restrict trade between pairs of countries. Therefore, the empirical model proposed is adapted from Anderson and van Wincoop (2003) and Wilson et al. (2005) as follows:\n5. Results: The inclusion of main predictor variable, trade liberalisation is significant (F-test=36.17 with a p-value of 0-4 decimal places) compared to a model without it. The R2 indicates that about 70 per cent of the variability of processed food imports (dependent variable) is accounted for by the model. Similarly, the PPLM overall estimate is statistically significant (Wald chi-square statistic =146,772.20, 318 degrees of freedom for the full model, and p-value of 0-4 decimal places). Using the two degrees of freedom test, trade liberalisation was found to be statistically significant predictor of processed food imports (kh2(1) =29.58, with a p-value of 0-4 decimal places). Multicollinearity was tested using variance inflation factor (VIF) indicated no serious problem with mean VIF of 1.15 and highest VIF value of 1.29 - as a rule of thumb, a variable whose VIF value is greater than 10 requires further investigation. The Breusch-Pagan test indicated the presence of heteroskedasticity to some degree. As a remedy, White's heteroskedasticity consistent standard error was used in the OLS regression to adjust the values of the standard errors for the presence of heteroskedasticity (Hayes and Cai, 2007). As mentioned earlier, the PPML estimator is more efficient on addressing concerns on concerns over heteroskedasticity.\n6. Conclusion and policy implications: This paper uses an extended gravity model approach to investigate the relationship between trade liberalisation and processed food imports in the Pacific island countries. The empirical results support the view trade liberalisation does exacerbate processed food imports into the Pacific island countries. The study also found that the Pacific island countries' access ratio (kg/person) to selected imported processed food high in salt has increased significantly over time.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of trade policy pertaining to imported processed food on poorer health outcomes of people's in the Pacific island countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using an extended gravity model, the paper adopts the OLS time varying importer/exporter effects method and a Pseudo Poisson maximum likelihood estimator on a cross-sectional panel data set of 215 countries and territories. The estimation procedure controlled for 11 Pacific island countries between 2003 and 2013.\nFindings: The empirical findings revealed a positive and statistically significant relationship between trade liberalisation and increased processed food imports in the Pacific island countries. The findings also reveal that the access ratio (kg/person) to selected imported processed food high in salt to Pacific island countries has increased significantly over time.\nOriginality/value: While much of the trade literature reveals positive impact of trade on the prosperity of nations, this study makes a new contribution in terms of supporting a negative impact of trade liberalisation policy on people's health in small island developing states.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Involvement of implementers: missing element in strategy formulation
|
[
"Strategic planning",
"Employee involvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There is a syndrome in top management that strategic planning is supposed to be formulated by them alone, and for them it is a sign of power and an expression of the magnitude of the difference between them and their subordinates. Going for a retreat without their subordinates is a sign of power; year after year my MBA classes of managers I have taught from different organisations have confirmed this. They say that they will monopolise strategy formulation but they want employees to implement it. Strategic planning is done by top management far away from the organisation's premises, usually with the help of a consultant. Thus while they formulate the strategies, visions and missions of the organisation, in sum they will create the strategic plan for the organisation, which will be operationalised in the organisation. This strategic plan will be expected to guide the organisation moving forward and its components are expected to be implemented by every member of the organisation.\nStudies on strategy implementation: Several studies have indicated that implementation of a strategy is a difficult task, but nobody really seems to know the true rate of implementation. Candido and Santos (2008), in their article \"Strategy implementation: what is failure rate?\", noted that the difficulty of successfully implementing new business strategies has long been recognised in the literature; for example, Alexander (1985), Wernham (1985), Ansoff and McDonnell (1990) and a 1989 Booz Allen study cited by Zairi (1995), concluded that most managers believe that the difficulty in implementing strategy surpasses that of formulating it. The study found that 73 per cent of managers believe that implementation is more difficult than formulation, and 82 per cent believe that is the part of the strategic planning process over which managers have least control.Though remarkable progress has been made in the field of strategic management, the problem of strategy implementation failure still persists. It is still important for researchers and an ongoing concern for researchers and practitioners (Mockler, 1995; Barney, 2001; Hickson et al., 2003). A number of authors have studied the obstacles to strategy implementation, and deployment has often been cited as one of the main reasons for failure to achieve expected or projected performance in many companies (Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Mintzberg, 1994; Noble, 1999). A report by Deloitte and Touche (1992) shows that eight out ten companies fail to deploy their strategies effectively. Wessel (1993) argues that most of the obstacles or barriers to strategy implementation fit into one of the following inter-related categories:*too many and conflicting priorities;*the top team does not function well;*top down management style;*inter-functional conflicts;*poor vertical communication; and*inadequate management development.Eisenstat (1993) argues that most companies attempting to develop new capabilities stumble over common organisational hurdles such as competence, coordination and commitment. McGrath et al. (1994) indicate that political turbulence may well be the single most important issue facing implementation process.The above are among a host of reasons why strategies fail in organisations, but I have observed that failure to involve implementers at the formulation stage is a major problem that cannot be ignored. In most cases where strategies fail, implementers did not have an input at the formulation stage. They drag their feet at the implementation stage because they think the strategic plan belongs to the architects of the document - in this case the formulators, i.e. management. The implementers do not own the strategic plan, and therefore they shun it.Having worked in different organisations where strategic planning was practised, I would like to share my experience and suggest why strategy implementation fails. The most common process of strategic planning is where the Board and key staff representatives go for a retreat. For example, at the universities I was teaching and other organisations I worked for and through observation in many organisations, especially in Southern Africa where I had consulted on strategic planning, the process was that top management would go for a retreat for a week or so to come up with a strategic plan, with a consultant facilitating the process.Strategy formulation is likened to the positioning of forces before a war (David, 2003). War is a means to an end, similar to business strategy. The end might be a desired one (either power or wealth) or it might be survival when under threat. The military strategist, just like a strategic leader, has control over resources and must deploy them accordingly. He or she must also make sure there is resource development and innovation, and mastermind the supply chain. The issue of positioning of forces is very important in achieving goals in business and in war. The forces should know who they are fighting, the goal of the war, and the strategies to be used. Generally they should be knowledgeable in all that is being done, since the success and failure of the war depends on them because there are the ones who will be in the field and the actual implementers of the strategy. The same should happen in an organisation: workers should be well informed of the whole strategic plan, as it directs the organisation, the path it should follow. If they workers are not well informed they might not have cause to fight competitors.There is no problem in involving key staff in strategic planning because not everyone can go for the strategic formulation process, but the major challenge I have discovered is that the workers who are supposed to implement the strategy lack vital information about the strategic plan itself. As in the military, where forces are trained to fight because those who craft strategies know that without these people being well trained they will not succeed in their endeavour, in business the implementers need to be trained and well equipped to implement strategy.\nPitfalls that top management need to rectify: *Key staff go for a retreat to come up with a strategic plan for the organisation without the input of implementers.*The strategic plan is brought in in the organisation and in some cases employees are given the strategic plan or they do not even have access to the document.*Managers keep the plans on their shelves to gather dust and they ask staff to implement a strategic plan they do not have and do not even know.*The final implementers will not have the chance to be trained in what strategic planning is all about.*Company vision, mission statements and values are displayed in reception areas and sometimes in top management's offices, but these may not mean a lot to workers if there has never been an explanation of the issues involved.*Implementation becomes a mammoth task because the employees were not involved in the formulation process.\nAdvice to managers: Communication\nConclusion: It is widely acknowledged that managers strive to formulate good strategic plans for their organisations, but the major problem has been in the implementation of such strategic plans. Most managers are struggling to communicate the strategic plan to employees, who did not participate in coming up with the plan. The issue is that most employees are expected to implement a strategic plan they even do not know about. Good strategies are crafted but the implementers are not well informed about what they are supposed to implement. Therefore the issue of a missing link between the formulation stage and the implementation stage can be envisaged: implementers are not involved in the formulation stage and as a result it becomes very difficult for managers to communicate the strategic plan. In many organisations I have visited I struggled to get the strategic plan document from employees; they referred me to their supervisor's offices.On another note, most organisations lack people who can articulate the contents of a strategic plan and its importance and the vision to include internal stakeholders during the strategy formulation process. Thus, there is a missing link between strategy formulation and strategy implementation to such an extent that other researchers have suggested that since they affect one another they should be done simultaneously, while other researchers have cited the separation of the formulation and implementation phases as the root cause of many strategy failures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to help top managers find ways of involving implementers of strategy at the strategic formulation level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The author has conducted research in organisations that have come up with strategic plans, identified how top managers fail to include implementers when formulating strategy, and advises them on how to avoid this trap.\nFindings: - Grasping the real reason for involving implementers in strategy formulation for top managers may be a difficult task, though it is a fact that employees contribute better when they are involved in the planning stage.\nPractical implications: - Methods are provided for top managers to follow when formulating strategy.\nOriginality/value: - This paper gives practical advice from situations in organisations and helps managers to involve all stakeholders holistically when formulating a strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Lose your weight with online buddies: behavioral contagion in an online weight-loss community
|
[
"Behaviour change",
"E-health",
"User participation",
"Social networking",
"Information system development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The obesity epidemic poses a substantial global public health threat. Harnessing influence from social networks is considered to be potentially promising to mitigate the obesity epidemic (Bahr et al., 2009). Prior research has shown that social networks have a critical impact on people's health and health behavior, such as cessation of smoking (Christakis and Fowler, 2008), drinking (Osgood et al., 2013) and substance use in adolescence (Glaser et al., 2010). Network phenomena also appear to be relevant to weight-related behavior and outcomes (Christakis and Fowler, 2007). An individual's perception of the social norms regarding weight-related behavior and the acceptability of obesity can be constrained or enabled by his or her social contacts, which further influences weight-control decisions such as food choices and dieting plans.\n2. Related literature: 2.1 Online health community and social networks\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Auto-logistic actor attribute models\n4. Results: We estimate the parameters in our model through the use of Markov chain Monte Carlo maximum likelihood estimation methods. With the algorithm, the parameter estimates for the models will converge when the parameters best represent the observed model. For our model, all parameter estimates converge. Table V reports the parameter estimates and the approximate standard errors for our model. As in standard regression, a statistically significant positive or negative parameter value indicates that the predictor increases or decreases the probability of being above the median in self-reporting performance. The density effect is similar to the intercept in a regression.\n5. Robustness checks: One potential critique is that our dependent measure are binarized using as the median value of the self-reporting performance as the threshold value, which may not be representative. Therefore, in Models 1 and 2, we assess the robustness of the main results with respect to alternative dependent variables using 60 percent and 70 percent quantiles of self-reporting performance as threshold values. In order to alleviate the threshold selection issue of nodal attributes, in Models 3 and 4, we further explore whether our results are robust to different dichotomizations of nodal attributes using 60 percent and 70 percent quantiles of nodal attributes as threshold values, respectively. In addition, we repeat the ALAAM analysis in Model 5, but this time using the self-reporting performance in 2014 as the dependent variable.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: In this study, we concentrate on the effects of buddy networks in an online weight-loss community. We explore the contagion effect on the future performance of self-monitoring behavior by employing ALAAM while controlling for the effects of some relevant structural and actor attributes. The results reveal that while social support and past behavior are positively associated with one's self-monitoring performance, there is a social contagion effect in users' self-monitoring behavior in online weight-loss communities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: A question of interest is whether online social networks are effective in promoting behavioral changes and weight loss. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contagion effect of an online buddy network on individuals' self-monitoring behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study collects data from an online weight-loss community and constructs an online buddy network. This study compares the effects of the network structure of the buddy network and the actor attributes when predicting self-monitoring performance by employing the auto-logistic actor attribute models.\nFindings: This study confirms the contagion effect on weigh-in behavior in the online buddy network. The contagion effect is significantly predictive when controlling for actor attribute and other network structure effects.\nOriginality/value: There is limited evidence that one's weight-related behavior can be affected by online social contacts. This study contributes to the literature on peer influence on health by examining the contagion effect on weight-related behavior between online buddies. The findings can assist in designing peer-based interventions to harness influence from online social contacts for weight loss.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Relying on second opinions for potentially racist encounters
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Turnover",
"Racial discrimination"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Research shows that discrimination exists in the workplace (Bell et al., 2013, 2010; Cox, 1993; Dietz, 2010; Hosoda et al., 2012). In 2017, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 84,254 discrimination charges, the most prevalent of which (33.9 percent, or 28,528) were race related (EEOC, 2018). Racial discrimination is both morally wrong and illegal (US National Archives, 2019). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin and religion in the USA (Bell et al., 2013). When employees file discrimination lawsuits, employers can incur losses to public images and millions in legal expenses (King and Spruell, 2001).\nTheory and hypotheses: Discrimination is defined as denying certain people equality of treatment because of their group membership (Dietz, 2010). We integrate the IMCD model (Cox, 1993) and signaling theory (Spence, 2002) to examine how the opinion of others in regard to possible racist encounters affects employee and organizational outcomes. Signaling theory describes the behavior of two parties - individuals or organizations - where the parties have access to different information (Miller and Triana, 2009). Typically, and asymmetrically, the parties choose whether and how to communicate (or signal) that information. The receiving party must then choose how to interpret the signal (Lindsey et al., 2017). Signaling theory focuses on reducing the information asymmetry between the two parties (Spence, 2002). For example, in diversity studies, signaling theory has been used to explain how organizations can use a heterogenous board of directors to communicate an organization's desire to fulfill inclusive social values to stakeholders (Miller and Triana, 2009). The IMCD model, in this study, illustrates how the individual variables within the model communicate the organization's diversity climate, which has an impact on subsequent individual (i.e. job satisfaction) and organizational (i.e. turnover) outcomes (see Table I for a description of the IMCD).\nMethod: A field study with an employee survey plus a paired participant survey was conducted to test the hypotheses. To address concerns of common method bias, we collected the independent variables four months before the dependent variable in the employee survey and used paired participant survey data as a second source of information for reporting workplace racial discrimination against the employee and employee job satisfaction (Podsakoff et al., 2003).\nTheoretical implications: This study extends the IMCD (Cox, 1993) by demonstrating that others' opinions moderate the relationship between an employee's perceived racial discrimination and both job satisfaction and turnover. The model's foundation is based on cultural diversity effects on job outcomes; \"diversity on organizational outcomes is a complex interaction between individuals and their environments\" (Cox, 1993, p. 8). However, the model was also meant to be applied more broadly to other forms of diversity including race, sex, age and other characteristics (Cox, 1993). The present study posits and tests the IMCD model focusing on perceived racial discrimination (a reflection of the environment), an individual career outcome (i.e. job satisfaction) and an organizational outcome (i.e. turnover) as hypothesized in the model. Cox stipulates that discrimination (individual-level factor), particularly subtle discrimination, needs to be considered as part of the organizations' diversity climate. In the case of perceived discrimination, the employee does not always have the facts, mainly because modern discrimination unfolds in subtle ways (Cortina et al., 2013). The regression analyses in the present study show no evidence that individual-level factors such as self-reported or other-reported perceived racial discrimination have a main effect on either individual affective career outcomes such as job satisfaction or first-level organizational effectiveness outcomes such as turnover. Only the interactions of employee and paired participant reports significantly predicted job satisfaction and turnover, suggesting that the role of others close to the employees should be included in both theory and empirical analyses.\nPractical implications: This study makes a practical contribution to organizations by helping them understand the possible influence of others to potential discriminatory acts. Employee sex and racial minority status are positively and significantly correlated with the sex and racial minority status of the paired participants, suggesting a demographic similarity between these two groups. This may be consistent with the \"personal/group discrimination discrepancy,\" which stipulates that people are more likely to see discrimination directed at their social group than they are to see it directed at themselves (Taylor et al., 1990). If employees or others close to them perceive racial discrimination against the employees, this can increase turnover and affect profitability because turnover is often costly for organizations (Hillmer et al., 2004). Companies may consider using diversity programs that target racial diversity, honoring cultural events and conducting diversity training (Catalyst, 2009) to avoid discrimination.\nLimitations: One limitation of the study is that there are specific characteristics (i.e. highly educated) of the two samples that may not generalize to the rest of the population. Future research should aim to replicate the findings of this study with less educated people, perhaps blue-collar workers. Another limitation of the study is that self-reported turnover is not as ideal as data from company records.\nConclusion and future research: Research shows that perceived racial discrimination at work leads to many adverse outcomes for employees and organizations. The present paper uses field studies to expand upon prior research and illustrate how others close to employees influence employee reactions to perceived racial discrimination at work. This paper extends the IMCD, suggesting that the perceptions of others close to the employees could be incorporated into the model. To our knowledge, this is the first type of study to incorporate the opinions of others as part of the IMCD model. Future research may try to obtain objective measures of turnover. However, Spector (1994) states that self-reported data are appropriate when employees themselves would be a credible source to answer the questions. Future research could also compare and contrast organizations that use positive diversity and inclusion policies, training and procedures in their recruitment efforts. It would be interesting to quantify the number of recruits who are considered minorities and to question whether or not the signaling was effective (i.e. a question regarding the organization's pamphlet with the information). The same could be done using a scenario in a university setting to study whether the information regarding cultural training would be an attractive attribute to both majority and minority applicants in undergraduate or graduate business programs. Further studies investigating the influence of others should be considered in management research as this study shows that the opinions of others can and may influence individuals who may or may not perceive discriminatory actions of others. As well, the influence of others could be examined within the IMCD model to research other individual outcomes (i.e. treated fairly in performance reviews as viewed by others) and how these influences may affect organizational effectiveness (i.e. recruitment, work quality, attendance and innovation).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how employees' perceptions and the perceptions of others close to them influence employee reactions to perceived racial discrimination at work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Integrating the interactional model of cultural diversity (IMCD) with signaling theory, this study examines how others close to an employee can influence employee job satisfaction and turnover in response to potentially racist encounters. The research question is tested using a field study.\nFindings: Results from a field study of paired participants (surveying the employee plus a paired participant who knew them well) showed that employees' reactions to perceived racial discrimination are influenced by the perceptions of others close to them. For employees who perceive low discrimination, job satisfaction is lower when others close to them perceive high discrimination against the employee. While the probability of turnover for employees who perceive low discrimination is similar whether paired participants perceive low or high discrimination, their probability of turnover is highest when both they and the other person perceive high racial discrimination against the employee.\nResearch limitations/implications: Suggestions are provided to avoid the appearance and/or practice of discriminatory acts.\nOriginality/value: This paper integrates the influence of others close to employees in the IMCD diversity climate, individual career outcomes and organizational effectiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Statistical analysis of the crowd dynamics in Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi in the city of Medina, Saudi Arabia
|
[
"Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi",
"Crowd dynamic",
"Visitor flow",
"Visitors density",
"Medina"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Located in the western region of Saudi Arabia, Medina attracts Muslims worldwide for its historical significance and also the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the mosque established over the tomb of Prophet Mohammed. Medina encompasses an area of 590 km2 inhabited by approximately two million people, making its density approximately 3390 people/km2. However, during the season of Al-Hajj (pilgrimage), a mandatory religious duty to be carried out once in a lifetime by all the Muslims with good financial and physical capability, the population density varies significantly. Performing Umrah is another pilgrimage task for Muslims. Medina thus becomes overcrowded in the busiest Islamic seasons, Al-Hajj (Kirlangicoglu, 2015), considering the immense devotion of Muslims toward their spiritual obligations. The Saudi Government has been working extensively for the last few decades to ensure the accommodation of a maximum number of people as possible. The Al-Hajj and Umrah seasons enhance Saudi Arabia's annual income; hence, statistical analysis of the crowd density at the Mosque of Prophet (PBUH) in Medina is worth understanding. The crowd density could increase up to four times Medina's actual population during the busiest seasons. This enormous number warrants a wise consideration for crowd management (Alshehri et al., 2015). Furthermore, the crowd density must be limited to ensure visitors' safety (Moussaid et al., 2011), as overcrowding would put visitors at risk. Therefore, crowd management during the Al-Hajj and Umrah seasons necessitates a meticulous analysis of the crowd density. As evacuation plans are mostly dependent on the crowd estimates, the approximate number of the visitors along with the citizens must be studied well (TSO, 2010) to establish a constructive plan.\nPurpose of the study: Al-Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, and Umrah, especially in the holy month of Ramadan, are the two holy pilgrimages for all Islamic nations, the former being obligatory and the latter non-obligatory. However, Muslims tend to perform both pilgrimages as part of their religious obligations in a single journey. Thus, the Hajjis (pilgrims) perform Umrah in Makkah and thereafter head to Medina to visit Al-Masjid an-Nabawi and the Prophet Mohammed's tomb to achieve the maximum benefit of their visit (Alshehri et al., 2015). Being internationally recognized, this pilgrimage attracts Muslims worldwide during these seasons, while the Saudi Arabian Government plan extensively to host the enormous number of pilgrims annually. However, with the enormous increase in population, several factors arise, affecting the well-being of the visitors and the citizens. With no intention of preventing any Muslims from practicing their spiritual obligations, the Saudi Arabian Government works on accommodating the Hajjis rather than limiting their numbers; this intricate process requires sophisticated planning. The first step of this plan is to consider the statistical analysis of this annual season to know the approximate number of the Hajjis visiting Medina in the Al-Hajj season as well as those visiting in the month of Ramadan (Seyfried et al., 2005). The main purpose of the statistical analysis in this study is to investigate the current visiting conditions and prepare management plans for future expansion to accommodate the expected number of visitors within specific locations at Al-Masjid an-Nawabi.\nLiterature review: Crowd behavior in an average density is completely different from that during emergency and evacuation. Crowd behavior mostly depends on the extent of its flow, speed and density. The speed of the crowd or the time needed by them to reach their destinations are of utmost importance in the crowd dynamic and management studies. During emergency, most people lose their logical understanding and patience and become anxious and panicky, consequently leading to stampede and loss of lives and properties. Speed and density are the two critical parameters that must be calculated to prevent overcrowding which could cause an emergency (Lam and Cheung, 2000).\nMethodology: Visiting Al-Masjid an-Nabawi and greeting Prophet Mohammed's (PBUH) tomb are holy acts that attract most of the visitors who come to Medina from all around the world. Therefore, a statistical analysis tool with duration is required to estimate the flow of visitors in this location and understand their dynamics as well. The visiting area falls in the southern part of Al-Masjid an-Nabawi with a gate from the west (Al-Salam Gate) and to exit from the west (Al-Baqi' Gate). Furthermore, the visiting corridor has an entrance near the Al-Salam Gate along with two entrances from Holy Rawdah area, as shown in Figure 1. The visiting corridor width ranges from 8 to 10 m and is approximately 92 m in length, with aesthetically pleasing Islamic calligraphic columns along the passway.\nResults and analysis: Number of visitors\nStatistical testing: To check the collected data from a statistical point of view, the collected data were subjected to t-test and F-test to better understand and check the authenticity and the reliability of these data.\nDiscussion: According to the methodology that applied actual counting, the number of visitors was counted using recorded videos and snapshots of several scenes to collect data, and these are presented in the form of histograms and tables. The data gave an insight of how the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi deals with the visitors for Islamic obligations during the busiest seasons of Al-Hajj and Ramadan. The data collected were reasonable in terms of visitors' safety. However, this study should be done regularly on an annual basis, as an assurance for the behavior of the visitors and as a controlling tool in this area of significance. This can capture any sudden changes in the crowd movement behavior and its dynamics. The statistical analysis was based on manually counting visitors from photographs and video records and averaged for better accuracy and precision. Moreover, advanced surveillance technologies might be used in observing the crowd movement in this area. Using sensors to detect the crowd dynamics could be very helpful and accurate in these types of studies; sensors are placed in areas of interest to detect the number of people flowing in a certain direction by detecting, for instance, the foot prints. The method purely depended on statistical analysis by calculating the impacting parameters that demonstrate the crowd dynamics.\nConclusion: The methodology adopted in this study gave a reasonable information of crowd dynamics that can be adopted by any responsible crowd management authority that aims to accommodate a large number of visitors during the busiest seasons without causing any harm to the visitors. Fortunately, the Saudi Government has always been working on modifications of Al-Masjid an-Nabawi crowd management to cope with the increasing annual rate of the visitors coming from various parts of the world during the busiest seasons. Results state that the current density is reasonable and provide a reassured margin of safety that could accommodate even a higher number of visitors; however, this study must be conducted on a regular basis to identify the scope of further modifications and capacity enhancement. The data collected in this study could be used for future research to simulate similar crowd scenes or different crowd management scenarios in case of emergencies such as fire hazards or evacuation process. Furthermore, the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi authority can use the results of this study to better manage the visiting crowd behavior and movement.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the crowd dynamics of the visitors at Al-Masjid al-Nabawi during the most oversaturated period to characterize the most critical conditions and suggest technical solutions to accommodate visitors and provide them safe passage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, the time of entrance from the Al-Salam Gate to the tomb and from the tomb to the exit from the Al-Baqi' Gate has been collected in the most oversaturated period. To be precise and to model the worst case, important crowd measures of effectiveness data are collected in the two holiest times considered by Muslims, during the holy month of Ramadan and the month of Dhul-Hijjah and during the busiest hours of the day to consider safety factors while proposing future solutions. The conventional manual head-counting method has been adopted to determine the crowd density and to carry out actual counting of the visitors from the recorded videos and photos captured by the legitimate authority.\nFindings: The analyses revealed that the crowd dynamics in the month of Ramadan (peak) are statistically different from those for other times (off peak). In general, the crowd dynamics at all times on days other than Ramadan are almost identical.\nOriginality/value: The results of crowd characterization from this study are expected to help optimize crowd management in the Masjid at the most critical location and time. The data collected in this study could be used for future research to simulate similar crowd scenes or for even different crowd management scenarios in case of emergencies such as fire hazards or evacuation process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How long is UK property cycle?
|
[
"Property",
"Market",
"Volatility",
"Cycles",
"Commercial",
"Filter"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last century, a series of downturns badly afflicted the British economy and underlined the issue of cycles (Barras, 2009). The very notion that the property market is cyclical implies that, whilst not deterministic, it has a rhythm (Jadevicius and Huston, 2014). Research either focused on investigating the cyclical hypothesis itself (Case and Shiller, 1994; Rottke and Wernecke, 2002) or on modelling its pattern to better inform investment timing decisions and help cut associated risk (Pyhrr et al., 1999; Mueller, 1999, 2002). Numerous techniques were employed to screen cycle's duration. Empirically, frequency domain and simultaneous equation modelling processes dominated. In the UK, Barras (2005) identified four major commercial property market cycles:\n2. Literature review: Historical perspective\n3. Dependent variable: MSCI (formerly IPD) Real Estate Rental Value Index data provides dependent variables for the research series. To operationalise rents, all property, retail, office and industrial (Figure 1) series for the UK are selected for 1975-2015 period. As of December 2015, MSCI UK Annual Property database contained 23,693 properties with a total capital value of PS202.0bn (MSCI, 2016). Table I presents with MSCI's database profile. Table II exhibits series summary statistics. Figure 1 shows series dynamics.\n4. Methodology: First, the research uses the HP filter to assess cycles in UK commercial property market. The HP filter is a well-established algorithm for removing trend from the data (McGough and Tsolacos, 1995; Witkiewicz, 2002; Matysiak and Tsolacos, 2003; McElroy, 2008). However, it has not been without criticism. Commentators pointed to an issue of spurious cycles created by the filter and a constant value for the smoothing parameter l which fixes filter bandwidth (Canova, 1994; Ahumada and Garegnani, 1999; Pedregal and Young, 2001; Ravn and Uhlig, 2002; Witkiewicz, 2002; McElroy, 2008). Nevertheless, HP filter has stood the test of time.\n5. Empirical estimates: The original MSCI series is available from 1975. Over the 1975-2015 period, the index experienced interchanging episodes of rise and decline. Five distinct episodes of correction interrupt the series in the last 40 years. Figure 2 illustrates this rental series cycle performance. The graph reveals that the UK commercial property market corrected in mid-1970s, mid-1980s, early-1990s, early-2000s and 2008. The examination of the general trends in commercial rental values over the sample period produced observations that corroborate those of Fraser (1984), Scott (1996), RICS (1994, 1999) and Barras (2009).\n6. Conclusions: The cycle literature illustrates that debate on property cycles has lasted more than a century but contention remains. Over the years, economists and scholars sought to untangle various cycles' and clarify their duration to improve forecasting. Econometrics strengthened these cyclical investigations. For the UK, time-domain, frequency-domain and simultaneous equation modelling techniques were the preferred methods to screen cycles duration.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the duration of the UK commercial property cycles, their volatility and persistence to gauge future market direction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employs a novel approach to dissect cycles in a form of a three-step algorithm. First, the Hodrick-Prescott de-trends the selected variables. Second, volatility (measured by the variance) screens periods of atypical fluctuations in the series. Finally, the series is regressed against its past values to assess the level of persistence. The sequential steps screen the length of the cycles in UK commercial property market to facilitate interpretation.\nFindings: The estimates suggest that UK commercial property market follows an eight-year cycle. Combined modelling results indicate that the current market trend is likely to change over the coming year. The modelling suggests increasing probability of a market correction in late 2016/early 2017.\nPractical implications: This updated appreciation of the UK commercial property cycle duration allows for better market timing and investment decision making.\nOriginality/value: The paper adds additional evidence on the contested issue of UK commercial property cycle duration.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Declining harmonization in maximum residue levels for pesticides
|
[
"Food security",
"Codex",
"Pesticide residues",
"Regulatory divergence",
"Science based"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Science is formally recognized as having role in governance in international trade law pertaining to food. The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) specifies that trade barriers put in place for food safety purposes must have a scientific justification (Isaac, 2007). In the SPS, WTO members also agreed to foster science-based harmonization of technical standards (Gaisford and Kerr, 2001) and recognized three pre-established scientific organizations - for food safety, the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), for animal health, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and for plants and the environment, the International Plant Protection Convention - as the institutions to develop harmonized standards (Hobbs et al., 2004). One issue of concern for public policy makers is pesticide residues on food products, both those of domestic and foreign origin. The Codex establishes science-based international standards for maximum residue limits (MRLs) for pesticides on food imports. These represent harmonized standards that facilitate obtaining the benefits available from international trade (Kerr, 2006).\nWhy are science-based MRLs for pesticides diverging?: Although the process of developing international harmonized MRLs at the Codex is sometimes criticized for being slow, in part due to resource constraints, a large number of Codex MRLs have been developed - scientific experts are able to arrive at a consensus. There is seldom a sufficient degree of scientific disagreement to prevent the development of a Codex MRL. The Codex process has two stages. The first stage takes place in the Joint Meeting on Pesticides Residues (JMPR). The JMPR is comprised of World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) scientific experts who review and analyze data on pesticides against a range of criteria to determine a residue level consistent with GAPs for that crop and pesticide, and then whether that level is consistent with acceptable levels of exposure for consumers.. The second stage of the Codex process is undertaken in the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR). Once an MRL has been agreed in the JMPR, it recommends it to the CCPR.\nMRLs as trade barriers: The growing divergence in MRLs among countries considerably increases risks for those wishing to engage in international trade in food. It can potentially affect all participants in a supply chain starting with agricultural producers applying GAPs in their farming operations.\nReversing the trend to differing MRLs for pesticides: The increasing movement to national and, hence, differing MRLs has not gone unnoticed in international standards and trade institutions and they have attempted to address the issue. There has also been a considerable industry-led effort by a range of participants in international food supply chains including exporting firms, farm organizations and purveyors of pesticides, to raise the profile of the issue with policy makers.\nConclusion: Science was given a formal role in food policy making by WTO members when the SPS was negotiated. One of the WTO's primary concerns is trade liberalization (Kerr, 2010) and in that spirit, members also recognized the trade benefits of harmonized standards and formally designated pre-existing scientific organizations to develop those standards - one of which was the Codex. The Codex has been engaged in devising international MRLs for traded foods. In spite of support for Codex activities among the member states of the WTO, however, countries have also been ignoring Codex MRLs and putting in place national MRLs which are not harmonized and, hence, the trade benefits of harmonized standards are lost. The rise in these non-tariff barriers for food is particularly worrying given the role food trade is expected to contribute to meeting future food security challenges.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Maximum residual limits (MRLs) for pesticides are based on science. This is true both for MRLs devised by national governments and multilaterally through the Codex. Science-based Codex MRLs are internationally harmonized to facilitate trade. Since the 1990s, an increasing number of countries have devised national MRLs and eschewed those of the Codex. These differing national standards are becoming important barriers to trade. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ramifications of these diverging MRLs for food security, investigate the reasons for the rise of national standards, and explore the role of science in regulatory processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach is an examination of the scientific basis for MRLs in the context of food safety outcomes.\nFindings: It finds that there is no improvement in food safety from the move to national MRLs, only a loss of the benefits of trade. As all countries, along with the Codex, claim that their MRLs are based on science, suggesting that there is a need for an examination of the role of science in the making of public policy.\nOriginality/value: This study identifies a potential risk to food security for food policy makers. Given future food security challenges and that pesticides are used almost universally in conventional agriculture, trade barriers based on divergent interpretations of science need to be addressed by food policy makers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An MCDM project portfolio web-based DSS for sustainable strategic decision making in an electricity company
|
[
"Resource allocation",
"Portfolio size effect",
"Project portfolio",
"Scaling issues",
"Sustainable strategic decision",
"Web-based DSS"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Portfolio problems usually have the aim of choosing, from a set of alternatives, a subset that considers some constraints given by the context and considering the purpose of the problem (Belton and Stewart, 2002). A typical portfolio problem is a project portfolio selection that involves the choice of a subset of projects that seeks to optimize the benefits obtained, frequently subject to a budget constraint (Vetschera and de Almeida, 2012).\n2. Literature review: Project portfolio problems are usually related with the choice of multiple items from a subset of feasible items, which collectively meet a budget constraint (Morton, 2010). The main purpose of selecting a subset of items is to optimize the benefits obtained, improving the decision-making process by using mathematical models in the development of decision recommendations (Salo et al., 2011).\n3. Scaling issues in multicriteria portfolio selection: According to some studies, this paper will consider only linear marginal value functions. Usually, value functions are scaled so that a value of 0 is assigned to the worst and a value of 1 is assigned to the best outcome (de Almeida et al., 2014), as said before. For a linear function, this implies that v(.) is defined as follows:(5)\n4. Application in electricity company: As pointed out before, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts of scaling problems in the project portfolio selection in an electricity company, focusing on improving strategic business performance. Therefore, the study will make an application to evaluate 32 projects from the company and compare the possible results when considering different scales.\n5. Sensitivity analysis results: The results of this application in the electricity company have been easily assessed using a computational tool. This web-based DSS makes a multicriteria portfolio analysis with additive aggregation for linear intra-criteria value function with sensitivity analysis, using Monte Carlo simulation.\n6. Conclusions: This paper has studied how to improve the strategic business performance in an electricity company by introducing new considerations for applying multicriteria project portfolio selection. This has been done by incorporating in a DSS previous research results, related scaling issues in this kind of portfolio analysis, evaluating 32 projects from a company and comparing the possible results when considering different scales (interval and ratio scale). It has been demonstrated that the scaling problem is caused by the effect of an additive value transformation on the standard portfolio construction model.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts of Portfolio size effect due to scaling issues in the outcome obtained in a project portfolio selection for an electricity company in Brazil, focusing on improving business strategic performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a web-based decision support system (DSS), in which scaling issues are considered, incorporating results of previous work. The study evaluates 32 projects from the electricity company and compared the possible results when considering different scales. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to analyze the robustness of the case, using the web-based DSS.\nFindings: The results for an interval scale context showed a portfolio with 21 projects, contrasting with the correct solution of a portfolio containing 23 projects. The latter is related to a ratio scale context, with the proper transformation of weights, which was found to be robust with a sensitivity analysis using Monte Carlo simulation. This demonstrates that only appropriate models for selecting projects can improve the contribution to the company's permanent strategies of increasing productivity, considering its constraints to achieve optimal results.\nOriginality/value: Additive value functions approach imposes certain requirements on the measurement scales used for the items in a portfolio that should not be ignored, once they have significant impact on the general portfolio results, which are directly related to the business strategic performance and the facilities of doing that with a web-based DSS.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Dividend investing performance and explanations: a practitioner perspective
|
[
"Dividend investing",
"Agency cost of free cash flow",
"Value premium",
"Beta puzzle",
"Dividends",
"Investments"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Dividend investing is generally seen as an investment strategy where investors buy stocks with above average dividend yields. Often elements of dividend persistence and sustainability are also included in dividend portfolio selections. By this definition, dividend investing can be viewed as a subset of the broader value investing universe and this insight begins to unlock other categorizations that can help us better understand how these strategies tend to outperform risk/return models over the long run. Figure 1 illustrates how investment managers that follow a dividend investing strategy usually select their investments among those value stocks with a perceived higher quality (in terms of earnings and dividend sustainability, levels of returns, etc.). Hence, traditional value stocks based on reversion-to-the-mean arguments on profit margins are typically not driving a dividend investing fund. Since dividend investing exhibits lower risk than the average in the market, there is an overlap with low-volatility investing as well.Low interest rates on government and corporate bonds have sent investors \"searching for yield\" elsewhere, especially among equities with high dividend yield. This recent popularity of dividend investing begs the question of whether this investment strategy is rewarding over the long term or just a fad because of the lack of attractive yield alternatives. This paper reexamines the risk-return characteristics of dividend portfolios from a practitioner's perspective. Consistent with earlier studies, this study confirms that dividend investing strategies outperform the market over the long run and at the same time exhibit a lower overall level of risk. Since dividend investing overlaps value investing and low-volatility investing, explanations for the value premium and the beta puzzle also apply to dividend investing. Furthermore, if a company is committed to paying a non-trivial dividend, then that company will incur lower agency costs associated with free cash flow. The contribution of this paper is to link the value premium, the beta puzzle and agency issues of free cash flows together to explain the persistent outperformance of dividend investing.The paper proceeds as follows: Section 2 reviews the literature on the performance of dividend yield strategies. Section 3 explains the data sources and reports empirical results on the US market. Section 4 reports empirical results on global equity markets. Section 5 details possible explanations for the outperformance of dividend investing. Section 6 concludes.\n2. Prior studies on the performance of dividend yield strategies: The literature on the performance of dividend yield as an investment strategy may be divided into two broad categories: the return prediction literature, which is more academic in nature and the more practitioner-oriented long-term return studies of various dividend strategies. Into the first category fall studies such as Fama and French (1988), who found an increasing predictive power of dividend yield as the forecast horizon extended from months to years. More recent work of Ang and Bekaert (2006) among others concludes that dividend yield is not (anymore) a good predictor of subsequent return. One reason for the change in findings may be the increased use of share buy-backs as a way to return cash to shareholders, as suggested by Robertson and Wright (2006), leaving the dividend yield to explain a lower proportion of total shareholder returns. The second category of literature is more concerned with long-term returns of \"simple\" investment strategies, such as \"The Dogs of the Dow\" (DOTD), for example. DOTD is a simple strategy where at the start of the year investors buy the ten stocks in the Dow Jones index with the highest dividend yield (based on dividends paid in the last 12 months). Investors hold the stocks for 12 months and the next year the same procedure is repeated. Portfolio adjustments would then occur on a yearly basis. Using the Dow Jones index, there are several studies across different time periods confirming that the DOTD strategy outperforms the Dow Jones index itself, see, for example, McQueen et al. (1997), Hirschey (2000) and O'Higgins and Downes (2000). Beyond the evidence of the success of the DOTD in the USA, there is a long list of international surveys suggesting that the strategy works in other countries as well (see Alles and Sheng, 2008, in Australia; Visscher and Filbeck, 2003, in Canada; Kotkamp and Otte, 2001, in Germany; Wang et al., 2011, in China; Da Silva, 2001, in Latin America; among others).A recurring explanation for the outperformance of the DOTD strategy is that the universe from which stocks are selected is the \"blue chip\" universe, thereby reducing the likelihood of buying true \"losers.\" Hence, the strategy then becomes a dynamic asset allocation strategy based on dividend/value investing principles, or as argued by Domain et al. (1998) and Rinne and Vahamaa (2011), the DOTD is effectively a De Bondt and Thaler (1985) \"winner-loser\" strategy with a one-year formation period. While De Bondt and Thaler did not find any reversal patterns using a one year horizon, Schneider (1951) did find a significant one year reversal pattern for stocks in the Dow Jones index for the post-New Deal period (1932-1948). Perhaps reversal periods are shorter for blue chip stocks such as those in the Dow (Schneider's universe) when compared to the broader market (De Bondt and Thaler's universe). Not only is the DOTD an investable, blue chip universe, the strategy usually also has a relatively low portfolio turnover (annual rebalancing) of between 2.96, 3.83 and 4.5 stocks per annum as estimated by McQueen et al. (1997), Alles and Sheng (2008) and Brzeszczynski et al. (2008), respectively. Before getting too exited though, a few caveats are necessary: first, while the strategy is clearly investable, it may not be representative of the typical mandate of professional asset managers given the relatively narrow sample of companies/industries included in the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Second, critical voices, such as Hirschey (2000), claim that the apparent success of the strategy may be due to data snooping and/or simple data errors in some of the surveys. While Hirschey does find a higher gross return and a higher risk-adjusted gross return for the strategy, he nevertheless ends up calling it a \"myth,\" once transaction costs and taxes are taken into account. However, the fact that the strategy has been replicated with success outside the USA does add to its credibility.\n3. Empirical results on the US market: This section aims to illustrate that over the long run dividend investing has outperformed the market, and at the same time exhibited lower risk than the market. Data is provided and maintained by Professor Kenneth French of Dartmouth College (henceforth F&F database)[1]. The database provides broad coverage of US listed stocks and has been widely used by academics.Of the many portfolios in the F&F database, the dividend/price D/P portfolios are the focus of this research. These portfolios are constructed once a year at the end of June according to D/P based on the dividend per share from the previous calendar year and prices at the end of June. Table I reports that over the full 1928-2011 period, the best performing quintiles are the high D/P quintiles (columns E and F, row 1), with the fourth quintile having higher return than the fifth quintile. Note also that the \"dividend effect\" is investable, since the \"dividend effect\" is more pronounced in the value weighted data set than in the equal weighted data set (column H, rows 1 and 4). The question of whether a portfolio is investable is not a trivial issue for practitioners.It is not unusual to find that the highest dividend yield portfolio does not yield the best total return. Patel et al. (2012) analyze total return for dividend deciles within the S&P 500 and they find that the best performing deciles over the 1980-2011 period were the eighth and ninth deciles with the tenth decile (highest dividend yield) somewhat lower but still above the market average return. They argue that very high dividend yield may be a sign of financial distress, which may explain that the tenth decile underperforms the ninth and eighth decile. Using data from 1995 to 2011 for the FT World universe of stocks, Societe Generale (2011) found that the higher the expected dividend yield, the more likely that the realized yield would be lower, while Andres et al. (2011) in their study of dividend announcements in Germany for the period 1996-2006 found that the average dividend yield (4.80 percent) for companies announcing dividend cuts were higher than the average dividend yield for companies announcing dividend increases (1.88 percent) or leaving dividends unchanged (2.57 percent).In terms of volatility, Table I reports that there may be a \"smile-effect,\" whereby the highest risk is in the extremes of the quintiles (rows 2 and 5 in Table I). Basu (1977) found a similar \"smile-effect\" when investigating beta-risk in price to earnings (P/E) portfolios, with the lowest beta also found in the fourth quintile (second lowest P/E). This observation may suggest that investors who want exposure to the value effect (whether P/E or D/P driven), but do not want to take the additional risk associated with the most extreme value stocks, may benefit from focussing on those stocks with high, but not highest dividend yield and/or those stocks with low but not lowest P/E.In the case of the value weighted D/P portfolios investigated examined in this study, the risk-return trade-off is actually best for the fourth quintile (Table I, column E, row 3). Other F&F portfolios (not reported) sorted on book to market (B/M) or earnings to price (E/P) also suggest that the best trade-off between risk and return is not in the fifth quintile but in the third B/M quintile or fourth E/P quintile. This pattern suggests that investors may benefit from an improved risk-return trade-off by eliminating the most extreme value stocks/portfolios from their investable universe.To test the significance of the results, a long-short portfolio was created using the value-weighted portfolios. The long portfolio consisted of Q4, while the short portfolio consisted of the average of all quintiles including the no-dividend segment. Table II reports that the excess returns over the period are 1.5 percent (significant at the 5 percent level) using an arithmetic averaging technique or 1.26 percent (significant at the 10 percent level) using a geometric averaging technique. These returns are highly attractive for any practitioner.To check the robustness of the results, the 84-year period is divided into three sub-periods and results are reported in Table III. The fourth D/P quintile is the best performing quintile in two of three sub-periods for both the value- and equal-weighted portfolios (Table III, columns E and H). In the \"investable\" value weighted data set, the best quintile in the last sub-period is the fifth quintile with the fourth quintile as second best. Hence, the main conclusions from the full-period data set are to a great extend also found in sub-sets of the data suggesting the results are not time specific.\n4. Empirical results using world equity indices: This section compares the total return of a global dividend index to a global market index. The MSCI World High Dividend index reflects the performance of equities with above average dividend yields that are perceived as both sustainable and persistent. The MSCI World index (in US dollars) is sourced from Bloomberg and the total return is used after subtracting dividend withholding taxes.[2] Table IV reports that in the period from June 1995 to March 2012, the MSCI World High Dividend Yield index has outperformed the broad MSCI World index at a level of 8.1vs 5.9 percent (geometric annual returns). The higher returns have been achieved while displaying a lower beta (0.9 vs 1.0) and lower volatility (15.7 vs 16.1 percent), suggesting that dividend investing is a low-risk investment strategy. To test the stability of the results the data set is divided into two sub-periods. In both sub-periods, the dividend index outperformed, although more so in the first sub-period, 9.7 vs 5.9 percent, than in the second, 6.2 vs 5.6 percent.In order to test the statistical significance of the results, a long-short portfolio is created over the entire period with the long portfolio the MSCI World High Dividend Yield index, and the short portfolio consists of the MSCI World index. Table V reports that over the 201-month period, the average return using an arithmetic monthly average is 0.19 percent while the geometric annual average is 2.11 percent. In neither case are the returns statistically significant with p-values of 13.3 and 17.9 percent, respectively, when typical academic levels of significance are considered. Practitioners, however, may see such odds as attractive. Any similar performance or even potential outperformance of the dividend index after subtracting dividend withholding taxes is remarkable considering that, in some jurisdictions, capital gains may have been treated more tax favorably than dividends.\n5. Some possible explanations: Dividend investing is a unique style investment strategy in its own right. In this section, the value premium, the beta puzzle and agency theory are explored to identify their overlap and their insight into understanding the excess performance of dividend investing.5.1. Value premium\n6. Conclusion: While unique in its own right, dividend investing share characteristics with value investing and low-volatility investing. Value investing and low-volatility investing tend to outperform the market, and consistent with these strategies and earlier research, dividend investing also outperforms the market over the long term. The analysis in this paper supports and updates earlier findings in the USA and in world indices and results are stronger in the USA, showing a statistically significant 1.26-1.50 percent annual excess return using a long-short strategy. Using MSCI world indices, the results show a 0.19 percent monthly and 2.11 percent annual excess return for the same strategy, although significance levels are below conventional levels.From a practitioner's point of view, value investing and low-volatility strategies offer partial explanations for the outperformance of dividend investing since these strategies all overlap. What may also be driving the strong performance of dividend investing is related to agency costs. Since high-dividend-paying firms have less cash flexibility, such firms have less spare cash to waste through overinvestment, overpriced (poorly timed) share buy-backs or overpriced (poorly timed) acquisitions. On the other hand, due to the stickiness of dividends, the process of reinvesting of dividends back into equities is more optimally timed. The different explanations are not mutually exclusive and may all contribute to the persistence in excess performance of dividend investing that continues to make the strategy attractive to investors.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to investigate the risk and return characteristics of dividend investing compared to a passive \"market\" approach and provide probable explanations for any differences in return and risk.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research design is a standard time series analysis of two different data sets containing information about return for \"dividend portfolios\" and the \"market portfolio\".\nFindings: - Investing in high dividend-paying firms earns abnormal returns in a long short-strategy in the USA and in world indices, confirming earlier studies. Different overlapping strategies and agency theory are used to provide explanations for the dividend strategy's persistence.\nResearch limitations/implications: - While the US findings were significant at conventional levels, the results using the world indices had significance levels that were slightly below the usual academic cut off but may be acceptable to practitioners.\nPractical implications: - Seemingly anomalous findings should disappear once reported, yet the high dividend-paying strategy continues to persist and this article provides some explanations relating to the value strategy, beta puzzle and agency theory.\nSocial implications: - Paying dividends may be socially responsible since it is explained as a way of deploying free cash flow in an efficient manner rather than wasting money through overpriced acquisitions or buybacks of overpriced shares.\nOriginality/value: - By using different databases, earlier research is confirmed and also found to be robust across different time periods. The contribution of this paper is to link the value premium, the beta puzzle and agency issues of free cash flows together to explain the outperformance and persistence of dividend investing from a practitioner viewpoint.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Why personal change is important for a conscious leader
|
[
"Leadership",
"Management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The conference room was full with all of the organisation's leadership waiting for the senior leader to come in and give an update to the team before heading out to an organised fun event. The senior leader entered the room and began by saying, \"you've all let me down and are not doing your job. You are all a failure. Our top measurement of customer satisfaction is the lowest and this is unacceptable. If I'm going to go down I will take every one of you with me. I expect you to turn it around immediately and there will be no vacation or business travel until this is fixed\". The leader then left the room. The tension and atmosphere was intense and you could see the shock and dismay on everyone's face. This is an example of not winning the hearts and minds of the people you are intrusted to lead. Coercion, threats and relying on punishment as a motivator is an old school leadership methodology of punishing the masses for any perceived fault and expecting peer pressure will take care of the rest. This causes resentment and distrust for the leader.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why personal change is important for a conscious leader and provide four actionable traits a leader can implement to make a greater impact with the people they lead. The model is to become aware, make changes and see if those changes make the difference you want in your life. If not take different actions until you get the results you want. As this action model becomes a habit, this drives more and more confidence and courage in the leader as they are seeing the positive changes manifest in their life.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach I used for the paper is to layout real examples that show the negative impact leaders are causing to their people and organisations. I then use a client example and how she was able to make a personal change using four conscious traits. The work represented in this paper is through first-hand experience and client stories from my coaching. Survey information provided is subjective through informal questioning.\nFindings: The majority of people (~73 per cent) who I have queried about leaders they have worked for highlight they were unmemorable and made no impact on inspiring them. Through my coaching I have found leaders who commit and follow through with making the personal change to be a conscious leader and use the four traits the paper highlights, see positive impacts in their own life and in the people they lead.\nOriginality/value: Being a conscious leader is a new emerging area in leadership and those leaders who make it part of their leadership are seeing the positive impacts it is creating with their people and teams. The payoff is the leader becomes an example for others of what personal change can achieve and they become conscious of their behaviours. This awareness allows them to decide is this how I want to be and what I want to be remembered for. This transformation then drives great confidence and courage to be a better leader that benefits everyone in their network.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The implementation of a market orientation: A review and integration of the contributions to date
|
[
"Market orientation",
"Marketing management",
"Performance management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is almost 20 years ago that Benson P. Shapiro introduced us to Wolverine, an industrial company that manufactures control equipment. Its CEO had called together his management team for a crisis meeting. Sales were off, market share was down in all product lines, and earnings were suffering. A review of the company's problems led the CEO to conclude:The only way we can get out of this mess is for us to become customer driven or market oriented. I'm not even sure what that means, but I'm damn sure that we want to be there (Shapiro, 1988, p. 119).This quote suggests two things. The Wolverine CEO clearly believed that improving the market orientation of his company would improve its performance. But despite his belief in the importance of being market oriented, he was not exactly sure what the concept meant, nor did he know how to implement it.Shapiro's discussion of the plight of Wolverine coincided with the birth of contemporary market orientation research (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Narver and Slater, 1990; Webster, 1988). This paper asks how the substantial literature that this research has spurred can inform managers that face similar problems as the Wolverine CEO. A recent study has shown that many practitioners still encounter difficulties in interpreting the market orientation concept and implementing it in their organizations (Mason and Harris, 2005). We review the contemporary market orientation literature from a managerial perspective and discuss the implementation lessons that can be drawn from it. We show that the contemporary market orientation literature has resulted in a rich but fragmented picture of what market orientation is and how it can be improved, and offer suggestions towards integrating the diversity of perspectives in a way that can both inform managers and help focus future academic research.The market orientation concept has its origin in a management philosophy known as \"the marketing concept\". This philosophy has been a cornerstone of the marketing discipline since Drucker (1954, p. 39) described marketing as \"the whole business seen from the point-of-view of its final result, that is, from the customer's point of view\", and argued that \"[t]here is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer\" (Drucker, 1954, p. 37). Over the years the marketing concept has served as marketing's implicit theory of the firm by relating performance differentials between firms to their degree of market orientation (Stoelhorst and Van Raaij, 2004). The concept has appealed to generations of managers and has been one of marketing's most influential ideas. Yet, formal research into the concept was not undertaken until the academic \"rediscovery\" of the concept (Webster, 1988). This contemporary academic interest has led to stream of research that deals with four issues:1. The definition issue: Here, the focus is on the conceptualization of the construct. This literature addresses the question: what is a market orientation? (e.g. Day, 1994b; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Narver and Slater, 1990; for an overview see Jaworski and Kohli, 1996).2. The measurement issue: Here, the focus is on the development of scales. This literature is concerned with how the market orientation construct can be operationalized and assessed (e.g. Deshpande et al., 1993; Kohli et al., 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990; for a discussion see Deshpande and Farley, 1998; Wrenn, 1997).3. The model issue: Here, the focus is on the causes and effects of a market orientation. This literature deals with the antecedents and consequences of a market orientation, as well as with possible moderating or mediating variables (e.g. Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990; for an overview see Kirca et al., 2005).4. The implementation issue: Here, the focus is on managerial actions to implement a market orientation. This literature addresses the question: how can firms become more market oriented? (e.g. Day, 1999; Gebhardt et al., 2006; Harris and Ogbonna, 2001a; Narver et al., 1998).Unfortunately, it is difficult to draw straightforward conclusions from this literature to inform managers about the steps they should take to improve their companies' market orientation.There are two reasons for this. The first is that while academics as well as practitioners can easily connect to the market orientation theme, they often tend to talk about concepts that deviate from what has been defined as a \"market orientation\" in the scholarly literature (Ottesen and Gronhaug, 2002). As the review below will show, this definitional problem is compounded by the fact that the literature contains different conceptualizations and measurements of market orientation, and that these different views also lead to different normative implications (Mason and Harris, 2005). The resulting problem was already noted more than forty years ago, when one of the seminal statements of the marketing concept noted that if we can use the term market orientation so loosely, we can say a lot about market orientation while in fact doing quite different things (Lear, 1963).The second reason that limits the possible managerial impact of the contemporary market orientation literature is that of the four issues defined above, the implementation issue has not been given the same attention as the definition, measurement and model issues. Day (1994b, p. 37) observed that \"[l]ittle is known [...] about the characteristics of successful programs for building market orientation\". His call for research that would lead to better practical suggestions for enhancing market orientation was followed by similar calls from other leading scholars in the field (Jaworski and Kohli, 1996, p. 131; Slater and Narver, 1995, p. 72). But unfortunately, even today Harris' evaluation of the market orientation literature still holds:[C]omparatively few studies have examined the processes and dynamics of developing market orientation. [...] Indeed, until these issues are more fully understood, it seems likely that the topic of \"market orientation\" will remain perplexing to theorists and continue to be elusive for practitioners (Harris, 2000, p. 619).This paper tackles the \"elusive\" phenomenon of implementing a market orientation in three steps. We first review the literature with respect to the definition, measurement and model issues. While these issues have been reviewed before, we specifically ask what the different views in the literature on these three issues suggest about ways to improve the market orientation of a firm. We then turn to the implementation issue and offer the first review of the different implementation approaches published to date. Our third and last step is to discuss the managerial implications of these reviews and draw them together in an integrative model. This model helps managers diagnose and improve the market orientation of their company by informing them about the suitability of different actions for improvement, and suggests how academic research can be related to the different dimensions of being market oriented.\nThe definition, measurement and model issues and their managerial implications: The definition issue\nThe implementation issue: The fourth issue in market orientation research is the implementation issue. In contrast to the literature on definitions, measurements and models, the literature on implementation takes an explicitly managerial view of market orientation and asks what firms can do to improve their market orientation. Although the implementation issue has not been studied as intensively as the other three issues, since 1990, nine different implementation approaches have nevertheless been published. They are here presented in chronological order of their first appearance in an academic journal. Where relevant, the review also refers to related books or conference papers. Table II summarizes the nine implementation approaches. The second column shows how they differ in terms of the underlying market orientation concept. The third column summarizes the main recommendations for implementing a market orientation that they make. Here, we distinguish between recommendations for diagnosis (how to assess a firm's marketing orientation, or lack thereof), intervention (how to go about improving a firm's market orientation) and evaluation (how to assess the effects of the implementation effort). The last column shows to what extent the author's claims are backed up by empirical data.The information processing approach by Kohli and Jaworski\nConclusion: Some 20 years of market orientation research has much advanced our understanding of the concept and its link to business performance. The market orientation literature is the closest the marketing discipline has to a theory of the firm that can explain why some firms outperform others. The development of this theory has resulted in a rich literature in which marketing academics have linked the concept of market orientation itself to a wide variety of other organizational phenomena. Translating the insights from this literature into managerial implications has so far been a relatively underdeveloped field. The development of an integrative framework to organize the different conceptual views and empirical findings on market orientation in the literature is long overdue. This paper hopes to have made some progress towards this goal by organizing what we know about ways to implement a market orientation. The practical needs of managers like the Wolverine CEO to which Benson Shapiro introduced us at the time that the contemporary market orientation literature was gathering steam deserve our attention, if only because their consideration may lead to conceptual developments that can in turn inform empirical research and theory development.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review the market orientation literature from a managerial perspective and to discuss and integrate the implementation lessons that can be drawn from it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper starts with a review of the managerial implications of the market orientation literature. It then provides an overview of nine implementation approaches. It draws on an integrative model of marketing orientation to organize the implementation lessons from the literature into an actionable approach to implementing a market orientation.\nFindings: - The paper finds that the literature offers a rich, yet fragmented, picture of what market orientation is, and how it can be improved.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper identifies a conceptual gap in the literature between market orientation and customer value generation and offers a model to bridge this gap that can serve as a guide for future theory development and empirical research.\nPractical implications: - The paper identifies four design enablers and three development enablers that can guide managerial action to improve market orientation and offers practitioners a structured way to go about the implementation of a market orientation.\nOriginality/value: - Despite significant advances in the development of market orientation theory, there is still a void in the literature with respect to the implementation of a market orientation. This paper is the first to review the market orientation literature from a managerial perspective, to provide an overview of the implementation approaches published to date, and to integrate the managerial implications of the market orientation literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Drawing the case studies together: synthesis of case studies and group discussions
|
[
"Case study",
"Disaster risk reduction",
"Qualitative methods",
"Community-based disaster risk reduction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As part of the programme of work in which case study contributors to this special issue participated, all were able to meet through the kind support of the Global Fund for Community Foundations in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a workshop to discuss findings from the papers. The method for this discussion and subsequent analysis is described in this paper, and findings from the analysis of individual case studies, comparisons between them and from the case studies taken as a whole are discussed.\nThe research questions posed in this study: The challenge of addressing underlying risk drivers leads to the recognition of two possible modes of action, either working within existing structures of power and powerlessness or acting to disrupt them to achieve transformatory change.\nCo-creation of the case studies as a basis for discussion: The studies at the heart of this special issue focus on local action to address shocks and stresses resulting from everyday disasters, seeking in different ways to address both the immediate events and the \"underlying risk drivers\". The participants collaborated in an iterative \"loop learning\" process (Argyris and Schon, 1974). The steps of this process are listed and annotated in Norton's (2018) Diagram 2, in this issue and summarised below:\nInvestigation of the case studies: The eight case studies, along with other examples form papers 4-11 of this special issue. The opportunity for face-to-face discussion of them between the participants, at a workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal was a particularly valuable step in the co-creation method outlined above. These rich discussions were captured in peer review notes and audio recordings.\nDiscussion of the analysis: Kiribati Islands; and Gigantes Islands, Philippines\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to individually examine the findings from eight case studies presented in this special issue and comparatively identify the findings regarding local learning and action.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Underlying research questions regarding power and powerlessness in regard to addressing underlying risk factors affecting local populations form the basis for the discussion. Proceedings of a collaborative workshop conducted with the contributing authors are analysed qualitatively to identify learning relating to the research questions emerging from the case studies individually and collectively.\nFindings: A number of strategies and tactics for addressing underlying risk factors affecting local populations were identified from the case studies, including collaboration and cohesion. Campaigning, lobbying, communications and social mobilisation in an attempt to bridge the gap between local concerns and the decision-making of government and other powerful actors. Innovation and local mobilisation to address shortcomings in government support for disaster reduction and development. Communications as a first base to influence behaviour of both communities and government. Social change through empowerment of women to act in disaster reduction and development.\nResearch limitations/implications: The outcomes of the action research conducted by the authors individually and collectively highlight the necessity for bridging different scales of action through a range of strategies and tactics to move beyond local self-reliance to influence on underlying risk factors. The action research process employed may have wider applications in gathering and formalising local-level experience and knowledge.\nPractical implications: The case studies and their analysis present a range of practical strategies and tactics to strengthen local resilience and address underlying risk factors which are replicable in other contexts.\nOriginality/value: Practitioners are activists and do not often engage in critical reflection and analysis. The method presented here offers a means of achieving this in order to generate learning from local-level experience. The findings contribute to the consideration of cross-scale action to address underlying risk factors which impact local communities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Factors in an end user security expertise instrument
|
[
"Privacy",
"Psychometrics",
"Security",
"Expertise",
"Security comprehension"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Security technologies are increasingly being developed with a user-centric approach. Part of the challenge of user-centred security is that people interacting with security systems possess tremendously different levels of computer and security knowledge and even different levels of basic literacy. This heterogeneity was illustrated by a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study with 215,942 people from across the globe which tested 14 computer-based skills in adults (Nielsen, 2016; OECD, 2016). More than 95 per cent of participants in the study were unable to perform basic-to-moderate computer tasks, let alone tasks that require interactions with security interfaces. It should be noted that this work did not assess the skills of people beyond the age of 66 years.\n2. Related work: Past research on security expertise has predominantly focused on measuring expertise of system administrators and security analysts who, by definition, have background education and experience in computer security (Barrett et al., 2004; Goodall et al., 2004; Ben-Asher et al., 2015). The high-level themes on expertise that emerged from these works include expertise in threat detection, detection of vulnerabilities, contextual awareness and assessments of risk and attack response. These factors are closely tied to the context and vary based on role and organization.\n3. Instrument design: Our goal was to design an instrument that could be used to measure and differentiate end users' computer and security expertise. We used the standard four-step procedure in developing a measurement scale/instrument (Netemeyer et al., 2003; Bernard, 2011). The first step involves identifying and defining the variables intended to be measured using the scale. The second step involves developing the actual items for the scale. When studying human expertise in a complex environment such as security, single indicators that can predict the intended construct are usually not available (Bernard, 2011 on Scales and Scaling). Hence, we need to identify a composition of indicator items conjectured to be strong determinants of the construct being measured. This list of indicator questions is usually developed through an induction exercise that is based on a combination of literature review, personal experience, ethnography and expert opinions (Bernard, 2011). The third step involves exploratory factor analysis to reduce the scale and extract latent factors that summarize the relationship among original variables to build a prediction model. Finally, the fourth step requires confirming the scale fits the intended model.\n4. Experiment methods: We recruited 898 participants for this study from five different populations: MTurk (696 participants), the Bloomington Farmers' Market (27 participants), Dashcon (106 participants), Mini-University (49 participants) and Grace Hopper (23 participants). The questionnaire was distributed among different populations to obtain responses from non-overlapping subject populations. The Farmers' Market population included responses from people visiting their local farmers' market. The Dashcon population included responses from enthusiasts attending the blogging (Tumblr) conference. Mini University included retired University alumni attending a week-long adult learning experience. Finally, the Grace Hopper population included responses largely from woman technologists attending the annual Grace Hopper conference.\n5. Results: 5.1. Exploratory factor analysis\n6. Discussion: Qualitative analysis revealed significant variability in terms of participant comprehension of X.509 certificates and phishing. Even though participants are often broadly classified as security novices, we find there are levels to their computer and security expertise that could be reasonably measured. Furthermore, their level of knowledge varied by security concept probably based on individuals' experience and awareness. Hence, we recommend, it is imperative to develop a multi-dimensional security expertise instrument that can assess end users' knowledge on a diverse set of security concepts. This will require development of code books for different security concepts through qualitative analysis, with this research being a first step.\n7. Conclusion: We addressed the lack of standardized instruments for measuring end-user security expertise by designing a questionnaire combining skills- and knowledge-based question. Through qualitative analysis and exploratory factor analysis, we identified four skills and knowledge-based factors of expertise. We validated these factors using logistic regression modelling. We close by proposing a framework called Security SRK to guide further research on end user security expertise. Future work on expertise could leverage the high-level framework by combining contextual rules with skills and knowledge factors identified here. In future work, we will continue to explore relevant computer and security skills, rules and knowledge variables to ensure we have identified consistent and reliable predictors for end-user expertise. Future work includes validation against security skill-, rule- and knowledge-based behaviours as proposed earlier.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify factors that determine computer and security expertise in end users. They can be significant determinants of human behaviour and interactions in the security and privacy context. Standardized, externally valid instruments for measuring end-user security expertise are non-existent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire encompassing skills and knowledge-based questions was developed to identify critical factors that constitute expertise in end users. Exploratory factor analysis was applied on the results from 898 participants from a wide range of populations. Cluster analysis was applied to characterize the relationship between computer and security expertise. Ordered logistic regression models were applied to measure efficacy of the proposed security and computing factors in predicting user comprehension of security concepts: phishing and certificates.\nFindings: There are levels to peoples' computer and security expertise that could be reasonably measured and operationalized. Four factors that constitute computer security-related skills and knowledge are, namely, basic computer skills, advanced computer skills, security knowledge and advanced security skills, and these are identified as determinants of computer expertise.\nPractical implications: Findings from this work can be used to guide the design of security interfaces such that it caters to people with different expertise levels and does not force users to exercise more cognitive processes than required.\nOriginality/value: This work identified four factors that constitute security expertise in end users. Findings from this work were integrated to propose a framework called Security SRK for guiding further research on security expertise. This work posits that security expertise instrument for end user should measure three cognitive dimensions: security skills, rules and knowledge.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Conceptualizing trust with cultural perspective in international business operations
|
[
"Culture",
"International business",
"Operations",
"Global environment",
"International projects",
"Trust conceptualization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Trust is emerging as a new research domain in global business. It is a form of social relations and processes that facilitate the coordination of exchanges (Li et al., 2006). Trust is critical to the success of global business teams in that it encourages cooperation and minimizes unproductive conflict. Without mutual trust, however, team members may shy away from revealing their true beliefs, or if they do express their viewpoints, they may not be heard (Ajmal and Helo, 2015). In one way or another, the absence of trust is likely to turn a team's diversity into a liability rather than an asset. According to Ochieng and Price (2009), multicultural global business teams have become more common in recent years, and contemporary international management literature has identified that the management of multicultural teams is an important aspect of human resource management.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Trust\n3. Trust-building process in global environments: Based on the past research works and literature review findings, a cultural effect model is developed to depict how culture affects trust building in international projects stakeholders (Figure 3) and what should be done to establish trust among culturally diverse stakeholders in global projects. It is believed that all the factors listed feed into building trust between the project and stakeholders in the culturally similar environment, and achieving these factors feeds into the building of trust and creates a positive atmosphere in which more efficient project execution is manifested.\n4. Managerial implications: According to Dyer and Chu (2000), formal organizational setting may influence the development of firm-level practices, which further affect trust-building process among culturally diverse parties. As has been substantiated from different studies that cultural differences heavily affect trust-building process (Seppanen et al., 2007). Cross-cultural studies could provide more valuable insights to practitioners in the globalized environment since cultural transformations between parties surge the challenges in inter-organizational relationships (Arino et al., 1997). Fukuyama (1995) believes that the most widespread cultural characteristic always influences a nation's fortune and capability to strive, as the level of trust or cooperative behavior is centered upon the shared norms. In various cultures, the level of trust along with the inclination to trust is greater than in other cultures (Usunier, 1990).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The growing international landscape of business has underlined the significance of multiculturalism and the novel challenges it brings to business implementation. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention of the readers toward how trust can be conceptualized and how trust-building process is affected in global business environments where more and more projects and businesses come into operation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research employs intensive literature review to conceptualize trust and develop a model of culture effects for trust building in global business environment. However, this study is presently explanatory in nature because no empirical evidence is provided.\nFindings: Culture is a significant factor in building trust among global project stakeholders for the reason that trust is vital for developing a well-functioning long-term business relationship. The study highlighted that cultural differences among project teams can cause conflict, misunderstanding, and poor project performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future empirical research should investigate various scenarios, types of projects, cultures, and countries. Cultural issues are pretty sensitive, which have immediate association with trust-building process among international project stakeholders. Diminutive systematic research has been done on the cultural effects for trust building in international business context. The probe of how culture affects trust building efforts in global business environments remains unrequited.\nOriginality/value: This study adds value by creating awareness in the research community for undertaking a detailed and comprehensive research on this topic, and because of its originality, it serves as a foundation for future studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The mediating effects of psychological contracts on the relationship between human resource management systems and organisational performance
|
[
"Mediation",
"Organizational performance",
"Psychological contract",
"HRM system"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last 20 years or so, researchers have devoted considerable empirical effort towards understanding the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and organizational outcomes. Researchers in strategic human resource management have categorized organizational outcomes into three primary groups (Jiang et al., 2012): HR outcomes such as employee skills, employee attitudes and employee behaviour; operational outcomes such as productivity, growth and creativity; and financial outcomes such as sales growth, return on equity and return on assets. Some scholars argue that the relationships between HRM and outcomes are either not clear (e.g. Buller and McEvoy, 2012) or statistically weak (e.g. Paauwe, 2009). In contrast, some other scholars support the view that these relationships are empirically rather robust (e.g. Combs et al., 2006). This is because varying sample characteristics, research designs, practices examined and outcome measures used have led findings to vary considerably, making the size of the whole effect difficult to estimate (Combs et al., 2006; Guest, 2011).\nThe research framework and hypotheses: Figure 1 presents an operational model linking HRM systems and organizational performance through the mediating role of psychological contract. The proposed model utilizes two concepts; HRM system, and psychological contract. These are presented below.\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Before testing the hypotheses a series of CFAs were performed to ensure construct validity. First, the hypothesized model was tested, referring to six constructs. Analyses showed acceptable fit for the hypothesized structure (kh2=1,024.132, df=155, p-value=0.000, Normed-kh2=6.607, RMSEA=0.073, NFI=0.946, CFI=0.953, GFI=0.912, SRMR=0.028). However, taking into consideration that correlations between some factors were high, at levels similar to other studies (e.g. Hartog et al., 2012), another CFA was performed testing a model including one construct representing the whole model. This model was found to fit worse than the hypothesized model (kh2=4,325.113, df=170, p-value=0.000, Normed-kh2=25.442, RMSEA=0.152, NFI=0.771, CFI=0.777, GFI=0.668, SRMR=0.063). Then, alternative models with combinations of fewer constructs (between one and six) were tested (Anand et al., 2010) suggesting that the proposed hypothesized model fit the data better.\nDiscussion: Implications for theory\nConclusion: This research revealed that HRM systems based on both content and process of HR policies and practices (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004) significantly and positively impacted both psychological contact fulfilment and organizational performance. This, on the one hand, offers supportive empirical evidence to the field that is still suffering from mixed findings of the HRM-performance linkage (Zhang and Morris, 2014). On the other hand, in stressing the importance of psychological contracts in achieving good performance, this research proved that psychological contract fulfilment may used as a mediator in the HRM-performance relationship.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of human resource management (HRM) systems (expressed by content, process and climate) on organizational performance through the mediating role of psychological contracts (expressed by employer and employee promises fulfilment).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study examines theoretical relationships in the Greek context, based on structural equation modelling (SEM) estimation, using a sample of employees from both private and public sector organizations.\nFindings: The study finds that the impact of HRM content on organizational performance is less strong compared to its impact through HRM process. Additionally, the study finds that psychological contract partially and positively mediates the HRM - performance relationship, where the impact of HRM on organizational performance through employee promises fulfilment is stronger than that through employer promises fulfilment.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study does not allow for appropriately investigating dynamic causal inferences due to the cross-sectional nature of data. Additionally, considering that Greece is experiencing a severe economic and financial crisis, the findings from this unique context may not generalize across borders.\nPractical implications: For improving organizational performance, managers and decision makers should make their HRM systems more visible, understandable, legitimate and relevant. At the same time they should make HRM systems more instrumental, valid and consistent of HR messages.\nOriginality/value: Investigations into the relationship between HRM systems and organizational performance have become increasingly common. Nevertheless, empirical studies that measure the influence of HRM systems, which integrate both content and process, on organizational performance are still rare. This paper partially fills this gap.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Managing in the global village
|
[
"Business development",
"Corporate strategy",
"Value added",
"Intangible assets",
"Integration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIt's a new ballgame!: As illustrated by the internet, globalization has a profound impact on the modus operandi of suppliers and consumers. Clearly, management faces an unprecedented set of opportunities and problems.In order to make the most out of this new and still evolving situation, business leaders need to understand the forces that stir the \"global village\" and the ensuing complexity of our business environment, namely:*intangible assets, the major contributor to the value added by the enterprise;*the interdependence of a myriad of factors that operate in fluid systems; and*the speed and the shifts on the markets leading to the survival of the fastest.In order to optimize effectiveness, the leadership should align its management system with the forces that drive the global village. This may require removing certain traditional approaches because, as Peter Drucker reportedly put it, \"if you want to do something new, you have to stop doing something old\". Let us look at some of the problem areas.Firstly, there has been a disproportionate focus on the market value of the stock. This view of the shareholder value has skewed the reporting and the reward systems in favor of short-term financial results. Obviously, leaders want to get results, and since results are shown by traditional accounting on the tangible assets but not on the intangible assets, the latter get benign neglect. Yet, neglecting the intangible assets means neglecting the future of the enterprise.Secondly, many companies have grown and diversified to the point of organically breaking down in disconnected, inward-looking cells. Often, the hierarchical relations between the levels of management have cooled to the point of impairing commitment, cooperation, and creativity in the ranks. In the operations, specialization and pushy performance requirements have led the personnel to narrowly focus on the task at hand, to the point of ignoring what the rest of the enterprise is doing.Thirdly, as the stakes and the risks have grown, the company headquarters have overly centralized key decision-making and strongly tightened controls. This may have stymied initiative taking in the field. The organization's reactivity to shifts in the markets gets mired in the back and forth communications between the field and the center.Fourthly, managers cannot be faulted for heeding the dictum attributed to Francis Bacon that \"those who do not apply new remedies must expect new evils\". They have launched a frantic hunt for best practices, occasionally without regard to their compatibility with the practices in place elsewhere. So, unintentionally or unknowingly, they ended up compounding the compartmentalization of the organization.As the global village has amplified the interactivity and complexity of the business system, it has thrown into relief the need to address problems with a holistic or systemic approach. The enterprise is just a link in a complex business system that starts with external suppliers and ends with external consumers. The enterprise itself is a complex body that cannot be understood and much less managed by focusing on a piece of the puzzle.Andersen Consulting pointed out in an advertisement that \"companies cannot perform unless they perform together\". Indeed, companies cannot perform unless the managers, the methods, the means, and the measures are purposefully aligned with one another and with the strategic ambitions. To this effect, many of the corporations considered best in class have integrated the key principles and practices of the organization in a comprehensive and cohesive framework. Nonetheless, other companies have not been able to follow suit, and continue to toil with a patchwork of tools and techniques or are distracted by a revolving carrousel of management programs.In order to implement a suitable framework, management needs to select and to strongly support the chosen model. The National Institute of Science and Technology and the European Foundation for Quality Management have published comprehensive models, and various consultants offer similar programs.In the 1990s, some of the proposed models focused on the development of strategies, but did not cover in detail either the background leading to the strategies or their deployment. Other models provided a catalog of proceedings, but proved too complicated to implement.At this juncture, we set out to propose another line of attack with the aim of helping managers to deal more effectively with the process of management. To this effect, we develop a comprehensive and cohesive framework that combines three basic approaches.The systemic approach zooms in on the interactions between the resources and the processes over the whole process of management. The systematic approach links the strategic or steering processes and the business processes, and helps organize the cooperation between the various levels of management. The stimulating approach builds on the transparency of the whole process of management so as to elicit commitment, cooperation, and collective creativity.We have since substantially expanded this program, which we still call the \"Process of Management\" (PoM), to enable the managers to dip into the detail without ever losing sight of the big picture. First, we lay emphasis on the resources and in particular on the so-called intangible assets. Second, we have buttressed our program with a collection of mind-maps whose integrated structure brings out the relevant interdependencies of the system. The mind-maps lay out in successive levels of detail the components of the resources and of the processes. Methods and key performance indicators are placed as appropriate on the mind-maps.Basically, this program proposes a systemic, systematic, and stimulating way of thinking, acting, and innovating. It can be customized to the requirements of companies of any type or size. It is easy to implement because groups appreciate being given structured way to interact. The following is an overview of the advocated framework.\nThe Process of Management (PoM): The purpose of the PoM is to help the management excel in creating value in the business so as to satisfy significant stakeholders. Significant stakeholders include customers, personnel, the external organization (suppliers, distributors, allies, and community), shareholders and the enterprise itself.The PoM builds on the following principles:*The business value is the profit and competitive potential that can be leveraged from the resources. Processes deploy the resources onto the targeted critical success factors. The management must focus the attention of all the live-forces of the enterprise on the interactions between the two drivers of business value, namely the resources and the processes.*The PoM emphasizes the role of the intangible assets because they form the backbone of the company and drive the dynamism and performances of the organization.*The PoM ensures effective interactions between the steering processes that senior management employs to provide strategic direction, and the business processes that the operations management uses to implement the strategies and to get results.*The PoM handles business breakthrough and continuous business improvement in a project-management mode. This enables all concerned to see, project by project, the different resources invested, the processes deployed, and the results obtained.As illustrated in Figure 1, at first glance the basic construct of the advocated framework is quite simple, and yet it is quite sophisticated. Unlike other models that feature between four and ten building blocks, the PoM focuses all the attention on the two drivers of business value.The PoM uses the typical layout of processes. There is an input of resources. The resources are processed. There is an output of the processed resources. The value that has been added or destroyed shows up as the difference between the resources input and the resources output. Clearly, our focus is on the potential of the resources because they make up for the business value.Let us first take a look at each of the two value-drivers, and then see the workings of the PoM and underscore its merits.Strategic resources: the first of our value-drivers\nSummary: The purpose of the \"Process of Management\" is to help management excel in creating value in the business so as to satisfy the significant stakeholders. For this purpose, we take a cue from some of the forces that drive the global village to call attention to the fact that the system of management should foster a systemic, systematic, and stimulating way of thinking, acting, and innovating.The systemic approach covers over the whole process of management the interactions between, on one side, tangible and the intangible resources, and, on the other side, the processes. The systematic approach links the steering and the business processes, and helps organize cooperation between the various levels of management. The stimulating approach builds on \"self-referentials\" in order to guide \"self-managed units\", and to enable and to encourage them to take timely initiatives. Moreover, the transparency of the whole process of management elicits commitment, cooperation, and collective creativity.We emphasize the role played by resources, and in particular on the so-called \"intangible assets\". In addition we present a collection of mind-maps whose integrated structure brings out the relevant interdependencies of the system. The mind-maps lay out in successive levels of detail the components of the resources and of the processes. Methods and key performance indicators are placed as appropriate on the mind-maps.This comprehensive and cohesive program takes the reader from the organizational strengths that can be leveraged from the strategic resources to the management processes that deploy these resources onto the critical success factors, all the way to the final results.The Process of Management is practical and easy to implement in organizations of any size and business.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the \"Process of Management\" is to help management to excel in creating value in their business so as to satisfy the significant stakeholders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The business value is the profit and competitive potential that can be leveraged from the resources. Processes deploy the resources onto the targeted critical success factors. Accordingly, management must focus the attention of all the live forces of the enterprise on the interactions between the two value-drivers, namely resources and the processes.\nFindings: - The \"Process of Management\" is a comprehensive and connected framework that proposes a systemic, systematic, and stimulating way of thinking, acting, and innovating.\nPractical implications: - This program features original and very detailed mind-maps to show up the tangible and intangible resources so as to enable the leadership to deploy the most effective configuration of resources onto the critical success factors. We recommend a dual valuation system that combines conventional financial figures with estimation of the value added or destroyed on the resources.\nOriginality/value: - A clear concept of the five components of organizational capital enables the leadership to provide \"self-referrals\" and to empower \"self-managed units\" to take timely initiatives. This program is easy to implement because groups appreciate being given a structured way to interact. Any type and size of organization can use this program in order to involve all the live forces of the enterprise and to increase strategic and organizational effectiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A multi-level test for social regulatory focus and team member creativity: Mediating role of self-leadership strategies
|
[
"Empowering leadership",
"Employee creativity",
"Self-leadership",
"Multi-level test",
"Social regulatory focus"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Understanding how to enhance creativity - the generation of novel and useful ideas at work (Amabile, 1988) is a subject of increasing interest in the field of management. Although researchers have devoted much attention to exploring who employees are and how work context influences their efforts to foster or impede creativity in the workplace (Drazin et al., 2008; Gong et al., 2012; Hirst et al., 2011), little is known about the actions taken by employees to manage their own work behaviors in the creative processes (Khedhaouria et al., 2015) and how these actions affect their outcomes of creative performance (Cekmecelioglu and Ozbag, 2016). To accentuate the influence of regulatory focus on the basis of self-determination theory, the author responds to the call by De Stobbeleir et al. (2011) to examine how employees actively manage their creative performance with intrinsic motivation, regulated through human nature-driven contributions to an individual's long-term behavior (Deci and Ryan, 2008).\nTheory and hypotheses: Regulatory focus theory distinguishes between two modes of approaching motivation: promotion focus and prevention focus (Higgins, 1997, 2000). A promotion focus emphasizes on attention on desires and potential gains, whereas a prevention focus emphasizes on attention on obligations and potential losses. Based on self-guided definition, a promotion focus is defined in terms of an emphasis on achieving personally meaningful aspirations, ideals, and ambitions, consistent with an \"ideal-self\" guideline. By contrast, prevention is defined in terms of a focus on fulfilling duties, obligations, and responsibilities, consistent with an \"ought-self\" guideline.\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Table I presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables. The interpretation of Table I should be cautious because the simple correlations do not account for the nesting effect in this study (Chen and Bliese, 2002). The author proposed that behavior-focused strategy mediates the relationship between promotion focus and individual creativity (H1) and prevention focus and individual creativity (H2). In Table II, the results showed that promotion focus was positively related to behavior-focused strategy (M3: g=0.31, p<0.001) and prevention focus was negatively related to behavior-focused strategy (M3: g=-0.37, p<0.001). Furthermore, the path model results indicated that behavior-focused strategy was positively related to individual creativity (M1: g=0.14, p<0.01). To provide a test of the indirect effects (H1 and H2), the author used a parametric bootstrap procedure (1,000 samples) to estimate a confidence interval (CI) around the indirect effects (Preacher et al., 2010). The significance of the indirect relationship that promotion focus and prevention focus were shown to have with individual creativity via behavior-focused strategy was confirmed (95% CI excluded zero: (0.0172, 0.0943); 95% CI excluded zero: (-0.0960, -0.0173), respectively; see Table III).\nDiscussion: The hypothesized central relationship between employees' self-leading behavior-focused strategies was confirmed to significantly positively influence individual creativity. The author traced individual regulatory focus differences as the ascendants, which were shown to cause two opposite effects: a promoting focus positively influences self-leadership strategies, whereas a prevention focus negatively influences self-leadership strategies. When self-leading behavior-focused strategies are considered as mediators, the indirect relationships that promotion focus and prevention focus had with individual creativity were confirmed. Furthermore, empowering leadership was shown to not have a direct relationship with behavior-focused employee strategies. Without employee's promotion focus to activate their self-management for achieving targeted goals, empowering leadership cannot straightly influence employee's behavior-focused strategy with their creativity. Nevertheless, such leadership could moderate the relatedness between employee's promotion-focused and their behavior-focused strategies because the author has found, a stronger promotion focus is more positively associated with behavior-focused strategy when empowering leadership is higher than when it is lower, and thus positively influences individual creativity. The empowering leadership was emphasized to indirectly influence the main effect by giving an inclusive self-directing environment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In this study, self-leadership strategy serves as a self-regulatory mediating mechanism of individual differences in predicting individual creativity because it is related to actions intended to lead their own goal-directed activities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the boundary conditions of the effect of regulatory focus on employee self-leadership behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Considering the contextual influence, cross-level moderating effect of empowering leadership on the relationship between the promotion (prevention) focus and self-leadership has been examined. The research data were collected from 441 employees of 65 work teams from three software companies located in Northern Taiwan. A time-lagged design by implementing three time surveys was applied to minimize potential problems of cross-sectional design. At Time 1, employees completed the measures of promotion focus, prevention focus, empowering leadership, and individual-level control variables. At Time 2, employees reported the extent of their self-leadership at work. In the final survey, team leaders assessed the individual employee creativity.\nFindings: This study concludes several findings. When self-leading behavior-focused strategies are considered as mediators, the indirect relationships that promotion focus and prevention focus had with individual creativity were confirmed. As an influential team-level indicator, empowering leadership could moderate the relatedness between employees promotion-focused strategies and behavior-focused strategies that positively influenced on individual creativity.\nOriginality/value: In this study, responding to the call by De Stobbeleir et al. (2011) to examine how employees actively manage their creative performance, the author zoomed in on self-leadership strategies and how these strategies relate to actual creative performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Board structure-performance relationship in microfinance institutions (MFIs) in an emerging economy
|
[
"Sri Lanka",
"Financial performance",
"Outreach",
"Panel data",
"Board structure",
"Microfinance institutions (MFIs)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study analyses the relationship between board structure and performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Sri Lanka. The microfinance literature emphasises the importance of enhancing the viability of the industry in developing countries through better governance (Hartarska, 2005; Mersland, 2011; Mersland and Strom, 2009). It is also widely recognised by microfinance practitioners that improved governance practices can lead to improved performance (Bassem, 2009; Cull et al., 2007; Hartarska, 2009; Hartarska and Nadolnyak, 2007; Mersland, 2009).\nMicrofinance institutions in Sri Lanka: The financial system of Sri Lanka consists of a long list of formal financial institutions, including the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), Licensed Commercial Banks, Licensed Specialised Banks (LSBs), Registered Finance Companies, Specialised Leasing Companies, Insurance Companies, unit trusts, merchant banks, venture capital companies, authorised primary dealers, stock brokers and dealers and contractual savings institutions such as the Employees' Provident Fund and the Employees' Trust Fund. However, most of the formal banking sector and capital market systems in Sri Lanka focus on people who already have wealth and are better established. Due to the lack of contribution to low-income people by the formal banking sector, MFIs have a great opportunity to play a significant role at the macro level to eradicate poverty in Sri Lanka.\nLiterature review: Unlike other sectors, MFIs have unique characteristics, which complicate board governance studies (Hartarska, 2005). These institutions have to accomplish both financial performance and outreach to the poor. Also, there are different organisational settings for MFIs which are often registered and supervised by one or more regulatory bodies. This study investigates the relationship between board structure, financial performance and outreach performance of MFIs in Sri Lanka. The structure of the board is one of the key elements in corporate governance studies and represents the formal organisation of the board of directors. Board structure, its membership and the directors' performance are important issues that are being debated in on-going reviews and in circumstances where a key change in legislation or new codes of best practice are proposed. Scholars have identified that boards of directors and their structure in a firm are an internal governance mechanism that helps to monitor and, if necessary, control management behaviour on behalf of the stakeholders of the firm (Cornforth and Edwards, 1999; Dalton et al., 1998; Huse, 2007). In this study, we use the following measures in our analysis of the relationship between board structure and MFI performance in Sri Lanka.\nData, model and estimation methods: Data collection\nMethod: An ordinary least squares (OLS) model was considered for estimating the unknown parameters for a multiple linear regression formulation. Due to the simultaneous causality and unobserved heterogeneity, the explanatory variables may be endogenous and correlated with the residuals (e) in the regression model, offending requirements for using an OLS model where all the independent variables should be exogenous (De-Min, 1973). To overcome this problem, the two methods, fixed-effect and random-effect, are used normally to diagnose the unobserved factors in panel model. In a fixed-effect model, the parameter estimation of the dummy variable is a part of an intercept, and it allows the unobserved individual effect to be correlated with other variables in the model (Greene, 2012). A major weakness in the fixed-effect model is that it cannot accommodate variables which are time invariant, such as regulatory status, which is fixed for a span of time (Hartarska and Nadolnyak, 2007). Whereas the random-effect model explores the differences in error term across the individual firm and period. Parameter estimation of the dummy variable is a part of the error term and treats individual effects as uncorrelated with the other regressors (Greene, 2012). However, the random-effect model also assumes that the explanatory variables are uncorrelated with the unobserved MFI heterogeneity term, that is ui (Hartarska and Nadolnyak, 2007). This is a very powerful assumption, and it can be tested by using the Hausman test (Hartarska and Nadolnyak, 2007; Hausman and Taylor, 1981).\nEmpirical results: Empirical results of the multiple regression analysis are shown in Table II after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in the context of the panel data model. The sign of coefficients are as expected, but only a few are statistically significant in relation to the performance of MFIs in Sri Lanka, which is also predominantly aligned with prior studies (Arora and Sharma, 2016). Only statistically significant results are discussed below.\nConclusion: To understand the relevant relationship between board structure and performance of MFIs in an emerging economy, the study adopts an in-depth country-specific approach using Sri Lanka as a case. Many cross-country studies fail to capture the country-specific policies and institutional differences. This paper presents the first evidence on the relationship between the board structure and performance of Sri Lankan MFIs. Therefore, this study makes an advanced contribution to the literature by understanding the board governance practices in MFIs in Sir Lanka.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between board structure, financial performance and outreach of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Sri Lanka, using unbalanced panel data for 300 MFI-year observations for the period 2007 to 2012.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical research relating to governance practices in MFIs is still in its infancy, and further studies are needed to determine how improved governance practices may enhance sustainability and outreach of MFIs, especially in emerging economies. The authors use regression techniques to examine whether board structure has an influence on MFI performance.\nFindings: After controlling for internal corporate governance variables, regulatory status, size, age, leverage and year effects, the authors report that board structure does contribute to the financial performance and outreach of MFIs in Sri Lanka.\nResearch limitations/implications: The availability of data in the public domain captures the major MFIs but does constrain the generalisability of findings.\nPractical implications: This study enables individual MFIs to evaluate potential restructuring of their boards to promote a dual mission and achieve a more accelerated economic development.\nSocial implications: The findings may encourage policy makers to promulgate policy guidelines to deepen MFI outreach to the poorest people.\nOriginality/value: Inconsistent findings in prior studies and a general lack of empirical results for the microfinance industry have led to an unclear message regarding corporate governance and MFI performance. This study fills the research gap, contributing to the existing corporate governance literature in the microfinance sector and providing evidence from an emerging economy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Evaluating progress of European vocational education and training systems: indicators in education
|
[
"Vocational education",
"European Union",
"Quality indicators",
"International organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. The significance of indicators: 1.1 Indicators as a quantitative parameter for governing system processes\n2. Standardising national data for cross-national comparisons: Data can only be ascertained if their features and dimensions have been defined, these plans have nowadays largely been implemented on a national level. The quality of results suffers from distinct vocational training systems that have been installed in diverse parts of the country, and from the lack of a national standard. Hence, a greater effort concerning standardisation is necessary in Federal States. In cross-national studies, chance often determines whether national statistical data correspond to the required standards.The problem that State borders do not correspond with the issue that is under observation, which seems to occur more frequently due to the growing internationalisation of business enterprises, has been under discussion for quite a while now (Mitter, 1997, p. 1253).The plan to compare indicators from different regions has mainly been promoted by the activities of international organisations, that is UNESCO and OECD, since the 1950s (Dieckmann, 1970, p. 19). This development started when university researchers from the domain of Comparative Education went into competition with mission-oriented research from these international organisations. These \"free-lance\", \"independent\" researchers supported collaboration by founding international associations which became adequate partners to the international organisations. For instance, the IEA, with surveys such as TIMSS (The Third International Mathematic and Science Study) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) that became hallmarks of international comparisons of achievement, was founded by free researchers (Nooman, 1973; Loxley, 1994, p. 942; Postlethwaite, 1994, p. 1762). Furthermore, their incentives led to the development of the ISCED classification [International Standard Classification of Education], which is a standardised means of classifying national education careers (Holmes, 1971, p. 89; Porras-Zuniga, 1994, p. 959). These initiatives result from the efforts of researchers at the time to further develop the international comparison in terms of its concept and method, in order to gain internationally comparable data as well as results (Robinsohn, 1992, p. 7). Following comprehensive tasks and the resulting financial demands, the organisations such as OECD nowadays stand for international educational reports by indicators, and international comparisons of achievement, while the UNESCO stands for the ISCED classification system. The ISCED classification has been in use since the 1970s for ordering educational statistics worldwide. It was approved for the first time by the 1975 International Conference on Education in Geneva, a conference for national governments that is held on a regular basis. Over time several adjustments were required, particularly with regard to the growing diversity of educational opportunities.To render the databases and classification systems comparable within the INES framework (Indicators of Education Systems), UNESCO, EUROSTAT and OECD cooperate under the OECD leadership (Steinert and Maier, 2001, p. 366). In 1997 the UNESCO educational statistics division published the ISCED-97, as a collection, collation and dissemination of national and international educational statistics. It has since been adapted by OECD, and several updates have meanwhile been issued under the heading Classifying Educational Programmes, Manual for ISCED-97 - Implementation in OECD Countries[3]. In the meantime the OECD publishes detailed manuals on the classification of educational degrees (OECD, 2004). These overviews allow for internationally comparable categorisations of national educational careers.\n3. Examples from educational reporting, quality control and governance of education systems by means of indicators: These examples were chosen to illustrate the pertinent structures of quality control and governance by educational indicators. Moreover, I intend to appraise the selection of indicators and the quantitative results, which are based on interpretations, in terms of a contextualisation (Lauterbach, 2003, p.146). In this sense, the following issues are particularly interesting: single nation States with a federal structure (USA, Switzerland, Germany), the OECD as the organisation that is most experienced with applying indicators to educational reporting on an international scale, and the EU, where governing supra-national education policy based on indicators continues to gain significance. By contrast to the OECD, which publishes its results as mere recommendations, the influence of the EU on the national educational systems is much more direct (vocational and higher education), and more goal-oriented. In this case the quality and the development are continuously assessed, for the area of vocational training this is performed in the Lisbon-Copenhagen Process. To make matters more difficult, the distinct structures and philosophies underlying the vocational education and training systems in the 27 EU States do not contribute to facilitating the construction of indicators, the interpretation of consequent results, and the development of governing processes.3.1 United States of America (USA)\n4 What can educational indicators achieve?: A financially exhaustive international system of educational indicators cannot aim at being the basis for ranking national education systems and spotlighting the \"best system\". Instead, educational policy and administration should be enabled to gain a deeper understanding of those factors that influence educational quality. Thereby, they can obtain diverse opportunities for governing educational systems (Oelkers, 2000b, p. 1). Oelkers points out that governing (in terms of steering) requires a movable unit that reacts according to instruction - such an idea can hardly be followed considering the complexity of our subject. Education systems do not constitute a closed unit that reacts according to a command (Oelkers, 2000b, p. 1). Despite similar system organisation charts, individual differences exist as they are determined by culture. In this context it should suffice to point out the distinct positions of vocational education systems in the individual countries. For instance, Germany places VET careers at the upper secondary level, or \"somewhere\" in the tertiary sector, between the upper secondary level and higher education while in the USA or England a tertiary level will always be apt, often even the higher education status. The meaning of apprenticeships or the dual system, too, depends on the national contexts of education systems as well as many decisions on values that express cultural ties.Germany's geographical neighbours have developed distinct systems of apprenticeships, see France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Belgium. The pertinent logics of systems further indicate that the education systems constitute relatively self-contained units with regard to their educational levels and areas of education. All of these factors are crucial to the definition and interpretation of educational indicators:* Can the quality of a VET programme actually be assessed by indicators such as the successful number of participants or value of the degree certificate or does it not rather concern the clients in terms of the labour market and the occupational use? Would it not make more sense to assess transitions, and interview and evaluate the clients, i.e. the future employers and the graduates?* How should the indicators be interpreted? Do large class sizes indicate the poor quality of a national education system, or does a high expenditure regarding the social product indicate the high quality of a national education system? Obviously, there are no straightforward answers to these questions. We can always find national examples that prove the contrary. This takes us close to an aspect that should always be considered, i.e. a long-term observation of educational indicators and their \"sluggishness\" in terms of a capacity for change with regard to governing decisions. The utilisation of results from educational indicators for governing processes requires an immense time of planning and the governance of many elements of a system, such as the curriculum, teacher training, the system of tests and the influence on other aspects of an educational system.Following the theory of cultural relativity (Lauterbach, 2003, p. 142) the results might lead to the conclusion that international statistics and educational indicators should always be put into perspective due to the required consideration of national contexts, hence, they should be viewed with scepticism and they cannot really be assessed in a comparison. Even sceptics answer this argument when using educational indicators by pointing out that the internationalisation leads to standards in educational offerings, and to international competition (Oelkers, 2000a, p. 12). Therefore, educational indicators are developed that enable an illustration of the continuous process of quality assurance and its competition.A critical distance to the assurance of quality by means of educational indicators cannot only be observed in educational research, but it is also subject to public debate and to policy whenever the results from an international comparison do not seem to fit into the national \"landscape\". This distance is soon given up and a contrary position is taken when the findings are suited to shed a positive light on a national education policy, in this case usually only those results that are particularly good are named, and only those countries are referred to that match the effect. We thus address the role of educational indicators in the daily business of politics, and their selection and use for political action[16]. The reliability of educational indicators is therefore not supported by presenting their results on a platter in a ranking, as this is the case in the example quoted above, i.e. the European Benchmarks. On the other hand, the contextualised OECD indicators were perceived in selective fashion in Germany (relating to one school year), because the governance of the so-called \"higher education quota\" and an increase of secondary school degrees that qualify for entering higher education were considered a major federal educational policy goal in Germany in 2003.Further similar examples might be supplied as extracts from context, as the complexity and diversity of an educational system leave only limited information to an educational indicator. When developing and using educational indicators and interpreting their results, educational researchers should therefore always keep in mind (Bottani and Walberg, 1994, p. 2985) that policy-makers will interpret the results from this research without considering the precautions and arguments voiced by the researchers themselves, in their own terms. Usually, policy-makers will prepare a short-term goal, in better cases a strategic governing decision.In order to meet these circumstances, and to balance the single dimension of an educational indicator, it is necessary to construct the whole system of indicators in a way that it contains comparable and complete information. Ideally, a system of indicators should provide information regarding the relations of the individual indicators, and create a full perspective of the education system that is analysed. The information that is provided by this interaction is greater than the sum of data derived from the individual educational indicators. For such a full perspective, the indicators are connected logically, empirically or politically. This connection is based on a model or a framework. These describe in theory how an education system should function. The framework itself contains a fundamental assessment of the relevance of indicators, and it constitutes the basis of a system of indicators, for instance as to the current situation of a problem area or for future developments. Moreover, analyses on current or prospective situations can be performed.If fundamental features of education systems are observed over a longer period of time by means of defined indicators, tendencies can be recognised and described. It is also possible to use educational indicators for describing effects that are grounded in specific political governance decisions, such as the efforts towards improving the situation of schools. Nevertheless, it is impossible to state a direct causal relation between the input and outcome of a political decision owing to the complexity of the situation.Coming back to our original hypothesis whether it is possible to assess the progress of European vocational education systems, we must ask the following questions prior to operationalising: \"What is progress\", \"What are the national vocational education systems?\" After a consensus has been agreed upon for the 27 EU States, it will surely be possible to find indicators. However, this thematic input-output approach (which aims at relating vocational education to its results), requires an indicator-based system of educational reporting following the paradigm of transparency, process, and context, see, for example, the USA with its Digest of Education Statistics.Despite the many precautions we can conclude that educational indicators contribute important information to educational policy, and they provide an incentive to reform actions. However, it is not possible to refer to indicators directly and to quote them as evidence in terms of an exact interpretation of self-contained processes, a current situation or a governing activity. Educational indicators have created a fundamentally new understanding of the functioning of an education system, and achieved a lasting discussion on what a nation expects from its education system and how educational objectives may be achieved by altering existing conditions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The quality of an education system or a comparative international assessment refers more and more to quantitative parameters, i.e. \"educational indicators\". The paper aims to analyse the structure of several educational indicators and indicator systems and answer the question \"What can educational indicators achieve?\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Starting with a general consideration of the term \"indicator\" the findings are applied to the educational area and the development of educational indicators is analysed critically.\nFindings: - Indicators allow for the illustration of outcomes and of system processes. Beginning in the 1950s, following the empirical turn in research methods, and the growing significance of approaches from economics of education, indicators are now applied in national and international settings. The findings show that the combination of the quantitative and qualitative approach is more successful as the isolated research.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research is based on secondary analysis. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodology should be undertaken in following the progress of educational systems.\nOriginality/value: - The findings of quantitative research based on educational indicators determine the general public and political discussion and often the discourse in the scientific community. The analysis shows that a critical distance especially when preparing political decisions is a necessary attitude.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
E-maintenance research: a multifaceted perspective
|
[
"E-Maintenance",
"Information technology",
"Enterprise systems",
"Maintenance management",
"Maintenance technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Maintenance function has received great attention from experts and practitioners due to its impact on firm's operations and business process via ensuring systems' safety and dependability and also decreasing operations cost during the systems' life. However, maintenance cost is a major part of the total operating costs of manufacturing and production plants as it represents from 15 to 40 per cent of the costs of produced goods (Widodo and Yang, 2011). In addition, many studies show that, paradoxically, between 50 and 70 per cent of all equipment fails prematurely after maintenance work has been done (Karim et al., 2009). Inadequate maintenance may trigger system deterioration and lack of quality which are signified by financial losses as a result of delays, customer complains, and distorted product specifications (Ollila and Malmipuro, 1999).\n2. Research methodology: Because of the exploratory nature of our study, a qualitative research was conducted through the analysis of secondary data. More specifically, an extensive review of past peer-reviewed journal papers dealing with e-maintenance was undertaken. An electronic search of relevant peer-reviewed articles was done within major online databases containing: ABI/INFORM Global, IEEE Xplore, Wiley InterScience, Emerald, ScienceDirect, InformaWorld, and SpringerLink. Papers were collected primarily from journals in the areas of operations management, operations research, ICT, informatics, technology/engineering management, and computer science using \"e-maintenance\" or \"e-diagnostics\" as keywords or are available in the abstract. For the sake of rigorousness, dissertations, editorials, textbooks, unpublished working papers, and conference papers were excluded. In our preliminary search 79 articles were found.\n3. e-Maintenance definition: managerial vs technological perspectives: Although literature on e-maintenance has debated the concept from various views with little consensus, careful content analysis of e-maintenance definitions reveal two key perspectives; managerial and engineering. The managerial perspective focuses e-maintenance as a strategy (e.g. Hausladen and Bechheim, 2004; Lee et al., 2006; Levrat et al., 2008; Muller et al., 2008a) or a set of supporting activities and processes such as monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis of real-time system health data (e.g. Candell et al., 2009; Ucar and Qiu, 2005). Alternatively, engineering perspective emphasizes the role of information and communication technologies such as intelligent sensors, channels, software solutions, and e-collaboration methods that configure e-maintenance system (e.g. Han and Yang, 2006, Bangemann et al., 2004, 2006; Tao et al., 2003).\n4. A review of key perspectives on e-maintenance research: Few papers address the conceptualization of e-maintenance frameworks as a field of research and practice can be found in the literature. These frameworks were mainly generic, fragmented, and developed based on different perspectives from information systems, operations management and engineering management. The review of these papers is made below in order to identify a multifaceted perspective signifies key themes and attributes of e-maintenance.\n5. e-Maintenance: an evolutionary perspective: A vast part of e-maintenance research draw attention to e-maintenance evolution as three interrelated phases: integration, aggregation, and prediction. These phases are illustrated in Figure 3 and explained in the subsequent sections.\n6. e-Maintenance: a managerial perspective: e-Maintenance systems are flourished due to managerial drivers that reflect new trends in managerial practices and approaches. One of these drivers is respecting maintenance function as a value adding integrated process (Liyanage and Kumar, 2003; Szymanski et al., 2003). Tsang (2002) underline the impact of new emergent managerial practices on transforming maintenance function such as knowledge management tools, risk management techniques, utilization of self-managing work teams and virtual organizations assumptions, employing strategic alliance, and making use of networking organizational structure.\n7. e-Maintenance: a technological perspective: A vast part of e-maintenance literature focuses on development and application of ICT applications in maintenance systems. For example, using a web-based questionnaire survey to describe current IT practices within maintenance in Swedish industry, Kans (2013) denoted that IT practices are characterized by high use of business-specific IT solutions, low use of company-wide IT solutions, low IT intensity, and the client-server architecture is dominating. Moreover, Kans (2012) addressed a model that depicts phases of IT maturity within e-maintenance (IT beginners, medium IT users, and IT mature) as a mean to define key requirements in a holistic manner and achieve effective information logistics. Szymanski et al. (2003) assert that the evolutionary progress from existent maintenance systems towards the new e-maintenance can be boosted through smooth integration of existent technologies that allows users to gain the comfort of harnessing complex maintenance situations with easily understandable tools. In the same vein, Crespo-Marquez and Gupta (2006) draw the attention to the role of CMMS, ERP systems, and application of condition monitoring in prevailing e-maintenance systems. Crespo-Marquez et al. (2009) point out the emergence of e-technologies (i.e. ICT, web-based, tether-free, wireless, infotronic technologies, and new maintenance trends (i.e. e-monitoring, e-diagnosis, e-prognosis, etc.).\n8. Challenges facing e-maintenance: Although great opportunities are associated with e-maintenance systems, their successful implementation faces serious organizational and technical difficulties as well. The organizational setting in which e-maintenance systems are immersed need to be sensitive towards the use of remote diagnostics technology if e-maintenance practices are to be successful (Jonsson et al., 2010).\n9. Conclusion and implications: This paper contributes to an on-going dialogue about e-maintenance research and practice. The paper scrutinizes e-maintenance literature that has been published in peer-review journals from 2002 to 2013 in various disciplines including operations management, information systems, computer science and engineering. Although this review does not claim to be exhaustive, it does provide reasonable insights into the state of the art in e-maintenance research. First, there is very little room for clarifying the confusion in the literature as to what constitutes e-maintenance definition. The paper has synthesized various e-maintenance definitions to propose that an accepted e-maintenance definition should reflect managerial and technological aspects of e-maintenance. Second, the paper proposes a multifaceted perspective on e-maintenance that appreciates evolutionary, managerial and technological views of e-maintenance research. It also orchestrates the various activities of organizational systems (e.g, ICT, e-technologies, e-manufacturing, prognostic methodologies) and ensures that there is goal congruence from an enterprise-wide perspective. Third, the paper highlights key challenges that face e-maintenance implementation and need to be considered and properly managed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a multifaceted perspective on e-maintenance research and practice over 12 years from 2002 to 2013.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research approach is conducted through analysing e-maintenance literature published in peer-review journals from 2002 to 2013 in operations management, information systems, computer science and engineering disciplines.\nFindings: A multifaceted perspective that reflects evolutionary, managerial, and technological domains of e-maintenance research has been emerged and explained. In addition, stages of e-maintenance process (i.e. integration, aggregation, and prediction) tend to synchronize with organizational levels (i.e. strategic, tactical, and operational) and stimulate the value of e-maintenance practices across the enterprise. However, there are many managerial and technological challenges that inhibit successful implementation of e-maintenance system.\nPractical implications: The present research offers managers and vendors a frame of reference that facilitates e-maintenance adoption and implementation. In addition, there is a need for theoretical as well as empirical research in the future to validate the multifaceted perspective in the present study and to obtain more insight into the nature of e-maintenance issues in various settings.\nOriginality/value: The present paper is one of the first attempts to bridge the gaps in a currently cluttered field of e-maintenance research. It also provides both academics and practitioners with a useful framework that sustains rigorous e-maintenance research and practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Academic mothers as "ideal workers" in both the US and Finland
|
[
"Academia",
"Motherhood",
"Maternity leave",
"The'ideal worker'"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A cross-cultural research paper has compared how women academics in Finland and the US time their pregnancies as well as how different policy environments shape their experiences. In Finland, the insecurity of fixed-term contracts and the growing influence of the neoliberal \"ideal worker\" concept influenced decisions despite the generous work-family policies of the Government. In the US, meanwhile, concerns about age-related infertility had a bigger impact than career risks. One thing the US and Finnish women had in common was a feeling of being under pressure to maintain their presence at work while on maternity leave.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose was to explore how women academics in Finland and the US experience academic motherhood, how they time their pregnancy, and the ways in which the 10;different policy environments shape their decisions and experiences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The interviewer collected data through 10;semi-structured, long interviews with 67 academic mothers, 33 in Finland and 34 in the US. They were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed for themes.\nFindings: In Finland, the insecurity of fixed-term contracts and the growing influence of the neoliberal \"ideal worker\" concept influenced decisions despite the generous work-family policies of the Government. In the US, meanwhile, concerns about age-related infertility had a bigger impact than career risks. One thing the US and Finnish women had in common was a feeling of being under pressure to maintain their presence at work while on maternity leave.\nOriginality/value: Cross-cultural studies of academic motherhood are rare. The choice of Finland and the US was instructive because of the different work-family policies in place. Finland has some of the most generous family leave policies in the world, whereas the US has not yet seen a federal, paid maternity leave policy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Airbnb: the future of networked hospitality businesses
|
[
"Trends",
"Scenario planning",
"Hospitality",
"Sharing economy",
"Short stay",
"Tourist pressure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Just a few years ago, the emergence of networked hospitality businesses was hardly a topic of academic nor of commercial interest. With the largest networked accommodation service, Airbnb, now surpassing the major hotel chains in number of beds offered and in market valuation, it is safe to say that many realized the extent of this disruptive business model too late. In this paper we will analyse this development in order to assess its impact in the years to come.\nStructural changes in society: The main drivers for societal change can be considered from four perspectives; technological innovation, sociological, philosophical and an economic perspective.\nThe rise of P2P value networks: The rise of the concept of co-creation and co-created value through value networks was initially noted by Allee (2003), Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004). They are the first to mention the essential paradigm shift between firm centric and client centric, postulating that the process of value creation finds place \"inside\" the consumer (Ramaswamy and Gouillart, 2010). For the first time the customer becomes part of and he starts to manage his own value chain. The economy is developing into a networked economy instead of the traditional hierarchical structure. Traditional suppliers lose control of their markets if they do not take a crucial position in the digitalized networks. According to Pralahad and Ramaswamy co-created platforms need to fulfil the following four conditions; they need to ensure the DART principle; dialogue, access, risk management and transparency. Partially through new communication technologies and the internet everybody communicates with everybody and everything. Here the democratization of communication takes place and the world breaks open (Ridder, 2011). Consumers become co-creators of value and have the potential to become entrepreneurs by dealing with their assets like solar energy and renting out their houses and apartments (Boswijk et al., 2015).\nTypology of networks: To clarify the different types of digitalized value platforms we postulate two dimensions; the first horizontal dimension is the commons vs the private/commercial, the second dimension is open systems vs controlled and closed systems (Figure 1).\nNetwork economy vs \"sharing economy\": Parties like Airbnb and Uber position themselves as part of the sharing or collaborative economy. This positioning finds support in authors as Botsman and Rogers (2011), Botsman (2015) and Gansky (2010), where \"sharing\" is used as a diffuse concept describing contact and transactions between individual consumers. Frenken et al. (2015) define the sharing economy as consumers granting each other temporary access to underutilized physical assets (\"idle capacity\"), possibly for money. By parsing his definition into three elements, Frenken et al. claim to distinguish the sharing economy from other economic forms:\nThe case of Airbnb: Airbnb started in 2008 as a simple proposition that combined economic benefits for travellers and for residents of tourist areas. As Molly Turner (2013), Global Head of Civic Partnerships at Airbnb, explains: \"Our business model is based on people who can't afford their homes and need extra money, so they rent out their homes\". The company's success can also be explained by the secondary effects of this basic proposition:\nLiterature review: Business model\nFuture scenarios for networked hospitality: Process and methodology\nConclusions and discussion: Networked hospitality businesses have emerged in recent years and, although primarily driven by economic benefits, they have brought disruptive innovations to the offer of tourist accommodation and to how visitors experience their stay in a destination. These innovations became possible thanks to the creation of network platforms, which enabled users to share underutilized goods, but which also can be used for economic transactions. Airbnb is an example of a for-profit P2P network platform. Airbnb competes with traditional hotels on price - and initially in particular hurt two and three-star hotels on the leisure market - but it also had an experiential value that enthused many travellers: the surprise of a diverse offer, contact with locals, being part of a community and staying in residential neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, the digitalization of the marketplace and the network or two-sided business model allowed for an exponential and on-going growth. This growth threatens the market share of traditional accommodations, puts pressure on housing markets and it contributes to tourist nuisance to residents, although this effect may be exaggerated in popular perceptions.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: Although networked hospitality businesses as Airbnb are a recent phenomenon, a rapid growth has made them a serious competitor for the hospitality industry with important consequences for tourism and for tourist destinations. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature of the phenomenon, its potential further development in the next five years and the impact this developments will have on tourism, on hotels and on city destinations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature study, combined with scenario workshops and a Delphi panel, were used to map current trends and uncertainties. With this input, future scenarios were elaborated using the Global Business Network (\"scenario cross\") method.\nFindings: Network platforms as Airbnb are often classified under something called the \"Sharing Economy\", a denomination that obscures their true nature. Airbnb is a challenging innovation to which traditional hospitality will have to respond. Its impact has at the same time led to a call for regulatory policies. The definition of these policies and the evolution of tourism are variables that determine future scenarios. Attempts to ban the phenomenon mean a disincentive to innovation and protect oligopolistic markets; more receptive policies may have the desired results if tourism grows moderately but in booming destinations they may lead to a harmful commercialization.\nOriginality/value: Until now, Airbnb has been described in conceptual studies about the so-called \"Sharing economy\", or more recently in empirical studies about isolated effects of holiday rentals. This paper contextualizes the evolution of networked hospitality and seeks to synthesize the sum of its impacts, thus enabling businesses and local governments to define positions and strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Research process, report structure and journal outlets in scholarly studies: Parallel vs sequential and proactive vs reactive
|
[
"Journals",
"Research",
"Research process",
"Report structure",
"Scholars",
"Deductive",
"Inductive",
"Study"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This article uses the framework by Svensson (2009), which describes and discusses both a straightforward and a reversed view of the research process in performing scholarly studies. This article extends this approach to emphasize the link between the research process, the report structure and the journal outlets in scholarly studies. It is essential for scholars (e.g. researchers and lecturers as well as students at different levels of higher education) to acquire the \"know-how\", not only to perform scholarly studies properly in terms of the research process, but also to report them in an adequate format. Scholars dedicated to research endeavors should also consider the journal outlets at an early stage of research. A thorough understanding and foresight of what lays ahead in performing, reporting and managing review processes of scholarly studies may prevent mistakes and failures from occurring later on in research, and the consequences of any errors to be less severe. The author strives to shed some light upon the research processes, the report structures applied and the journal outlets in academia, and the relationship between them. Subsequently, the objective is to describe the interconnection between research processes, report structures and journal outlets in scholarly studies.\nResearch process, report structure and journal outlets: When performing scholarly studies one should strive to gain an insight into the whole research process and the elements contained therein. One also needs to gain an insight into how to organize the report structure that ultimately follows. Furthermore, one needs to be aware of the potential journal outlets available for the particular research topic in focus.Unawareness or failure to realize what lies ahead when performing a proper research process, reporting it an adequate structure and adapting it to a set of possible journal outlets may cause unnecessary delays, mistakes and hassles to occur in the dissemination and communication of the scholarly studies. In extension, this may influence negatively the performance and subsequently the reward or appreciation received from other scholars in academia. It is therefore not only crucial that the notion of a transparent understanding and foresight of the link between the research process and the report structure in scholarly studies is explicitly discussed and made visible; suitable and likely journal outlets should also be considered at an early stage in the research, in order to enhance the likelihood of satisfactory, and hopefully, excellent performances in, and the reporting of, scholarly studies.The research process as described by Svensson (2009), and the report structure as described in this article, are argued to be seen as parallel processes rather than sequential, as shown in Figure 1. In fact, the author maintains that they reflect different sides of the same coin. The main difference is that they are generally separated by time in that the scholarly research process is performed before the scholarly report structure is applied. This may cause a disconnection and disharmony between them. Subsequently, it is contended that it is important to regard them as parallel (though not in eternity, as they need to merge at some stage), rather than sequential - where the research process is followed by the report structure; while the former is being performed, the latter should be taken into consideration and elaborated simultaneously. In sum, they should be a mirror of each other.The potential journal outlets should also be considered at an early stage in the research, that is, a proactive orientation in scholarly studies, rather than reactive. In fact, one should verify that there are potential journal outlets for one's topic or subject before investing too much time and resources in the research topic itself.A worst case scenario is that there is no single appropriate journal outlet available for the research topic in focus. For example, it may be a research topic that is perceived as too narrow and insignificant for the international research community. In other words, if the topic is too myopic and the contribution is very marginal, editors may reject it, or reviewers may recommend rejection to the editor. In other words, it may be difficult to get it disseminated in journals, not because of the research quality being poor, but because the research topic itself is not found meaningful or relevant to other researchers in the field.Subsequently, it is advisable to have at least a handful of journal outlet options available for submission of the intended research, and that they should be verified before the parallel approach of research process and report structure are initiated as shown in Figure 1. Even so, this is not guarantee of success (i.e. of acceptance for publication in an international scholarly journal). A recommendation is that once the intended research topic has been identified the potential journal outlets should then also be verified (e.g. checked for content and subject areas - do they publish articles on the research topic in focus?). If there are several possible alternatives then follow up on their report structure. The research process should now be designed to accomplish or match the identified conditions of report structure in the journal outlets now identified. Hopefully, the parallel view on the research process and report structure shown in Figure 1 now becomes evident as the one to follow in one's research endeavor, as shown in Figure 2.With this in mind, this article links three interconnected aspects in scholarly studies taking place in academia, where, it should be noted, there are no absolute \"rights\" or \"wrongs\", or a \"single formula\". This article should therefore been seen as a point of reference - a seed for debate and discussion, perhaps - that presents a view on the research process and its link to the report structure and in turn to the journal outlets, and vice versa. In other words, depending upon the characteristics of the scholarly study in focus, deviations may be justified and adapted. Nevertheless, there are some key issues that need to be considered and incorporated in both research processes and report structures. It is hoped that this article will stimulate and/or provoke a certain degree of afterthought and intellectual reflection as scholars may from time to time engage in research processes that are striven be disseminated and communicated in report structures of scholarly journal outlets.This rest of article is organized as follows:*the elements of the research process of scholarly studies are briefly described;*the components of report structures of the same scholarly study are described and discussed; and*finally, concluding thoughts are provided.\nThe research process: The research process may be approached in different ways as described in literature (e.g. books), curricula, workshops, seminars or other arenas of scholarly knowledge (Booth et al., 2003; Day, 1996; Lester and Lester, 2005; Rozakis, 1999). For example, the research process in scholarly studies may be described as both straightforward and reversed (Svensson, 2009). Scholarly studies originate from a specific problem that may originate from an observation and/or previous study. They may be either scholarly or practitioner oriented, or both. Furthermore, the research problem underpins the whole research process of scholarly studies, which in turn may be seen as consisting of four elements (Svensson, 2009):1. idea;2. support;3. implication; and4. contribution.It should be noted that the straightforward research process as described by Svensson (2009) may also be seen and applied as a business process. For example, a business executive may come up with an idea to be potentially introduced into the company's business. Before that eventually happens, the company will evaluate the pros and cons of the idea in order to examine the potential support for or against it in terms of the company's business in the marketplace and society. If solid support is found for the idea at this stage, then the company will strive to estimate the possible implications for its business (e.g. productiveness, cost effectiveness and competitiveness). Finally, the company will strive to determine the outcome (i.e. contribution) of the idea to its business (e.g. its impact on market shares and profit). Having done the homework of testing the idea through the stages of support, implications and contribution for the company, the moment has arrived to decide whether to proceed with the idea or not. Subsequently, the ultimate decision maker will be one or several executives representing the company. The corresponding decision makers of scholarly studies of journal outlets are the editor and the editorial review boards.As with the straightforward research process being seen and applicable as a business process, the reversed one (Svensson, 2009) may also be seen and applied as a business process. In fact, the reversed research process, rather than the straightforward one, may be more commonly used in business, as the very survival of a company may depend upon the corporate decision of rejection or acceptance of the proposed business ideas. For example, when a business executive comes up with an idea for the company's business, the potential outcome of it (i.e. the contribution) is most likely to be the key in the corporate decision of whether to proceed with it or not. If the idea is judged to benefit the company's business in the marketplace and society, the executives will strive to find out what the implications for the company will be before they proceed with the proposal. If meaningful and valuable implications are identified for the company's business, the executives will then evaluate the pros and cons of the idea in order to examine the potential support for or against it. If there is support and potential for the idea in the marketplace and society, then the executives will most likely proceed with the idea, that is, if no evident or fatal flaws for the company have revealed themselves. However, it should be kept in mind that there is no guarantee that the idea will ultimately work out as expected. The reversed research process serves the purpose of modifying and adapting the initial idea. It also serves the purpose of pinpointing potential weaknesses and strengths of the idea in terms of its outcome, its implications and the support for it. In other words, the reversed research process exposes the idea for intellectual pre-testing before the company invests further time and resources are into it. Hopefully it will diminish the risk of failure in the marketplace and society, while improving the chances of success and optimizing desirability.\nThe report structure: Sooner or later the research process performed in academia needs to be communicated in a report structure if it is to be disseminated and communicated to others. It is essential that the scholar realizes that both the research process and the report structure are closely interconnected, even though they tend to be done at different times. These two should subsequently take potential journal outlets into consideration at the same time. The sooner one accomplishes a transparent understanding and foresight of both, the easier it will be to bring one's scholarly studies to a successful closure.The format of reporting a research process varies depending upon the target audience (e.g. the readership). On the one hand, if the audience consists mostly of practitioners then it will most likely be fairly short (e.g. an executive summary), focusing on the key aspects and findings of the research process (i.e. the key points). On the other hand, if the audience is the scholarly community (e.g. lecturers, examiners, students and researchers) then it will be required to contain more details about:*the theoretical underpinnings;*the applied methodology;*the description of the performed analyses; and*the referencing of used sources.This section focuses on the explicit (i.e. the visible) and implicit (i.e. the underlying) components that are commonly applied in report structures.Components of \"interconnectedness\"\nConcluding thoughts: This article has brought forward the notion that an awareness of the elements of the research process, the components of the report structure and the potential journal outlets may at an early stage uncover any pitfalls and flaws in scholarly studies. It is important that the four elements of the research process (i.e. idea, support, implication and contribution), and the components of the report structure as shown in Table I, are thoroughly thought out in detail in relation to the potential journal outlets before too much investment of time and resources, as well as intellectual effort, have been made; this will avoid frustration and discontent in performing one's scholarly studies. In other words, an insight of what is ahead in, and interconnected between, the elements of the research process, the components of the report structure and the potential journal outlets is crucial to enhancing the ultimate performance and communication of scholarly studies.Scholars are exposed to the risk that their studies do not generate the expected outcome; this can be caused by failures in any one of the elements of idea, support, implication and contribution of the intended research process as a whole, before actually committing oneself to it. Preferably, one should be able to proceed both ways through the research process (Svensson, 2009), and through the different stages to verify that all elements are expected to be affirmative and linked properly together with the components of the report structure. Primarily, it is an intellectual exercise and a screening procedure that may expose the weaknesses and strengths of an intended scholarly study and its underlying research process, as well as the threats and opportunities therein. They will have to be linked to the required report structure.As indicated previously, the research problem underpins the whole research process, which may be seen as consisting of four elements, not only sequential but also interconnected: idea, support, implication and contribution. Preferably, they are linked to the report structure. This article has striven to show that realizing the link between the research process, the report structure and the journal outlets will assist in efforts to perform and communicate successful scholarly studies. Most importantly, the approach to perform and communicate scholarly studies may increase the probability of successful outcomes and effectiveness by finding inspiration and support using the research process linked not only to the report structure, but also the journal outlets. Subsequently, the author contends that the transparent understanding and foresight of research processes, report structures and journal outlets provides an essential and valuable insight into performing and communicating scholarly studies. In other words, it could be seen as encouraging or supporting either the proactive or reactive orientations to perform and communicate scholarly studies (Figure 3).The reactive orientation means that the scholarly study follows the time order of things and happenings in the research processes, whereas the proactive one starts at the end and moves towards the initiation stage of scholarly studies. A proactive orientation to research processes, report structures and journal outlets in scholarly studies is strongly encouraged, rather than being reactive and lagging behind in making the proper preparations and arrangements.One proposal is to start the endeavor of scholarly studies (i.e. with a specific research topic) by examining the possible journal outlets and their report structure (e.g. journal article format and journal guidelines) and then adapting the research process to the findings and requirement of it. At the end of the day, it is the report structure of the available journal outlets that will apply and govern when the research process is going to be communicated (i.e. disseminated). It will be essential that all the \"blank\" elements of the report structure of the journal outlet are filled with required details from the research process. Keep in mind that the research topic must also be of relevance and interest to the possible journal outlets!Subsequently, the transparent understanding and foresight of performing and communicating scholarly studies are essential aspects in increasing the likelihood of a successful dissemination in academia. In sum, the author argues that the parallel (or simultaneous) attention to the research process and the report structure, as well as the dedication to the proactive orientation originating from journal outlets rather than the reactive one, should be proffered and made visible when and where the craft of scholarly studies is described and discussed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the interconnection between the research process, the report structure and journal outlets in scholarly studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Conceptual frameworks to link the research process with the report structure, and in turn with journal outlets, are presented.\nFindings: - These indicate that the research process and the awareness of the components of the report structure as well as potential journal outlets may at an early stage uncover any pitfalls and flaws in one's scholarly studies in academia.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A transparent understanding and foresight of what is ahead in, and interconnected between, the elements of the research process, the components of the report structure and the potential journal outlets are crucial to enhance the ultimate scholarly performance. The discussion is in part limited to the commonly applied \"deductive\" research process in academia, though most parts also are applicable to the \"inductive\" research process.\nPractical implications: - It is important that the elements of the scholarly research process and the components of the report structure are thoroughly thought out in detail before too much investment in time and resources, as well as intellectual effort, have been made in order to avoid frustration and discontent. In addition, the potential journal outlets also need to be considered at an early stage of research.\nOriginality/value: - Transparent understanding and foresight of research processes, report structures and journal outlets provide essential and valuable insights for scholars. The author has striven to show that realizing the link between the scholarly research process, the scholarly report structure and the potential journal outlets available will assist in efforts to perform and communicate the outcome of scholarly studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Service quality function deployment by the C-shaped QFD 3D matrix: The case of post bank services
|
[
"Performance aspects",
"C-shaped matrix",
"Customers requirements",
"Process characteristics",
"Three dimensional service QFD"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Nowadays customers have a lot of information about the market. Hence, they remain loyal to an organization only if the products/services are offered according to their desired quality (Shahin and Akasheh, 2017). Therefore, considering customer viewpoint and demand in designing a product, production and also service process are highly important. In this regard, using a systematic approach in production and service centers in order to receive the voice of customers and also changing it to production and service process characteristics (PC), rapidly and simultaneously seems essential.\nQuality function deployment: Based on the definition of Akao (1990), \"QFD is a method for developing design quality with the aim of customer satisfaction and translating customer requirements to design characteristics and assuring that major quality features are considered in the production stage\" (Xie et al., 2003). QFD was founded by Yoji Akao in 1960s. It was published in Japan in the 1970s and later on in the world (Mizuno and Akao, 1994). The first phase of this approach is known as the HoQ. It refers to how to understand customer requirements and changing them to design characteristics (Sagnak et al., 2017). QFD has been used by many researchers in various service areas (Camgoz-Akdag et al., 2016). Some of the companies that benefited from this technique include General Motors, Philips, IBM, AT&T and Digital (Xie et al., 2003).\nSeven new tools of quality management and C-shaped matrix: The seven new tools of quality management include affinity diagram, cause and effect chart, tree diagram, matrix diagram, matrix data analysis, arrow diagram, and process decision program chart. These tools facilitate decision making thereby managers could better analyze and evaluate the areas which need improvement (Flynn et al., 1995; Rene et al., 2005). C-shaped matrix is typically a matrix diagram in which, the letter \"C\" refers to the word \"cube.\" Using this matrix due to its three dimensional shape is complicated and for this reason it has been used less compared to the other shapes of matrix. In order to show this matrix in three dimensions, it is necessary to use a three dimensional drawing software. Moreover, considering the fact that the matrix is three dimensional, the number of comparisons is to some extent high and perhaps this issue is another reason why it has not been widely applied. By the use of C-shaped matrix, concurrent comparison of three groups of data becomes possible.\nResearch methodology: The aim of this study is to develop a 3D SQFD for concurrent prioritization of PC and PA based on the customer requirements. For this purpose, QFD and C-shaped matrix are integrated. The C-shaped matrix is illustrated in Figure 2. Each of the dimensions of cube represents one of the research variables. The cells of cube contain the results obtained from the comparisons among the three variables.\nCase study and findings: Data collection\nResults: Table I shows the weight of customers' requirements. Since the C-shaped matrix is a three dimensional matrix, all elements of the matrix could not be displayed. For this reason, in Figures 4 and 5, the C-shaped matrix is broken down into five separated two-dimensional matrixes. The upper scores in each cell of the matrixes indicate the relationship ratios among PC and PA with regard to customer requirements, which is determined by the managers as explained in the first step of the research methodology.\nDiscussion: In this study, concurrent SQFD was applied for simultaneous comparison of customer requirements, PC and PA. In fact, PC and PA were prioritized with regard to the customer requirements. For instance, in Table III it can be found that with regard to \"reliability,\" the financial aspect had the highest priority. Thus, if the post bank wants to promote reliability in its offered services, it should emphasize more on financial aspects of its organizational performance. With regard to \"tangibles,\" three out of four PA had the lowest priority, while with regard to \"assurance,\" two of the PA had the highest priority. Thus, the post bank should train its employees regarding the assurance dimension. With regard to all requirements, the PA of growth and learning, customer, financial and internal processes had the first to fourth priorities, respectively. Since the weight of customer requirements was determined according to the customer viewpoint, for total improvement of service quality, the post bank is recommended to enhance its organizational knowledge about customer needs in its human resource development programs.\nConclusions: In this paper by using 3D QFD, the PA and PC were prioritized concurrently based on customer requirements. For this purpose, first a 3D matrix was designed. Each of the cells of the cube was the result of comparison of three variables that was obtained by surveying the related experts in a post bank. Then, the weight of each customer requirement was obtained based on a customer survey. In the following, the weight of each customer requirements was multiplied by the elements of this matrix and the weighted comparison matrix was created. Ultimately, by summing up the rows and columns of elements in the weighted comparisons matrix, the PA and PC were prioritized, respectively. Results indicated that \"growth and learning\" had the first priority among PA. In addition, \"bilateral relationship with suppliers\" had the first priority among PC.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the application of C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix in comparing process characteristics (PC), performance aspects (PA) and customer requirements, simultaneously and to prioritize the first two sets, respectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A three dimensional matrix has been developed with three sets of PC, PA and customers' requirements and C-shaped matrix has been applied for simultaneous comparison of the dimensions and prioritization of the subsets of PC and PA. The proposed approach has been examined in a post bank.\nFindings: Findings confirm the possibility of simultaneous comparison and prioritization of the three sets of dimensions of this study in post bank services. In addition, \"growth and learning\" and \"bilateral relationship with suppliers\" had the first priorities among PA and PC, respectively.\nResearch limitations/implications: While the proposed approach has many advantages, filling the matrixes is time-consuming. Since illustrating the 3D matrix was not possible, the matrix was separated into five two-dimensional matrixes.\nOriginality/value: Compared to the studied literature, the proposed approach is practically new in the post bank services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Career success: fit or marketability?
|
[
"Careers",
"Organisational behaviour",
"Career development",
"Employee development",
"Career satisfaction",
"Labour mobility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Career success, defined as the accumulated positive outcomes and achievements resulting from one's work experiences (Judge et al., 1995; Seibert and Kraimer, 2001), is associated with positive outcomes, including health, well-being, and longevity (Kern et al., 2009; Leung et al., 2011). Given the meaningful consequences associated with career success, it is no wonder that several studies have examined the factors that might be predictive of both objective and subjective career success. However, even with a large body of research on the antecedents of career success, there remains much room for expansion. Following their meta-analysis, Ng et al. (2005) noted that \"there is only a limited range of variables being examined as predictors of career success\" (p. 396). The aim of this study is to expand that range of predictors by weaving the person-organization fit and external marketability perspectives into current career success frameworks. In the process, this research also aims to contrast and challenge the narratives of the sponsored- and contest-mobility models of career success.\nPerson-organization fit: According to the sponsored-mobility model, those in positions of power within the organization pay special attention to those members who are deemed to have high potential. More than five decades ago, Turner (1960) observed that early selection of those few who are given elite status can proceed through psychological testing. The process he described is not unlike the process of determining employee potential for corporate succession plans wherein supervisors or advisory committees make assessments of each member's ability to learn and advance within the organization (Bower, 2007). Given that employee potential is more a function of person adaptation to the organization than to specific task or role requirements, it would seem that this is reflected in the concept of person-organization fit defined in this study as a person's perception of his or her compatibility with an organization's culture and members (i.e. perceived supplementary fit).\nExternal marketability: Within the contest-mobility model of career success, the emphasis is on abilities, skills, accomplishments, devotion, involvement, performance on the job, and adding value to the organization. This model exists to varying degrees in most organizations because of the established belief that all people can compete for advancement in a system based on merit. The notion of meritocracy thus seems to relay the dynamics of the contest-mobility model (cf. Garcia et al., 2011). A meritocracy is a mode of governance and administration in which positions and responsibilities are assigned to those members with more human capital and aptitude rather than to those with a social position or an inherited status. A meritocracy is thereby a system in which members compete on the basis of craft and effort. Individual achievement is heralded; organizational sponsorship de-emphasized.\nOrganizational sponsorship: This study also submits to empirical scrutiny what might be considered a more complete account of the underlying narrative of the sponsored mobility model. At a most basic level, this model contends that career success is more a function of compatibility or similarity than competence. Although employee perceptions of person-organization fit do not provide a complete account of this compatibility or similarity, they seemingly convey some information about the correspondence between the person and the organization. This is supported by the strong association between person-organization fit and the perception that one's personal characteristics are similar to those of the organization and to those of others in the organization (Piasentin and Chapman, 2007).\nMethod: Procedure and sample\nMeasures: The survey instrument was administered in French and most scale items were validated in this language in previous studies. For those items that were not available in French, we used a translate-retranslate methodology (Brislin, 1970) to ensure that they accurately reflected the wording of the original English version.\nResults: Correlations, means, and standard deviations for all variables are presented in Table I. The correlations between the variables of interest suggest positive associations between perceptions of person-organization fit, perceptions of external marketability, and subjective career success. They are also revealing of a strong positive association between person-organization fit and organizational sponsorship.\nMeasurement model: Following a two-step procedure for structural equation modelling (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988), we first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis on the measurement model that included the main constructs. This analysis supported the measurement model that included four latent variables (i.e. career success, person-organization fit, external marketability, organization sponsorship) and their associated indicators (kh2(129)=446.92; GFI=0.91; CFI=0.94; TLI=0.93; NFI=0.92; RMSEA=0.07). The model being examined, with its proposed relations among indicators and latent variables, although acceptable, was improved by allowing four pairs of error terms to covary (kh2(125)=264.77; GFI=0.95; CFI=0.97; TLI=0.97; NFI=0.95; RMSEA=0.05).\nStructural model: The second step of our analysis strategy involved testing the structural model with hypotheses of direct and indirect associations and with control variables included. We sought to identify the most appropriate structural model before testing our hypotheses. In light of relevant theorizing about career success, the hypothesized model involving partial mediation represented the best choice of a baseline model. This partial mediation model includes nine paths, three from the antecedent variables to career success, one from person-organization fit to the mediator (i.e. organizational sponsorship) and five from the control variables to the dependent variable. It is a composite model that simultaneously evaluates relations between indicators and their associated latent variables and relations among latent variables. Modification indexes suggested that the fit of the model could be improved by allowing the error terms of age, salary, and gender to correlate. Given the clear relatedness of these variables (i.e. fewer older females, wage increases with age, lower female earnings), we performed the analyses again allowing the error terms of these control variables to covary. The fit indices indicated that this baseline model provides a good fit to the data: (kh2(219)=542.37; GFI=0.92; CFI=0.94; TLI=0.93; NFI=0.91; RMSEA=0.05). The standardized indirect (mediated) relationship between person-organization fit and career success was 0.18 and significant (BootLLCI=0.09, BootULCI=0.29). The ratio of indirect to total effect used for quantifying and reporting the effect size of indirect effects in mediation models (Preacher and Kelley, 2011) was 0.60.\nDiscussion: The opposing narratives for career success were contrasted in this study. The indirect association between person-organization fit and career success supported the sponsored-mobility model and the positive relationship between external marketability and career success comforted the contest-mobility explanation. The first hypothesis predicted that person-organization fit is positively associated with subjective career success. Although the association between these variables was significant, we found that organizational sponsorship fully mediated the association between person-organization fit and career success. Hence, the process described in the sponsored mobility model of career success was upheld. The second hypothesis predicted that perceived external marketability is positively associated with subjective career success. This association was supported in our final structural model. This study thereby expands past research by testing whether person-organization fit and external marketability are associated with career success. The third hypothesis predicted that organizational sponsorship mediates the positive association between subjective person-organization fit and subjective career success such that subjective person-organization fit is positively associated with organizational sponsorship which is positively associated with subjective career success. Our findings support a model of full mediation. Taken together, these findings uphold the narratives that have guided much career success research (Cable and Murray, 1999; Judge et al., 2004; Ng et al., 2005; Turner, 1960).\nImplications for theory: The theoretical basis for much career success research can be traced back to the work of Turner (1960). What our study suggests is that the distinction made by Turner between sponsored and contest mobility remains highly relevant to career success research. Even relatively new concepts such as person-organization fit and external marketability seem to fit well within the structure of the theoretical distinctions made by Turner more than five decades ago.\nImplications for research: Despite a large body of research on career success, few studies have tested and contrasted the associations between person-organization fit, external marketability, and career success. By so doing, this study responded to the call to expand research in this area (Ng et al., 2005). Moreover, drawing upon the work of Turner (1960), this study addressed the \"why\" question by testing the differential processes involved in the sponsored- and contest-mobility models.\nImplications for practice: Career success is considered a positive outcome (Chiaburu et al., 2013) and this study investigated two mechanisms through which it might be achieved. The first relates to the degree of compatibility between the person and the organization. Here our findings clearly point to the need for individuals and organizational leaders to pay attention to person-organization fit. At the pre-entry stage, individuals might benefit from a thorough analysis of the compatibility between their values and the culture of the organization they are considering. At later career stages, individuals might draw from these findings to reflect on why their subjective levels of career success are low or high. The findings relating to person-organization fit might also prompt organizational leaders to better assess this factor at the entry stage. However, given some concerns relating to supplementary fit and the need to have people with differences that add value to the organization (i.e. complementarity fit) (Piasentin and Chapman, 2007), organizations may rather realign their practices to provide more organizational sponsorship to those individuals whose differences complement organizational characteristics.\nLimitations: Some limitations to the present study should be noted. The first relates to the nature of the sample and the ability to generalize beyond similar groups of professional workers. Considering that professional workers represent a growing segment of the working population (Barley and Kunda, 2006), this study should be replicated with other samples, such as managerial employees and production workers. Another limitation is that the data were collected through the use of a single survey; invoking concerns for common method variance. Although the Harman's one-factor test and confirmatory factor analysis we performed suggest that common method variance is not of great concern and thus is unlikely to confound the interpretations of results, these analyses do not completely rule out the possibility of common method variance. Finally, the cross-sectional nature of the study also makes it difficult to establish causality. Although our hypothesized model fit the data sample well, this does not rule out other equally plausible models. Nonetheless, the notion that person-organization fit, external marketability, and organizational sponsorship precede career success is more theoretically sound than the reverse.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In response to the conclusions of a meta-analysis of career success studies (Ng et al., 2005), the purpose of this paper is to expand the range of variables being examined as predictors of career success by weaving the person-organization fit and external marketability perspectives into current career success frameworks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was administered in partnership with an association of human resource professionals located in Canada. The questionnaire was transmitted electronically to human resource professionals. The final sample included 546 full-time, permanent, human resource professionals from multiple organizations.\nFindings: Confirmatory factor analysis supported the measurement model. In the final structural model, external marketability exerted a significant direct effect on career success. Person-organization fit was strongly associated with organizational sponsorship. Organizational sponsorship, in turn, exerted a significant effect on subjective career success.\nOriginality/value: This study contrasted and tested two theoretical perspectives on career success. The mediated indirect association between person-organization fit and career success provided support for the rationale of the sponsored mobility model of social advancement. The direct association between external marketability and career success suggests that success can be achieved even without organizational sponsorship on the basis of expressions of one's human capital.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
How to increase supplier flexibility through social mechanisms and influence strategies?
|
[
"Flexibility",
"Coercive influence strategies",
"Noncoercive influence strategies",
"Trust",
"Shared vision"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Supplier flexibility refers to the ability of suppliers to manage production resources and uncertainty to enhance flexibility in meeting the variable demands of buyers. Because the processes involved in supply chain management extend beyond the boundaries of individual firms, supplier flexibility enhances the capabilities of manufacturers to improve performance. Supplier flexibility has become a criterion for winning orders. Flexibility is a reaction to dynamic environments (Giunipero et al., 2005; Upton, 1995; Vickery et al., 1999), and as such, is an important relational norm in inter-organizational relationships (Ivens, 2005). Supplier flexibility has become an extremely important issue in today's rapidly changing markets, and due to the growing importance of purchasing as a means to improve the supply chain. A flexible supplier can increase a manufacturer's competitive advantage by improving response time to the ever-changing demands of customers. Unfortunately, although responding to the requirements of manufacturers creates values for the manufacturer, it may also lead to a decrease in value for the supplier. Such flexibility implies that suppliers are able to provide additional service in response to changes in market demand, and although this flexibility benefits the manufacturer, it may come at a cost to the supplier. Suppliers generally provide either limited flexibility, or offer prices based on the level of flexibility desired by the manufacturer. Understanding the means by which manufacturers manage supply flexibility is a crucial issue for management and practice.Alternative means of communication often utilize influence strategies in an attempt to motivate the compliance of a target. Previous studies have focused on the role of influence strategies in marketing channel relationships, such as reduced channel conflict (Frazier and Rody, 1991), satisfaction (Lai, 2007; Sanzo et al., 2003), relationalism (Boyle et al., 1992), and solidarity (Kim, 2000). In addition, many researchers view social capital as a set of relational resources embedded in relationships (Gulati et al., 2000; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). According to Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998), social capital includes structural (represented by network position), relational (represented by trust), and cognitive dimensions (represented by shared vision among units of a group). Literature on inter-organizational trust in exchange relationships argues that trust exists when a party has confidence in the exchange partners' reliability and integrity (Gulati et al., 2000; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Ring and Van de Ven, 1992). Trust can also facilitate inter-organizational communication and information sharing, which enhances responsiveness (Handfield and Bechtel, 2002) and performance (Dirks and Ferrin, 2001; Zaheer et al., 1998). Furthermore, Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) declared that a shared vision embodies the collective goals and aspirations of the members of the organization. Empirical studies have shown that parties in supply chains with a shared vision perform at a higher level (e.g. Spekman et al., 1999).Researchers have found that influence strategies potentially change the attitudes and behavior of other actors (Mohr and Nevin, 1990), and that social capital facilitates inter-organizational communication and the sharing of information as a means to improve responsiveness (Handfield and Bechtel, 2002). However, little is known about the effectiveness of influence strategies and social capital with regard to the motivation of suppliers to enhance flexibility, from either an empirical or a theoretical point of view. Powell (1990) argued that firms conducting business in fast-moving industries with short product lifecycles often engage in network partnerships to reposition products rapidly and respond quickly to changing market conditions. Promoting the capabilities of manufacturers through the enhancement of supplier flexibility has become a critical aspect of the strategies employed by manufacturers. As noted previously, researchers have recently discovered that the selection of influence strategies and social capital have a significant influence on trading relationships (Boyle and Dwyer, 1995; Frazier and Rody, 1991; Gelderman et al., 2008; Kumar, 2005). Therefore, this study performed an empirical examination of the effects that influence strategies and social mechanisms (trust and shared vision) have on supplier flexibility. This paper also examines the effect of supplier flexibility on the performance of manufacturers.We divided this paper into four sections. First, we review the literature on flexibility, influence strategies, social mechanisms, and performance for the presentation of a conceptual framework. Second, we illustrate the formulation of a specific hypothesis regarding potential antecedents and outcomes related to supplier flexibility and the performance of manufacturers. Third, the development and testing of these hypotheses is presented. Finally, the article includes a concluding summary of the research findings and implications of this study, followed by a discussion of the limitations, and directions for future research.\n2. Research framework and hypothesis: Figure 1 provides a conceptual model summarizing our research interests and objectives. Based on the literature review, we generated six hypotheses associated with the model. These hypotheses focus on the interrelationships among influence strategies, social mechanisms, supplier flexibility, and the performance of manufacturers.2.1 Flexibility\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results: To test the hypothesized relationships, we conducted regression analysis, the results of which are presented in Table III. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was not conducted since there were nonmetric control variables in our study. If SEM is conducted, the nominal scale variables should be modified to continuous measurement (Skrondal and Rabe-Hesketh, 2005). To check for potential multicollinearity, we assessed the variance inflation factors (VIFs) associated with each of the predictors in our models. The value of the VIFs remained below the 10.0 benchmark, for no indication of severe multicollinearity. The Durbin-Watson test was employed to test the autocorrelation. The result of Durbin-Watson test statistic (2.031) indicated no presence of autocorrelation. In addition, the Levene's Test for homogeneity of variances was conducted. The results showed assumption of equal variances was accepted. For H1, coercive influence strategy has a significant positive effect on suppliers' flexibility. Results for Model 1 in Table III indicate support for this hypothesis (b=0.290, p<0.001). H2 predicted that noncoercive influence strategies have a significant positive effect on suppliers' flexibility. The standardized coefficient of noncoercive influence strategy was negative but not statistically significant (b=-0.043, p>0.1). The prediction of H3 was not supported (b=0.073, p>0.1), based on the fact that trust does not have a significantly positive effect on supplier flexibility. The prediction of H4 in which shared vision has a significantly positive effect on supplier flexibility (b=0.393, p>0.001) was supported. In Model 2, the effect of supplier flexibility on performance outcome (b=0.167, p>0.1) was positive and significant. Hence, the result supports H6. From Model 2, the effect of supplier flexibility on manufacturer performance was statistically significant at 0.1 level. We further conducted the direct effect of supplier flexibility on performance. In Model 3, the standardized coefficient (b=0.198, p>0.01) indicated that supplier flexibility has a significantly positive effect on manufacturer performance. Additionally, the effect of noncoercive influence strategies on performance showed negatively significant in Model 2. According to Payan and McFarland (2005), the use of noncoercive influence strategies (i.e. recommendation) had a negative effect on compliance. Our finding indicated that noncoercive influence strategies have a negative effect on manufacturer performance. The possible explanation is the effect of noncoercive influence strategies takes more time and lacks of specificity of argument about the target. Thus, the use of noncoercive influence strategies may reduce the performance outcome of manufacturer. Moreover, to assess the mediation effect of manufacturer trust on the relationship between shared vision and supplier flexibility, we applied the mediated regression procedure outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986) (see Table IV). First, as shown in Model 4, trust relates positively to shared vision (b=0.418, p>0.001) supporting H5(a). Second, as shown in Model 5, the statistically significant beta of trust on flexibility (b=0.249, p>0.001) indicates that the condition of independent variables related to dependent variables was met. Third, as shown in Model 6, the direct effect of trust on flexibility was added to the original model, including the indirect effects, as mediated by shared vision. The result reveal that all of the direct effects of trust on flexibility were not significant (b=0.082, p>0.1), and that shared vision has a significantly positive effect on supplier flexibility (b=0.398, p>0.001). Therefore, we conclude that the effect of trust on flexibility is mediated by shared vision (Baron and Kenny, 1986; Venkatraman, 1989). H5(b) is supported. Finally, using firm size as the control variable revealed no significant effect on flexibility. Industry revealed a positive relationship between supplier flexibility and performance; however, this indicates that industry, as a control variable, did not influence the results of our findings.\n5. Conclusion and implications: The results of this research provide important information for marketers engaged in the process of managing supplier flexibility. A customer-oriented manufacturer should have the ability to influence supplier flexibility to match dynamic customer demands. The manufacturer teams up with its suppliers to establish a long-term, cooperative relationship to establish a sustainable and competitive supply chain. Our study found that shared vision is the most important factor influencing supplier flexibility. Shared vision can help facilitate group actions benefiting the entire supply chain and promoting the flexibility of suppliers. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest the manufacturers are able to influence supplier flexibility to meet customer requirements by selecting coercive influence strategies.5.1 Influence strategies and supplier flexibility\n6. Limitations and further research: Future research could address several limitations of this study. First, this research design was cross-sectional in nature. Although a theoretical foundation and logic were the basis of the study model, making purely causal conclusions remained difficult. The need for evidence of causality from a longitudinal and/or experimental study remains. Second, the data gathered for this study relied on the perceptions of manufacturers regarding influence strategies and social mechanisms. Further research could explore the degree to which perceptions of influence strategies and social mechanisms are shared across the dyad. Third, the taxonomy of influence strategies studied in this paper was derived and incorporated from previous studies. The findings of this study indicate that coercive influence strategies play a significant role in supplier flexibility; however, this article did not address the effect of individual coercive influence strategies on flexibility. Gelderman et al. (2008) illustrated the importance of the sequence of coercive influence strategies arguing that dominant suppliers select distinct strategies from promises, threats, and legal pleas, in that order. Future research could concentrate in greater detail on the effect of distinct influence strategy sequences. Fourth, this study evaluated the performance in the growth and customer response domain. Future studies could attempt to integrate financial measurements (e.g. Profitability, Return on Assets) to validate the results. Fifth, Lusch and Brown (1996) found that a high bilateral dependency between partners leads to a heavy reliance on normative contracts (i.e. mutual understanding of the role played by each actor). A study of the relationships among the level of manufacturer-supplier interdependence, social mechanisms, and influence strategy deserves consideration. Finally, from the perspective of reciprocal action theory, the manufacturer should consider the dyadic interplay of influence strategies (Kim, 2000). The coercive or noncoercive influence strategies employed by manufacturers could stimulate the use of the same strategies by the dyadic exchange partner. How would the reciprocal strategies employed by a supplier influence the effectiveness of a manufacturer's influence strategies? Theoretically intriguing and practical questions such as this deserve further study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to examine the means by which influence strategies and social mechanisms (trust and shared vision) influence the flexibility of suppliers, and its ultimate effect on the performance of manufacturers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study bases the major components of marketing research on previous studies related to influence strategies and flexibility in the supply-chain. This empirical study utilized 162 SMIT survey samples.\nFindings: - Results show that using coercive influence strategies and developing a shared vision promote supplier flexibility and fully mediate the effects of trust on supplier flexibility. In addition, supplier flexibility has a significant positive impact on the performance of manufacturers.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The perceptions of manufacturers regarding influence strategies and social mechanisms formed the basis of this study. Future studies could focus on the reciprocal strategies of suppliers, and the influence of these actions on the effectiveness of the influence strategies employed by manufacturers.\nPractical implications: - This paper adds to the existing management guidelines addressing the problem of ensuring increased flexibility from suppliers to enable a more rapid response to the demands of customers to enhance performance.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides novel insights into the impact of influence strategies and social mechanisms on the flexibility of suppliers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer valuation of quality rice attributes in a developing economy: Evidence from a choice experiment in Vietnam
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Consumer",
"Organic",
"WTP",
"Rice",
"IPM"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food systems have changed in recent decades. The goal is not only to feed the population but also to meet current and future nutritional needs and consumer preferences, as well as to use resources more efficiently and to adapt production methods to a changing environment. There has been a growing interest in exploring consumer behavior with respect to quality aspects of food in the context of developing countries. Previous studies in developing countries have evaluated consumer perceptions and valuations of environmentally friendly attributes such as organic or environmentally friendly production methods (Kavoosi-Kalashami and Heydari-Shalmani, 2014; Sriwaranun et al., 2015; Vidogbena et al., 2015), health benefits of food products such as foods enriched with vitamins and other nutrients (Depositario et al., 2009; De Steur et al., 2012), or attributes associated with the well-being of farmers such as fair farmer prices (Garcia-Yi, 2015). The present study fits within this stream of research. More specifically, the study envisages analyzing the valuation of sustainable production methods, health benefits, and price fairness for rice among consumers in Vietnam.\n2. Literature review: Previous studies have explored consumer preferences for more sustainable production methods, such as organic (Hai et al., 2013; Kavoosi-Kalashami and Heydari-Shalmani, 2014; Sriwaranun et al., 2015; Zanoli et al., 2013), IPM (Vidogbena et al., 2015), or both organic and IPM (Bazoche et al., 2014). The reported price premiums for organic rice in Iran (Kavoosi-Kalashami and Heydari-Shalmani, 2014) and in the metropolitan Bangkok, Thailand (Sriwaranun et al., 2015) were 14 and 51 percent, respectively. Other studies have indicated that consumers were willing to pay premiums of 38 percent for vegetables with minimized pesticide residues in Benin (Vidogbena et al., 2015), and 39 percent for vegetables with safety attributes in Kenya (Lagerkvist et al., 2013). Consumers who showed more concern about the presence of chemicals in vegetables (e.g. choy sum) were willing to pay extra for organic vegetables in Vietnam (Hai et al., 2013). Consumers in some European countries were willing to pay more for IPM and organically produced food compared to conventional food (Bazoche et al., 2014). Similarly, Italian consumers were reported to prefer organic beef over conventional beef (Zanoli et al., 2013).\n3. Materials and methods: 3.1 CE design\n4. Results: The results of the GMXL model are presented in Table III. As expected, the coefficient of the no-buy option is significant and negative, indicating that participants gain a higher utility from choosing a rice alternative than from the no-buy option. The coefficients of Organicijt and IPMijt are positive and significant, implying that consumers prefer organically or IPM produced rice over conventional rice. The coefficient of Healthijt is positive and significant, indicating that consumers prefer rice claiming to be \"rich in vitamins and other nutrients\" to rice without this claim and are willing to pay a premium for it. The coefficient of Fairijt is also significant, indicating that consumers favor rice that guarantees a fair price to farmers over rice that does not provide this guarantee.\n5. Discussion: The study showed that consumers from two main urban areas in the South of Vietnam prefer rice produced with sustainable production methods (organic and IPM) over conventional rice and are willing to pay a premium for it. This is consistent with previous studies indicating a price premium for organic rice in developing countries (Kavoosi-Kalashami and Heydari-Shalmani, 2014; Sriwaranun et al., 2015). The price premium for organic rice is 82 percent. However, this premium is still lower than the current price of organic rice on the Vietnamese market. This is consistent with Liu et al. (2013) who reported that the price premiums that Chinese consumers were willing to pay for \"safe food\" (which was defined in that study as hazard free, green, or organic food) were lower than the premiums in the market. Although motives and barriers for consumers were not investigated in the present study, this might explain why market shares of organic rice remain modest at best.\n6. Conclusions: This study highlights the potential and promising added value to consumers of organic rice and of rice produced using the IPM production method, as consumers are willing to pay premiums for these types of rice compared to conventionally produced rice. Consumers are also willing to pay extra for rice with claimed health benefits and for rice that guarantees a fair price to farmers. Consumers' knowledge and understanding of sustainable production methods should be enhanced to increase their appreciation for sustainably produced rice. Furthermore, since the concept of fair trade is relatively new to Vietnamese consumers, greater efforts to communicate the meaning of fair trade are recommended to increase consumers' familiarity with this concept. This study faces some limitations. The study sample focused on urban consumers in two large Vietnamese cities, which limits generalization to the overall Vietnamese population. In addition, the study employed CE as a stated preference method which entails the possibility of hypothetical bias. Future research on this topic through revealed preference methods is recommended.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers' willingness to pay for quality rice attributes in urban areas in the South of Vietnam, including organic and integrated pest management (IPM) as sustainable production methods, and claim about health benefits and fair farmer prices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Cross-sectional data were collected in 2015 using a survey including a choice experiment (CE) (n=500). Generalized mixed logit models were estimated.\nFindings: Vietnamese consumers are willing to pay a premium of 82 percent for organic rice, and 45 percent for rice produced using IPM, compared to conventionally produced rice. They are also willing to pay a premium of 95 percent for rice claiming to be rich in vitamins and other nutrients, and 50 percent for rice that guarantees a fair price to rice farmers.\nResearch limitations/implications: A hypothetical CE was employed. Future research using revealed preference methods is suggested.\nOriginality/value: This study makes a significant contribution to the limited existing literature on consumers' valuation of quality rice attributes in the context of developing countries such as Vietnam. The study shows that rice, that is, sustainably produced using organic or IPM methods provides a promising avenue for rice producers. This study highlights that there is an added value for rice with credence attributes in relation to sustainable production methods, health benefits, and fair farmer prices in a developing country.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An experience based view on leader development: leadership as an emergent and complex accomplishment
|
[
"Leader development",
"Complexity",
"Identity",
"Emergent",
"Context-sensitive",
"Managerial work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nMatching problems in traditional leadership development: Leadership development (LD) has long been criticized for lack of effectiveness and relevance (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002). Managers constitute the main target group for LD because managers typically need to be able to act as leaders to be effective. In this paper, we use the term \"leader\" to focus on the role and the term \"manager\" to focus on the function.\nLeadership development is an identity process: Regarding the first matching problem, an emergent view of LD means that training is not the start of development. Rather, it is an input in an already ongoing identity process manifested in emerging practices, approaches and identities. To become a leader is more of an unfolding identity process and maturity in a role than the application of specific techniques (Andersson, 2012). LD must then be designed to support already ongoing processes, which puts emphasis on more continuous support rather than solitary interventions, to create structures and arenas for continuous reflection on both the leader role and the complexity of the organization.\nRelate leader development to the practice of managerial work: To address the second matching problem, it is important to treat leadership as the social and contextual process it actually is. Research on the work of managers illustrates that activities can be divided into four main categories (Tengblad, 2012):\nPractical implications on how to deal with the two matching problems: In summary, therefore, we would propose the following actions to bring LD closer to the realities of managerial work:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to identify and address matching problems in leader development and to propose how these problems can be dealt with.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on previous research, traditional leadership development (LD) is criticized and alternative approaches are suggested.\nFindings: This research identifies two major matching problems in traditional LD - between participant and development effort and between development effort and realities of managerial work. A context-sensitive and emergent view of LD is suggested to address these matching problems.\nPractical implications: The paper illustrates the need of leader development that is addressing the complex nature of managerial work in a more holistic way and to help participants to understand how such complexities can be dealt with.\nOriginality/value: An alternative view of leader development is identified. It matches managers' diversities and the realities of managerial work better than traditional leader development does.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Caring relationships and efficient social care provision: Can an ethic of care provide a better foundation for responding to care needs in later life?
|
[
"Social policy",
"Social welfare",
"Public policy",
"Social care",
"Elderly people",
"Citizen participation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 1948, significant legislative reforms within Britain's emerging Welfare State were introduced in a climate of post-war political consensus to provide a structure of collective support, protection and care for citizens, and to promote economic, health and social well-being. But has a caring relationship within the delivery of welfare provision been undermined in the UK since then, especially in relation to older people? The question of how public services can contain the cost of care for older people is probably the most pressing public policy issue for this decade and successive governments in recent years have been exercised by the issues involved in achieving a sustainable and politically acceptable way of funding care needs (Humphries, 2013). In relation to formal care, recent UK research highlights neglectful and abusive treatment of older people in hospital (where systematic neglect of patients' basic care needs has resulted in ill treatment and death) and in home care (where visits are often too short to offer meaningful care). A string of reports portray a care system in crisis (Care Quality Commission, 2012; Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2011; Brindle, 2012; Which, 2012; Francis, 2013). This paper will utilise the findings from a small-scale qualitative research project conducted by the authors, to consider the tensions, ideological and practical, within a welfare system that still seeks to offer some support to growing numbers of older people but is experiencing difficulty in doing so during a period of fiscal constraint.\nBackground: policy and practice in England: This paper refers principally to the planning and delivery of social care in England, and raises issues about current policy directions. Nonetheless, the issues raised are of relevance for many capitalist societies where the provision of welfare is under threat. Global demographic trends do not show a consistent pattern of ageing populations and there are noteworthy differences between developed and developing nations. Comparative studies have considered similarities and differences between countries (Chen, 2010; Powell and Cook, 2009). However, a recent United Nations Report stated that the older population world-wide is growing at a rate of 2.6 per cent per year, and considerably faster than the population as a whole (United Nations, 2009). Demographic changes have caused concern before in the UK without an ensuing crisis (Mullan, 2000). However, an older population, which is expanding here due to improved healthcare resulting in improved life expectancy, is now presenting further complications with increasingly complex needs as the population lives longer with chronic conditions of multiple co-morbidities.\nResearch approach: This paper's authors were commissioned by the local authority with statutory responsibility for the delivery of social care services in an English county. The purpose of the study was to consider, from a service user perspective, those services provided to older people to help them continue to live in their own homes as independently as possible, for as long as possible. These services are provided through the voluntary sector in partnership with the statutory sector, based on the previous government's Partnership of Older People Project (POPPS) initiative. This government initiative demonstrated that prevention and early intervention is successful (Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU), 2010) in maintaining the quality of life and independence of older service users in the community, or in facilitating early discharge from hospital back into the community. The commissioned research would be used to help inform local decisions about service planning and potential reorganisation of provision.\nFindings: Three broad themes emerged from the analysis of the inquiry board data, and were used to shape and analyse the interview data:\nDiscussion: caring relationships: The \"Ethics of Care\" refers to a family or group of approaches which stress the importance of acting on the concrete needs of individuals within caring relationships (Engster, 2004). Coming from a feminist perspective (but not confining care to female attributes), theorists typically seek to replace \"what it identifies as dominant masculinist values such as autonomy, independence, conflict and power\" (Cloyes, 2002). ter Muelen (2008) suggests that \"the ethics of care is an ethics of responsibility for the suffering and needy other. It aims to help the other to realize himself or herself by way of personal involvement and support\". It is therefore ideally suited to framing discussions about the most appropriate ways to support older people living independently. For the most part, these discussions focus on the nature of the relationship involving the one-caring (who may have a formal caring role through their professional identity or an informal role as a family member or friend) and the cared-for. In this \"caring relationship\" the one-caring is attentive to the needs of the cared-for and their actions determined by an understanding of these needs (Tronto, 1993; Noddings, 2010). The role of empathy is also highly significant within the caring relationship (Hollway, 2006; Slote, 2007).\nConclusion - can the characteristics of successful caring relationships exist in an environment dominated by \"efficiency\"?: Whilst this paper reports findings from a study conducted in a small region in the UK, its conclusions are applicable for an international audience. Many countries which have similar social support systems face demographic and financial pressures similar to those in the UK and which affect the delivery of social support for older people. The application of thinking based on an ethic of care is generally relevant to these countries and for any professionals considering how to enhance the quality of caring relationships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of support that helps older people continue living in their own homes for as long as they wish to.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research made use of a participatory approach in which service users, service providers and commissioners were involved in the design of the approach in addition to contributing to the research as participants in their own right.\nFindings: This paper presents analysis from the research which focuses on the importance of caring relationships for providing a support mechanism. The authors question whether budget cuts and efficiency drives within statutory care providers preclude the notion of caring relationships.\nPractical implications: The authors suggest, in the light of the evidence presented, that statutory service providers should acknowledge the role that caring relationships play in providing support for older people. Whilst budget cuts make providing support for caring relationships more challenging, the authors suggest that there is scope for delivering services and support in ways which promote the types of interactions which better support older people living independently.\nOriginality/value: The analysis presented here provides a distinctive, timely and thoughtful insight into support for older people at a time when public sector budgets are under increasing pressure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Transparency, communication and mindfulness
|
[
"Communication",
"Listening"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In their article titled \"Gesture and the transparency of understanding\", Lebaron and Koschmann (2003) discuss and demonstrate a major issue emphasized by researchers in the area of language and social interaction (LSI) within the field of communication. In their analysis of the communication between eight participants involved in a problem-based learning exercise, Lebaron and Koschmann (2003) show the ways in which the participants displayed and collaborated in creating their understanding of specific terms through linguistic and embodied forms of communication. For example, as the students interpreted the information in a workbook, they displayed their knowledge interactively by coordinating their talk, completing each other's sentences, repeating each other's hand gestures, and through changes in body orientation and gaze. The authors show that the group's understanding of the terms they were discussing \"was not a private achievement, nor was it a hidden psychological condition inaccessible to analysts. Rather, a transparency of understanding was publicly and interactively achieved ... through visible and audible behaviors carefully orchestrated\" (Lebaron and Koschmann, 2003, pp. 126-127).\nDirections for mindful listening: 1. Start by bringing your attention to your breath and to your body, following your breath as it enters and leaves your body. Notice how your breath moves in your body. Acknowledge any thoughts, labels, judgments or any other distractions and gently bring your attention back to your breath. Practice this for a couple minutes or until your mind starts to get quiet.2. Acknowledge how your body feels (i.e. tense, gripping, relaxed etc.) and breathe into the tensions you feel in your body. As you exhale, release the tension and relax your body. Relax your jaw, your face, shoulders (to feel the movement of breath through your body, you might want to place one hand on your chest and other on your belly. This helps to maintain your awareness on your breath).3. Now you are ready to listen.4. As you listen, keep connected to your breath as best you can. Whenever a thought comes up, acknowledge it as a thought and come back to your breath and listening. If you find strong emotions coming up as you listen which make listening difficult, acknowledge the emotion, breathe and come back to listening. If you notice that you were lost in thought for a while and were distracted, just notice it; gently come back to your breath and to the listening practice. This might happen many times, and each time your job is to, gently but firmly, bring yourself back to your breath and to listening. If you notice that being connected to your breath as you listen is distracting you, then you might be putting in too much effort. Take it easy. Acknowledge any urge to interrupt or lead the direction of the conversation. Your job is to stay with your breath, to stay present, and to receive. Provide minimal verbal feedback to maintain the conversation and focus mostly on nonverbal feedback (nodding, eye contact, smiling if appropriate etc.).5. Now that you know the instructions, perform active and effective listening with a friend, significant other, parents, siblings, boss, grandmother, etc. The person you pick might be someone with whom you would like to improve or repair a relationship, someone who you might not have really listened to before, someone that you need to carefully attend to and work with, someone that you might help \"empty their hearts\" or simply to get to know one another better.6. You might find that the practice of breathing and staying present to the experience of listening is difficult for you. With repeated practice, you will find that it becomes easier to stay present and attentive. Enjoy the process and the experience, and let go of the urge to focus on the results.By not interrupting the other, not shifting the topic, allowing the other to speak as you stay present, engaging in nonverbal displays such as maintaining eye contact, and orienting the body towards the person speaking, one might show the other that one is listening, receiving and giving space to the other to express herself. This is not to suggest that one should be passive and not share ones perspective. This is an invitation to explore the possibility of giving the other person an opportunity to speak without judging or criticizing, and an opportunity for us to engage in really listening. Once we can say that we listened, we can take a more active role in speaking and sharing our perspective or expressing how we feel. Imagine that we could actually be present to listen to each other in the workplace with attention. Would that not help minimize much misunderstanding and confusion, and maybe reduce the amount of time and energy we spend in repairing what we might have missed or misunderstood because we were not really paying attention?In this short paper, I first presented a discussion on transparency of understanding from a communication perspective. Then, I introduced mindful listening as a practice towards achieving transparency in communication. Our active and verbal input, our receptivity and embodied presence (including body orientation, facial expression, eye behavior) are significant factors in creating and displaying transparency of understanding.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of transparency of understanding from a communications perspective, and mindful listening as a mode of communication to achieve it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Provides a discussion and Analysis.\nFindings: - Practical methods to achieve mindful listening are described. Transparency of understanding is publicly and interactively achieved through carefully orchestrated visible and audible behaviors. Drawing on spiritual traditions and language and social interaction research, the author suggests that our active and verbal input, our receptivity and embodied presence, including body orientation, facial expression, and eye behavior are significant factors in creating and displaying transparency of understanding.\nOriginality/value: - The author suggests that if we could actually be present to listen to each other in the workplace with close attention we might minimize much misunderstanding and confusion, and maybe reduce the amount of time and energy we spend in repairing what we might have missed or misunderstood because we were not really paying attention?\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Contribution analysis as an approach to enable public managers to demonstrate public value: The Scottish context
|
[
"Scotland",
"Outcomes",
"Impact",
"Contribution analysis",
"Public value"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The dominant narrative of this paper is couched within the context of public value (Moore, 1995; Stoker, 2006; O'Flynn, 2007; Alford and Hughes, 2008; Alford and O'Flynn, 2009; Williams and Shearer, 2011; Bryson et al., 2014; Hartley et al., 2015; Rutgers, 2015). There are debates about whether the concept of public value represents a new phase for public administration (Alford and Hughes, 2008), a new paradigm (Stoker, 2006), an analytical frame (Williams and Shearer, 2011), a confused concept (Rhodes and Wanna, 2007), or a paradigm refinement from New Public Management (Pyper, 2015). A consistent theme throughout these considerations is that, for public managers, complexity is an inherent aspect of what they do and public managers need to find ways to navigate through complex landscapes whilst seeking to achieve, and being held to account for, value-creation (Moore, 1995). This paper argues that contribution analysis can be used to navigate what many have described as the complexities of network governance (see Rhodes, 1994; Haynes, 2015; O'Toole, 2015). In definitional terms, contribution analysis is an approach developed by John Mayne (2001) for examining causal questions and determining causality, based on evidence and plausibility, in programme evaluation. What carves contribution analysis out as different from other approaches which have a goal-focussed or option-based orientation is the drawing together of planning and evaluation to enable public managers, policy-makers and researchers to understand the extent to which programme or policy outcomes are the result of policy interventions, programmes or service-level activities (Scottish Government, 2011). A further key \"contribution\" of contribution analysis is that it acknowledges complexity from the outset and enables policy and programme actors to develop an evidenced-based narrative of why observed results have occurred (or not as the case may be) including the roles and impacts of internal and external factors (Mayne, 2012). The approach is also a means by which public managers can demonstrate the achievement of outcomes or the \"value-added\" from interventions within in partnership contexts (Alford and Hughes, 2008). Contribution analysis elevates the importance of both context and the need for pragmatism in the use of evidence which, in short, is what public administrators need to know about in light of the twin pressures of austerity and the ever present pressures of the \"outcomes agenda\" in the public sector. In this context, contribution analysis is a mechanism for channelling and executing public value and to make sense of the world of complex interactions. This serves to move the academic debate forward by rebuking criticisms that value-based approaches to the understanding of public sector governance represent no more than rhetorical strategies without any methodological backbone (Roberts, 1995). In short, the research objective driving this paper is to consider the potential utility of contribution analysis as representing a methodology for taking forward analyses and assessments of public value.\nMethodology: The empirical underpinning of the paper emerges from strands of applied public sector experience and consultancy activities with national public sector agencies. The author was a public manager (up to 2013) within a national government agency - NHS Health Scotland. NHS Health Scotland is a national (non-territorial) Health Board working with public, private and third sectors to reduce health inequalities and improve health. The roles of the author included conducting and commissioning evaluations of complex policy national interventions (including programmes involving collaboration between the public and third sectors, e.g. the national \"Keep Well\" programme - discussed later in this paper); leading on the capacity building of outcomes-based evaluation with public sector partners; and advising government officials on policy/programme evaluation. The research is also informed by data gathered as an academic consultant with national partnership-based agencies including Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Education Scotland (2013-present). The consultancy activity included leading a series of workshops on capacity building related to the use of contribution analysis within national agencies. In terms of the remit of the agencies, Healthcare Improvement Scotland aims to support and empower people to have an informed voice in managing their own care and in shaping how services are designed and delivered; scrutinise healthcare practice; provide quality improvement (QI) support to healthcare providers, and provide clinical standards, guidelines and advice based upon the best available evidence (HIS workshop participant, 2015). Education Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government and aims to improve the quality of Scotland's education system (Education Scotland workshop participant, 2015).\nPublic value management: The concept of public value has been described in various ways-leading to claims that it is \"confused\", \"fuzzy\" and \"vague\" (Rhodes and Wanna, 2007; Williams and Shearer, 2011; Rutgers, 2015). Rhodes and Wanna (2007) question the transferability of the concept from the US system where the decision-making autonomy of public officials are more clearly delineated. However, the view that the concept lacks transferability can be challenged given that public managers are being held to account for the quality and \"value-added\" of services in network contexts (Bennington and Moore, 2011a). Public value management refers to the work of public managers as \"value-seekers\" (Moore, 1995) in taking forward a new governing process (Rhodes, 1997). This is in order to manage, steer and navigate through complex interactions within collaborative networks in order to demonstrate the impact and create value at macro, meso and micro levels (Huxham and Vangen, 2006). The literature suggests that public value, and value-creation processes, is associated with the following: co-production and citizen participation, managerial autonomy and accountability, emphasis on outcomes, pragmatism and methodological ideological purity, devolution of authority, evaluative and responsive organisational culture, organisational learning, continuous innovation, network management, and collaboration and partnership working (Moore, 1995; Alford and Hughes, 2008; Stoker, 2006; O'Flynn, 2007; Try and Radnor, 2007; Alford and O'Flynn, 2009; Williams and Shearer, 2011; Bryson et al., 2014; Hartley et al., 2015; Rutgers, 2015). Bryson et al. (2014, p. 455) maintain that much more work is needed to understand the processes which produce and sustain public value. It is rather notable that within public value research that there is scarce discussion about how public managers can pragmatically navigate network governance contexts in order to demonstrate impact at multiple levels (the debates are often conceptual and usually take place between academics). In terms of navigating to seek public value (Moore, 1995), it is important for public managers to recognise that societal outcomes are likely to be influenced by economic, social and political forces, and the greater degree of multi-partnership working, the more likely are the risks of such forces impacting on the achievement of outcomes. Although much has been written about the challenges of policy and programme implementation (e.g. see Barrett, 2004; Hill and Hupe, 2014), bringing together planning and evaluation processes minimises the risks of programme and policy failure and enhances opportunities for policy success through partnership-based implementation processes (Marsh and McConnell, 2010; Hill and Hupe, 2014). In this respect, public managers need support and guidance when it comes to \"securing\" public value and contribution analysis can make a contribution to this agenda.\nPursuing public value: contribution analysis: The conceptual development and application of contribution analysis has emerged from results-based management incorporating public management principles and ideas. Canada has led the way in terms of framing how the approach is appropriate for modern public administration (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003; Try and Radnor, 2007; Mayne, 2012). As such, there has been a significant degree of transnational policy learning by NHS Health Scotland who have adopted the approach for planning and evaluating public health programmes (see NHS Health Scotland, 2014, 2015). NHS Health Scotland have also influenced the Scottish Government in promoting contribution analysis as way to demonstrate impact against national-level outcomes (known as the National Performance Framework) and for evaluating major policy programmes (e.g. the legacy of the 2014 Commonwealth Games) (see Scottish Government, 2011, 2013, 2015).\nApplying contribution analysis in the Scottish context: the \"Keep Well\" programme: A key example from the Scottish context of the application of contribution analysis is in relation to the \"Keep Well\" programme. This national programme formed an important part of the Scottish Government's policy is to provide safe, person-centred, effective, efficient, equitable, and timely care and, through this, to improve the experience and health outcomes of patients within cardiovascular health settings (NHS Scotland, 2010). The programme is a targeted population-based health intervention delivered via health checks and aimed to contribute to a reduction in cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality and morbidity (and risk factors) amongst the most deprived sections of the population in order to reduce health inequalities. The programme was rolled out across NHS Health Boards in a series \"waves\". Each wave evolved slightly differently from its predecessor, with additional interventions and target populations within each NHS Board area having the autonomy to implement the programme according to their local requirements. Although a previous programme evaluation highlighted that \"Keep Well\" had some impact in terms of reaching and engaging with those in areas of high deprivation (but less so with the \"most deprived\") (Wang et al., 2010), there was yet to be analysis of models of implementation and of impact in terms of programme outcomes. The author was part of a small team who were tasked with setting the terms the impact evaluation with the Scottish Government. The policy discussions were dominated by which evaluation options would be most feasible in the interests of pragmatism due to limited financial resources. This led to the decision that the evaluation would be pragmatic and conducted \"in-house\" (i.e. led by NHS Health Scotland as a national agency) rather than it being externally commissioned (unlike the previous evaluation). Pragmatism gained evermore importance due to the programme knowledge that the intervention had been implemented in different ways across Health Boards involving a range of public and third sector partners. Moreover, at a research design level, opportunities for data linkage to assess health outcomes using practice-level data (from the general practice) was hampered by the lack of linked IT systems between primary and secondary care and, coupled with this, there were barriers to data release from general practices due to data governance restrictions. Nevertheless there was a need to consider what the programme was \"there to do\" from the perspective of national Scottish Government policy-makers. This was important for two reasons. First, in order to know about \"what\" to evaluate in terms of which outcomes will be the basis of making judgements about the success or failure of the intervention. Second, there was a need to develop a framework for researching how the programme developed, matured and was implemented in a range of geographical and organisational contexts.\nConceptual and empirical congruities: discussion: In view of what has been presented in the paper thus far the remainder of the paper considers the challenges and issues in implementing contribution analysis and the ways in which these challenges can be translated into programme solutions coupled with the levels of congruence between contribution analysis and public value.\nConclusions: The paper has emerged as a result of a lack of academic research on how public managers can actually create public value from a methodological perspective. This paper is based on the author's experience of working within public services and latterly as an academic consultant working with public sector bodies. The transition from being more \"applied\" to that of a facilitator has been a useful one in the sense that it brings a level of credibility when it comes to engaging with various partners on the contribution analysis process. It also allows for insights on power and political dynamics and relationships with funders to be more clearly understood when working with agencies who have been tasked to take forward an evaluation of outcomes in complex contexts. This understanding can be built into discussions regarding the formulation of theories of change and with respect to the development of risks, assumptions and mitigating actions. The need to demonstrate outcomes, as has been evident in Scottish governance, continues to dominate the work of public managers who lead and manage within dense partnership networks in attempting to address \"wicked problems\" (Weber and Khademian, 2008) such as social and health inequalities (as can be seen with the Keep Well example in this paper). This paper also supports the perspective that \"agencification\" allows for key opportunities for leadership and innovation within partnership contexts when there is a degree of meaningful autonomy from top-down/formalised bureaucratic control (Wynen et al., 2014). The paper has shown how contribution analysis has many uses in supporting public managers to create public value. It represents an important new way of thinking and provides practical tools for public managers who require pragmatic and effective mechanisms for navigating complex governance landscapes. For Scotland, \"governance is alive and well and the primary means of government. The networked [...] forms of governance are less fundamental than they are tactical\" (Hill and Lynn, 2005 cited in Frederickson, 2005, p. 298). In this respect, \"tactical\" evokes a sense of context-dependence and that governance environments, and navigating through networks, is an innovative activity or art-form which requires public managers to have the skillsets for network-building, network management and being able to draw together evidence to demonstrate impact against outcomes. It is the public managers working at meso levels who tend to act as \"champions\" by advocating the approach to senior managers within public sector bodies - thus supporting the argument that the focus of public value research needs to be re-orientated from its heavy focus on senior leaders as they are not always the key change agents (see Moore, 1995). This programme-led or \"middle-up\" approach parallels Kanter's (1983, pp. 27-35) view of organisational change through innovation who maintains that \"macro-change\" is as a result of an accumulation of \"micro-changes\" which are enabled by a culture of integrative thinking. This integrative thinking can be facilitated by the implementation of matrix-organisational structures around programmes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the paper considers the level of congruence between contribution analysis and public value. Second, based on the Scottish context, the paper examines how contribution analysis can be used as a method to support public managers to demonstrate value within partnership contexts in times of acute governance challenges (including in times of austerity).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical underpinning of the paper emerges from strands of applied public sector experience and consultancy with national agencies. The author was a public manager (up to 2013) within a national government agency - NHS Health Scotland. The research is also informed by data gathered as an academic consultant in contribution analysis with national partnership-based agencies (Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Education Scotland, 2013-present) through a series of workshops as part of consultancy activity on capacity building in relation to evaluation methodology and practice.\nFindings: Based on research and experience with three national public sector agencies in Scotland, the paper demonstrates how public managers, despite difficult challenges, have adopted contribution analysis and how this has served to facilitate public value.\nOriginality/value: In a time when public managers are facing acute challenges in demonstrating the impact of their programmes and services due to the dynamics of complex governance systems coupled with the pressure of austerity, this research helps to equip public managers with strategies to enable the demonstration of public value in pragmatic terms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Measuring employee readiness for knowledge management using intention to be involved with KM SECI processes
|
[
"Knowledge management readiness",
"Knowledge management acceptance",
"Knowledge management process",
"SECI process",
"Knowledge management research",
"Knowledge management",
"Sri Lanka",
"Organizational behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The importance of knowledge management (KM) has been well documented as businesses are beginning to accept the notion that knowledge and innovation as significant contributors to organizational success and competitiveness (Omerzel, 2010). As a result, many researchers are found engaging in research in various different areas of KM involving technological, infrastructural, financial or human perspectives within the organizations. Some research can also be found giving focus on organizational readiness for KM (KM readiness) (Mamaghani et al., 2011; Shirazi et al., 2011; Mohammadi et al., 2009; Wei et al., 2009; Holt et al., 2007; Siemieniuch and Sinclair, 2004; Razi and Karim, 2010, 2011) in organizations, as embarking in KM requires intense preparation and significant amount of resource investment.Organizations need to understand the degree of acceptance or preparedness among the employees before making commitment to providing the necessary policy supports and infrastructures to be involved with KM activities and initiatives. Acceptance from the user perspective has been long seen as highly crucial in the organizational and human behavioural perspective (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Davis, 1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003). Such acceptance would indicate the degree of readiness of the organization to further embark on various KM initiatives and resource allocations. Though, studies on KM readiness can be found available in the literature (Mamaghani et al., 2011; Shirazi et al., 2011; Mohammadi et al., 2009; Wei et al., 2009; Holt et al., 2007; Siemieniuch and Sinclair, 2004; Razi and Karim, 2010, 2011), not much is available in providing good measurement assessment using the behavioural intention perspective. Such perspective is commonly applied in the technology acceptance model (TAM) to indicate success and readiness in technology use and implementation (Davis, 1989).KM implementation in organizations requires significant amount of change to its strategies, processes, and initiatives. These changes can take many forms ranging from organizational strategies, human attitudes, and physical infrastructures. It is therefore, highly important that an evaluation on organizational readiness to implement KM can be done prior to any attempt to embark on various KM initiatives (Holt et al., 2007; Siemieniuch and Sinclair, 2004). Indeed, not many attempts have been made among researchers to investigate this area of KM, though such knowledge and understanding could have provided organizations with more effective and efficient means of implementing various KM initiatives and programmes (Wei et al., 2009).KM readiness is a concept that has been constantly investigated using various different means and perspectives. Authors, such as Holt et al. (2007), Keith et al. (2006), Wei et el. (2009), Siemieniuch and Sinclair (2004), Taylor and Schellenberg (2008) and Rowley (2000), have made attempts to work on this focus area of KM. Still, the concept of KM readiness remains indecisive and requires more research works to further strengthening its concept, methodological, and measurement approaches. Among research attempts made on KM readiness are those conducted by Wei et al. (2009), Taylor and Schellenberg (2008), Rowley (2000) and Razi and Karim (2010, 2011).KM readiness (organizational readiness for KM) has been measured in the past by measuring gaps between the perceived KM effectiveness and its perceived importance to the related organizational practices (Taylor and Schellenberg, 2008), and by measuring the gaps between perceived importance and actual implementation of selected KM related organizational practices (Wei et al., 2009). Arguably, these existing approaches using gap analyses may not necessarily reflect the notion of readiness as claimed by the authors. Indeed, the gaps identified were mere indicators of the status of KM implementation success and performance as evaluated from the employees' perspective. Therefore, the alternative concept of KM readiness as proposed by the authors needs to reflect the notion of organization being ready through employee acceptance.Other more prevalent theories in behavioural science such as readiness theory (Pruitt, 2007), community readiness model (Kelly et al., 2003), readiness for organizational change (Lehman et al., 2002; Armenakis et al., 1993), and individual acceptance models (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Davis, 1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003), are found relevant in this pursuit. Therefore, KM readiness can be translated into receptive attitudes of organizational members to be involved in KM process through the availability of resources and various other organizational internal and external factors. In an attempt to provide readiness measures from the behavioural intention perspective, KM readiness has, therefore, been defined in this research as the intention to be involved in the KM processes by the organizational individuals (executives) within the prevailing organizational context. The KM processes, which are commonly known as the SECI processes of socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization are the key indicators of KM existence in organizations (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). Willingness to be involved in part or in whole of these KM SECI processes is arguably a good indicator of KM readiness in the organization.This research seeks to provide an analysis of KM readiness in organizations from the proposed behavioural intention measures. In this regards, readiness is perceived when the employees collectively give high level of intention in getting involved with the KM SECI processes. The KM processes measures from SECI are comprised of four variables namely socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. This measurement model is expected to contribute significantly in our pursuit to understand and measure KM readiness, and in our future understanding of a full KM readiness model that may comprised of other contributors such as KM enablers (organizational structures, cultures, IT infrastructure) and individual expectation and acceptance (performance expectancy and effort expectancy).\n2 KM process: KM, in a nutshell, has been defined as doing what is needed to get the most out of knowledge resources (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). In other organizational context, KM is defined as any intentional and systematic process or practice of acquiring, capturing, sharing, and using productive knowledge, wherever it resides, to enhance learning and performance in organizations (Bozbura, 2007). Although there are discrepancies in the literature regarding the processes involved in KM, there are four basic processes of KM commonly known in the literature. These are creating, storing/retrieving, transferring, and applying knowledge (Alavi and Leinder, 2001). However, among the KM processes, the processes of knowledge creation and sharing have been given much importance (Lee and Choi, 2003). As such, only the process of knowledge creation and sharing would be considered as KM process in this work.2.1 Knowledge creation and knowledge sharing\n3 Methodology: 3.1 Data collection and measurement\n4 Findings: 4.1 The revised measurement model\n5 Discussions and conclusion: This study provides research results through analysis of KM readiness measurement adopted based on the four SECI processes of socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. Findings have indicated the revised model to be reliable and valid after different phases in the analysis process using CFA were conducted. The revised model has shown the importance of all four factors namely socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization variables in measuring behavioural intention of KM processes. These factors form a reasonably valid model for assessing KM readiness through intention to be involved in the KM processes among organizational employees. Based on the revised model developed, analysis of KM readiness in the Sri Lankan telecommunication industry has also pointed towards a positive direction. This means, people are ready and willing to adopt the KM processes identified.KM, being important contributors of success in organizations, has been heavily misunderstood with the huge investment in information technology infrastructure. Undeniably, various KM initiatives requires significant amount of cost and commitment by organizations. Many organizations ended up failed to benefit from its KM investment due lack of readiness and understanding among their business executives. Therefore, it is advisable that organizations make an attempt to assess KM readiness before embarking on actual investment and implementation of various possibly expensive KM related activities, systems, and technologies. It is the process within KM that is perhaps matters more than the physical aspect of the concept. This, therefore, should justify the needs for better understanding and more expansion of research in KM readiness through intention to be involved in the KM processes.Though organizations possess good physical infrastructures such as office space and equipments, IT facilities, etc. main contributions and initiatives of KM must come from the organizational members who are ready and willing to share information and generate new knowledge for the organization. Therefore, the revised and validated instruments developed from the results of this study should be useful in assessing KM readiness among these members. In addition, being not a well-defined concept, the research community can consider this attempt as a threshold in KM readiness assessment and should continue to improve the quality of the measurements through more empirical research in different settings. Future work needs to focus more on the full model of KM readiness by looking into contributing factors or antecedent of the intention to get involve in KM process concept. The extent of willingness to be involve in various KM processes and activities among employees can be attributable to factors such as existing organizational culture, structure, IT infrastructure, and various other human attributes.Given the importance of KM in organizations as illustrated earlier, the results are also expected to provide sound measures of KM readiness from behavioural intention perspective before organizations can embark on any expensive and costly KM initiatives. The indicators also allow for organizations to evaluate and understand how far the employees perceive and understand the concept of KM and willing to be part of the process. The research provides a new perspective in understanding KM readiness in organizations from the behavioural intention perspective. The measures acquired from the research will contribute significantly to future research by linking them with various other contributing factors of KM readiness such as technological, organizational, and individual perspectives.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of knowledge management (KM) readiness using intention to be involved in the KM processes concept. These processes comprised of socialisation, externalisation, combination, and internalisation (SECI processes). The research also attempts to measure and validate the concept using data collected from the Sri Lankan telecommunication industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on the established KM SECI process measures adopted and adapted, instruments were administered using a survey research methodology approach on 313 executives working in the selected organizations in the Sri Lankan telecommunication industry. A confirmatory factor analysis technique was performed to verify and validate the measurement model of the intention to be involved in KM processes model. Based on the revised measurement model, the level of intention to be involved in the KM SECI processes within the industry was then reported.\nFindings: - The research finding provides the revised measurement model for employees' intention to be involved in KM SECI processes. All four variables of the intention to be involved in KM SECI processes emerged as significant and reliable measures for KM readiness. The finding also indicates the positive level of intention among the employees in the Sri Lankan telecommunication industry to be involved in KM processes.\nOriginality/value: - The research provides a unique perspective of KM readiness, which is not much covered in the KM literature. The measurement produced can be used as a research tool for more exploratory and explanatory research in KM and, as an evaluative tool for employee readiness in ensuring the success of KM initiatives in organizations. The confirmed and validated set of measurement items can be used to measure the extent to which employees are ready to be involved with KM processes. Through the validated tool, more research can be conducted to explore the antecedents of such readiness perception.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Evaluating methods for the reliability of a three-dimensional k-within system
|
[
"Maintenance reliability",
"Numerical analysis",
"Mechanical systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPractical implications: In this study, we consider a kind of three-dimensional version of linear consecutive-k-within-consecutive-r-out-of-n:F system, i.e. the three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(n1, n2, n3):F system. Up to now some researchers studied multi-dimensional consecutive-k-out-of-n:F systems, and showed promising applications of such multi-dimensional models, e.g. diagnosis of a disease diagnosed by reading an X-ray. As another examples, three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(n1, n2, n3):F system can be applied for the mathematical model of a three-dimensional flash memory cell failure model, hypercube topology of the connection network, and so on.When evaluating the system reliability by using an enumeration method exactly in reasonable execution time, it is possible only for very small sized problems. Therefore, we focus on approximate values of system reliabilities, which can be calculated easily in a reasonable time.In this study, first, we propose upper and lower bounds for the reliability of a three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(n1, n2, n3):F system, which are useful for evaluating the reliability of large systems in a reasonable time and then we evaluate characteristics of the upper and lower bounds. Next, we propose limit theorem for a three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(n1, n2, n3):F system in i.i.d. case. And, we can get the minimum value of the component reliabilities, with which the system has the larger reliability than the demanded system reliability, by using approximate equation from the limit theorem.Consequently, we experimentally found that our proposed upper and lower bounds are effective when component reliabilities close to one or the value of k becomes larger.Furthermore, for approximate equation derived from the limit theorem, we concluded the following remarks through numerical experiments:1. Approximate values are always smaller than our proposed lower bound.2. We obtained the minimum value of the component reliabilities, with which the system has the larger reliability than the demanded system reliability, by using approximate equation from the limit theorem.\nIntroduction: The consecutive-k-out-of-n:F systems have been extensively studied since the early 1980s. This type of system can be regarded as a one-dimensional reliability model and can be extended to two- or d-dimensional versions (d>=2). There are a few papers treating three-dimensional type, whose reliability is equal to the probability that a radiologist might not detect their presence of a disease (Salvia and Lasher, 1990). However, we have not obtained the efficient algorithm to estimate reliability of such a complex system yet. As initial related studies, Psillakis and Makri (1994) analyzed three-dimensional linear consecutive-k-out-of-r-from-n:F systems by using a simulation method. Godbole et al. (1998) proposed upper bound for the reliability of a d-dimensional linear consecutive-k-out-of-n:F system. Boushaba and Ghoraf (2002) proposed upper and lower bounds and a limit theorem for three-dimensional linear consecutive-k-out-of-n:F system, based on the research results of limit theorem for a two-dimensional consecutive-k-out-of-n:F system (Koutras et al., 1993).In this study, we consider a kind of three-dimensional version of linear consecutive-k-within-consecutive-r-out-of-n:F system, i.e. the three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(n1, n2, n3):F system (denoted as k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system throughout this paper). It takes huge execution time to deal with large sized problems by using an enumeration method. However, we have not useful methods for evaluating the exact reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system when system size becomes large. Therefore, we focus on approximate values of system reliabilities, which can be calculated easily in a reasonable time.In this study, first, we propose upper and lower bounds for the reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system, which are useful for evaluating the reliability of large systems in a reasonable time and then we evaluate characteristics of the upper and lower bounds. Next, we propose limit theorem for a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system in i.i.d. case. And, we obtained the minimum value of the component reliabilities, with which the system has the larger reliability than the demanded system reliability, by using approximate equation from the limit theorem.\nDescription of k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system: Definition of the system\nProposal of upper and lower bounds: In this section, we propose upper and lower bounds for the reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system. By using the above notations, the upper and lower bounds for the system reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system for non-i.i.d. case are given in Theorem 1.\nTheorem 1: Upper bound UB and lower bound LB for the reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system are given as follows: Equation 8 Equation 9 The proof of Theorem 1 is given in the appendix at the end of this paper.In the i.i.d. cases, corollary 1 gives the upper and lower bounds with no description of Shij, Ghij and Ehij. For integers l1, l2, we define Equation 10\nCorollary 1: Let p be component reliability.1. Lower bound LBp is given as Equation 11 where Equation 12 Equation 13 2. Upper bound UBp is given as Equation 14 where for h[?]r1, i[?]r2, j[?]r3, Equation 15 Equation 16 la=max{0, min{h-r1, r1-1}}, lb=min{r1-1, n1-h}, lc=max{0, min{i-r2, r2-1}} ld=max{0, min{j-r3, r3-1}} le=min{r2-1, n2-i} lf=lc+r2, lg=ld+r3 and lm=le(lg-1).And NG(t;h, i, j) and NE(t;h, i, j) are given as follows. For h>r1, i>r2, j>r3,Fixed graphic 1 Equation 17 Except the range of h>r1, i>r2, j>r3, NG(t; h, i, j) and NE(t; h, i, j) are obtained similarly.Corollary 1 can be proven with similar manner to corollary 1 in Akiba and Yamamoto (2002). That is, NL(t; h, i, j) means the number of the states that the event Shij occurs when just t components fail in uxvxw rectangular solid with component (h, i, j) as its upper right deep apex. Similarly, NG(t; h, i, j) means the number of the states that \"event Ghij occurs and just t components fail in #G(h, i, j)\", and NE(t; h, i, j) means the number of states that \"event Ehij occurs and just t components fail in r1xr2xr3 rectangular solid with component (h, i, j) as its upper right deep apex\".\nEvaluation: We calculated the upper and lower bounds for the reliabilities of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system. In Table I, we show some results of numerical experiments in i.i.d. cases. We calculated the upper and lower bounds for the following systems with the identical component reliability. The system size parameters n1, n2 and n3 are set to 10, 50 and 100, respectively. All of the size parameters of the rectangular solid r1, r2 and r3 takes the value of 2. And, the number of failure components k take the value of 2 or 3.From Table I, the numerical experiments shows that the difference between the lower bound LB and the upper bound UB is getting smaller when component reliabilities are close to one. Also, we found that the difference between the lower bound LB and the upper bound UB is also getting smaller when the value of k becomes larger and component reliability p's values are same.Consequently, we experimentally found that our proposed upper and lower bounds are effective when component reliabilities close to one or the value of k becomes larger. Furthermore, it is predicted that a limit theorem may hold.\nLimit theorem: Now, we consider i.i.d. cases in this section. First, we propose a limit theorem when all of n1, n2 and n3 approach to infinity. For a mathematical description, we redefine component reliability pn1 as a function of n1. Letting f(*) and g(*) be a monotone increasing function, we suppose n2=f(n1) and n3=g(n1) as the relationship between n1, n2 and n3.Let R(k,r1,r2,r3,n1,n2,n3;[pn1]) be the reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system with component reliability pn1.\nTheorem 2: Let l be a positive constant value. If Equation 18 then Equation 19 where Equation 20 The proof of theorem 2 is given in the appendix at the end of this paper.Substituting n1n2n3(1-pn1)k for l in equation (12), we can get Equation 21 In order to evaluate the efficiency of these approximate formulas, we calculated exp[-N(k)n1n2n3(1-p)k] with lower bound LBp and upper bound UBp. The results are shown in Table II. From Table II, we found that approximate formula is smaller than LBp.Therefore, we conclude by proposing equation (14) as an approximate formula for the reliability of a k/(r1, r2, r3)/(n1, n2, n3):F system.By using equation (14), we can easily obtain component reliability and that assures a certain level of system reliability. From equation (14), it is easy to see that Equation 22 For example, if we design a system with more than 0.99 reliability when r1=r2=r3=3 and k=5, then component reliability p must be larger than 0.988812 when n1xn2xn3>=1.0x103, 0.997190 when n1xn2xn3>=1.0x106, and 0.999294 when n1xn2xn3>=1.0x109. However, note that these approximate values exist in the safety side.\nConclusion: In this study, we propose the upper and lower bounds for reliabilities of a three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(n1, n2, n3):F system. Consequently, we experimentally found that our proposed upper and lower bounds are effective when component reliabilities close to one or the value of k becomes larger.Furthermore, for approximate equation derived from the limit theorem, we concluded the following remarks through numerical experiments:1. approximate values by equation (14) are always smaller than LBp; and2. we obtained the minimum value of the component reliabilities by equation (15), with which the system has the larger reliability than the demanded system reliability, by using approximate equation from the limit theorem. That is, minimum values of the component reliabilities by equation (15) are always have the values in a safety side.And, we demonstrated that we could design system parameters by equation (15).In addition, the upper and lower bounds for the reliability of a system can be calculated by using the reliability of a small three-dimensional system (for example, three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r1, r2, r3)-out-of-(r1, n2, n3):F system) by the same idea as previous study for two-dimensional k-within-consecutive-(r, s)-out-of-(m, n):F system (Akiba et al., 2000). We think this is future work in this study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - For the considered system, an enumeration method is applicable to evaluate the exact system reliability only for very small-sized systems, because, when the size of system is large, it takes huge execution time. Therefore, the paper provides approximate values for the system reliability as useful for calculating the reliability of large systems in a reasonable execution time.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper provides upper and lower bounds of the system reliability, and limit theorem for the reliability of our considered system in i.i.d. case.\nFindings: - The paper experimentally finds that the proposed upper and lower bounds are effective when component reliabilities close to one or the value of k becomes larger. Next, it concludes approximate values for approximate equation derived from the limit theorem are always smaller than lower bound through numerical experiments.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The upper and lower bounds for the reliability of a system can be calculated by using the reliability of a small system by the same idea as previous study for two-dimensional system.\nPractical implications: - Up to now some researchers studied multi-dimensional consecutive-k-out-of-n:F systems, and showed promising applications of such multi-dimensional models, e.g. diagnosis of a disease diagnosed by reading an X-ray. As another examples, three-dimensional system can be applied for the mathematical model of a three-dimensional flash memory cell failure model, and so on.\nOriginality/value: - The paper considers a kind of three-dimensional k-within-consecutive-r-out-of-n:F system. It proposes upper and lower bounds of the system reliability and limit theorem.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Brand avoidance: underlying protocols and a practical scale
|
[
"Brand avoidance",
"Scale development",
"Anti-branding",
"Brand relationships"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A widely held belief in the branding literature suggests that several intrinsic and extrinsic equities about brands trigger consumers' patronage. These factors may stem from either the innate characteristics of consumers and brands or those connected to external stimuli, ideally resulting in favourable outcomes such as brand preference and choice (Narteh et al., 2012), love (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006) and loyalty (Odoom, 2016). However, the branding literature has relatively under-recognised, as well as under-researched, the other extremes of these outcomes that can emanate from consumer-brand interactions - such as brand apathy, rejection, hate, opposition and avoidance (Cromie and Ewing, 2009; Kucuk, 2008; Fournier and Alvarez, 2013; Romani et al., 2015; Wolter et al., 2016).\nTheoretical background and literature review: Anti-consumption and consumer attachment\nMethodology: Phase 1: item generation and questionnaire administration\nDiscussions and conclusions: Academic and practitioner interests on negative brand relationships have spawned in the past decade. However, the highlights in the topic area include an equivocal understanding of conceptual boundaries and the empirical constituents of the various facets of negative brand phenomena (Park et al., 2013). Our study investigated the conceptual and theoretical aspects of brand avoidance and its mechanism. Previous literature on the subject (Lee et al., 2009b; Knittel et al., 2016) focussed on conceptual explorations, with limited studies on scale development. As a result, extant studies in the area have not pragmatically provided an integrated, useable measurement index for empirically assessing the concept. We attempted filling this gap by generating and testing, based on existing conceptualisations, a comprehensive second-order brand avoidance scale, composed of five first-order variables and 23 measuring items. Guided by the literature and using a step-by-step approach, we identified and established a brand avoidance scale using a formative measurement procedure. Our final construct is a composite of indicators and items that are rigorously validated via the recommended processes.\nContributions: The study progresses the current understanding of negative brand phenomena in several ways: consolidation of mechanisms, use of formative approach in the scale development, nomological validation test and different empirical setting. First, we respond to the calls for further investigations into this area by identifying, from a quantitative approach, the taxonomical dimensions/mechanisms underlying brand avoidance. These mechanisms have been typically studied in isolation in existing studies and are yet to be empirically tested in a consolidated manner, primarily owing to the absence of a comprehensively established brand avoidance scale. Our study thus adds to the literature an initial attempt to not only provide scale measures but also empirically examine, in an amalgamated manner, the avoidance mechanisms that have only been qualitatively conceptualised with limited, fragmented empirical tests.\nManagerial implications: In our attempt to develop and establish a measurable brand avoidance scale, we have offered a practical tool to help brand managers and organisations ascertain the mechanisms underlying situations where their brands have faced possible avoidance stints from consumers. The provided scale is also concrete and relevant for carrying out industrial investigations to implement future measures for eschewing negative brand relationships. Therefore, by addressing the exigencies of such negative brand phenomena, organisations and brand owners will be better able to understand and promptly address the triggers of negative brand outcomes. Consequently, our study complements the strategic approaches undertaken by firms to increase the positive corollaries of their brands.\nImplications for future research and limitations: Based on the limited nature of the literature, it becomes an opportune call for scholarly investigations to:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The increased practitioner and academic interest in negative brand phenomena highlight the need for the development of practical scales to be used for empirical investigations. Therefore, this paper aims to draw on existing conceptualisations to provide a theoretically grounded yet practically oriented scale for examining brand avoidance and its protocols.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a sample of 575 consumers from two developing countries to create a parsimonious brand avoidance scale. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to analyse the data through a systematic formative measurement approach\nFindings: This paper finds brand avoidance to be a multidimensional, second-order construct with five first-order dimensions: moral avoidance, identity avoidance, deficit-value avoidance, experiential avoidance and advertising-related avoidance. The paper further validates this scale by testing with non-purchase intention and identifies its positive relationship with brand avoidance.\nOriginality/value: This study fulfils the calls in the literature to provide a measurable scale for studying negative brand phenomena in consumer-brand relationship research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Can Six Sigma be effectively implemented in SMEs?
|
[
"Quality management",
"Six sigma",
"Process management",
"Performance management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Six Sigma is a well-established approach that seeks to identify and eliminate defects, mistakes or failures in business processes or systems by focusing on those process performance characteristics that are of critical importance to customers. With more than two decades of successful implementation of Six Sigma methodologies at major corporations, the benefits of Six Sigma are well documented. Although Six Sigma has been implemented with success in many large corporations, there is still less documented evidence of its implementation in smaller organisations. Moreover, in the author's experience as a researcher and quality management consultant, SMEs are still not convinced that Six Sigma can be effectively implemented within SMEs. This article attempts to address this issue - can Six Sigma can be effectively implemented in SMEs? One of the common myths of Six Sigma that has emerged over the last few years is that it is just applicable to large corporations with immense resources and budget. The purpose of this article is to test this myth and to show that a Six Sigma-based business strategy is applicable to all kinds of businesses irrespective of the size and type of industry; manufacturing or service.\nDr Ronald Snee - Principal of Tunnell Consulting, USA: SMEs can, and have, effectively applied Six Sigma. Companies with 1 to 5 billion dollars in sales typically get 2 to 4 per cent of sales to the bottom-line each year using Six Sigma. There are issues for SMEs such as:*difficult to stay focused due to many distractions within the business;*difficult to dedicate six sigma black belts full time to executing projects;*employees perform many different functions unlike larger organizations;*senior management leadership is important; and*can start by focusing on \"low hanging fruits\".An effective strategy is to identify project purpose, payback in hard cash savings and required resources (people time and expenses) and then decide if it makes business sense to employ the Six Sigma strategy.\nDr Roger Hoerl - GE Global Research, USA: There is nothing inherent in Six Sigma that makes it more suitable for large companies. We tend to think of Six Sigma for large organisations, because the media tends to focus on GEs, 3Ms, and other Fortune 100 companies' success. Six Sigma can have a significant impact on SMEs. For example, the financial results from implementation of Six Sigma at W.R. Grace were actually more impressive than GE's results on a percent of revenue basis. The greatest barrier to implementation of Six Sigma in small companies to date has been the way major Six Sigma training providers have structured their offerings. These offerings often require large up-front payments to cover the use of copyrighted training materials. More recently, as more and more sets of deployment guides and training materials have become available, the pricing structures have begun to change. Beyond that, there are some unique issues at small companies, such as the fact that many employees wear multiple \"hats\", i.e. have diverse accountabilities, making it harder to dedicate Master Black Belts (MBBs) or Black Belts (BBs). However, there are unique issues in healthcare, in financial services and even in manufacturing versus discrete manufacturing, so we should not let the challenges prevent us from moving forward.\nMr Thomas Pyzdek - Pyzdek Consulting, USA: There are two facets of Six Sigma: the approach and the infrastructure. The approach of leading through Six Sigma can be adapted by leaders in any sized firm. Very small businesses will have difficulty justifying full time MBBs and BBs and will rely primarily on Green Belts (GBs) coached by experts outside of the company. Medium-sized firms can gain maximum leverage by having experienced and highly trained MBBs or BBs coaching ten to 20 GBs each.\nProfessor T N Hoh - National University of Singapore, Singapore: First of all, get rid of the hype - a Six Sigma project will not necessarily save upwards of $200,000 per project. It is advisable right from the start to give all CEOs a realistic view of what Six Sigma is, and what it is not. Second, there is no scientific basis that a person must go through at least four months of intensive training (and paying heaps of fees for training) before Six Sigma can be introduced. SMEs may first invite Six Sigma experts to look into their respective operations and potential areas of applications. Tailoring training programs to suit the needs of a specific organisation: for example, certain projects can actually be heavy on \"DMA\" and very thin on \"IC\", so there is no reason to force the whole works down the throat of everyone, at least initially.\nProfessor Rick Edgeman - University of Idaho, USA: SMEs are commonly confronted by limited human capital, especially in terms of \"specialisations\" and training budgets. Moreover, once trained, a Six Sigma Black Belt is in sufficient demand that they may be enticed by a larger company with a more notable reputation or better salary/benefits. In the context of SMEs, be very judicious in which projects are selected for Six Sigma application. It is important to ensure that early applications of Six Sigma methodology have a very high probability of success.\nDr Matthew Hu - American Supplier Institute, USA: Small companies are very good at finding reasons \"why it cannot work here\"? But a quality problem is a quality problem. Variation is variation. Waste is waste. An unhappy customer is an unhappy customer. The size of the company really does not change these facts.Six Sigma is very appropriate for smaller companies too. The Six Sigma process works well in a billion dollar corporation as well as $25 million privately held companies. In fact, in my experience, the results are usually quicker and more visible in smaller companies.\nProfessor Amitava Mitra - Auburn University, USA: SMEs may have a limited budget for Six Sigma training. While the project leader must be trained in the key concepts and Six Sigma methodology, it is highly desirable the team members have some exposure as well. If such training is not possible for team members, due to budget restrictions, the concept of benchmarking could be important. Best practices for certain processes, not necessarily in the same industry, could be explored and their adoption to the organisation could be studied.Employee motivation is another avenue to promote creativity and enthusiasm that leads to quality improvement. If top management makes a commitment to seek suggestions of ideas and implement some of those that are feasible, within the resource constraints of the company, it will provide a boost to the morale of the employees. This will make employees feel as part of the organisation and provide them with ownership of the process.\nMr Larry Smith - Past Vice President of Design and Innovation, Juran Institute, USA: Since large companies tend to be organised into small and medium sized departments and operations, I suspect that what is done in large companies also applies to SMEs. When I worked for Ford, we started Six Sigma within one department and obtained support from outside the company. As knowledge and experience grows in an organisation, support will come from resources inside the company rather than outside. The implementation of Six Sigma will create efficiencies - some of which may be used to provide these resources for longer-term support and growth.\nMr Alan Harrison - Weir Pumps, UK: I believe that many SMEs can collect low hanging improvements by applying Deming's PDCA improvement cycle and Six Sigma way of thinking at its basic level (for example, at Green Belt level). Having a pragmatic approach, Six Sigma can help:*define the need to improve and share - communicate and drive positive dissatisfaction with current business performance, based on facts;*measure and analyse opportunities for the project selection - create a pull system for improvements, where projects are pulled from and defined by business/customers' needs;*drive by personal inspiration - improvements driven by business process owners, who need to have ability to create and share vision and inspirational passion and can provide necessary resources to improve and sustain; and*make it happen - promote that the smallest action is larger than the biggest intention.\nDr Lynne Hare - Kraft Foods Research, USA: Scale should not really enter into a decision to adopt a Six Sigma management philosophy. All companies, large and small share many common features and problems. Large companies, because of scale, may reap higher financial gains as a result of a given breakthrough, but this should not be taken to suggest that small companies would not benefit tremendously from the implementation of Six Sigma business strategy.\nProfessor Jiju Antony - Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process Excellence - University of Strathclyde, UK: In SMEs, the senior management team (SMT) must be visibly supportive of every aspect of a Six Sigma initiative. They must demonstrate by their active participation, involvement and actions that such support is more than lip service. Six Sigma is about overall business strategy, culture and change, and the small companies embarking on Six Sigma initiative need to build all of this into a sound corporate strategy plan.As small companies are more agile, it is much easier to buy in management support and commitment, as opposed to large organisations. The education and training component is much harder for smaller companies. Moreover, small companies do not have the slack to free up talented people to engage in training, followed by the execution of Six Sigma projects. These people are crucial to the day-to-day operations and problem solving within the company. Academic institutions should help SMEs to meet their customer or stakeholder needs and assist them in creating value for their key customers. This will ensure development of a stable, long-term and cost-effective relationship between the organisation and academic institution. The Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process Excellence (CRISSPE) at the University of Strathclyde provides a number of seminars and workshops on Six Sigma topics to local SMEs. These enable them to share their experience of fundamental barriers and problems in the introduction of the Six Sigma programme.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to present the viewpoints from a number of leading practitioners and academics on the subject \"Can Six Sigma be effectively deployed in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)?\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A number of academics and practitioners were interviewed by the author to collate their opinions and views on the above subject.\nFindings: - The results of the study clearly indicate that Six Sigma is equally applicable to both large corporations and small companies. In fact, the results are quicker and much more visible in smaller companies than in larger corporations.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides an excellent resource for those people who believe that Six Sigma is primarily meant for large companies. It also makes an attempt to remove one of the common myths of Six Sigma.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Corporate governance and the information system: how a framework for IT governance supports ERM
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Internal control",
"IT governance",
"COBIT 5 framework",
"COSO ERM"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The failure of corporate governance mechanisms is demonstrated by the extraordinary sequence of business scandals that have affected the global economy over the past 30 years and, finally, the recent global financial crisis. These events have shown the inadequacy of governance processes and especially control in the prevention of fraud and accounting offenses and in the most complex enterprise risk management (ERM) activities in general. This has led scholars to reflect on the importance of governance systems and to help in researching the best management models. Recently in research regarding corporate governance, the themes of internal control and ERM have been the most debated in academic domains (Jensen, 1993; Spira and Page, 2003; Power, 2004; Enriques and Volpin, 2007) as well as professional (COSO, 1992, 2004 and 2013; ISACA, 2012).\n2. The growing importance of risk management in corporate governance: The expression \"corporate governance\" identifies a vast subject both by its scope and the variety of stakeholders considered in the economic government process as well as for the scope and the variety of corporate bodies or mechanisms that are responsible for the governance of the enterprise (Zattoni, 2004). Corporate governance, with the inherent limitations of every simplification, can be defined as the system by which companies are directed and controlled (Cadbury, 2002), i.e. as the set of institutions, rules and relationships between managing bodies and instruments and the control that ensure an effective, efficient and correct system of governance to safeguard the interests of all the company's stakeholders, as can be understood from the definition provided by the OECD (2004). In recent years, due to numerous corporate crises, research on corporate governance has focused on control, a theme that has received much more attention than the theme of corporate governance. From the idea that control occurs from outside the company and is exercised mainly by various organizational structures by those who carry out operational activities, the concept has grown in scope to be understood as a process initiated by management within the company (internal control system), aimed at providing the most appropriate means for achieving predetermined objectives.\n3. IT governance and the COBIT framework: The widespread use of IT as a means to develop business processes has made the process of enterprise information system management and performance measurement critical. The company's information system must ensure an adequate flow of information to support activities related to enterprise management and control as well as supporting the processes of corporate governance. In this context, multiple motivations lead to applying management methods and logic to IT. On one hand, the company in the face of rising costs feels the need to carefully evaluate investments in IT. On the other, it senses the growing importance of measuring the contribution that IT systems provide within the organization in the pursuit of the company's strategies and goals. The computerization of company data, therefore, requires management to pay more attention to IT service management to optimize investments in technology, organize the delivery of IT services, monitor the quality level of information services and align IT resources with the company's processes and the business activities.\n4. The COBIT framework in support of ERM: COSO ERM defines ERM as:\n5. Conclusions: Reaching four categories of internal control system objectives and the related ERM inevitably requires the existence of an effective IT governance system. The decision to focus on the COBIT framework is linked to two main reasons: first, new version of COBIT 5, released in 2012, consolidates the previous version COBIT 4.1 in a single framework and the other frameworks, such as Val IT and Risk IT; at the same time, the framework was updated to be in line with the current practices provided by ITIL. Furthermore, it should be noted that the remaining IT governance frameworks focus on specific aspects that are linked to IT (IT management) and that do not make it possible to implement an integrated approach to manage risks (IT governance). Second, COBIT represents the framework for the IT governance that is most widely used by companies (Tuttle and Vandervelde, 2007), even in consideration of its effectiveness in terms of compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act provisions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how information technology (IT) governance supports the process of enterprise risk management (ERM). In particular, the paper illustrates how the Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) framework helps a company reach its objectives by integrating and supporting the Enterprise Risk Management by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO ERM) framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper explains how the integration between the two frameworks (COSO ERM and COBIT 5) can represent, for any organization, a good way to achieve the objectives of internal control and risk management and, more generally, corporate governance.\nFindings: The paper identifies some gaps in the COSO ERM and illustrates how the COBIT framework facilitates the implementation of an adequate system of internal control.\nOriginality/value: The originality of the work presented here is in analyzing the COBIT 5 together with the COSO ERM framework. This paper highlights that is not enough to apply only an internal control framework for achieving the risk management and internal control system objectives. An IT governance framework, such as COBIT 5 is proposed as a tool that support risk management in order to develop an adequate system of internal control.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Playing the zero-sum game with diversity: who's the worthiest of them all?
|
[
"Equal opportunities",
"African Americans",
"Hispanics",
"Native Americans",
"Ethnic groups"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Embracing racial and ethnic diversity is a priority for American culture. Increasingly large numbers of marketers target diverse audiences for their products and services; many organizations seek greater diversity among their employees; most colleges and universities try to increase diversity among their student bodies; and many philanthropic organizations provide some level of financial support for diverse groups. With such widespread attention to diversity, we could expect strong agreement for what constitutes diversity and a clear rationale for why we embrace it. However, this is not the case.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This article confronts the contradictory ideas surrounding diversity and the inconsistent efforts at embracing it. It aims to explore the reasons why marketing, recruitment, and philanthropic efforts differ for various groups, particularly African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This article examines data from published research, personal interviews, and government statistics to have a clearer picture of the myths and facts surrounding each group.\nFindings: - Some groups can be reached more efficiently by marketers than others. Some groups are more likely to receive support motivated by affirmative action efforts than others, particularly those that have been historically underrepresented. Still others may draw greater support from philanthropic organizations. A complex set of factors including stereotypes and misplaced thinking may make some groups appear more \"worthy\" of support than others.\nPractical implications: - Marketers, employers, recruiters on college campuses, managers of philanthropic organizations, and members of diverse groups can gain a better understanding of the different motivations for support, which helps set more realistic goals and strategies, and subsequently may increase levels of support.\nOriginality/value: - The article calls for an end to misplaced thinking about diversity efforts as a zero-sum game in which the support of one group takes something away from another.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Forecasting the future of data storage: case of hard disk drive and flash memory
|
[
"Technology led strategy",
"Forecasting",
"Data handling",
"Information management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's highly competitive market, organizations must continually make choices if they are to survive. Consequently, some of the most important choices a company must make are strategic, and are the responsibility of the company's top decision makers. Thus, considering the ever increasingly changing technology rate, and rapidly shrinking product life cycle, \"an organization can only survive if it continuously upgrades its technologies through systematic forecasts\" (Mishra et al., 2002). Since manufacturing organizations are transforming from simply producing to learning organizations, technological forecasts are playing a progressively more important role in the selection and implementation of applicable technologies to aid in initiating the first mover advantage in the market place (Mishra et al., 2002). Designers want a clear road map to next-generation standards and products and a road map to future performance (Maon and Pierce, 2007). With this in mind, this paper reviews a technology in probably one of the most exciting technological races of all time - the great race in data storage (Haavind, 2007). Considering the fact that one of the most critical design factors affecting the performance of mobile devices is their data storage capabilities, and the fact that data storage is an important factor in the total cost of the product (i.e. the market is very sensitive to the price of data storage products) (Coughlin, 2003), this is one race that users can benefit from the super efforts of both contenders, whether there is a winner or not, or whether they both just assimilate into new technologies. As a result, for this era, there are two equally competitive data storage products vying to be the winner, flash memory and HDD. Therefore, this paper documents our technological forecasting study focused on the future of these two competitive products.\nBackground: There is no sure way to state what the future will be with complete certainty. Decisions are sometimes required to be made without complete information. Primarily, technology forecasting is designed to help decision-making and planning in the present. Thus, technology forecasting is a combination of technology - the scientifically derived knowledge of the manipulation of nature for human purposes, and prediction - predicting the future characteristics of useful machines, procedures, or techniques (Daim, 2008). For that reason, technological forecasting, as a scientific discipline, must cover a wide variety of analytical activities involving the use of a typology of methods.Since data storage is technologically categorized, the methods utilized in forecasting the future of data storage were patent trend analysis, bibliometric analysis, technology cycle time (TCT) and growth curve (Pearl). Though the details and results of these methodologies are explained later in detail, the first three of the four methods listed are considered emerging methods, with patent analysis and bibliometric analysis especially useful in providing historical data missing for emerging technologies (Daim et al., 2006).Characteristics of memory devices are said to be composed of a storage hierarchy, allowing users to sort memory products based on important characteristics for the applications in which they are used (Coughlin, 2006). Traditionally, random access memory (RAM) and magnetic disk devices were classified as primary and secondary storage in the storage system hierarchy as shown if Figure 1 (Chervenak, 1994). As viewed in the pyramid, cost per megabyte decreases dramatically going from primary storage to secondary storage, down to tertiary storage. Likewise, speed, or the average access time, follows the same path. Similarly, the pyramid block size suggests a direct correlation between the size of the block and the amount of the technology utilized for computer data storage (Chervenak, 1994).Currently, flash memory and hard disk drive (HDD) are the two main devices for portable storage (Coughlin, 2006), and are the main contenders for the great race (Haavind, 2007). Thus, on one side of the race there is the steadily shrinking flash memory cells that perform multilevel read/writes that offer speed as well as size advantage over the contender. While on the other side, the contender, magnetic storage (e.g. HDD) holds a sizable cost advantage with their rugged miniature multigigabit hard drives. Consequently, to \"push storage densities even further, HDD currently face what is called superparamagnetic limit, where thermal agitation might flip the magnetic bits on a disk\" (Haavind, 2007).Moreover, both flash memory and HDD have their advantages and disadvantages. Explaining the technological aspects and limitations of both contenders would deviate from the purpose of this paper. With that said, only a few differentiating factors are provided. First of all, the main characteristics for electronic storage devices are price, size, capacity and data rate (Coughlin, 2006). Flash memory has two qualities that the market currently demands: mobility and miniaturization; flash memory is small, reliable, and its memory is nonvolatile (Yinug, 2007). Flash has no moving parts, greater reliability, less power consumption, and faster performance. The main limitation is that data can be rewritten a limited amount of times (Wildstrom, 2007). Though flash memory can be embedded in the device or it can be removable, making it popular in mobile devices due to its ruggedness and small size (Coughlin, 2003), the high cost of flash memory has prevented the technology from becoming widespread (Martin, 2008). On the other hand, desktop and portable computers are the main products taking advantage of the preferred high-volume data storage method available with HDDs (Frank, 2007). \"As disk drives downsize, the materials from which they are made approach their fundamental performance limits\" (Bak and Webusch, 2002). Thus, HDDs are more likely to find their greatest use where the size or number of the data files being handled requires it (Coughlin, 2003).The development of conventional HDD technology is touching the natural limitation that occurs from the superparamagnetic effect. The latest R&D on HDD is changing the focus from longitudinal recording to be perpendicular recording (Kryder, 2000). The current oxide-based perpendicular media has better recording performance than longitudinal recording media. Moreover, this oxide-based material could hypothetically hold areal densities up to almost 500-600 Gbits per square inch (Piramanayagam, 2007). However, the recording media based on current material could confront a thermal instability problem; therefore, the future of perpendicular recording media is moving to FePt media to prevent the problem and increase high-density data storage. In addition, there are various new medias such as tilted recoding media, exchange-coupled composite media, and percolated media that are currently being researched to find a method or technology to enhance density of HDD (Piramanayagam, 2007).The main technologies driving flash memory in the current market are NOR and NAND; however, these technologies are moving to new generation. The conventional NAND Flash is moving to new structures, new materials, and memory architecture. Floating gate (FG) structure of conventional NAND flash is transforming to TaN/ALO/Nitride/Oxide/Silicon (TANOS) structure. This technology will be applied for ultra high density NAND flash with reasonable cost per bit (Kim and Lee, 2007). NOR flash is anticipated to be replaced by phase-change memory (PCM) in this year since it can be fabricated by using uncomplicated semiconductor process which impact directly on lower manufacturing cost (Hudgens, 2008). All of these developments have been accelerated by the tremendous growth of the nonvolatile memory market. In the coming year the world of electronics is moving to portable electronic equipment that requires more and more memory density and higher performance of data storage (Kim and Lee, 2007). Moreover, there are new types of non-volatile memories emerging; PRAM and FRAM are very close to obtaining mass production (Kim and Lee, 2007).In addition to flash memory and HDD, there is solid-state drive (SSD). SDDs use flash memory instead of magnetic disks to store information; they are lighter, consume less power, and are more rugged, making them ideal for laptops and mobile devices. They are more expensive, but the price gap is narrowing as flash memory becomes increasingly cheaper. As the high cost of flash and hybrid drives drop closer to conventional longitudinal hard drives consumers will soon fuel increased demand for the superior performance of solid state (Lemon, 2008).This research paper intends to forecast the future of these two major data technologies; the conventional longitudinal recording and the conventional flash memory. Consequently, the emerging technologies are not covered in the scope of this paper. For example, the numbers of publications and patents of perpendicular technology, holographic data storage, SSD, PCM, PRAM, and FRAM are not included and are eliminated from the total count of publications for this research paper.\nMethodologies: The process to forecast the future of HDD and flash memory initiated with the bibliometric trend analysis, followed by the patent trend analysis, and the technology cycle time (TCT). Finally, the research concluded by plotting the trend for accumulative patents; the patent growth curve was utilized to analyze the limitation of conventional longitudinal recording of HDD. This provided a target year (described later) that was then utilized to create the subsequent growth curves. The details of these analyses are explained subsequently, followed by our research results.Bibliometric analysis\nResult and analysis: Bibliometric analysis\nConclusion: Though the compiled data and results from each analysis were described in detail within the previously mentioned text, a brief summation highlighting the collective thoughts and ideas of the paper are listed in Table II.The results from the bibliometric analysis were as follows:* most publications in both domains were conducted by companies;* the leader in HDD is Hitachi, while the leader in flash memory is Samsung; and* these two products will remain competitors in the market since trend of numbers of publications of these products is still growing up continuously.The results from the patent analysis, TCT, and growth curve were as follows:* The cumulative patents of both products have continued to increase. The conventional longitudinal recording has higher cumulative patents than flash memory. However, it is reasonable since HDD include various multidisciplinary technologies.* The paces of technological progresses of both products have not changed too much. The median ages of conventional longitudinal recording are 6.83-8.90 approximately. While the average ages of flash memory are about 3.86-5.63. Even though the conventional hard drive has longer cycle times that reflect slower development, considering the fact that HDD has been developed since 1950s, this longer cycle times is reasonable.* Improving areal density of conventional recording will touch the zero-growth point by year 2013.* The maximum growing rate of conventional longitudinal recording by considering the limitation of areal density (200 Gbit/inch2) and patents is about year 2006.* HDD will move to a new platform technology called \"perpendicular recording\".* Flash memory requires additional research regarding technical performance to adequately forecast \"when will flash memory change its platform?\".Throughout our research process we have learned that the bibliometric and patent analysis are promising tools to find patterns that allow us to identify future trends. Conversely, we felt that the information provided by TCT analysis was somewhat limited; possibly analyzing a longer period of time would provide better resultant information. All in all, the advantage of utilizing these methods is the fact that it removed personal bias and any estimation for other parameters that requires expert opinions. However, the disadvantage was that not all R&D activities are published or patented. Thus, these methods provided a broad overview of the overall picture. For this reason, we believe that integrating a variety of other forecasting tools would provide a more comprehensive and complete set of forecasting results.Though there are many types of mobile data storage devices currently in development in R&D laboratories throughout the world (Coughlin, 2003), this study indicates that the current data storage technologies, specifically HDD and flash memory, have not run out of steam yet. For instance, \"new recording technologies, such as perpendicular magnetic recording and heat-assisted magnetic recording, will greatly increase the bit density of the disk. The HDD will maintain its data-storage position of dominance because of its large capacity, fast access and low cost, but advances will come from mechatronics engineers doing what they do best: model-based integrated system design.\" Thus, we forecast that both technologies will win in different ways. For the portable device market, flash memory is going to be the leader in devices like MP3 and Cell phones. In the mass storage market, like PC, HDD will be the dominator. This concludes that both products will be sustainable, but will gradually shift into better performance by improving both incrementally and radically.\nFuture research: There is already evidence of the new technologies emerging (e.g. perpendicular recording, hybrid drive). Utilizing the Lotka-Volterra model to forecast will in time replace the current ones as utilized in our forecasting process, as this model is appropriate for forecasting long-term behavior between two competing technologies, and showing how their growth changes over time. It is efficient because it captures the existing technology population as well as the market potential.Finally, further inspection of the characteristics and components of each product (i.e. HDD and flash memory) and the different technologies used in them would provide a more accurate and realistic forecast.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to forecast the future of data storage technologies, using the case of two major technologies driving the data storage world; hard disk drive (HDD) or conventional longitudinal recording and flash memory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Four principal tools of forecasting technology are applied to present the coming future of data storage technologies. These tools consist of bibliometric trend analysis, patent trend analysis, technology cycle time (TCT), and growth curve. Numbers of publications each year and cumulative patents are used to analyze the future of these competitive technologies. The median age of the patents is applied to find the technology lifecycle of both technologies. Finally, areal density of HDD is plotted on the growth curve to forecast the saturation point of researching on conventional longitudinal recording.\nFindings: - The results produced from utilizing these tools indicate that these two technologies are continuously under development. It is found that the growth of improving areal density of conventional recording will be nearing zero by year 2013 and the maximum growth rate of development was in year 2006.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The forecasting is based on principal technologies of conventional longitudinal recording of HDD. Also, NOR and NAND are considered as two main technologies dominating flash memory. Other emerging data storage technologies such as holographic data storage, phase-change memory (PCM) are not included in this paper. Likewise, the growth curve of flash memory is not analyzed as part of this paper.\nOriginality/value: - This paper forecasts the future of data storage technologies. Integration of scientific indicators and growth curves is demonstrating a powerful tool for forecasting technology futures.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Leadership effectiveness: the costs and benefits of being emotionally intelligent
|
[
"Emotional intelligence",
"Leadership",
"Research work",
"Serials"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This paper is both an apology for a failure to produce a planned special issue, including the rationales as to why we decided to withdraw it and a commentary on the apparent failure of the research community to address a neglected area of inquiry in emotional intelligence (EI) research.\nLack of relevance to the special issue: For many years, EI research has been in the grip of a maxim that over-emphasised the positive effects it has for organisations (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2005; Cherniss, 2001; Daus and Ashkanasy, 2005) - at the expenses of a more multi-faceted and differentiating approaches (Fambrough and Hart, 2008; Lindebaum, 2009). Therefore, as stated above, we deemed it fit to confront the possibility that employing highly emotionally intelligent may not always yield the expected (positive) results for organisations. In this respect, it is noteworthy that even staunch EI advocates have only recently begun to ask whether:*low EI can lead to better performance outcomes;*whether some branches of EI can lead to beneficial outcomes for a given task, whilst for the same task others may be detrimental; and*whether there can be too much EI (i.e. a curvilinear impact, see Jordan et al. (2010)).Still, these questions fall somewhat short of asking explicitly whether being emotionally intelligent can lead to negative consequences in organisations. The neglect of this line of inquiry is somewhat surprising against the background that by July 2010, the PsycINFO data base lists 2,041 articles that featured the keyword \"emotional intelligence\" in the title and abstract.For the purpose of our special issue, we had two relevant examples in mind that were at the heart of our theorising. First, highly emotionally intelligent leaders may be manipulative[1] and use their abilities to achieve personal and/or organisational gain with little heed for social responsibility, for instance. Indeed, the relationship between EI, moral reasoning and ethical behaviour poses an intriguing and potentially fruitful line of research (Sivanathan and Fekken, 2002). Second, mainstream EI research has paid considerable attention to examining the relationship between EI and performance on the one hand (Cote and Miners, 2006; Mayer et al., 2004; Rode et al., 2007) and EI and health-related outcomes on the other (Bastian et al., 2005; Brackett and Mayer, 2003; Gohm et al., 2005). However, whilst we agree that, depending on context and situation, EI may have a positive impact upon on performance, we propose that this relationship may weaken (if not reverse itself) if the role-prescriptions of a particular profession entail detrimental consequences for one's health in the long run (e.g. stress, burnout or mental fatigue). Thus, we were keen to highlight that high EI may entail negative consequences for the organisation when individuals refuse to follow the role-prescriptions of their job and safeguard their well-being by means, for instance, preparing appropriate exist strategies and leave the organisation. Take, for example, the impact of contextually defined role-prescriptions of project managers in the construction industry. Here, the performance of men tends to be assessed against \"a particular stereotype which supports and promotes decisiveness, toughness, self-reliance, resolution and control\" (Loosemore and Galea, 2008, p. 126). In a similar vein, Lindebaum and Fielden (2011) found that project managers in the UK construction industry often see the enactment of anger toward lower-power parties as a legitimate conduct to secure the progress of the project. In addition, many project managers suggested that they have to appear stressed and hectic to be seen as productive on site. Anger, then, was found to be a role-obligatory behaviour of project managers on site to be successful, though the authors also raise concern about the project managers' health when anger becomes a role- obligatory behaviour. Thus, anger may aid project managers to be successful at work, but this is likely to detrimentally affect their health in the long run. Ironically, whilst leaders high in EI may accurately perceive the need to adopt a context-sensitive leadership style and regulate their emotions accordingly (see Joseph and Newman (2010), for details on the causality of emotion recognition on regulation), we are intrigued by the question what happens if \"if the exercise of a more context-sensitive leadership style is incongruent with the [leader's] view on how to sustain his or her well-being?\" (Lindebaum and Cartwright, 2010, p. 21).\nLacking theoretical accuracy and poor operationalisation of constructs: We noted that submitted papers were frequently conspicuous by an incomplete, insufficient or outright unacceptable theoretical grounding of EI. Most of the desk-rejected papers fell into this category. For instance, following several meta-analysis (Joseph and Newman, 2010; van Rooy and Viswesvaran, 2004; van Rooy et al., 2005), we were surprised to see continuing references to Goleman's claims about the predictive power of EI. The above analyses have firmly underscored that these claims have been overly expansive and lack scientific rigour. We also noted that, within the scope of submitted papers, that there was a tendency to indiscriminately refer to studies using ability and trait EI measures. We do not wish to rehash valuable contributions previously provided by scholars in this respect (Daus and Ashkanasy, 2005; Mayer et al., 2008; Petrides, 2010; Petrides and Furnham, 2000b). However, we would like to express concern about the fact that, even in leading management and psychology journals, arguments are constructed based upon studies that used ability and trait EI measures - under one banner of EI (Cherniss et al., 2006; Cote and Miners, 2006). A plethora of studies have reported by now that they share very little variance (e.g. 4.5 per cent in Brackett and Mayer (2003), but see also O'Connor and Little (2003) and van Rooy and Viswesvaran (2004)), thus underscoring their independence. From there, we believe that mixing both constructs when their outcomes are discussed leads to the classical \"apple and pear\" trap, which is not conducive in attaining the construct clarity required by leading management journals (Suddaby, 2010).At this juncture, we would also like to point to another unfortunate development in the EI research arena. Specifically, we believe that, irrespective of whether an ability or trait EI measure is used, this choice should purely be based upon sound theoretical, practical or methodological rationales, along with empirical evidence that suggests acceptable psychometric properties of a measure. In other words, the choice of measure should be informed by theoretical, practical or methodological contemplations, bearing in mind that thoroughly developed measures must be available to address whatever research question is posed. That, essentially, should allow for flexibility in the adoption of EI measures. We have been very explicit in our choices of measures in this respect, and have not discarded any other approach a priori (Lindebaum, 2009; Lindebaum and Cartwright, 2010). However, even a fleeting glance at the extant literature reveals ideological EI trenches. The lines are drawn between ability (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2005; Jordan et al., 2010; Mayer et al., 2000, 2008; Mayer and Salovey, 1997) and trait EI advocates (Mikolajczak et al., 2007; Petrides and Furnham, 2000a; Petrides et al., 2007a, b)[2]. Even though attempts were recently undertaken to reconcile these approaches (Cherniss, 2010), we still concur with the view that it is the \"type of measurement rather than theory per se that determines the nature of the model\" (Petrides and Furnham, 2000b, p. 314). Framed a little differently, it is the measurement method that dictates the nature of the construct, as correlations with measures of general mental ability or personality obtained from different measurement methods (self-report vs performance test) differentially determine the location of the construct in either ability or trait EI theory. Given that a significant corpus of research underpins this argument (Davey, 2005; Freudenthaler and Neubauer, 2007; Petrides and Furnham, 2006; van Rooy and Viswesvaran, 2004; van Rooy et al., 2005), we find it difficult to follow why some scholars (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2005; O'Boyle et al., n.d.) view self-report measures of EI that are theoretically mapped unto the ability model of Mayer and Salovey (1997) as distinct from self-report measures with wider sampling domains (Austin et al., 2008).\nFurther issues and future research agenda: To inject fresh momentum into the EI field, we deem it fit to briefly outline a potential future research agenda. For us, key areas concern:*the collection of longitudinal data;*avoidance of cross-sectional data; and*the role of moderating and mediating variables in EI research.Collection of longitudinal data\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper serves two purposes: first, it is an apology for a failure to produce a planned special issue, along with the rationales as to why the authors decided to withdraw it; and second, a commentary on the apparent failure of the research community to address a neglected area of inquiry in emotional intelligence (EI) research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors provide a commentary.\nFindings: - The authors draw attention to the possiblity that employing highly emotionally intelligent individuals may not always yield desirable outcomes for organisations, thus seeking to ignite a more balanced debate as to the merits of EI in management and leadership studies. The authors also detail briefly several avenues for future research.\nOriginality/value: - The theme of the planned special issue was situated at the forefront EI research, so this commentary succinctly highlights the theorising that informed the background to it.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Hong Kong students entering Mainland China universities: a review of the admission scheme
|
[
"Student choice",
"Study abroad",
"Hong Kong students",
"China universities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: an admission scheme to universities in other parts of Mainland China: Hong Kong is a dynamic and heterogeneous society which has undergone unprecedented political, economic and social changes in the past 20 years. It has transited from being a British colony to a Special Administrative Region of the PRC under a \"One Country, Two Systems\" arrangement with a high degree of autonomy, according to the Basic Law of the HKSAR. This includes autonomy in formulating its own educational policies. Yet, deeper collaboration and integration is inevitable. With the implementation of the new Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) in 2012, students have new and multiple pathways to higher education, one of which is a path to enter one of the top 100 universities in Mainland China.\nThe transition from elite to mass higher education: Under the colonial period, Hong Kong has a long history of sending students abroad. Back in 1975, over 26,000 studied overseas, whereas the enrollment in Hong Kong's own universities was only about 11,000 (Bray and Koo, 2005, p. 136). With the scarcity of local university places, studying abroad was an alternative, primarily dominated by the elite and affluent classes, which included children of senior government officials. Those officials of the colonial government whose children chose to study in the UK could enjoy the privileges of local tuition fees. Almost all other popular destinations for overseas education were Anglo-Saxon countries, such as the USA, Australia and Canada (Oleksiyenko et al., 2013).\nThe Chinese Mainland as a study destination: before and after reunification: Much research on international student mobility investigates students traversing from developing to developed countries, mainly from east to west (USA, UK, Australia, Canada) (Altbach, 1998; McMahon, 1992). Mainland China hosts the third highest number of foreign students. There is a bundle of favorable factors pulling students to study in Mainland China, namely, reputation of the country and its institutions, cost, safety and security (Hu et al., 2016; Cao et al., 2016), optimistic belief in China's future development, bright prospects of learning Chinese language, and scholarships (Jiani, 2017). Many students are attracted to the Chinese Mainland primarily by future economic gains and immediate financial considerations. While these favorable pull factors may be applicable in attracting Hong Kong students, the uniqueness lies in the relationship between Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region and the Chinese Mainland, as well as the shared heritage of Chinese tradition and socio-cultural linkages between the two systems.\nStudents' perspectives on admission to China's universities: This section presents findings on the students' responses to the DSE Admission Scheme, as well as their choice and perceptions toward studying in Mainland. It is based on three types of data sources: first, official records of students' application and enrollment statistics, and other documents obtained from multiple sources, including Hong Kong Government's reports, Mainland China Government's reports and published data of China Education Exchange (HK) Centre, an organization commissioned by State Ministry of Education to process Hong Kong students' applications; second, data collected through semi-structured interviews with 51 Hong Kong students pursuing undergraduate programs in Mainland universities, and five staff from various Mainland universities conducted in 2017; and, third, information gathered through observations during 13 orientation seminars delivered by Mainland universities to Hong Kong students in 2017, and the Mainland Higher Education Expo in 2016 and 2017.\nStudents choice: five scenarios: After presenting students' application and enrollment statistics, based on the findings of interviews of 51 students, the research revealed that students' academic performance and academic/career aspirations are important factors which influence their choices. Based on the decision scenarios that we discovered, it is possible to classify all students into five types, namely, the Cream, Achievers, Opportunists, Loyalists and Passive Recipients, as shown in Figure 3. In this study, academic performance is operationally defined as the students' DSE scores. Their clarity of academic/career aspirations refers to whether they have set a clear goal of entering specific program or discipline of study, or aspire to embark on certain types of jobs after graduation.\nDiscussion: The study reveals that students with higher academic scores and clear academic/career aspirations have utilized the fast track path of the Secondary Principal Nomination Scheme to enter the top three elite universities: Peking, Tsinghua and Fudan Universities. However, these students are from the twenty plus traditional elite and pro-Beijing patriotic schools. For the other students in the mainstream secondary schools, some can gain admission to their preferred programs through DSE Admission Scheme, when the other offers are not their most preferred choice. The majority (over 80 percent) of the interviewed students treat the study path to the Chinese Mainland as a backup or second-rated option rather than a first choice. This study confirms earlier research that the push factor of inability to gain access to a preferred local program or university is a primary reason of leaving one's home town (Altbach, 1998). Under a highly stratified education system in Hong Kong, academic capability is a salient factor which determines the available options of students. With a lower grade in the English subject, irrespective of their family origins of whether born in Hong Kong, some students envisage this educational pathway as a fallback.\nPolicies recommendations: Since the implementation of the Admission Scheme in 2012, the number of applicants is rather stable, irrespective of the political situation under the Occupy Central in 2014 when the youth's sentiment was aroused. The students' perceptions have not been particularly affected. In recent years, especially during the post-2014 period, new economic, socio-cultural and political factors emerge. First, from the economic perspective, the interconnectedness and interrelations with Mainland China are propelling. Hong Kong assumes a role on the Belt and Road Initiative, and is integrated as part of the Greater Bay Area Initiative. Second, on the socio-cultural aspects, the demographics of Hong Kong have undergone changes. According to the 2016 Population By-census Report (HKCSD, 2018), because of continuous inflow of young one-way permit holders from Mainland China over the past ten years, the percentage of youths who were born in Mainland rose slightly from 20.4 percent in 2006 to 21.2 percent in 2016. Recent statistics reveal that in 2016, there were over 10,000 Mainland teenagers aged 10-19 came and settled in Hong Kong, while there were only around 5,000 per year in the preceding four years (Hong Kong Legco, 2017). To what extent will this affect the popularity of the scheme is worth investigating. Third, coupled with the high property costs, downgrading of bachelor credentials, the seemingly lack of social mobility in Hong Kong has raised socio-political awareness.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Studying abroad is not new for Hong Kong students, especially those from the middle class. For a variety of reasons, traversing to Mainland universities has been an unconventional path confined mostly to students who pursued specific programs, or had family or social ties. Beginning in 2012, an admission scheme was launched for Hong Kong students applying to Mainland universities. The purpose of this paper is to review the admission scheme.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper draws on both quantitative and qualitative data sources. It includes statistics from official records of students' application and enrollment figures, and documents obtained from multiple sources, as well as qualitative data through interviews of Hong Kong students who are studying in the Mainland universities.\nFindings: The key findings are that since the implementation of the admission scheme, the number of applicants is rather stable irrespective of the changing socio-economic and political context. With the preferential treatment for Hong Kong students, low tuition fees, government financial assistance and scholarships, most students still consider studying in the Mainland a backup plan rather than a first choice. The academic performance of the students and academic/career aspirations have influenced their choice and decisions.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes through providing both primary and secondary data to help understand the level of acceptance on the scheme since its implementation. It also reveals the perceptions of the students who have made their choice to study cross the border. In facing the emergent economic, socio-cultural and political challenges, some policies recommendations are proposed to boost the acceptance of the scheme. Moreover, it fills the research gap on student mobility from Hong Kong to Mainland China in the corpus of literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The moral arc of the library: what are our duties and limitations after 45?
|
[
"Librarianship",
"Code of ethics",
"Social justice",
"Neutrality",
"45th administration",
"Vocational awe"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This is not normal (Blow, 2016).\nIntroduction to Code of Ethics: The ALA Code of Ethics is implicitly seen as sacred to many in the profession. It is akin to our Hippocratic Oath. We are expected to provide access to information, regardless of what that information is or who is asking for it. We are expected to resist all efforts of censorship, no matter the content. We protect privacy in an age where data are the most valuable commodity available. After our Library and Information Science (LIS) education, however, we quickly realize that holding up the Code of Ethics only truly works in an ideal world. Most practicing librarians can quickly offer up a personal example of their ethics being challenged at the workplace. As ALA explains:\nThe trap of vocational awe: In her revelatory article, Fobazi Ettarh (2018) describes vocational awe as:\nWhy it is time for change?: If it seems that it all comes down to the question, \"should libraries be neutral?,\" the authors of this piece would like to argue that this should not even be a question: libraries in both theory and practice are not neutral. We cannot be neutral and also hold up our Code of Ethics. The affirmation of freedom and access to information are not neutral. The act of providing information for free or at a low cost is not neutral. The choices we make in collecting certain materials and not collecting other is not neutral. All these arguments over the value of neutrality are null and void when the reality is that we are not, cannot and will never be neutral:\nConclusion: In \"Speech in the Workplace Q&A,\" ALA (2017) says in issues about policies deemed detrimental to the public interest or to the profession:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore the question of whether or not librarians can ethically remain politically neutral in the wake of the 45th administration. The authors take a critical look at the American Library Association's Code of Ethics, as well as the concept of vocational awe, and recommend challenging the \"sacredness\" of neutrality as a core tenet of the profession. Additionally, the authors describe the history of white privilege within libraries and argue that it is time to actively fight white supremacy and disavow the profession's history of replicating racist social structures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a researched think piece designed to encourage critical thought about long-held idealistic beliefs in the profession.\nFindings: This study suggests that despite the profession's history of outwardly valuing \"neutrality,\" libraries are not and have never been neutral. Libraries have chosen, time and again, to value white privilege and a white frame of reference to the detriment of librarians and patrons of color. Because many librarians also see the profession as upholding \"sacred\" ideals like neutrality, we fall into the trap of being unable to criticize our own profession and practices and, therefore, are unable to make much needed changes.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study is based on the opinions of the authors and on the opinions of authors they have cited. It contains no original quantitative or qualitative research.\nOriginality/value: This study challenges the long-held assumptions that the profession has taken for granted over the past century. The authors argue that it is good and necessary to question the Code of Ethics, vocational awe and neutrality with the goal of improving the profession in light of the current cultural and political climate.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A systematic framework for understanding environmental design influences on physical activity in the elderly population: A review of literature
|
[
"Active living",
"Elderly adults",
"Built environment",
"Physical activity",
"Activity",
"Health",
"Elderly population",
"Facility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Most elderly adults spend the majority of their day inside or around their home, and this lifestyle is often related to low activity levels during the day, resulting in increased health issues, dependency and obesity levels (Rodiek et al., 2013). According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the prevalence of obesity as one of the health issues associated with inactivity among US adults over 60 years old was 41 per cent by the end of 2016 (Hales et al., 2017). Health problems associated with inactivity may lead to a higher level of health-care dependency (Andreyeva and Sturm, 2006; O'Brien, 1998; Thompson, 2013). Providing an appropriate level of physical activity may enhance the physical and emotional health of the elderly population and delay disability processes (Lee and Park, 2006; Wang et al., 2012).\nMethods: This systematic review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist, to identify the impact of environmental design on enhancement of activities and explore the studies which included design considerations (Gharaveis and Kazem-Zadeh, 2018). Related studies about different residential facilities in general and different scales of design in particular were included in the list of studies.\nResults: Initially, 218 studies were found - 197 through the databases and 29 as the result of the manual search. After deleting the duplicated studies, the abstracts of 163 were screened for the first round of review. In the second round, 106 were selected for screening for the full study review. In the last step of the study review, 30 studies were included from a list of 67. The final list included studies published between 2002 and 2019 (see Figure 3).\nDiscussion: The findings of this review emphasize the importance of architecture, interior design and overall built environmental design on the level of physical activity in the elderly population. The ideas and strategies that were synthesized in this review will assist in inactivity prevention for the elderly in a wide range of design scales from neighborhood design to small-scale facilities. In proposing models and strategies to improve physical mobility of the elderly population, the decision-makers should focus on increasing positive elements including attractiveness, convenience, comfort, views into activity places, connectivity to other walkable spaces and providing desirable destinations. Also, the audience of this study should consider decreasing potential barriers such as safety issues, security risks, supervision challenges, limitations in the use of assistive devices and barriers of continuous supervision.\nLimitations: This review study has limitations regarding the search strategy design, reviewed studies and analysis/synthesis process. First, the final list of related studies only includes the articles that concentrated on environmental design considerations. The author sought studies that incorporated knowledge about design-related concepts, and the intention was to provide a list of homogenous ideas for in-depth comparison of outcomes. However, this might have excluded other aspects of physical activity level including social, cultural and economic. The author has provided the theoretical frameworks for future investigators to explore other aspects of active living. Second, the exact dates of the keyword searches were not provided, which may hinder the replicability of the systematic review to find future related studies. Third, the body of literature has been limited to the sources in a limited number of databases, while it could have been more comprehensive. Fourth, a few studies were experimental or randomly assigned, and this makes the findings less reliable. Fifth, the statistical analysis on the pool of the quantitative studies together to obtain a larger sample size was not applicable to check the similarities of the findings, because the included studies have not provided enough details. Finally, all the search and synthesis were performed by a single author, while review of the materials by more researchers could have been desirable.\nConclusion: The findings of this review provide an understanding of the role of the built environments on activity levels by the elderly in different residential facilities and spaces. This is based on the results of the evidence evaluations in the body of the literature review to bolster the existing knowledge. According to differences in the nature of activities in different spaces, studies should concentrate on different facilities on all scales.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to synthesize the published literature regarding the impact of environmental design on the improvement of elderly residents' physical activity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To provide convergent evidence about the association between facility design/management and physical activity of elderly population, searches were conducted in the PubMed and Google Scholar databases, as well as in specific active living design journals such as Applied Gerontology, Aging and Physical Activity, Housing for the Elderly and Sports Sciences. The inclusion criteria for the final list were the articles that were qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods studies as well as systematic reviews; written in English; related to the built environmental design; wholly or partially focused on physical activity in elderly population; and published in peer-reviewed journals between 1984 and 2019.\nFindings: Overall, 30 studies were included in the final list. The results of this review demonstrate that design interventions can raise physical functioning inside and outside of long-term residential facilities. Increasing opportunities for walkable spaces and reducing physical barriers can result in higher levels of physical activity for the elderly population.\nResearch limitations/implications: This systematic review discloses the design strategies to enhance the level of physical activity by the elderly population based on the findings of the published literature. Overall space layout and accessibility to outdoor walkable spaces were addressed to generally promote the moderate levels of physical activity in elderly population.\nPractical implications: Increasing opportunities for walkable spaces and reducing physical barriers result in higher level of activity for the elderly population. Corridor design and interior design ergonomic considerations were highlighted in the literature. Space layout and accessibility to outdoor walkable spaces promote the moderate levels of physical activity.\nSocial implications: Environmental design considerations are unique aspects of enhancement of activity level in the elderly population.\nOriginality/value: This systematic review discloses the design strategies to enhance the level of physical activity by the elderly population based on the findings of the published literature. Overall space layout and accessibility to outdoor walkable spaces were addressed to generally promote the moderate levels of physical activity in elderly population.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Antecedents to export information generation: a cross-national study
|
[
"Exporting",
"Information generation",
"Multigroup analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is increasing evidence that export market orientation is a key differentiator between successful and less successful exporting firms (Cadogan et al., 2009). While there are several conceptualizations and operationalizations of market orientation in the generic marketing literature (e.g. Narver and Slater, 1990; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993), export market orientation is typically defined as behaviors entailing the generation and dissemination of export information, and the firm's responsiveness to that information (Murray et al., 2007). Traditionally, export market orientation has been treated as the sum of its three component behaviors, with studies examining drivers and outcomes of the construct as a whole (e.g. Cadogan et al., 2006). In contrast, research on the individual dimensions of export market orientation is still lagging despite the fact that information processing theory views the various information-related behaviors as sequential and not always perfectly aligned (Hunt et al., 2000; Clark et al., 2006). In addition, operating within its own nomological network, each of the three dimensions of market orientation has the potential to have different consequences. More specifically, it may be the case that extent of export information generation is related to extent of responsiveness to information (Theodosiou and Katsikea, 2013) rather than to performance directly. In spite of this, the typical way to measure market orientation's impact on performance is via a single composite score which, according to Cadogan (2012), may hide the potential relationships that may otherwise be seen. Thus, examining export information generation as a separate construct constitutes a more fine-grained approach and may allow for more directly applicable recommendations that are specific to this construct. Studies adopting this more micro-level perspective are beginning to emerge in the international marketing literature (e.g. Chung, 2012; Dong et al., 2013; Sorensen and Madsen, 2012).\n2. Conceptual foundations: In this study, Moorman's (1995, p. 320) definition of information generation as \"the processes involved in bringing information about the external environment into the boundary of the organization\" is adopted. Export information generation is the acquisition of information specifically relevant to export decision making (Cavusgil, 1984a). The current interest lies in alternative modes of information generation used by exporters, rather than simply the extent of information acquisition activity, in a bid to provide a holistic picture of information acquisition activities and a comparison of alternative sources of export information. Modes of generation categorize export information sources based upon a combination of the nature of the information provided (i.e. objective vs experiential), the degree of formality/objectivity of the acquisition process (i.e. formal vs informal), and the location of the information (i.e. internal vs external). Based upon past literature (Souchon and Diamantopoulos, 1996; Yeoh, 2005), three modes can be distinguished.\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Data collection\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1. Measurement invariance\n5. Contributions and conclusions: In meeting the objectives of this study to examine key antecedents to export information generation in a multi-country context, we offer theoretical and practitioner contributions and propose a number of further research avenue.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that enhance export decision-makers' generation of export information, using a non-linear approach and a multi-country context, and so provide export decision-makers with empirically based guidelines on how to maximize their information acquisition efforts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A broad perspective on export information generation is adopted, including marketing research, export assistance, and market intelligence. The model of antecedents to information generation is tested in three studies (USA, Austria, New Zealand, respectively) using structural equation modeling techniques. Multigroup and hierarchical analysis is performed to assess cross-national invariance of relevant measures, and quadratic effects.\nFindings: The findings show that the predictors of export information generation vary across the three countries studied, and that many of the relationships are non-linear.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study contributes to the export marketing literature by developing the understanding of how exporters can develop greater knowledge of information sources on which to build export decisions, and the conditions necessary for enhanced export information acquisition activity. The findings highlight that future research should consider non-linear relationships and the examination of the outcomes of export information generation in a cross-national setting.\nPractical implications: The study findings advocate that practitioners (exporters and advisers) tailor their export information generation efforts to the different country needs.\nOriginality/value: This research responds to a call for more theoretically based studies on antecedents to export information generation, concurrent with the use of more robust statistical methods.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Production locations for the internationalising food industry: case study from Russia
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Food industry",
"Emerging markets",
"Russia",
"Finland",
"Plant location and layout"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The strategic planning of demand-supply networks may involve decisions regarding customers, products, manufacturing processes, as well as the establishment/closure of facilities. The facility-decisions have a long-term impact on the profitability and competitive position of the company; however, they must often be based on limited knowledge of the current and projected conditions on the ground (Current et al., 1997; Goetschalckx, 2002). In the emerging markets (EM), the high rate of change in the business environment, lack of knowledge of the market and the high levels of uncertainty and risk, may postpone investments to facilities. In this vein, Johanson and Vahlne (1990), p. 22) have called for research that investigates how firm internationalization processes are related to the surrounding processes, such as the one of environmental change (Meyer and Gelbuda, 2006).Examples of dynamic business environments may be found in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where structural changes in political systems and industries has been rapid during the last decade. The process of evaluating a company's facility location options in the light of formalised management decision aids becomes all the more important in the context of turbulent emerging markets.Depending on the role of the manufacturing facility, the emphasis of supply chain related criteria in the location decision may vary. Whether the chain is global, international or predominantly local, the design of a functional supply chain may be essential for the firm's business model. Therefore, supply chain considerations must be included in the location decision, especially in certain industries where supply chain functionality and management are keys to competitiveness. Examples of such industries include agribusiness, food retailing, automotive, and fashion/apparel (Fearne and Hughes, 1999; Bourlakis and Bourlakis, 2001; Doran, 2004; Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006).The approach in this research follows in the footsteps of studies that have mapped the processes of market selection (Cavusgil et al., 2004; Rahman, 2003; Andersen and Buvik, 2002), and contributes to the literature on facility location decisions (Karakaya and Canel, 1998; Canel and Das, 2002). These two streams of literature are seen as connected in the geographical, as well as in the decision-orientation dimensions. Special attention in this research is given to the supply chain management (SCM) related criteria in the location decision, reflected in the choice of the case: the Finnish food industry. The research questions addressed are as follows:RQ1. What are the location decision criteria and their relative weights in the context of food manufacturing internationalisation into EMs?RQ2. How are supply chain related factors reflected in these location decision criteria?RQ3. How do selected Russian regional food industry branches compare in terms of the presented decision model?The research questions are addressed by constructing a decision model, which utilises the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) by Saaty (1980, 1994). The model results reflect the internationalisation decision-making factors in the context of manufacturing facility establishment. A real-life application of the model is presented, incorporating the decision makers' views with data from regional food industry branches of the rapidly developing Russian agribusiness sector. Overall, the paper gives insight to practitioners considering Russia as a location for agribusiness-related manufacturing operations.The paper is constructed as follows: first, the paper presents concise literature reviews on SCM in the international context, as well as on facility location. Second, methodology of the research is considered, followed by background and the research environment. Third, the decision model is presented with the application. Finally, discussion and conclusions follow.\nLiterature review: Supply chain management in the international context\nBackground and methodology: The internationalising Finnish food industry\nDecision model on locating food industry supply chain operations in emerging markets: The case study described in this paper originated from a project financed by the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry that aimed at providing the Finnish food industry with supply chain oriented information on investment opportunities in two Russian regions, namely Leningrad and Krasnodar (PEI, 2006). The project serves as an example of the industry's requirements for more knowledge on the market in order to reduce the perceived risk of investment.Identification of pertinent decision factors\nApplication of the model in the Russian agribusiness environment: In Figure 3, some main characteristics of the model application targets are depicted, with the aim of underlining the geographic and socio-economic differences between the two regions, separated by a distance of some 2,300km.The performance of the agricultural sector, and its future development in the Leningrad Region, is affected by the close vicinity of the metropolitan area of St Petersburg. This influence has a positive, as well as a negative impact. Short distance to a major market, as well as a national transportation hub, creates cost savings for input suppliers, agricultural producers and food processors. On the other hand, a professional workforce is difficult to attract and costly to retain in the rural areas.The Leningrad region agricultural production represents 2 per cent of the Russian agro-industrial production as a whole. Main food processing facilities are concentrated around the St Petersburg area, usually within a 100-150 km distance from the city. As of January 2006, there were 217 agricultural companies, 214,000 private backyards, 20 processing plants (12 milk processing plants, six meat processing plants, two canned food plants) in the region.In general, the food supply chain in the Leningrad region is at a very early stage of development. However, very notable changes towards modernisation in almost all areas of the chain are occurring. One could mention vertical integration and long-term direct contracting in the dairy and poultry sectors, product coordination in the dairy sector, and efforts towards branding in the poultry sector.Major grocery retail chains are increasing their presence in the Leningrad region and St Petersburg with Pyaterochka Holdings as a regional leader with 167 of their own shops and more than 50 franchise shops. The development of the grocery retail sector has led to the creation of modern warehousing and logistics facilities to support distribution.The Krasnodar Region on the other hand, is generally considered as the most favourable location for agricultural activities in Russia, and has attracted significant amounts of foreign investments during the last years. Abundant natural resources, fertile soil, good climatic conditions are the fundamentals, which build the base for the agricultural sector in the Krasnodar region. With 2.3 per cent of Russia's total amount of agricultural land, the region produces more than 7 per cent of the gross agricultural production of the country (e.g. 10 per cent of grain, 75 per cent of rice, 40 per cent of corn). Agricultural production constitutes 45 per cent of the GRP (compared to an average of 11 per cent for Russia). There are about 700 major agricultural production manufacturers, which produce 70 per cent of the agricultural output. The rest is provided by more than 18,000 agricultural farms and 800,000 private backyards.The food supply chain in the Krasnodar region is developing as positively as in the Leningrad region. The large agro-industrial companies and the notable foreign investment cluster in the region implies the gradual adoption of SCM practices, potentially leading to better coordination between producers, processors and retail operators.Due to the nature of the financing body (Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture, catering for the needs of the heterogeneous Finnish food industry), a way to compare food industry branches in the selected regions was required. Pork, poultry and dairy branches in both regions were targeted with the application.Collection of data and ranking of each potential factor\nDiscussion on empirical results and industry branch overviews: This section elaborates on the model application results, and provides concise overviews of each regional industry branch (PEI, 2006). While the differences in the aggregate industry branch scores are not great, they still indicate significant variation in terms of individual location criteria. Krasnodar seems to be a relatively better place to establish food production in general, but some industry branch specific factors make the Leningrad poultry branch more attractive than the respective one in Krasnodar. The more pronounced differences per industry level criteria may be observed in Figure 5.The reasons behind the attractiveness of the Leningrad region poultry branch, in comparison to the respective one in Krasnodar, and other regional branches also, seem to be the following: stronger supply base of raw material, competitive situation is much more relaxed, input costs are lower, and the level of SCM readiness and know-how is significantly higher.The main strength of Krasnodar region, in general, seems to be the availability of acquisition targets, as significant investments (both domestic and foreign) have taken place for improving food production technology in local companies. In Leningrad, only the dairy branch seems to be able to offer similar M&A opportunities. Also, competition is generally lower in comparison to the Leningrad region (except in poultry).The Krasnodar region poultry branch is the number two in investment ranking attractiveness due to some of the same reasons as in the Leningrad region: adequate supply of raw materials and the favourable level of input costs in comparison to the other industries. The rating for acquisition target availability is markedly better in the Krasnodar poultry branch in comparison to the same indicator in the Leningrad poultry branch. The values for gap calculations can be found in Tables III-V and Tables VI-VIII.Further, on the general regional level, some additional considerations include the following (see Figure 4). The Leningrad region suffers from a shortage of labour, as it is the worker supplier for the dynamic economic centre of St Petersburg with a number of vibrant industries. Krasnodar, on the other hand, enjoys a plentiful rural work force. Distribution is pronouncedly more effective in the Leningrad region due to geographic compactness, with St Petersburg in the centre of the region and Moscow inside the feasible distribution radius for some products. Consumption is marginally more favourable in Krasnodar, a situation, which is partly explained by the huge seasonal demand peak during the tourist season in the coastal resorts. The level of infrastructure development is somewhat higher in the Leningrad region, having attracted plentiful Federal investments due to its role as a logistical hub for Russian foreign trade (e.g. Trans-Siberian Railway, Baltic Sea ports). Risk levels are perceived to be somewhat more favourable in the Krasnodar region, with the local government very supportive towards attracting foreign investors. Financial risk is more favourable in Leningrad, most probably due to St Petersburg's prominent role in Russian banking and finance.Regional industry branch overviews\nConclusions and implications: The paper presented a decision model for the location of food industry manufacturing and supply chain operations in the emerging market business environment. The aim was to determine the role and significance of supply chain considerations in the decision-making, usually originating from the aim to avoid supply chain uncertainty (Davis, 1993).The significant weight of the supply chain related factors in the decision, underscores the demand-supply network-wide functionality-oriented thinking in the food industry: are we able to secure the supply of raw materials, and can we attain a significant enough market share in order to compete in our business and as a supply chain? Additionally, consumption and distribution potential factors weigh significantly in the decision, as their combined weight reaches 13.3 per cent. Also SCM readiness and know-how -factor's weight of 9.3 per cent portrays the emphasis that food industry practitioners place on integration, collaboration and IT diffusion in the demand-supply networks.The factors with less significance convey the firms' perceived abilities to make an impact with the investment. Labour can be educated and trained to support the activities of the company, infrastructure can be developed in cooperation with regional authorities, ecological risks can be managed with adequate quality inspection regime in place, and legal/financial risks can be managed with local experts and social networks.Based on the results, a practical application of the model was presented that exemplified the development variation in Russian agribusiness industries. The Krasnodar region provided a good overall production base for all the focus industry branches, while the Leningrad region excelled especially in the poultry industry (number 1 in the ranking).The main theoretical postulation of the paper is that supply chain considerations are a major factor in the food industry location decisions, due to the need to utilise local sourcing, distribution and service systems. Consequently, the development of industries, services and know-how in the target market is crucial to the entry and business development decisions of foreign firms. This finding is in line with the IP-model (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977), as it can be proposed that as conditions for the ability to implement functional supply chains develop favourably, knowledge of these conditions permeates the company, and market commitments in the form of facility establishment take place.The downstream, upstream and related service sectors in the supply chain can thereby serve as constraints to the business expansion process. This research, therefore, addresses the need to understand a company's internationalisation processes' relation to other development processes in the economy and business networks (Johanson and Vahlne, 1990), specifically from the supply chain management perspective.The above-presented empirical findings may serve as useful input to policy decision-making processes of national and regional authorities, as well as investment agencies. Proper assessment of the agribusiness supply chain development needs can be done, facilitated by improved understanding on the decision-making criteria of international food companies.For practitioners, the results underscore the timing aspect of food and agribusiness entry into emerging markets. If the company lacks the abundant resources of a large multinational company for supplier development etc., postponing entry and related location decisions may be required until the operations supporting demand-supply network has reached a certain level of development and sophistication.In other words, the company may be unable to elevate the demand-supply network-related constraints for entry and expansion. As first-mover advantages may be significant in emerging mass markets, companies have to be looking closely to industry developments. While the large food manufacturing multinationals (such as Nestle) may have taken the mass market already, niche strategies may well provide open opportunities for companies that are embedded in local networks, for example, through a sales subsidiary presence. \"Feeling the pulse\" of the market, companies may time capacity expansion correctly and ahead of less-knowledgeable competition.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to identify the location decision criteria and their relative weights in the context of food manufacturing internationalisation into emerging markets, and to clarify how supply chain related factors are reflected in the location decision criteria. Knowledge of these factors is considered crucial in understanding the entry and location decisions of foreign food manufacturers into emerging markets where a high level of operational uncertainty may be evident.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The AHP method is utilised in the creation of a location/investment target -model, with input from a panel of decision makers in the Finnish food industry. A real-life application from the Russian agribusiness industry is presented.\nFindings: - Seven criteria reach above average values, namely economic activity potential (10 per cent), consumption potential (9 per cent), available acquisition targets (12 per cent), adequate supply of raw materials (13 per cent), competitive situation (16 per cent), favourable level of input costs (11 per cent), and SCM readiness and know-how (9 per cent). The significant weight of the last item and the supply chain related factors in general underscore the total demand-supply network-oriented thinking in the food industry.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Supply chain considerations are a major factor in the food industry location decisions, due to the need to utilise the local sourcing, distribution and service systems in the economy. The downstream, upstream and related service sectors in the supply chain can thereby serve as constraints for the business expansion process.\nOriginality/value: - The research addresses the sparsely researched area of linking a firm's internationalisation decision making with supply chain management issues in the emerging market context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
In-group preference as opportunism governance in a collectivist culture: evidence from Korean retail buyer-supplier relationships
|
[
"Transaction costs",
"Buyers",
"South Korea"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nConceptual framework: In this section, mechanisms of various in-groups in Korea are discussed in detail. Then, TCE and SET are briefly discussed to explain the inclusion of trust and control variables, i.e. supplier TSI and relationship length, in the proposed model.In-group preference in Korea\nResearch methods: Data collection\nResults: Measurement validity\nDiscussion and implications: Summary and discussion of major findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether preference toward in-group members can serve as opportunism governance in channel relationships in a collectivist culture. This study proposes a model of opportunism incorporating in-group preference and trust as antecedents of opportunism. Based on Transaction Cost Economics and Social Exchange Theory, transaction-specific investment and relationship length are employed in the model as confounding variables of in-group preference for opportunism and trust.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from 109 Korean department store buyers and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (EQS 6.0).\nFindings: - The results showed that buyers' in-group preference increased buyers' trust toward suppliers and decreased suppliers' opportunistic behavior. Buyers' increased trust toward suppliers was found to reduce suppliers' opportunistic behavior. Further, Trust was significantly influenced by supplier TSI, but not by length of relationship. On the other hand, opportunism was significantly influenced by length of relationship, but not by supplier TSI.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study examined only the positive side of in-group membership. Some criticisms of in-group preference are favoritism, interference with fair competition, and collective blindness, any of which might decrease the efficiency of business operations. These impacts should be examined to gain a balanced view of the implications of in-group preference in business settings.\nPractical implications: - Multinational companies should understand that in-group membership is an important source of building trust and oppressing opportunism in the Korean market. Multinational companies can strategically approach in-group members of business partners to become members of those in-groups.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first empirical study to examine collectivists' tendencies toward in-group preference as opportunism governance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Information availability at the competitive bidding stage for service contracts
|
[
"Uncertainty",
"Competitive bidding",
"Information availability",
"Service contract",
"Servitisation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Sustainable production and consumption have become more important internationally which has led to the transformation of market structures and competitive situations into the direction of servitisation (Baines et al., 2011; Bandinelli and Gamberi, 2011). For a manufacturing company the shift towards being a service provider is characterised by a high level of uncertainty about the future strategic development of the company caused by, e.g. inadequate knowledge and information (Song et al., 2007). For this research, a service is defined as an activity or a process which is aimed at the change of the state of the service issue such as the repair of a machine or the supply of flying hours for an aircraft (Araujo and Spring, 2006; Gadrey, 2000).\n2 Bidding for contracts: Most literature describing theory on bidding decisions focus on auction-type processes (Cai et al., 2009; Schoenherr and Mabert, 2008; Neugebauer and Pezanis-Christou, 2007). This means that the described approaches focus on a constrained bidding environment and low complexity and duration of the services discussed in this context (Schoenherr and Mabert, 2008). This means that the model and theories described have limited applicability to the research described in this paper. This research focuses on services of high complexity, which are typically embedded in contracts of long duration.\n3 Method: The aim of this study was to explore the availability of relevant information in the context of competitive bidding for a service contract on the supplier's side and to describe the subjective processes of the decision maker at the bidding stage. To examine this aim, an interview study was conducted. The following sections describe the applied method of this study in more detail. First, the interview procedure is described, then the design of the interview with the questions is explained, and last, the number of interviewees and the for example the sectors they work in are then described.\n4 Results: This section analyses the results of the interview study and presents them in the four main areas, namely uncertainty and risk, bidding context, input information, and bidding strategy. The term bidding strategy refers to the pattern of activities which has an impact on the achievement of bidding goals such as winning a profitable contract.\n5 Discussion: The pricing process used by most of the interviewees was cost based which confirms the assumptions of previous studies (Avlonitis and Indounas, 2005). Furthermore, a connection could be observed between the complexity of the contract and the bidding process which determines the level of negotiation between customer and possible supplier. It was found that the more complex a service contract, the closer the two parties work together throughout the bidding process. This confirms the research of Bajari et al. (2008). However, a connection between the payment method and the bidding process as described by Bajari et al. (2008) was not confirmed in this study.\n6 Summary and conclusions: This paper presented an interview study with industrialists from manufacturing companies facing the change of market structures towards servitisation. The study gave insights into the typically available information. Table V shows a summary of the findings.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the information that manufacturing companies have available when competitively bidding for service contracts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A semi-structured interview study was undertaken with industrialists in various sectors, which are currently facing the issue of servitisation.\nFindings: One of the main findings was that, despite the novelty of the process, the decision makers at the competitive bidding stage have an understanding of the involved uncertainties. In particular, the uncertainty arising from the customer as the user of the product and evaluator of the competitive bids in addition to the uncertainty connected to the competitors were identified as the main influences on the pricing decision.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research implications show the influences and considerations during the decision-making process at the competitive bidding stage for service contracts. These include the customer and the competitors.\nPractical implications: Shortcomings in the current industrial practice were identified such as the approaches used to communicate the cost estimate for the service contract. The approaches currently used contradict research findings in the area of communicating uncertainty information, which means that further research is to be done to identify optimal approaches to displaying the uncertainty connected to the communicated information.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers a basis for research to understand the challenges industry faces when competitively bidding for service contracts. This can be used to develop novel approaches in supporting the decision maker such as a model that presents the probability of winning in comparison to the probability of making a profit.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Organizational flexibility from a network organizational perspective: A study of central predictors and moderating factors in military contexts
|
[
"Cultural differences",
"Decentralized processes",
"Flat structure",
"Flexibility",
"Network organization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Military organizations typically operate within high-speed, rapidly changing environments that have become increasingly diverse, complex, and multinational in nature (Alberts and Hayes, 2003; Atkinson and Moffat, 2005). Both the country of engagement and the mission to be undertaken can change rapidly and abruptly. For example, operations can range from peace-keeping missions to full war, from desert to urban operation, and from national operations to multinational NATO missions. Furthermore, because military operations affect the well-being of everyone involved in and affected by a mission and influence both political and international relations, there is a need for military organizations to function optimally at all times.\nMethod: Design\nResults: Studies 1-3 (field studies)\nDiscussion: The results from the four studies, including both the separate and conjoint analyses of data, lend support to H1 and H2, which proposed that the flexibility of an organization is positively related to flat structure and decentralized processes. The relationship between decentralization and flexibility was the strongest and most consistent relationship observed (H2). Moreover, in three of four studies (studies 1-3), decentralization was found to relate positively to flexibility. Flat structure was found to relate positively to flexibility (H1) in two of four studies (studies 2 and 3). Although there were no significant separate effects of the independent variables (i.e. flat structure and decentralization) in the laboratory study (study 4), there was a significant collective effect (i.e. the regression model that included both independent variables was significant), which was interpreted as being caused by the relatively high intercorrelation between the independent variables. In the laboratory study, the same trend in the data was also observed at the group level of analysis, suggesting the same relationships at both levels of analysis.\nConclusion: This study demonstrated that both perceived flat organizational structure and decentralized processes were positively related to perceived organizational flexibility as proposed by military and civilian network organization theories. This finding is particularly applicable to the issue of decentralization. When analyzed collectively, the data revealed significant relationships both between decentralization and flexibility and between flat structure and flexibility. These results indicate that decentralizing processes and flattening the hierarchies may contribute to higher levels of organizational flexibility in military organizations. Thus, an important implication for obtaining more flexible military organizations (compared with those that currently exist) would involve an increased focus on organizational changes in terms of structure and processes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on organizational flexibility and explore its antecedents, organizational structure, and processes, as proposed by network organization theories. The study also explores the possible moderating effects of power distance (Pd) and cultural diversity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using self-report data from three different multinational military exercises and one laboratory experiment, the paper explored the relationships between perceptions of flat organizational structure, decentralized processes, and flexibility. The data from each of these studies were analyzed both separately and together.\nFindings: The analyses revealed that decentralization had the most consistent relationship to organizational flexibility across each of the four studies. Moreover, when the data were analyzed conjunctively, significant positive relationships between decentralization and flexibility and between flat structure and flexibility were observed. No moderating effects of Pd or cultural diversity were found.\nPractical implications: The results suggest that decentralizing processes and creating flatter hierarchies may contribute to achieving higher levels of organizational flexibility in military organizations.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to empirical support for the central theoretical propositions of network organizational literature, including moderating factors that are essential in multinational organizational contexts.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mapping social economy discourses in Chile
|
[
"Social economy",
"Cooperatives",
"Fair trade",
"Solidarity economics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Economic thought has been hegemonized by the so-called Standard Economic Theory, characterized by a universalistic, deductive and formalistic theoretical body. This is based on a theory of rational, maximizing and self-interested action - the homo economicus - from which emerges a set of formal models of social functioning. These models work as descriptive, predictive and normative systems, which not only approach the economic reality in a scientific way, but also define what is \"speakable\" and \"unspeakable\" economically. They trace thus, what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls an \"abysmal line\" between the economy recognized as existing, and the relationships and economic practices not only invisible but also actively produced as nonexistent within a \"monoculture of productivity\" (de Sousa Santos, 2011). The theoretical body of the Standard Economic Theory - described by Gibson-Graham (2006) as a \"capitalocentric\" - fails to account for the ideological and political concerns and economic practices of a diversity of actors -individuals and collectives - who seek to build other economic relationships, founded in the expanded reproduction of human and non-human life.\nPlural economy and economics: The Standard Economic Theory conceives the world as an enormous mechanism constituted by a series of pieces - elementary units of analysis - that interact forming a whole. There are a series of laws that emerge from the rationality and individual coordinated behavior that, at any time and place, govern the relations of production and exchange (Misas, 2004). As Latour points out, the Standard Economic Theory has been built on a model of action and decision, which does not account for the diversity of subjectivities - passionate interests - that animate the economy. And even more, economy-discipline has built the economy-thing (Latour and Lepinay, 2008), in what Polanyi (1944) called a great self-fulfilling prophecy. With the provocative phrase of \"there has never been a capitalist regime\" (Latour and Lepinay, 2008), the authors reveal the performativity of economic activity - as a process that is being done, which leaves different possibilities for the future open - and the relevance of the actors in front of naturalized structures, which returns the capacity of action and political incidence of the actors and contributes to an empowering economic discourse. This semantic change rejects the naturalization of the discourses of domination, power and violence to reconstruct a capable discourse of glimpsing alternative scripts (Latour, 2005). Latour's co-constructivist approach and the Actor Network Theory (ANT) to abandon pre-packaged categories (including capitalism and neoliberalism) and to follow the traces of the actors and their association exercises, including non-human actors or actants (i.e. economic materialities such as products, money, nature, etc.). He looks for contribute to an empowering economic discourse that validates a variety of actors, recognizing for example the ability to control stakeholders and consumers; resistance and pressure networks (workers, the environment, etc.); and the capacity of resilience of local economies to coexist and re-enact the \"penetrations\" of capital (Gibson-Graham, 2006).\nMethodology: The research adopted a comprehensive epistemological approach, which considers that there is no single way of conceiving economic relationships and activities; but several definitions depending on actors, their stories and their interpretations of reality. Thus, it was proposed to show the economic diversity through a typology of discourses elaborated from the analysis of key informant discourses. The target population was composed by actors linked to the social and solidarity economy sector in the regions of Valparaiso, Maule, Biobio and La Araucania, building an intentional sample of 45 key informants, who were contacted using the snowball technique. It is guaranteed a certain stratification of the sample to include three types of actors:\nResults: Objectives and fundamental values\nDiscussion: The discourse categories described above are diverse and some of them contradictory, reflecting tensions between the social economy actors. It is possible to distribute them in two axes of tension: reform-transformation and molar-molecular, which cross not only the discourses but also the literature on economic alternatives\nFinal thoughts: Previous studies developed in Latin America about social and solidarity economy have been focused in objective dimensions as the volume of incomes, expenditures or jobs (Coraggio et al., 2010). This is the first study aimed at characterizing the subjective field of discourse held by different actors who recognize themselves as part of an alternative economy movement. Others related studies on discourses about alternative economics focus on Brazilian individual social enterpreneurs promoting engagement process through social media projects (Casaqui, 2015). However it founded such social projects have no regard for the role of the State, for the polyphony existing in society and for the political dimension of transformation processes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the social economy discourses in four regions of Chile, characterized by their internal economic heterogeneity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using an intentional sample, semi-structured interviews were applied to 45 key informants from the public sector, universities, consultant enterprises, cooperatives and civil society organizations. Through a content analysis, thematic axes were identified that allowed to characterize and to recognize the narratives that key informants held about their initiatives, experiences or ventures.\nFindings: The results allow us to understand the diversity of discourses and practices about alternative economies, being able to organize them from two axes: the tension between molar and molecular subjectivities; and the tension between reform and transformation (which refers to a transformative type of institutional and socio-material change). These axes propose an interpretative framework that integrates a diversity of distinctions and/or polarities and problematizes the homogeneity of formal economic discourse.\nResearch limitations/implications: The discourses analyzed by this paper offers representativeness by saturation. It do not allow to ponder for sure the relative presence of each of these discourses in the field of economic diversity. The analysis of what type of actors sustain each type of discourse remains pending.\nSocial implications: The high discourse heterogeneity makes it possible to foresee major difficulties in terms of political articulation and the visibility of various alternative economic experiences, initiatives or ventures as part of a social transformation movement.\nOriginality/value: Previous studies developed in Latin America about social and solidarity economy have been focused in objective dimensions as the volume of incomes, expenditures or jobs. This is the first study aimed at characterizing the subjective field of discourse held by different actors who recognize themselves as part of an alternative economy movement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Universities: a prime example of branding going wrong
|
[
"Universities",
"Brand management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: University buildings can become tourist attractions, even if they've been closed for nearly 200 years (Kover and Maxwell, 2002). Yet in a more contemporary context individuals need to assess the quality of the less tangible but more immediately important features of a university, such as its graduate outcomes. No single person is in a position to judge the quality of research, teaching, student selection, curriculum design, infrastructure, staff consultancy skills and so on that all go to make up one of these highly complicated institutions. The answer, of course, is branding, as a shorthand measure of the whole range of criteria that go to make up the quality of a university.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present a call to action for universities to practice what they preach in developing and communicating differentiated brands.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Reviews some recent literature on university branding and contrasts this with other industries.\nFindings: - For the benefit not just of intending students, but also for the benefit of potential and existing staff as well as research clients and graduate employers, universities should develop meaningfully differentiated brands to communicate their strengths.\nResearch limitations/implications: - University brand managers should seek to clearly differentiate their offerings from the competition. Aspects of a university's brand attract students, staff, and industry seeking staff or consultancy.\nOriginality/value: - The large amounts of expenditure on university marketing would be more efficiently used if the principles of brand management taught within them were applied properly.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Leverage and employee compensation - the perspective of human capital
|
[
"Capital structure",
"CEO compensation",
"Employee pay",
"Human capital risk"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Human capital is the stock of knowledge, habits, social and personality attributes, including creativity, embodied in the ability to produce economic value by the labors. It is an important factor for corporate operations in addition to financial capital. Traced back to 50 years ago, the age of industrial economic, most of the companies and academic studies only care about the financial capital. Since Modigliani and Miller (1958) argued that capital structure is irrelevant in a frictionless economy, many scholars have explored what types of frictions make the capital structure decision become important in reality and reached two key factors of frictions: corporate tax rate and bankruptcy cost. A more mature and prominent theory is the trade-off theory. Trade-off theory advocates that an increase in debt will lead to more tax benefits under the assumptions that firms keep their operations and assets unchanged, but the increase in debt may also invite bankruptcy costs. In the 1990s, the Research Department of United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development became aware of the importance of human capital and proposed the concept of knowledge-based economy which advocates that knowledge and human abilities are valuable and they should be considered as one of the capitals of a firm. Nowadays, human capital plays a key role in the economy. Although there have been abundance of empirical studies addressing executive compensation, little attention has been paid to the effect of corporate debts on corporate salary policies from the perspective of human capital. This paper fills the gap. Specifically, we argue that companies having higher leverage level compensate their employees for potential cost of bankruptcy by giving more salaries. However, we also argue that the salary policies of financial distressed firms may differ from that of other firms. This is because financial distressed firms may use leverage as a bargaining tool in the negation of labor contracts.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Human capital\n3. Hypothesis development: Previous studies (i.e. Titman, 1984; Berk et al., 2010) indicate that bankruptcy cost is associated with the cost of employees. Under the trade-off theory, raising debts might invite bankruptcy costs although it creates tax benefits. More debts imply higher propensity of bankruptcy, which imposes an unavoidable human capital risk on employees. In a situation where a firm has higher leverage level, the firm needs to compensate its employees with higher salary for the expected bankruptcy cost. If firms with higher leverage level compensate their employees with higher salary, we expect a positive impact of corporate leverage on employee compensation. Therefore, we develop the following hypothesis:\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Regression models for the first hypothesis\n5. Empirical results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Conclusion: Titman (1984) and Berk et al. (2010) theoretically provided that firms making liquidation decisions may impose indirect bankruptcy cost on employees who have firm-specific human capital. In this paper, we empirically examine how human capital affects corporate leverage and employee compensation. We document that firms with higher leverage tend to compensate employees for their human capital risk. We further compare financial distressed firms with financially healthy firms. We find that financial distressed firms consider leverage as a bargaining tool to depress labor costs, which leads to less employee compensation as compared to those of financially healthy firms.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the predictions in Titman (1984) and Berk et al. (2010) which indicate that firms with higher leverage will pay chief executive officer (CEO) and employee more. In addition, this paper examines whether financial distressed firms utilize leverage as a bargaining tool to reduce labor costs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper conducts ordinary least squares regression analysis to investigate: CEO compensation which represents critical employees and lower-level employee compensation which represents less critical employees. Empirical data consist of US publicly held companies during the period between 2006 and 2013.\nFindings: This paper finds that firms with higher levels of leverage tend to compensate employees for their human capital risk and that financially distressed firms consider leverage a bargaining tool by which to depress labor costs, which leads to lower employee compensation as compared to that of financially healthy firms.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper highlights the importance of keeping balance between human capital and labor costs. In the case that human capital risk might not be fully compensated by firms facing financial distress, vicious cycle could occur because a failure of considering human capital might invite unrecoverable consequence. This could be done in future research.\nOriginality/value: This paper has three contributions. First, this paper supports the Titman (1984) and Berk et al. (2010) by empirically documenting that high-leveraged firms compensate their employees for potential human capital risk. Second, this paper adds to the literature by empirically providing that human capital risk might not be fully compensated if the firms are facing financial distress. Finally, this paper contributes to the authorities by showing that employees' interests may be sacrificed if the firm is under financial distress.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A perceptual approach to understanding user-generated media behavior
|
[
"Network effects",
"Diffusion of innovation",
"Market mavenism",
"Network optimization",
"Propensity to blog",
"Information media",
"Blogs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: As the pervasiveness of blogging becomes comingled in personal and corporate lives, companies are harvesting useful information from user-generated media. Companies have assigned senior officers such titles as Chief Blogger at Kodak, and, Vice President of e-Business and Interactive Marketing at Newell Rubbermaid. Hotel chain, Best Western, has hired outside bloggers. Dell launched Direct2Dell in 2006 and IdeaStorm in 2007 to proactively solicit customer feedback on its products and has benefited from new product ideas, and product and service improvements. It appears that corporate participation and creative utilization of blogs has become standard procedure for doing business.\nTheoretical background and research hypotheses: We used the Theory of Network Effect (Metcalfe, 1980) and Diffusion of Innovation Theory (e.g. Rogers, 1983, 1995) to provide a foundation for this exploratory research on user-generated media.\nHypotheses development: This section presents hypotheses based on marketing, management, and sociology literature focusing on bloggers\nConceptual framework & research design: Conceptual framework\nResults and data analysis: structural equation modeling results: The two step process of structural equation modeling (SEM) which was used to test the proposed model is described next. First, we report how the measurement model was estimated and how the structural model was tested (1982). Next, we present an examination of the structural model results for the calibration and validation samples.\nValidation of the result: Validation of the obtained results is considered to be a critical part of the research findings in order to ensure that the outcome can be generalized to a larger population (Faber and Kowalski, 1998). Hence, to validate the findings of the model based on the calibration sample and to ensure that the results were not specific only to the sample data, we tested the model on the holdout sample intended for this validation purpose.\nDiscussion of results: In evaluating relevant insights, two questions were addressed regarding: predictors of attitudes toward blogging; and, the relationship between attitudes toward blogging and propensity to blog. First, which determinant was more important in augmenting bloggers attitude toward participating in an online blogging activity? As blogging becomes a standard way for companies to connect with customers, marketing practitioners should attempt to understand and respond to the blogging behavior if they are to establish strong bonding relationships with bloggers. The results of this study indicated that the two factors of bloggers\nManagerial implications: As Blogging becomes more pervasive and more accessible to individuals as consumers and customers, marketers will be inexorably drawn into the conversation or at least have to bear the consequences of what is being said about their company and their products and services. When companies become more engaged in the blogging behavior of their customers, it behooves them to better understand blogging behavior - the motivations and other factors that predict blogging activity. Companies such as DELL that treat customer input and feedback as an opportunity will find blogging a key source of information on the performance of its products and workforce. New product ideas, feedback on newly launched products or product versions, advertising and promotion campaigns are examples of what the company might find from formulated engagement in customer blogs and in running their own blogs. An ongoing healthy online community around the company and its products is in the company\nLimitations and directions for future research: The two theories used to develop this study identify just a few of the potential factors that may affect individual blogger\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: As the pervasiveness of blogging becomes comingled in personal and corporate lives, companies are harvesting useful information from user-generated media. It appears that user-generated media (e.g. blogs, among others) has become an increasingly important way for companies to connect with customers. Though blogging activity is a fast emerging phenomenon, however, to date only a handful of research has been done by scholars about blogging activity. The little research done on blogging has focused on the company perspective; how companies can use blogs to interact with their customers, but did not examine the individual blogger\nDesign/methodology/approach: A structural model was developed depicting the relationships among key constructs of research interest. This model reflects theories drawn from social psychology and the literature on marketing and information systems. Structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology was used to empirically validate the model and its hypotheses.\nFindings: Results of the SEM analysis indicated that bloggers\nResearch limitations/implications: This research has certain limitations. First, resource constraints limited the collection of data to only US consumers, so the analysis of this study may only be generalized over population groups within the USA. A future replicating study of this kind would help to verify if the final model of this study holds true in different countries and cultures. A second limitation is that in this study the unit of analysis is at the individual level. Future studies could examine these effects at multiple levels of analysis such as network and business group level, firm level, and country and region level to understand the behavior of bloggers in those settings.\nOriginality/value: In this paper the two germane theories (e.g. theories of network effect and diffusion of innovation) are presented. Related theoretical rationales form the bases for hypotheses underlying the model framework. The second section discusses the empirical tests and validation of the model and presents the results of the SEM methodology. The final section discusses implications of the findings, summarizes limitations, and offers suggestions for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Audit committee effectiveness, audit quality and earnings management: a meta-analysis
|
[
"Earnings management",
"Audit quality",
"Audit committee"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Earnings management can be classified into real earnings management (REM) and accrual earnings management, founded on whether or not it leads to direct cash flow effects. The most popular type is accrual earnings management, where managers apply their discretion over the selection of accounting methods and previsions to affect earnings, which has no direct effect on cash flow (Healy and Wahlen, 1999; Jones, 1991; Dechow et al., 2010). In contrast, REM is manipulation through strategic timing of financing, investing and operating decisions, which directly affect cash flow (Roychowdhury, 2006; Gunny, 2010; Lenard and Yu, 2012). Gunny (2010) reveals that accrual earnings management is achieved by opting for different accounting policies to represent the operating activities; by contrast, real activities earnings management refers to a firm's principal operations to report present earnings on their own will.\n2. Literature review: Many studies on this topic have developed largely from agency theory and have examined corporate governance mechanisms (audit committee and audit quality) as an effective tool in looking for reduced agency problems between managers and shareholders and have aligned the interests of the management with those of the investors. Accordingly, audit committee and audit quality are anticipated to enhance a company's reporting quality and, especially, constrain earnings management.\n3. Research design: 3.1 Sample selection\n4. Empirical results: The audit committee enhanced the financial reporting process by giving more detailed information and understanding of the financial statements. The presence of an audit committee may indicate a higher quality overseeing and it should mitigate the likelihood of earnings management. To date, empirical researches have shown mixed results. Our meta-analysis illustrates that there is no significant association between the existence of an audit committee and earnings management found on either unweighted or weighted Stouffer combined tests. Moreover, in prior literature, a common expectation is that an independent audit committee would reduce earnings management. However, the negative association between audit committee independence and earnings management is not consistently supported in previous literature. The meta-analysis findings stated in Table III reveal a highly significant negative association (at the 1 per cent level) between audit committee independence and earnings management, consistent with the anticipated relationship. In addition, the fail-safe number exceeds the critical number of studies (5124 versus 126), providing strong support for the negative effect of audit committee independence on mitigating earnings management.\n5. Conclusions: The phenomenon of earnings management is not a new problem; even so, its popularity continues to interest investors, regulators, academic researchers and financial analysts. Prior studies (Chtourou et al., 2001; Sun et al., 2014) confirmed that earnings management was influenced by corporate governance mechanisms. Nevertheless, the results of these researches are mixed and are inconsistent, and it is not easy to illustrate substantive conclusions. For this reason, this situation necessitates combination assessment of pertinent empirical researches because of the feeble validity and complexity in finding a general conclusion.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Many researchers, in several contexts, have investigated the influence of audit committee effectiveness and audit quality variables on reducing the extent of earnings management, and empirical evidence is rather inconsistent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The aim of this paper is to meta-analyze the results of 58 prior studies that examined whether differences in results are related to moderating effects associated with corporate governance mechanisms or measures of earnings management.\nFindings: The findings show that the meta-analysis identifies many significant relationships. The independence of the audit committee, its size, expertise and the number of meetings have a negative relationship with earnings management. Similar negative relationships exist between auditor size, specialization and earnings management.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study contributes to the corporate governance literature. Further, recognizing the function of an audit committee and audit quality shows the value of considering an institutional setting in governance research. This study is significant to academic and practitioner literatures, policy makers and professional accounting bodies as it shows that governance reforms promote companies to adopt good governance practices. The results also give useful information to investors in examining the effect of audit committee characteristics and audit quality on earnings quality.\nOriginality/value: This study extends existing research on audit committee and audit quality to oversee both accrual and real earnings management using meta-analysis. Thus, this study has the potential to help stakeholders, board of directors, regulators and auditors, who are related with enhancing the supervision of firms and reducing the opportunities given to managers, to engage in earnings management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A scientometric analysis of e-participation research
|
[
"Social media",
"E-participation",
"Citation bursts",
"Co-occurrence network",
"Cooperation network",
"Time-zone"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the 1990s, the internet has continuously brought about tremendous changes in human life. In the real world, internet has been integrated into government affairs. For example, the USA took the lead in e-government. In 1993, the Clinton Administration established the \"National Performance Evaluation Committee\" and proposed to improve public service through e-government. In 2016, 120 countries out of 193 member states have developed electronic decision tools (Nations, 2016).\n2. Method and data collections: 2.1 Method\n3. Basic distribution analysis: 3.1 The number of annual publications distribution analysis\n4. Keywords analysis: 4.1 Analyze the time-zone of keywords\n5. Authors, institutions and countries analysis: 5.1 The author cooperation network analysis\n6. Conclusions: Different from previous literature review, we focus on \"participation\", excluding many articles on the initial stage of e-government, and thus making the results more specific and explicable. In addition, CiteSpace is used to vividly and comprehensively demonstrate the development trend of e-participation research. We also find that \"e-participation\" has become the most frequently used concept in recent years compared with \"e-government\", \"e-democracy\" and other similar terms. Therefore, it provides reference for the selection of terminology.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Due to the increasing demand for public services, as a new form of public governance, e-participation has emerged. Scholars from various disciplines have published plenty of research results on e-participation. This paper aims to reveal the research status frontiers directly by mapping knowledge domains.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors take 1,322 articles on e-participation published in Web of Science from 2001 to 2017 as research object. They then run the information visualization software CiteSpace to drill deeper into the literature data.\nFindings: The study found that e-participation research has the obvious interdisciplinary feature; the author and institution cooperation networks with less internal cooperation are relatively sparse; the USA ranks first in the field of e-participation research, followed by the UK, with the other countries lagged behind; and e-participation through social media is gradually becoming the new research focus.\nOriginality/value: Based on the objective data and information visualization technology, the research intuitively reveals the research status and development trend of e-participation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Do clinical incidents, complaints and medicolegal claims overlap?
|
[
"Organizational learning",
"Legal",
"Incident reporting",
"Continuous quality improvement",
"Claims",
"Patient complaints",
"Error reporting",
"Datix"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A general view is that complaints and claims processes raise standards and identify bad practice (Bendall-Lyon and Powers, 2001; Javetz and Stern, 1996). However, clinical staff perceive that many complaints and claims do not relate to clinical error, take up disproportionate resources and rather than leading to improved standards, may inadvertently lead to defensive practices, which are unhelpful, with some policy commentaries building on similar views (Furedi and Bristow, 2012). Over recent years, NHS managers have strongly encouraged that accidents and near misses are systematically reported as a critical risk management element to enable learning from adverse events and facilitate action to prevent occurrence. We reviewed the data sets from a large NHS healthcare organisation that provides a broad services ranging community to specialist services, to assess overlap between complaints, claims and incidents to try and objectively assess whether a system with no errors would also have no complaints and claims.\nMethodology: The study was undertaken at a large NHS healthcare provider organisation in North England, the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). Professional leaders (co-authors) for clinical incident reporting, complaints handling and medico-legal claims were identified. The relevant co-authors summarised the processes for their respective areas (J.M. - clinical incident reporting, S.K. and S.W. - claims analysis, P.A. - complaints analysis). Activity for each process for the 2013-2014 financial year was identified from internal databases. The complaints/claims database was then interrogated further to identify how many claims had been the subject of a prior reported incident or complaint and how many complaints had been investigated as a prior reported incident. This is possible as the Trust operates electronic databases for clinical incidents and for claims and complaints. The complaints and claims database cross-references to the clinical incidents database.\nClinical incidents: Clinical incident reporting process\nPatient complaints: Patient advisory and liaison service (PALS) process\nMedico-legal claims: Claims process\nStaff utilisation: Approximately 1.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff administer the Datix reporting system. All incidents are investigated by trained staff in every directorate and department with support from the patient safety team (an additional 1.6 staff). Ten staff are employed to deal with claims and 7.98 FTEs for complaints (the latter also handle freedom of information requests). Administrative and clinical resources are required within each clinical directorate to investigate complaints and formulate the written response, according to each particular clinical group connected with an incident or complaint. The directorate manager is the person in charge and responsible for all operational matters and service improvement. The neuroscience directorate manager currently spends around eight to ten hours a week dealing with complaints, although this varies week to week depending on the clinical subject.\nDiscussion: Most patient interactions appear to be dealt with quickly, given that 91 per cent of PALS/PRD contacts are addressed within 24 hours. However, although most interactions are at the PALS and PRD process end, resource utilisation is skewed to the right hand end of the chain. It would be reasonable to assume that the latter cases, which take up most resource, reflect more severe events. However, the overlap between incidents and complaints indicate this is not the case. Most claims do not relate to prior incidents and most do not lead to a payout. Whether or not to make a payout is decided by NHS Litigation Authority staff. A payout does not necessarily imply culpability but may instead be to minimise legal costs. We considered reviewing data from ten years ago to see if this could provide an accurate long term reflection of final outcomes, but this period predates the electronic database. Prior to the electronic database, closed case files were destroyed. Reasons for claims being closed include: rejected by a court; withdrawn by the claimant; or, for claims that lie dormant for three years, because of inactivity.\nImplications: It appears that major progress has been made in both staff reporting and its methodological approach, although it is likely that further improvements could be made. For example, it could be made quicker and easier to report what might be perceived as minor occurrences, which in that particular instance are not significant, but when viewed cumulatively may indicate trends which increase the risk of harm. There may also be scope for patients to contribute directly to incident reporting. A common example might be where a patient has to actively chase a result or referral. If this is occurring repeatedly in the same department then there may be a resource or process problem. A surprising finding is poor information on running costs in the current systems, particularly the ad hoc personnel costs and time allocation breakdown in particular subsets of cases. It seems that current systems require disproportionate resource allocation to a complaints and claims subgroup. A question would be whether this is because these cases reflect major errors and/or would not have come to light without a complaint or claim. This is possible and demands further exploration, but that incident reporting is high and the overlap with complaints and claims is low and that most complaints and claims are not upheld, suggests other factors are driving the issues, which should be explored further. The most important implication is that if the purpose behind incident reporting, the complaints and medico-legal processes are primarily about quality control and improvement, the resource allocation may not be optimally structured to deliver these goals. It may be considered that a perfect system with no errors would consequently have no complaints or medico-legal activity. In this hypothetical situation, this may be true. But our results suggest that even if we were in a low error system, there would still be considerable complaints and claims.\nStudy limitations: We have only looked at data from one healthcare provider and for one period. It would be useful to analyse other healthcare organisations over a longer time period. We were unable to access data on secondary staffing costs, which would have been informative. As the medico-legal process can go on for many years, we do not know the ultimate outcomes for all cases. We also do not know how many medico-legal cases were settled out of court pragmatically to minimise costs.\nConclusions: Patient safety is paramount and systems need to be effective at sharing learning when things go wrong (Benn et al., 2009; Ferguson and Lamb, 2015; Illingworth, 2014; Mahajan, 2010; Mohr et al., 2004; Singh and Sittig, 2015; Sujan and Furniss, 2015; Vincent et al., 2014; Williams and Osborn, 2006). Different systems are in place in the NHS to contribute to this process, in particular error reporting, a structured complaints process and a medico-legal system. The starting point is that complaints should be encouraged and the system should make it easy to complain because this is the best mechanism to improve service quality. The question, however, is whether the NHS system is achieving this aim. Several complaints and medico-legal claims appear to have no basis in medical error, but are consuming a large resource. The challenge is how to facilitate and encourage more reporting, more learning, encouraging and facilitating excellence, but minimising unintended costs and consequences. A complaints and medico-legal process review is required.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Error reporting by healthcare staff, patient-derived complaints and patient-derived medico-legal claims are three separate processes present in most healthcare systems. It is generally assumed that all relate to the same cases. Given the high costs associated with these processes and strong desire to maximise quality and standards, the purpose of this paper is to see whether it was indeed the case that most complaints and claims related to medical errors and the relative resource allocation to each group.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Electronic databases for clinical error recording, patient complaints and medico-legal claims in a large NHS healthcare provider organisation were reviewed and case overlap analysed.\nFindings: Most complaints and medico-legal claims do not associate with a prior clinical error. Disproportionate resource is required for a small number of complaints and the medico-legal claims process. Most complaints and claims are not upheld.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors have only looked at data from one healthcare provider and for one period. It would be useful to analyse other healthcare organisations over a longer time period. The authors were unable to access data on secondary staffing costs, which would have been informative. As the medico-legal process can go on for many years, the authors do not know the ultimate outcomes for all cases. The authors also do not know how many medico-legal cases were settled out of court pragmatically to minimise costs.\nPractical implications: Staff error reporting systems and patient advisory services seem to be efficient and working well. However, the broader complaints and claims process is costing considerable time and money, yet may not be useful in driving up standards. System changes to maximise helpful complaints and claims, from a quality and standards perspective, and minimise unhelpful ones are recommended.\nOriginality/value: This study provides important data on the lack of overlap between errors, complaints and claims cases.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The relationship between trading volume and exchange rate volatility: linear or nonlinear?
|
[
"Volatility",
"Exchange rate",
"Volume",
"Nonlinear"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The relationship between exchange rate volatility and trading volume has received considerable attention recently (see e.g. Melvin and Yin, 2000; Chang, 2005; Bauwens et al., 2005; Mougoue and Aggarwal, 2011). Under the fixed exchange rates regime, many of the fundamental variables such as interest rates differentials, relative money supplies and balance of payments were the primary determinants of exchange rates' movements (Mougoue and Aggarwal, 2011). However, none of these fundamentals are able to explain the increased variability in the exchange rates in floating periods at least in the short or medium run (Frankel and Rose, 1994). Therefore, to account for the lack of explanations, other alternative models are required which would be successful in modeling changes in exchange rates. One such potential area of research is the market microstructure models where trading volume, among other variables, better explains the movements in exchange rates (Lyons, 2001).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Linear returns volatility-volume relation\n3. Data description: The data for all the currency futures series have been taken from NSE of India which represent the daily settlement prices along with trading volume. The first trade in the currency futures in India started on August 29, 2008, when NSE introduced the USD-INR currency pair. Therefore, for USD-INR, the data are from August 29, 2008, to December 28, 2016, with a total of 2,009 daily observations. Riding on the huge success of the USD-INR futures trading, later, in 2010, NSE launched the contracts for three other currency pairs (EUR-INR, GBP-INR and JPY-INR) as well. Therefore, the range of data for these three currencies is from February 1, 2010, to December 28, 2016, that is, a total of 1,673 daily observations. The exchange rates are denominated as Indian rupees per unit of foreign currency except for Japanese yen which is represented as Indian rupees per 100 units of Japanese yen.\n4. Methodology and empirical results: 4.1 Contemporaneous relation between returns volatility and volume\n5. Nonlinear relation between returns volatility and volume: The results on Granger causality presented in Tables III and IV assume that the relation between returns volatility and trading volume is linear. Therefore, Equation (3) is not able to capture any nonlinear relation between volatility and volume. As a result of conducting some initial nonlinearity tests, we find that the residuals from Equation (3) exhibit significant heteroskedasticity and nonlinearity. Since the evidence of volume and returns linear causality is significant, any linear predictive power with a VAR model as in Equation (3) has been removed, and we therefore test for the presence of nonlinear dependencies in the VAR residuals using BDS tests. Table V presents the results of BDS statistics for futures returns volatility and volume, and shows that the residuals from Equation (3) exhibit significant nonlinearity. The null hypothesis that there exist linear dependencies in these variables is rejected at the 1 percent level of significance[7].\n6. Robustness tests: 6.1 Role of open interest and nonlinearity\n7. Conclusion: A higher than expected variability of returns makes it hard to model the exchange rates especially in the current floating rate regime. In this paper, we argue that more market information, such as trading volume, should be used to explore exchange rate volatility. We therefore, re-examine the volume-volatility relationship in currency markets accounting for nonlinearities. In particular, this paper investigates the linear and nonlinear relation between futures returns volatility and trading volume by using the daily data for four currency futures contracts USD-INR, EUR-INR, GBP-INR and JPY-INR. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relation between futures returns volatility and trading volume in the Indian context using the data on currency futures contracts from the NSE where the trading was introduced only in August 2008.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the linear and nonlinear relations between returns volatility and trading volume for the Indian currency futures market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To examine the contemporaneous relation between returns volatility and volume, the author uses the generalized method of moment estimator. For the linear causal relation, the author makes use of Granger (1969) bivariate vector autoregression model. The author tests for nonlinear Granger causality between returns volatility and trading volume based on a modified version of the Baek and Brock (1992) nonparametric technique developed by Hiemstra and Jones (1994).\nFindings: The results indicate a negative contemporaneous relation between returns volatility and trading volume; therefore, the mixture of distribution hypothesis is not supported. The results of both linear and nonlinear Granger causality between futures returns volatility and trading volume indicate a significant bidirectional relation between the two variables lending support to the sequential arrival of information hypothesis. The results are robust to divergence of opinions as proxied by open interest.\nPractical implications: The findings of this paper are important for the participants in the market and regulators. The participants in the market require alternatives to diversify their risk. The significant causal relation between returns volatility and trading volume implies that trading volume helps predict the futures prices and should lead to creation of more reliable hedging strategies for investment purposes. Furthermore, it may interest the regulators who need to decide upon the appropriateness of their policies in the currency futures market.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, there is no study that investigates the forecast ability of trading volume to futures returns volatility in an emerging currency futures market. Given that currency futures market is one of the largest markets in the world, and Indian rupee has seen wide fluctuations in the recent years, it seems exciting to explore the price-volume relation in the Indian currency futures market.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Valuation and handling of dialogue in leadership: A grounded theory study in Swedish hospitals
|
[
"Leadership",
"Communication",
"Hospitals",
"Sweden"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In leadership, communication is one of the most important and meaningful tasks (Mintzberg, 1973, 1998). Leadership in modern organization is focused on relationships, teamwork, participation in decisions, and innovation, and these factors are created and manifested through communication. Leadership focused on these factors can promote a positive work environment. Through a reciprocal process, leaders and employees influence one another through communication, over time and in a variety of settings (see Jackson and Parry, 2008). Yet in theoretical and empirical organizational research, leadership and communication have mostly been studied separately (Tourish and Jackson, 2008). Such is also the case with dialogue, which has constituted a separate field of research, mainly conducted by organizational management and sociolinguistic and social psychology scholars. Further empirical studies to understand leadership (managerial) communication are needed, especially studies closely examining everyday talk among leaders (and managers) and their colleagues and employees (Svennevig, 2008) since in talk they are \"doing leadership\" (Clifton, 2006).\nCommunication, dialogue and leadership: This study is focused on communication and especially dialogue in leadership by first-line leaders and managers. First-line leaders/managers have two professional roles, namely, leadership and management. In management, they deal with control, decision-making, analysis and results - i.e. they exert legitimate power and control. In leadership, they focus on group processes, influencing trust and empowering others (Sofarelli and Brown, 1998). First-line leaders/managers spend an average of 68 per cent of their working hours communicating orally (Ahrman et al., 2009) for a variety of purposes in order to influence actions and emotions in the various arenas of the work.In communication, leadership is exerted and constructed. Research on how leadership can positively affect the work environment, as well as learning, operational quality, and health, and at the same time decrease stress is extensive (Nyberg, 2008; Nyberg et al., 2005, 2008; Isaksson, 2008; Greenfield, 2007; Skagert et al., 2008). Leaders' (managers') skills in the sense of openness, reciprocity and empathy have been reported to contribute to higher learning among workers (see Ford and Angermeier, 2008), have a positive impact on teamwork (Horton-Deutsch and Sherwood, 2008; Isaksson, 2008; Holmberg and Akerblom, 2006; Cummings et al., 2005; Sundgren et al., 2005) and have been shown to prevent worker stress (Stordeur et al., 2001), while lack of communication with superior managers has, conversely, been proven counterproductive and a cause of stress among the leaders/managers themselves (Skagert et al., 2008). Trust in leadership between leaders/managers and employees has also proved to have a positive impact on job satisfaction and efficiency (Bryman, 2004). Leadership that emphasizes relationships, communicates visions and captures ideas reduces absenteeism (Ahlberg et al., 2008; Hogstedt et al., 2004) and employee turnover (Sellgren et al., 2007). Leaders/managers who provide opportunities for feedback can contribute to a better understanding, and to experiencing meaning in and better handling work (Kira, 2003; Eklof et al., 2004); also, they promote workers' development, both professionally and personally (Backstrom et al., 2006; Greenness, 2003; Kira, 2003). Feedback, appreciation and respect (Dellve et al., 2007; Vinberg and Gelin, 2005) from leaders/managers also have a positive impact on workers' self-reported health and well-being (van Dierendonck et al., 2004; Kira, 2003; Szucs, 2003).Research shows that leadership as described above is appreciated and apparent in Scandinavian leadership (management) contexts (Greenness, 2003). Moreover, Scandinavian leadership is characterized by flat organizations with delegated responsibility and accountability, and an empowering environment which stimulates creativity, innovation and collaboration (Buus, 2004).Communication is at the heart of the leadership process (Tourish and Jackson, 2008), and dialogue is often referred to as a desirable and important part of communication (Linell, 2009). Leadership with a focus on relationships, teamwork and participation uses communication which contains some important elements that characterize dialogue: openness, reciprocity, authenticity and trust. In workplace leadership, communication and dialogue have been studied by organizational management and socio-linguistic and socio-psychological scholars, through analysing talk, conversation or discourse between leaders (and managers) (Isaacs, 1999; Deetz, 1995; Putnam, 2008; Clifton, 2006; Nielsen Femo, 2009; Asmuss and Svennevig, 2009; Svennevig, 2008) and between leaders/managers and subordinates (Boden, 1994; Holmes and Stubbe, 2003; Asmuss, 2008; Cooren, 2007).Dialogue theories based on traditional humanist psychological theory depart from a consensus perspective (Heath et al., 2006), which claims that use of dialogue in the workplace can improve understanding among workers and between workers and leaders (Isaacs, 1999; Senge, 1990), promote learning in subordinates when used by leaders in an authentic dialogue (Schein, 1993; Mazutis and Slawinski, 2008) and promote higher worker participation and a good working climate (Wilhelmsson and Doos, 2002). Reflective dialogue by leaders and managers, which consists of \"listening to yourself\", can help examine underlying assumptions and alter mental models (Isaacs, 1999; Schein, 1993; Jacobs and Heracleous, 2005). The social constructionist perspective, which emphasizes the significance of context to how leaders interact and communicate with those they lead (Fairhurst, 2008), is based on a conflict perspective on society (Heath et al., 2006) and stresses the constant construction and restructuring of relations through workplace communication. Dialogue as a phenomenon, however, is described by both perspectives in much the same way, though with somewhat different ends and effects, namely shared creation of meaning, and deconstruction of individual meaning, respectively.According to Isaacs' (1999) definition, dialogue is shared by two or more parties, and is based on the Greek sense of the word as meaning \"floating through\", which describes dialogue as a fabric woven of talk and silence, give and take, listening and expressing. It constitutes a shared creation of meaning, is spontaneous and intense and incorporates the components of listening, respecting, suspending and voicing. Dialogue entails exploration of each other's true thoughts and honest opinions and differs from discussion, in which the participants put priority on debate, problem-solving, decision-making and conclusion (Isaacs, 1999; Schein, 1993). A dialogue is an open and honest conversation in which partners stand their ground while being fully open to others' points of view and ready to allow themselves to be surprised (Buber, 1970) and influenced (Deetz, 1995).\nMethod: The explorative study design was based on grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Aimed at generating a theory or model, the roots of grounded theory are found in symbolic interactionism. The basic premises of symbolic interactionism are that meaning is constructed and modified through human interaction and that human beings base their actions on the meaning they ascribe to situations.Informants\nResults: The leaders communicative actions (core category) seen in the first line leaders were sometimes handled consciously and intentionally, sometimes unconsciously and unintentionally. The leaders communicated at three levels of the decision hierarchy in the organisation: vertically upwards with their head of department; horizontally with their peers (leaders); and vertically downwards with their employees. Most leaders said they valued dialogue highly, but that did not automatically mean the leaders used dialogue much in the workplace. The observations confirmed that shown by the interviews, and produced additional information; among else, it became clearer that the concept of dialogue meant different things to the leaders. It emerged in the interviews that \"dialogue\" was a concept leaders used to varying extents and with varying meanings. The leaders described several different types of communicative actions as dialogue, and the dialogue that did take place was sometimes described as another form of communication than dialogue.The strategically and understanding-oriented dimension\nDiscussion: Discussion of findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Leadership can positively affect the work environment and health. Communication and dialogue are an important part in leadership. Studies of how dialogue is valued and handled in first-line leadership have not so far been found. The aim of this study is to develop a theoretical understanding of how first-line leaders at hospitals in western Sweden value and handle dialogue in the organisation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study design was explorative and based on grounded theory. Data collection consisted of interviews and observations. A total of 11 first-line leaders at two hospitals in western Sweden were chosen as informants, and for four of them observation was also used.\nFindings: - One core category emerged in the analysis: leaders' communicative actions, which could be strategically or understanding-oriented, and experienced as equal or unequal and performed equitably or inequitably, within a power relationship. Four different types of communicative actions emerged: collaborative, nurturing, controlling, and confrontational. Leaders had strategies for creating arenas and relationships for dialogue, but dialogue could be constrained by external circumstances or ignorance of the frameworks needed to conduct and accomplish dialogue.\nPractical implications: - First-line leaders should be offered guidance in understanding the consequences of consciously choosing and strengthening the communication component in leadership.\nOriginality/value: - The positive valuation of dialogue was not always manifest in practical action. One significant consequence of not using dialogue was that information with impact on organisational efficiency and finances was not communicated upwards in the management system.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Stressors and psychological wellbeing in local humanitarian workers in Colombia
|
[
"Stress",
"Wellbeing",
"Humanitarian workers",
"Non‐profit organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Humanitarian workers need to be prepared not only to provide help but also to recognise when they themselves need support. Apart from providing much needed assistance, aid workers have to deal with their own stress as well as helping others going through trauma or hardship manage, as best as they can, their lives under very difficult conditions. If people living in stressful and desperate circumstances can relate to well prepared and resilient aid workers a greater relationship of trust and collaboration can be developed. The present study addresses issues that affect psychological wellbeing among national aid workers in Medellin, Colombia.\nMethod: All participants worked for \"Fundacion CC\" (the real name of this agency is kept confidential), a Colombian non-governmental organization whose mission is to support children and their families in the city of Medellin. This organization has 16 facilities in very poor neighbourhoods. Facilities include classrooms to educate young children and update older ones on schooling they have missed. Food is also provided to children and their families.\nParticipants: A total of 83 members of \"Fundacion CC\" responded to the survey. Eight did not provide sufficient information so the final sample consisted of 75 people (Table I). When data were collected (November 2007), the total number of people working for \"Fundacion CC\" was approximately 300 and this is the number of questionnaires distributed. The sample represented approximately 25 per cent of the total population of people working for the organisation. Five (6.7 per cent) of the sample were male and 70 (93.3 per cent) female. A total of 35 (46.7 per cent) were aged 20-29, 28 (37.3 per cent) were aged 30-39 and 12 (16 per cent) were aged over 40.\nMeasures: The Spanish version of the Stress Profile (Nowack, 2002) was used to measure study variables. This is a self-scoring 123-item inventory that requires between 20 and 30 minutes to complete. In its English, Spanish and other versions the Stress Profile is designed for use by a range of health professionals. The variables included in this study were: stressors, psychological wellbeing, social support, cognitive hardiness, positive appraisal, negative appraisal, threat minimization and problem focused coping. All items were answered on a scale where 1=\"never\" and 5=\"always\".Stressors\nProcedure: Approval for the research was granted by Massey University Human Ethics Committee (Northern). Participation was voluntary and anonymous. The \"Fundacion CC\" Pedagogy Coordinator helped deliver questionnaires at the \"Fundacion CC\" main administrative building and field facilities. Questionnaires and information sheets were presented to participants in their first language (Spanish).\nData analysis: Data analyses were carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 16. All variables were approximately normally distributed. Bivariate correlations and regression analysis were used.\nResults: Table I presents scale means, standard deviations and correlations. Stressors were not associated with psychological wellbeing, appraisal or coping but dissatisfaction with social support and decreased cognitive hardiness were related to increased stressors. Those with more cognitive hardiness used more positive and less negative appraisal and were more satisfied with their social support.H1 was supported for all variables except threat minimization. Increased wellbeing was related to more positive and less negative appraisal, more problem focused coping, cognitive hardiness and satisfaction with social support. It was expected that threat minimization, an emotion-focused avoidance coping strategy, would be negatively related to wellbeing but the opposite was found: both problem-focused and threat minimization coping were associated with increased wellbeing. The implications are discussed below.Regression analysis examined how much variance in psychological wellbeing could be attributed to stressors, appraisal, coping, satisfaction with social support and cognitive hardiness (Table II). The variables related to wellbeing were positive appraisal, problem-focused coping and cognitive hardiness. Satisfaction with social support did not explain additional variance in wellbeing. Study variables accounted for 64 per cent of the variance in wellbeing.\nDiscussion: Stress and poor mental health are not inescapable consequences of living or working in highly demanding situations. Stressors were related to dissatisfaction with social support and low cognitive hardiness. In contrast wellbeing was associated with adaptive patterns of appraisal and coping, hardy beliefs and satisfaction with social support. However it is not possible to determine whether wellbeing is the cause or outcome of adaptive beliefs or whether, as seems likely, there is mutual causation.Problem focused coping and threat minimization were positively correlated with each other and with wellbeing. Respondents tended to use both strategies and found them adaptive. Although task-focused coping is adaptive when resolving controllable demands, there is growing recognition that avoiding or minimising threats has value when demands are not controllable (Folkman and Moskowitz, 2004). Respondents were Columbian nationals who could not leave a threatening environment as international staff may be able to do. Threat minimisation in these situations may prove to be an adaptive rather than a maladaptive strategy. Social support was related to stressors and wellbeing. Sample sizes did not allow for analysis of indirect effects, but the effects of social support on wellbeing may be mediated through appraisal and coping, as social support can provide resources that allow for adaptive approaches to problems (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). Social support from peers and supervisors can provide additional work resources including practical help with managing work and family demands, and this deserves further study. Cognitive hardiness was important for both stressors and wellbeing. Ways to foster hardiness may be worth exploring in aid work.\nImplications for practice: It is important not to assume that humanitarian workers, local or international, will necessarily experience high levels of stressors or have their psychological wellbeing compromised. Humanitarian workers in general demonstrate substantial resilience and ability to adjust to the demands of their work (McFarlane, 2004). Positive appraisal, threat minimization and problem focused coping can provide a repertoire of adaptive strategies for managing work demands. However over-reliance on any resource without an accurate assessment of stressors may aggravate problems. Problem focused coping can be of little value for overwhelming or irresolvable situations, and threat minimization can be harmful if it underestimates conditions that require constant attention, such as physical illness (Nowack, 2002).\nImplications for research: Sample sizes in this study were marginal for regression analyses and did not allow more detailed exploration of the data. This work requires replication with more robust sample sizes in order to confirm the findings. In addition, all participants were locals working for the same organisation and so this study requires extension to other agencies and socio-cultural contexts in order to identify the influence of specific contextual variables on local and international humanitarian workers. Future research may include variables such as socio-economic status, marital status, education, family size, trauma exposure, experience in humanitarian work, workloads, levels of anxiety and depression and whether staff are working under local or international management. The present study relied on self-report cross-sectional data. Common method bias risks inflating the associations among variables. Exploratory factor analyses on study variables showed that a single factor explained only 18.62 per cent of the variance, whereas problems with common method variance would suggest that a single factor solution would explain a substantial amount of variance (Major et al., 2002). Given this, the variation in the magnitude of correlation coefficients, and theoretically meaningful findings, common method bias may not have compromised the findings. Further studies using longitudinal designs and a range of data collection methodologies will allow changes over time and a range of demands, resources and impacts of aid work to be assessed.The lack of culturally validated psychometric instruments to assess key variables in Colombia has been previously identified (Florez-Alarcon, 2006). Among the outstanding needs in psychology is the need to validate more psychometric instruments for use in a wide range of populations and groups. Culturally sensitive research on local aid workers' psychological wellbeing can identify ways in which their efforts can be maximised. This research acknowledges the difficulties national aid staff face and the resources they possess as well as the advantages they have in terms of knowledge of their own cultures, socio-economic and geographical contexts, all of which make them valuable partners for international aid agencies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study seeks to examine the relationships of stressors, appraisal and coping with psychological wellbeing in 75 local humanitarian personnel from a local non-governmental organization from Medellin, Colombia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Participants answered a pen and paper Spanish version of the Stress Profile.\nFindings: - Wellbeing was related to adaptive patterns of appraisal, coping, satisfaction with social support, and cognitive hardiness. Stressors were related to dissatisfaction with social support and decreased cognitive hardiness. Stressors were not associated with decreased psychological wellbeing, appraisal or coping.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The effects of social support and cognitive hardiness on psychological wellbeing among aid workers deserves further examination. Further research should also examine the impact of other demographic and psychosocial variables such as experience in humanitarian work, workloads, anxiety and depression. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine changes over time.\nPractical implications: - It is important not to assume that humanitarian workers' psychological wellbeing is compromised. Humanitarian workers in field and administrative roles do not necessarily experience high stress and low wellbeing but support from family members and work colleagues is important.\nOriginality/value: - Most research into aid work has been carried out on expatriate workers in countries other than their own, but the majority of aid personnel work in their own country. National aid workers are unable to leave demanding or dangerous situations and may require different support and coping strategies from international workers. This study adds to the information on local aid workers' mental health and opens up avenues for further research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Research libraries and the internet: On the transformative dynamic between institutions and digital media
|
[
"Digitization",
"Research libraries",
"Digital media",
"Knowledge production"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Digitization of library functions as defined within the traditional institutional framework developed around the printed text: Historically, the exponential growth of knowledge has continuously initiated new forms of knowledge production, e.g. the specialization and reconfiguration of relations between disciplines, and it has led to changes in the overall chain of production, distribution, consumption/appropriation and recirculation of knowledge[1]. This process has always included the development of new theories, new methods, new research questions, new disciplines and changing interdisciplinary relations. It has also incorporated new media, whether they were developed specifically to solve particular issues within the knowledge production process or whether they were imported from other spheres and elaborated further.\n2. The historical unfolding of the disruptive properties of digital media: The reader may have noticed that the notion of the computer and of information technology (IT and ICT) is replaced in this article with the notion \"digital media\". This latter term is preferred, because it signifies the plurality of digital media, and refers to the distinct properties of this particular sort of information technology and not to the whole array of information technologies throughout history. The plurality of digital media includes the plurality of gadgets, dedicated computers, and the plurality of interfaces and semantic regimes. A main reason for speaking of digital media in the plural is that the computer contrary to all formerly known machines comes with a variable functional architecture. At the same time the notion of digital media allows us to reconsider a whole array of implicit ideas, which have been associated with the computer and IT for the past seventy-five years. One of the most basic of these is the implicit idea that IT is a driver of development and not itself driven and given form and function by social, cultural and political needs. The determinism inherent in the idea of IT as a driver is strange, since the computer is a purely cultural artifact. If compared to former machines and media, it is more open for modifications by projections of new ideas, not only on the level of content. New ideas can also be projected into the functional architecture, thus changing the operational structures of the machine. The variability of the functional architecture even allows that the computer can be made sensitive to the content of any individual message if so wanted.\n3. The new media landscape and the library: 3.1 From acting in parallel to acting in concert\nConclusions: Digital media are, on the one hand, developed as a means to overcome important limitations of the paper and print-based knowledge production systems, but they also allow for far-reaching transformations, well beyond the existing institutional setup up. They have a disruptive potential, which seems to unfold more clearly as the technology comes of age. The disruptive potential is revolutionary in its logical nature, but only unfolds itself slowly, according to particular needs and desires - as it is the case for those kinds of evolutionary processes which lead into more complex systems, due to the emergence of new, mediated layers built into and upon the existing layers.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve comprehension of some of the intricate interrelations between research libraries, the role of media and the knowledge production system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper establishes arguments from a historical analysis of stages in the conceptual development of digital media and stages in the digitization of library functions. The historical approach leads to some discussions and forecasts of the future of research libraries.\nFindings: Digital media have a disruptive, revolutionary potential, but path dependency is often a modifying component in the historical development. This is demonstrated in different stages of the development of the interrelationship between digitization, digital media and research libraries. Digital media become disruptive due to the strength of the historical dynamic, rather than as a result of particular agencies. Today the historical dynamic has reached a point where all institutions concerned with knowledge handling will have to redefine themselves. Research libraries are gradually incorporated into a number of new \"research infrastructures\" which are being built around different kinds of data materials, and each research library may specialize according to some sort of coordinated criteria.\nOriginality/value: This paper demonstrates new openings to a theoretical and conceptual understanding of the interrelationship between digital media and developments of research libraries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Exploring the unfathomable causes of dysfunctional behaviours in the Ghanaian public service: perspectives of social capital
|
[
"Dysfunctional behaviours",
"Social capital theory",
"Public service",
"Ghana"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Global concerns over dysfunctional behaviours including bribery and corruption, embezzlement of funds and other conducts by leaders and public officials have become ubiquitous in organizations (Kumasey et al., 2017; Thaler and Helmig, 2016). Although national and organizational systems and procedures have been put in place to make dysfunctional behaviours a high-risk and low-gain activity (Kan-Dapaah, 2015), they still persist and are detrimental in the moral psyche of nations, especially in developing countries (Charoensukmongkol, 2016; Transparency International, 2018). The impact of these behaviours has undermined the rule of law, public trust and confidence and consequently socio-economic development (Downe et al., 2016; Jurkiewicz and Giacalone, 2016). Evidently, most of these behaviours occur as a result of lack of ethics (Downe et al., 2016; Menzel, 2015) especially ethical leadership leading to plethora of calls on more research on the latter in the public sector (Hassan et al., 2014; Thaler and Helmig, 2016). Hassan et al. (2014, p. 333) argued, \"leadership in public organizations often fails to achieve the desired ethical standards\" because they are not strict, and this is a precedent the subordinates may imitate (Bowman and West, 2014). Ethical leadership entails \"being an ethical role model, treating people fairly, and actively managing ethics in the organization\" (Downe et al., 2016, p. 2).Studies on ethical leadership focus on Western perspective (Eisenbeiss, 2012; Vogel and Masal, 2015), neglecting developing and transitional countries (Charoensukmongkol, 2016). There is therefore the need to focus the current research on developing countries to understand their perspective on the importance of leadership in enhancing ethical behaviour and preventing dysfunctional behaviours in public organizations (Hassan et al., 2014). Further, Belle and Cantarelli (2017, p. 328) have argued that public administration \"lacks a solid understanding of the causal mechanisms underlying unethical behaviour in public organizations\".This study examines the underpinning factors exacerbating dysfunctional behaviours in Ghana's Public Service (GPS) and links these causes to the application of social capital theory. Mostly the onus of dysfunctional behaviours in organizations is blamed on lack of ethical leadership, but is leadership solely responsible? This study is therefore appropriate because researchers, policymakers and practitioners have continuously shared concerns over dysfunctional behaviours. Behaviours that negatively affect the normal functioning of organizations and have the potential to result in calamitous outcomes for individuals, organizations and society are dysfunctional (Mackenzie et al., 2011). Therefore, exploring and understanding the underpinning factors that drive these behaviours in Ghana will provide a panacea to the situation.Social capital relates to individuals within groups and organizations. The network of relationships in social capital serves as a precondition for improved workplace practices as it brings organizational members (Putnam, 2000). However, most of these individuals in social capital are interested in their selfish gains, leading to dysfunctional behaviours. Hence, the theory is used to determine how the positive externalities of social capital are arrayed to either enrich ethics or contribute to dysfunctional practices in public organizations. The article is structured as follows: literature review, methodology, empirical findings and conclusions.\nLiterature review: Social capital\nDysfunctional behaviour: Increasingly, organizations across the world witness dysfunctional behaviours (Transparency International, 2018). They are discretionary behaviours that generally damage organizations including its members (Ramzy et al., 2018). Peterson (2002) described it as behaviours that violate appropriate norms and policies at the workplace and can damage the overall performance of the organization. Unapproved actions perpetrated by organizational members, which adversely affect citizens, national interest and the environment are considered dysfunctional (Levine, 2010). Dysfunctional behaviours are tantamount to workplace deviant behaviours (Robinson and Bennett, 1995), unethical (Kish-Gephart et al., 2010) and illegal behaviours (MacKenzie et al., 2011). They include absenteeism, bullying, corruption, fraud, falsification of data, money laundering, sabotage, sexual harassment, tardiness and white-collar crime (MacKenzie et al., 2011; Levine, 2010). These behaviours have become ubiquitous and costly to individuals and organizations (MacKenzie et al., 2011; Kumasey, 2017), deteriorating organizational performance (MacKenzie et al., 2011) and reducing employee motivation (Ramzy et al., 2018). Moreover, dysfunctional behaviours dent organizational image and reputation (MacKenzie et al., 2011; Ramzy et al., 2018) and can result in huge financial cost (Mackenzie et al., 2011). Financially, Goh (2006) estimates that $300bn are lost annually in the United States due to employees' absenteeism and theft, while Gino (2015) approximates it to $52bn and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiner (2018) pegs it at $4.0 trillion. These behaviours affect the normal functioning of organizations (Jurkiewicz and Giacalone, 2016).Contextual background of GPS\nMethodology: To answer the research question of this study, a qualitative approach in the form of multiple case study was adopted. This approach is considered ideal because it allowed for further probing of responses and co-creation of knowledge based on the experiences of respondents and researchers (Creswell, 2014; Slawecki, 2018). In this study, reality is viewed as subjective because social actors explore their motives and manners of actions in order to understand a phenomenon (Slawecki, 2018). This flexibility for arriving at in-depth insights and analytical richness beyond surface responses is possible through qualitative approach (Creswell, 2014). Slawecki (2018, p. 23) argues that \"realities exist only in human minds and social worlds keep being constructed and reconstructed, the only way of learning about them is to refer to the subjective experience, opinions, beliefs, and values of their creators\". Yin (2015) asserts that the case study method is particularly valid and appropriate when the research targets organizations and studying subjects in real-life situations. It provides rich description of the study context; this enables a deeper understanding and interpretation of the unique, typical experiences and circumstances of the subjects, and in this case Ghanaian public servants (Yin, 2015).Data collection\nConclusion: This article provides numerous insights on institutional dysfunctional behaviours using social-cultural and relational dynamics existing in the PSOs. The objective of this study was to examine the underpinning factors exacerbating dysfunctional behaviours in GPS and link these causes to the theory of social capital. Though GPS has its set of ethics, values and rules that guide the conduct of employees, the bane is with the enforcement as several factors come into play to prevent the effective application of such rules, which is attributable to the network of relationship within the socio-political environment of Ghana. The findings and discussion sections have revealed the negative impact of social capital on the service despite potential benefits associated with the theory. These factors include both internal and external actors and interests. The extended family system, respect for the elderly, the moral tone of the nation, inadequate ethical leadership, in-group member effect and politics were identified and used to explain how social capital has contributed to dysfunctional behaviours in the service.Limitations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Global concerns over dysfunctional behaviours including bribery and corruption, embezzlement of funds and other conducts by leaders and public officials have become ubiquitous in organizations. Although national and organizational systems have been instituted to make these behaviours a high-risk and low-gain activity, these behaviours have been pervasive in the moral psyche of nations, especially in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to examine the underpinning factors exacerbating dysfunctional behaviours in Ghana's Public Service (GPS) and link these causes to social capital theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a qualitative case study, which employed semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) and documentary reviews as the data collection instruments. In all, 20 in-depth interviews and four FGD were conducted.\nFindings: The following were used to explain how social capital contributes to dysfunctional behaviours: the extended family system, respect for the elderly, moral tone of the nation and in-group member effect, organizational politics and politicization of the service.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of this research is the limited sample size, which does not portray the views of all employees working within GPS.\nPractical implications: HR has a crucial role in intervening to ameliorate this challenge. The mechanisms to deploy include the development of employee awareness and skills on ethical behaviours, instituting ethical governance culture, encouraging, rewarding ethical behaviour and introducing effective performance management systems. This will enhance employees' behaviours and ensure improved engagement and overall good governance practices and ethical behaviour.\nOriginality/value: The main value of this research is its contribution in bringing to the fore some underlying causes of dysfunctional behaviours in the public service of developing countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Islands as refuges for surviving global catastrophes
|
[
"Survival",
"Islands",
"Existential risks",
"Global catastrophe",
"Refuges",
"Social collapse"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent decades, researchers have identified many global risks which could result in the collapse of civilization and/or human extinction. These risks may be divided in three classes: natural, like asteroid risks (Gritzner et al., 2006); low-tech, connected with currently existing technologies, like the risk of nuclear war (Barrett et al., 2013); and futuristic high-tech, connected with new expected super technologies, like nanotechnology (Freitas, 2000) and artificial intelligence (AI) (Bostrom, 2014). Super technological risks are the most dangerous, as they are expected to be the most powerful and least controllable (Bostrom, 2002).\n2. Island requirements for survival of catastrophes: 2.1 Islands as protection against various types of catastrophes\n3. An island as a center of cultural and technological preservation after a weak catastrophe or a civilizational collapse: As Jebari (2014) noted, refuges are important to preserve not only the last members of the human species but also important cultural heritage in form of a living tradition (e.g. our value system) and as centers of coordination for reconstruction in the case of global social collapse.\n4. Overview of a few islands as possible refuges: Despite the fact that there may be as many as one million islands in the world, most of them will provide little or no protection. Only a few islands have the necessary conditions described in Section 2.2. Here, a few potential island refuges are described and then compared in Table I.\n5. Comparison of different catastrophes and refuges: Island refuges might be helpful only in the case of rather weak catastrophes, and to estimate their usefulness, island refuges were compared with other possible types of refuge. In Figure 1, correlation between different types of shelters (in red) and the size and duration of a catastrophe they could help humans survive. There are two main groups of shelters: one that aims to repopulate (or return to) Earth when conditions improve and another that assumes that Earth will be rendered permanently uninhabitable. Islands provide protection for long, but weak catastrophes. Submarines and bunkers provide protection for shorter and more intense catastrophes. However, the combination of submarine, island and underground refuge provide the best protection for all types of catastrophes in which Earth eventually returns to habitability.\n6. Combining different refuge types to optimize protection on an island: One of the weaker aspects of islands as refuges is their inability to withstand short, intense disasters, such as a nuclear war or bolide impact. The stronger aspect of an island is its ability to provide long-term protection and isolation from weaker but lingering \"post-apocalyptic\" effects, like a pandemic, radioactive contamination, looters and lethal autonomous weapons systems run amok.\n7. Conclusion: Island refuges on their own could help aid the survival of humanity in a specific range of catastrophes. Smaller islands could provide shelter from more severe catastrophes but would require a longer recovery time with a higher probability of failure. Against weaker catastrophes, larger, more populated islands could become centers of civilizational reconstruction. Many isolated island populations already exist, a fact which could make such survival almost free. Alternatively, it could potentially be funded by independent private investors, who could have other goals: egoistic, scientific or recreational.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Islands have long been discussed as refuges from global catastrophes; this paper will evaluate them systematically, discussing both the positives and negatives of islands as refuges. There are examples of isolated human communities surviving for thousands of years on places like Easter Island. Islands could provide protection against many low-level risks, notably including bio-risks. However, they are vulnerable to tsunamis, bird-transmitted diseases and other risks. This paper aims to explore how to use the advantages of islands for survival during global catastrophes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Preliminary horizon scanning based on the application of the research principles established in the previous global catastrophic literature.\nFindings: The large number of islands on Earth, and their diverse conditions, increase the chance that one of them will provide protection from a catastrophe. Additionally, this protection could be increased if an island was used as a base for a nuclear submarine refuge combined with underground bunkers and/or extremely long-term data storage. The requirements for survival on islands, their vulnerabilities and ways to mitigate and adapt to risks are explored. Several existing islands, suitable for the survival of different types of risk, timing and budgets, are examined. Islands suitable for different types of refuges and other island-like options that could also provide protection are also discussed.\nOriginality/value: The possible use of islands as refuges from social collapse and existential risks has not been previously examined systematically. This paper contributes to the expanding research on survival scenarios.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Risk and benefit perceptions related to wine consumption and how it influences consumers' attitude and behavioural intentions in India
|
[
"India",
"Wine",
"Consumption patterns",
"Behavioural intensions",
"Risk/benefit perceptions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the Indian context, the first mention of grape-based wines is found in the writings of Chanakya (the chief minister of Chandragupta Maurya) where he condemned the frequent indulgence of the emperor in consuming wine known as Madhu (Robinson, 2006). Although wine consumption was considered as a taboo in India for many years, the situation has now changed and the palate of Indian wine consumers is becoming slowly accustomed to diverse varieties of wines on offer. Although wines of foreign ancestries are able to entice the patrons, Indian branded wines are also not very far to offer an alike consumer involvement at reasonable prices (Sommelier India, 2018). Changes in wine consumers' lifestyles and family structures along with other socio-economic motives have directed the momentous variations in consumers' wine selection attributes and consumption patterns in India (Atkin and Thach, 2012). Further, patrons' varying anxieties and individual wine preferences to drink out has persuaded them to patronise on the diverse fine-dining outlets serving wine, looking for value for money and convenience (Pettigrew and Charters, 2006).\nLiterature review: Indian wine industry and consumption patterns\nMethodology: Instrument development\nData analysis, interpretation and results: A total of 321 observations were used to study the factorability of 25 items of risk/benefit perceptions related to wine consumption in India. The correlations in the data matrix were found to be above 0.30 between the study variables. Cronbach's a reliability measure was applied to determine the internal consistency. The values of these Cronbach's a coefficients estimation were found to be adequate and vacillated between 0.60 and 0.86. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was found to be 0.83 which was well above the obligatory threshold of 0.60. Bartlett's test of sphericity was also found to be significant, kh2 (320)=5,115, p<0.001 which was well below 0.05 and thus confirms the suitability, reliability and data adequacy.\nDiscussion and future implications of the study: This research tried to find out how the consumers' perception regarding the risks and benefits related to wine consumption affect their attitude and behavioural intension towards the buying decisions. As expressed by Lockshin and Hall (2003, p. 5), \"It would be better to resolve upon the strategies related to wine pricing, dispersal, packing, marketing and retailing if we understand how consumers evaluate the relative risks and benefits involved in its consumption\". Therefore, the results of this study are intended to indicate how the risk/benefit perceptions of wine consumers are accountable for their fluctuations in the attitudes towards wines. The factor analysis established that the health risk was the most vital factor followed by psychological and social risks amidst all the perceived risk factors. Consequently, a negative perception might grow amongst the patrons and they could perceive that drinking wine may lead to health issues such as hangover, damage to liver and kidneys, anxiety and sickness due to consumption of wine gone bad. It was found that consumers may also perceive financial risk because of wine being more expensive than other alcoholic drinks in India. Moreover, since wine consumers in India have inadequate experience with wine consumption and purchase, it is expected that they tend to condense their risk via choosing other recognised brands. These findings regarding the significant importance of brands in the buying decisions for consumers in India is found to be steady with the studies shown in other developing countries like China and Brazil (Balestrini and Gamble, 2006; Goodman, 2009).\nLimitation and suggestions for further study: While discussing the influence of consumers' risk and benefit perceptions on their attitude and the behavioural intention, we came across few limitations related to the wine consumption. These limitations encouraged further research as follows.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discover the numerous risk and benefit perceptions involved in the patrons' purchase and consumption decisions related to wine in India. It will also recognise and find out the motives behind the consumers' drinking patterns and attitude towards wine, which affect their overall behavioural intentions (word of mouth and repurchase intentions).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected using a structured survey questionnaire from the 375 wine patrons in Delhi. Exploratory factor analysis was used in which the risk (five) and benefit (two) factors related to wine consumption were verified on a factor model using 25 constructs. It was a two-phase process in which the measurement model, with six constructs and 18 measurement items, were measured, trailed by the structural model. A conceptual framework was used to illustrate the relationships amongst the variables and was empirically verified.\nFindings: The findings revealed that the risk and benefit perceptions of the wine patrons are not only interlinked but are also accountable for their fluctuations in attitudes. In the factorial analysis, it was discovered that perceived benefit factors, i.e. value for money and convenience, are accountable for positively affecting the attitudes of patrons towards the wines. The results also specify that an increase in benefit perception or decrease in risk perception will positively transform the patrons' attitude towards wine.\nOriginality/value: Although a few studies have been done to find out the risk/benefit perceptions of wine consumers in the developed countries (i.e. USA, France, UK, etc.) but this will be the first attempt to find out how the consumption patterns and purchase decisions of wine consumers are affected in developing countries like India. Moreover, it will help the stakeholders to align their wine products as per the needs and demands of the patrons.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Systematic and practical measurement of organizational knowledge creation: Developing and validating the knowledge creation practice inventory
|
[
"Korea",
"Organizations",
"Knowledge management",
"Intellectual capital",
"Knowledge creation",
"Measurement development",
"Scale validation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In the present era of knowledge-driven economy, organizations' capacity in creating value-adding knowledge is the cornerstone of the firm's competitiveness (Cummings and Worley, 2008). The ever-increasing importance of knowledge workers' productivity (Drucker, 1999) compels managers to better orchestrate product development, process innovation, technological adaptation, strategic business planning, and employee development (Ichijo, 2007).\nProblem statement and purpose of the research: Nonaka and his colleagues popularized the Socialization, Externalization, Combination, and Internalization (SECI) concepts as essential components and phases of organizational knowledge creation and conversion. They asserted the efficacy of the theory almost exclusively through field observations (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka et al., 2000a, b). However, from the research and theory development standpoint, few attempts have been made to deductively or inductively validate various concepts and their relationships proposed by the SECI theory (Lloria and Moreno-Luzon, 2004; Schulze and Hoegl, 2006).The primary purpose of this study is to develop and validate a theory-grounded knowledge creation practice inventory. Despite the popularity of Nonaka and his colleagues' organizational knowledge creation theory, validation efforts have not caught up. From quantitative research standpoints, concepts and components of organizational knowledge creation, such as socialization and internalization can be conceptualized as endogenous variables, exogenous variables, interaction mediators, or control variables. With the potential relevance between organizational knowledge creation and other performance potentials, such as the speed of innovation and employees' organizational commitment, scale development for organizational knowledge creation and conversion would enable multi-construct empirical research efforts. According to Netemeyer et al. (2003), theories in the social science require objectivity and one scientific and systematic approach is to develop a psychometric measurement.\nConceptual and procedural framework: Given the maturity of concepts established for the knowledge creation theory, the authors followed the theory-driven deductive scale development procedure (Hinkin, 1995, 2005; Schwab, 1980). Figure 1 graphically summarizes the procedure - starting from the top-right dimension of binding domains and constructs of the scale to the anchored theory. Here, domains and constructs are usually identified through reviewing the literature (theory-based initial approach). Next, during the empirical initial approach, the originally defined domains and constructs serve as latent constructs, become the fundamental axes for creating questions, and their face validity and clarity are confirmed by knowledgeable others, usually in the form of expert reviews. Empirical verifications are also made in view of the target population collecting sample data and analyzing psychometric properties. If sufficient numbers of responses are obtained, the same sample can be split to explore and confirm the psychometric properties.For theory-building standpoints, more research needs to be done examining matching between the proposed theoretical concepts and empirical results. If results of empirical applications do not support the specification of the theoretical framework or the theory evolves to include additional concepts, reframing of the theory can be made by revisiting the literature. Finally, one validates or confirms the reframed theory through new or more data.Song et al.'s (2011) previous study developed and validated a SECI theory-based knowledge creation scale anchored in four domains of knowledge conversion (SECI) using 469 cases from several for-profit Korean organizations. Although the result of the structural equation modeling supported the overall model fit of data to those four knowledge conversion domains, the result of the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) did not support the distinction of each SECI concept (combination and internalization emerged as a single factor). According to Figure 1, the previous study was the initial attempt focussing more on the first two phases (for more details, see Song et al., 2011).This present work is a sequel study applying the third and the fourth phases of Figure 1, which corresponds to the use of the theory-based reframing approach. Nonaka and his colleagues proposed five practical steps for facilitating the conversion between each component of the SECI theory, which was closely aligned with the SECI constructs but not tested, thus those five steps were used in this study as the reframing structure: first, sharing tacit knowledge; second, creating concepts; third, justifying concepts; fourth, building archetypes; and finally, cross-leveling knowledge.\nLiterature review: The basic tenet of the organizational knowledge creation theory, which is also known as the SECI, is that organizational knowledge is created by converting individual employees' tacit knowledge to organizationally useful and explicit knowledge, which in turn can trigger the expansion of individuals' tacit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka and Toyama, 2005).As described previously, the SECI concepts and components were largely claimed through exemplary cases and field observations, but the findings from our earlier study did not support the separation of the combination and the internalization construct. To facilitate the conversion between SECI concepts, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) proposed a practice-oriented, five-phase model: sharing tacit knowledge, creating concepts, justifying concepts, building archetypes, and cross-leveling knowledge, and identified desirable practices for each step. However, the claimed relationship between these five phases and the SECI concepts were never tested. For that reason, theoretical reframing was made adopting the five-phase model.Sharing tacit knowledge\nMethods: As a follow-up study to the same authors' previous work (Song et al., 2011), the current scale development research focussed on the third and the fourth phases of reframing and validating the knowledge conversion theory. Key findings from the previous study which focussed on the initial two phases, theoretical foundation and initial development is briefly summarized first to help understand the whole picture.Theoretical foundation and initial development\nResults: Initial reliability and construct correlations\nDiscussion and conclusion: Nonaka and colleagues' organizational knowledge creation theory was popularized by four modes of the SECI concepts, and those theoretical constructs were frequently used to explain and promote knowledge sharing and creating practices within organizations. Despite the popularity of the SECI theory, related concepts and suggested practices were largely based on illustrative case examples and field observations (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka et al., 2001; von Krogh et al., 2000).Developing a psychologically acceptable knowledge creation measurement inventory can be a starting point for empirically validating and advancing the knowledge conversion theory, if theory building is an ongoing and iterative process where both inductive (working from data and practices toward the theory) and deductive approaches (e.g. survey research and meta-analysis) are used to strengthen the theory (Lynham, 2000, 2002; Torraco, 2004). From the scholarly research standpoint, an efficient but valid version of the measurement inventory would also encourage more comprehensive studies examining relationships between organizational knowledge creation practices and relevant concepts, such as learning culture (Song and Kolb, 2009) and team performance (Yoon et al., 2010). Consequently, an accurate measurement inventory plays a critical role in examining the relationship between the organizational knowledge creation theory and other antecedent or performance concepts.This current study and the previous study (Song et al., 2011) found a valid and reliable psychometric measurement model on organizational knowledge conversion and creation practices. Findings from these two studies are complementary and add more knowledge to the current body of two empirical studies: Nonaka et al.'s (1994) survey validation of the SECI concepts and Lloria and Moreno-Luzon (2004) examination of knowledge creation enablers. The sample size used by Nonaka et al. (1994) was too small for 38 items tested for construct validation and the result of 24-item-based organizational knowledge creation scale (Song et al., 2011) did not confirm the separation of the combination and the internalization domain. Recognizing the inconsistency from those two sources as well as needs for applying a sound procedure of theory-driven scale development research (Hinkin, 1995, 2005; Schwab, 1980), the current study reframed the theory from more practical standpoints, applied rigorous scale development procedures (i.e. outlier analysis, reliability tests, EFA, and confirmation process), and identified ten observation items and five latent domains of organizational knowledge creation and conversion practices. Results from CFA also gave support to the validity of the single-order model as well as the higher-order model, thus relevance of the five knowledge conversion types and the theory of knowledge conversion was supported.Limitations and suggestions for future research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study developed a systematic measurement scale for the organizational knowledge creation practices. The authors used five knowledge creation phases - sharing tacit knowledge, creating concepts, justifying concepts, building prototypes, and cross-leveling knowledge - from Nonaka et al.'s knowledge conversion theory as the theoretical foundation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 914 survey responses collected from 14 for-profit Korean business organizations representing the country's leading businesses were used to examine the factor structure of those five phases, using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).\nFindings: - Results confirmed that the current version of knowledge creation practice measurement, which has five sub-dimensions along with ten items, is valid and applicable specifically in the Korean for-profit business context in terms of the psychometric properties of the measurement and measurement factor structure.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The generalization issue still remains one of the research limitations because all data sets were collected from Korean business organizations. More sample diversity needs to be considered for further research in terms of cross-cultural comparison research, which could strengthen the validity of the current developed measurement.\nPractical implications: - From the practical standpoint, organizations can utilize this measurement to diagnose their status of knowledge creation, at team and organization levels.\nOriginality/value: - This measurement could promote more dynamic research on areas of knowledge creation in terms of valid and economic size of measurement. From the practical standpoint, organizations can utilize this measurement to diagnose their status of knowledge creation at team and organization levels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Earthquake experience and preparedness in Turkey
|
[
"Disaster prevention",
"Earthquake preparedness",
"Natural hazard",
"Preparedness",
"Risk reduction",
"Safety measures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Earthquakes are among the most dangerous geologic phenomena on our planet. There are many thousands of earthquakes every year on Earth and the timing as well as the magnitude of earthquakes still remain unpredictable. Since earthquake is an unpredictable disaster, it usually evokes the idea that one cannot prepare for it. However, the only way to reduce damages and losses is to effectively prepare for it (Shaw et al., 2004). The more prepared people are for an earthquake, the less damage and losses they will experience.\nMethods: Setting\nResults: Demographic variables and earthquake preparedness\nDiscussion: We investigated the level of earthquake preparedness of individuals living in Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and evaluated whether prior earthquake experience has an impact on earthquake preparedness. Previous studies have shown that variables such as gender, age, marital status, education level, economic status, home ownership are associated with earthquake preparedness (Dooley et al., 1992; Roces et al., 1992; Tekeli-Yesil et al., 2011). We found no significant relationship between age, gender, education level, occupation and the earthquake preparedness scores. However, our results revealed that individuals who were married had higher preparation scores as opposed to those who were single or widowed and that home owners had taken more steps to prepare for an earthquake than non-home owners. The reason renters were significantly less prepared for an earthquake than home owners could be due to the fact that it is costly to carry out especially the survival actions on the scale and these steps are most of the time expected to be carried out by the owners.\nConclusion: In summary, the present study intended to measure and compare the level of earthquake preparedness of individuals living in three different locations in Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and examine whether prior earthquake experience has an impact on earthquake preparedness and found that people are not ready for the consequences of an earthquake. However, those who had prior earthquake experience had higher preparation than those who had no prior earthquake experience. A comparison of general perception of preparedness levels reported by participants showed that Ercis and Askale residents believed that they were more prepared for an earthquake than Erzurum residents. Home ownership and past earthquake experience were found to be predictors of preparation in the present study.\nLimitations: Although this study provided useful information about the earthquake preparedness levels of individuals living in three different parts of Turkey it still has some limitations. First of all, the results may not be generalizable to other areas in Turkey since very low income individuals are not represented to a large extent. Second limitation of the study is that, although there were no significant differences in the age, gender, marital status and education level of the participants, women, individuals aged 26-40, married and having a higher education level were over-represented in the research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure and compare the level of earthquake preparedness of individuals living in Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, evaluate whether prior earthquake experience has an impact on earthquake preparedness and discuss the cultural factors that may play a role in determining the level of preparedness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three locations were identified for the study. Askale and Ercis district had experienced a major earthquake where Erzurum City Center had no major earthquake experience. A total of 174 participants were included in the study. Earthquake preparation was assessed using the Turkish version of the Wellington Earthquake Preparedness Scale by Spittal et al. (2006).\nFindings: The results showed a significant relationship between the place of living, earthquake experience and preparation. Those who had prior earthquake experience had higher preparation than those who had no prior earthquake experience. Home owners had taken more steps to prepare for an earthquake than non-home owners Individuals who were married had higher preparation scores than those who were single or widowed. A comparison of general perception of preparedness levels reported by participants having a major earthquake experience and no earthquake experience showed that Ercis and Askale residents were significantly more prepared for an earthquake than Erzurum residents. Home ownership and past earthquake experience were found to be predictors of preparation.\nOriginality/value: Although the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey encounters many earthquakes resulting in mass destruction, the issue of whether individuals living in this region are ready and prepared for a possible earthquake has not been researched sufficiently.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Failing happily: How emotions and self-leadership can lead you back to success
|
[
"Leadership",
"Self development",
"Management skills",
"Emotional intelligence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Think about what you might say if asked to pinpoint the last time you failed. Yesterday when you broke your gym regime again? Back in fifth grade when you flunked your math test? This morning when you underperformed in a meeting? Every day, every year or never at all, your opinion on your own failures is telling. What exactly constitutes a failure? And, more importantly, how do you respond to it? It may be that any sense of having failed overcomes you with guilt and shame for a considerable period of time. Perhaps you are still depressed and holding yourself back because of a failure some time ago. Or maybe you just know how to get over it and move on.\nComment: This is a review of \"Everyone fails! - Using emotion regulation and self-leadership for recovery\" by Alan D. Boss and Henry P. Sims Jr. The article puts forward a theoretical perspective on how emotion regulation and self-leadership can help move the experience of personal failure toward recovery. The authors explain the varying responses to a sense of failure, and argue that a deeper understanding of emotional intelligence and the related ideas of self-leadership and emotion regulation can turn a negative experience into a positive one. Based on recent research, they put forward several propositions about how individuals and managers can increase the recovery time from failure by being more in control of personal and group emotions. Finally, they recommend further research into these emerging fields, in the hope that the negative impact of a sense of failure can be diminished.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to review a theoretical perspective on how emotion regulation and self-leadership can help move the experience of failure toward recovery.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper offers conceptual ideas around how to use emotions to cope with failure in an accessible form.\nFindings: - The paper suggest that you should think about what you might say if asked to pinpoint the last time you failed. Yesterday when you broke your gym regime again? Back in fifth grade when you flunked your math test? This morning when you underperformed in a meeting? Every day, every year or never at all, your opinion on your own failures is telling. What exactly constitutes a failure? And, more importantly, how do you respond to it? IT may be that any sense of having failed overcomes you with guilt and shame for a considerable period of time. Perhaps you are still depressed and holding yourself back because of a failure some time ago. Or maybe you just know how to get over it and move on.\nPractical implications: - The paper suggests further research into new and growing areas of study, and offers action points for managers and individuals in business.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds to recent research in the field of emotional intelligence, and suggests how these concepts can have practical implications for the workplace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Website-reflected operating characteristics of wineries' wine clubs
|
[
"Marketing strategy",
"USA",
"Critical success factors",
"Conceptual/theoretical",
"Wines",
"Regression",
"Direct marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Wine clubs are an increasingly important component of wineries' repertoire of direct-to-consumer channels (Teaff et al., 2005), which indicates that profits of 50 per cent of sales revenues are possible. Thach (2009) characterizes the wine club channel as the \"[...] most profitable channel in the USA market [...]\" (p. 154). Also, wine clubs offer the winery owner an alternative for expansion of the customer base without having to either employ distributor wholesalers, or deal with the problems that frequently accompany wineries' use of that channel (Williamson et al., 2012).\n2. Literature review and associated research propositions: Prior to the presentation of literature and development of research propositions, we need to disclose the source of key terms that are used in the specific wording of our research propositions. We took key terms for characterizing features of Web sites (e.g. \"discounts and bonuses\", \"special offers\") directly from Davidson and Lambert (2005). Their work, which represents the culmination of a major initiative for characterizing winery Web sites and involves the analyses of hundreds of Web sites of Australian wineries, as well as the conduct of on-line surveys of managers, is in no way biased in any expressed or implied fashion regarding the structuring or functioning of wine clubs. Wine clubs are just one of dozens of operating characteristics of wineries that were identified. A more complete description of their work and how we used it in our research is provided in Part III.\n3. Methodology: The data were collected in summer of 2011 from Web sites of wineries located in the state of North Carolina, USA. As background, North Carolina is the home of approximately 100 wineries and is currently the ninth largest wine producing state in the country. It is also ranked as one of the top five state destinations for wine and culinary tourism activities in the USA. The wine and grape industry has also generated significant economic growth in North Carolina. Based on a recent study, the economic impact of the wine industry on the state included 7,600 jobs (direct and indirect), amounting to a total annual economic impact of $1.2 billion. Thus, most wineries in North Carolina can be considered well-established in terms of using wine clubs as a marketing channel to sell their wines.\n4. Results: Presented in the Table I entitled \"Summary of Research Propositions and Results\" are the results of the tests of P1-P13, respectively. Please note that Fisher's exact test does not include statistics such as F-statistics, t-statistics and chi-square statistics. The primary output is the significance figure. Only P12 and P13 failed to receive confirmation (the interested reader may contact the corresponding author and receive the full statistical results).\n5. Discussion of the results: One observation that flows from the empirical results of our paper is the very high level of statistical significance of the confirming results for the first 11 research propositions. As can be verified from the results table, these first 11 research propositions were confirmed with a high degree of statistical significance: Significance levels associated with the results were at the 0.01 level in every case and well below that in most. In our opinion, when such statistical significance is coupled with the fact that our sample consisted of the overwhelming majority of the wineries in North Carolina, it lends substantial credibility and relevance to the results discussed below.\n6. Limitations of research: One limitation of our research concerns our inability to conclusively infer causality in our results. Our results only demonstrate the covariance of each of a variety of different operating features (independent variables) with the presence or absence of a wine club in the winery's operating configuration. Our research, which is exploratory in nature, tends to answer \"what\" questions and not \"why\" questions and \"to what extent\" questions (we deal with the latter issues in our \"Suggestions for Future Research\", which follows later in Part VIII).\n7. Managerial implications: A winery owner's strategic choice to install a wine club into the winery's operating configuration clearly places the winery higher up on the \"risk/return\" schedule than is the case prior to that choice. One manifestation of the winery's increase in risk relates to the increase in the winery's operating leverage that necessarily occurs as a result. When a winery adopts a wine club, many fixed costs are incurred, a few examples of which include: the cost of hiring and maintaining a wine club manager; the cost of purchasing wine club management software and associated costs of updating and maintaining the database of wine club members; ongoing product development costs that flow from using the results of the winery's involvement in regional and national wine competitions; costs flowing from the winery's collateral increased involvement with winery tourism, etc. Additionally, variable costs are also incurred that depend significantly on the operating characteristics of the wine clubs.\n8. Suggestions for future research: First, future research might draw from a geographically more dispersed and representative sample of wineries across the USA. Of particular interest would be an assessment of the Web sites of wineries located in California. Additionally, wine clubs of wineries located outside of the USA can be compared and contrasted with those in the USA with respect to the operating features of their wine clubs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this empirical research is to identify the distinguishing operating characteristics of wineries that use what is alleged to be the most profitable channel of distribution for marketing wine in the USA: the wine club.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research design entails the contrasting of the Web site-reflected operating features of wineries that support wine clubs with wineries that do not.\nFindings: Support was found for the great majority of operating features identified in the literature as likely characterizing the operations of wineries with wine clubs. A notable exception concerns the lack of confirmation of hypotheses concerning \"Wine 2.0\" variables.\nResearch limitations/implications: In the apparent pursuit of higher profits, owners and managers of wineries with wine clubs more frequently adopt operating features that expose them to objective competitive comparisons than do owners and managers with other wineries. The former are also more prone to advertise on their Web sites a variety of offers that collectively constitute a more valuable quid pro quo in their relationships with consumer buyers than appears to be the case with other wineries. Strategically, results demonstrate that a winery's adoption of a wine club is not a part of an evolutionary process of wineries in general.\nOriginality/value: There has been no other published empirical research that concerned the identification of distinguishing operating features of wineries that use what has been argued to be the most profitable channel for marketing wine at retail in the USA: the wine club channel. Winery owners and managers will find particular value in the results and implications of the research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Independent directors and corporate investment: evidence from an emerging market
|
[
"Vietnam",
"Emerging market",
"Independent directors",
"Corporate investment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate governance is one of the most interesting topics in corporate finance. Due to information asymmetry, firm managers tend to take advantage of corporate resources in order to serve their own interest rather than serving shareholders' benefits. Particularly, firm managers conduct overinvestment in unprofitable business projects that increase their wealth and sacrifice firm owners' interest (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). Realizing this agency problem, shareholders use many mechanisms to control and monitor managers and make their behavior and firm benefits align. Recently, independent directors have become a common approach of corporate governance after the global financial crisis, which revealed severe weaknesses in corporate governance systems across countries. The extant literature shows that independent directors positively influence firm decisions (Weisbach, 1988) and financial performance (Brickley et al., 1994; Choi et al., 2007; Chou et al., 2010; Dahya and McConnell, 2007; Ezzamel and Watson, 1993; Joh and Jung, 2012; Klein, 2002; Liu et al., 2015). However, there are no specific studies on how independent directors affect corporate investment. In this paper, we examine whether independent directors reduce corporate overinvestment and improve investment efficiency in an emerging market.\n2. Institutional environment: The Vietnamese stock market was launched in 2000 with the first stock exchange located in Ho Chi Minh City. Over the first five years, training activities in the market were not attractive with about 40 listed firms and market capitalization constituted approximately 1 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). However, during the short period from 2006 to 2007, the Vietnamese stock market developed rapidly with over 300 listed companies in the two stock exchanges in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. In 2007, the market capitalization reached 43 percent of GDP. After two booming years, the market started to decline in 2008 and this decline was stronger under the impact of the global financial crisis. As in many countries, the collapse of the Vietnamese financial market during the crisis period disclosed many weaknesses in corporate governance. Therefore, the Vietnamese Government focused on legislation for the corporate governance of public firms. Circular No. 121/2012/TT-BTC (The Ministry of Finance, 2012), which was issued by the Ministry of Finance in July 2012 and came into force in the same year, required public firms to have independent directors accounting for at least one third of the board. However, most listed firms failed to follow this requirement. Then, the Government (2017) issued Decree No. 71/2017/ND-CP with the same requirement for independent directors on the boards of listed firms. Firms failing to have enough independent directors would be fined from 70 to 100m Vietnamese dong (VND) in accordance with Decree No. 145/2016/ND-CP (Government, 2016) on penalties for administrative violations against regulations of the securities and securities market. Nevertheless, this fine has not been effective enough to force listed firms to adhere to the legislation, and there are still about 60 percent of the listed firms without independent directors now. According to Clause 2 Article 151 of Law No. 68/2014/QH13 (The National Assembly, 2014) on enterprises, independent directors are defined as follows:\n3. Literature review and hypothesis development: According to Berle and Means (1932), when firms are larger, their ownership structure becomes more diverse and complicated. Firm owners face more difficulties in running businesses and they hire managers that are agents operating the firms on their behalf. This is an agency relationship in which managers are agents and shareholders are principals. However, since shareholders fail to have enough information on business activities, managers tend to divert firm resources to serve their personal interest and sacrifice shareholders' wealth (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). There are many approaches that shareholders can employ to monitor firm managers and make sure that managers' behavior is aligned with shareholders' benefits. First, firms pay managers based on firm performance or grant them a certain number of shares. When firm performance is higher, managers' incomes are also higher due to higher payment or stock prices. Second, firms dismiss managers when firm performance is lower than an expected level or they create negative effects on firm performance. Third, firms employ external auditing services or establish internal controlling systems with supervisory boards, internal regulations and independent directors. Independent directors that have no private or business relationship with managers can monitor managers' behavior and protect shareholders' wealth effectively (Knyazeva et al., 2013). Besides, independent directors with their own professional knowledge and experience are helpful to firms. Independent directors also function as professional consultants to make better corporate decisions and improve firm performance (Kim et al., 2014).\n4. Research methods: 4.1 Research models\n5. Research results: Table III presents a correlation matrix of key research variables. Corporate investment has positive correlation with Tobin's Q, return on assets and the SOE dummy, while it has a negative correlation with financial leverage. In addition, all correlation coefficients are lower than 0.5. These imply that there is no multicollinearity.\n6. Conclusions: The extant literature shows that independent directors are an effective mechanism to reduce the agency problem in firm decisions and operating performance. However, there has been no research on the role of independent directors in corporate investment policy. In this paper, we argue that board independence can help firms reduce managers' overinvestment and increase investment efficiency in Vietnam, an emerging market that experiences low enforceability of legislation on corporate governance. Using a research sample of 1,281 observations from 193 firms listed in the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, we find that the fraction of independent directors in the board is negatively related to corporate investment and positively associated to investment efficiency. Besides, these effects are stronger with financially constrained firms. These results provide both government agencies and public firms policy implications to increase board independence with the aim of improving corporate governance quality in Vietnamese stock markets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether independent directors reduce corporate overinvestment and improve investment efficiency in an emerging market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, the author developed a research model in which corporate investment is a function of Tobin's Q, the proportion of independent directors in the board and an interaction between them. Second, the author divided the full sample into groups of firms with a low- and high-financial constraint to compare the effects of independent directors between financially unconstrained and constrained firms.\nFindings: With a full sample of 1,281 observations collected from 193 firms listed in Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange during the period from 2009 to 2017, the author find that the proportion of independent directors is negatively related to firm investment but its interactive term with Tobin's Q is positively related to corporate investment. These findings imply that independent directors can help firms reduce overinvestment and improve investment efficiency. Moreover, the research findings indicate that these effects of independent directors are stronger for financially constrained firms.\nOriginality/value: The extant literature shows that independent directors are an effective mechanism to reduce agency problems in firm decisions and operating performance. However, there has been no research on the role of independent directors in corporate investment policy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Implementation, monitoring and evaluation of sustainable business practices: framework and empirical illustration
|
[
"Sustainable",
"Business",
"Retail industry",
"Areas of indices",
"Triple bottom line",
"Woolworths",
"South Africa"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The three areas of triple bottom line (i.e. ecological, social and economic indices) of sustainable business have been rarely addressed in conjunction (Global-Reporting-Initiative, 2006). Approaches applied do not sufficiently recognize the organizational and strategic complexities of implementing, monitoring and evaluating efforts of sustainable business practices (Kolk and Mauser, 2002, cited in Holton et al., 2010).\nFrame of reference: Several concepts or constructs in the literature refer to more or less the same overall phenomenon of sustainable business practices. For example, Zikmund and Stanton (1971) write about \"reverse logistics\", Peattie (1995) label it \"environmental marketing management\", Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995) use \"environmental marketing\", Min and Galle (1997) apply \"green purchasing strategies\", Reinhardt (1999) talks about \"environmental product differentiation\", Lippman (1999) expresses \"supply chain environmental management\", Welford (1999) names it \"life-cycle assessment\", Crane (2000) labels it \"green marketing\", Hoffman (2000) calls it \"environmental management\", Young and Kielkiewicz-Young (2001) talk about \"sustainable supply network management\", Zsidisin and Siferd (2001) use \"environmental purchasing\", Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) apply \"corporate social responsibility\", De Boer (2003) write about \"sustainability labeling schemes\", Svensson (2007) discusses \"sustainable supply chain management\" and there are the \"ISO-14000-certifications\" (ISO, 2007). A fairly comprehensive literature review of sustainable supply chain management is provided by Seuring and Muller (2008).\nWoolworths - South Africa: This present research is based on a case study and the content analysis of the retail chain Woolworths in South Africa. The data are derived from the company's comprehensive sustainability programme from 2008 to 2011 and their annual reports from 2009 and 2011. They focus on areas of indices in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of sustainable business practices. It is a sustainability programme labelled as \"The Good Business Journey\" (Woolworths Sustainability Report, 2008). Furthermore, complementary communication with the manager in-charge of Woolworths' sustainability programme was carried out when issues were raised in the sustainability and annual reports required further clarification.\nSustainable business practices - areas of indices: Woolworths is a retailer, and, as such, it does not manufacture products in the conventional sense of the term, although it does produce food for its own in-store cafes. To provide its target market with the products it needs, demands and desires, Woolworths purchases products from its business network which it then resells to its consumers. To facilitate the achievement of its stated objectives of sustainable business practices, the company focuses on motivating its whole business network to become more sustainable, it initiates and enters partnerships in sustainable projects in South Africa, and it continuously monitors, innovates and improves its own operations to improve its sustainable business practices over time.\nOutcomes and trends of areas and indices: Table II shows the actual outcome and trend of the overall triple bottom line areas and indices of Woolworths from 2008 to 2011. It shows that the implementation of the overall triple bottom line areas and indices is monitored and evaluated annually. The trend since implementation has not only been to meet the targets established for each of them, but generally to exceed the targets already established.\nLessons learned and concluding thoughts: An important contribution of the current case study of Woolworths is that it demonstrates or indicates how and what to implement, monitor and evaluate in the efforts of sustainable business practices. For Woolworths, triple bottom line sustainability is a strategic corporate issue with an initial five-year implementation plan followed, in 2012, by a new strategic plan with challenging targets and commitments with specific targets to be met in 2015. Woolworths has also established comprehensive governance, a measurement and tracking system that is embedded in the business and which monitors progress annually, and the 2015 targets biannually. In addition, Woolworths has incorporated sustainability issues in its employees' score cards which are used to evaluate their annual performance (Woolworths Sustainability Report, 2011, p. 6). For Woolworths', sustainability is an issue that is driven from board level by a sustainability committee that is chaired by a non-executive director within the business (Woolworths Sustainability Report, 2011, p. 6) right down to the individuals on the shop floor.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to illustrate what and how a South African retail chain implements, monitors and evaluates its sustainable business practices using economic, ecological and social areas of indices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on the content analysis of public documents, such as sustainability and annual reports, of a retail chain. An assessment of sustainability and annual reports for 2008-2011 has been considered to examine how and what this retail chain implements, monitors and evaluates in its sustainable business practices.\nFindings: Woolworths has a sustainability programme in place that assures that the efforts of sustainable business practices are implemented, monitored and evaluated properly and that their targets for each area of indices are accomplished.\nResearch limitations/implications: The content analysis shows that the areas of indices are important in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Woolworths' spectrum of efforts in sustainability business practices.\nPractical implications: The study demonstrates practically how Woolworths South Africa implements, monitors and evaluates its sustainable business practices using various areas of indices which fall under the three pillars of sustainability, namely, economic, environmental and social.\nOriginality/value: This research provides insight on what and how a retail chain in South Africa implements, monitors and evaluates its sustainable business practices over time. It also offers an insight into the strategic approach beyond the company's judicial frontiers and into the supply chain. Furthermore, it shows how a company's business network can be committed to change towards sustainable business practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Success factors in dealing with significant change in an organization
|
[
"Organizational change",
"Change management",
"Critical success factors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: While all organizations undergo constant change, business enterprises need to become more proactive in dealing with this constant flux! The question of how the enterprise attempts to deal with significant change is often crucial to how well it succeeds (Collins, 2002; Fiorina, 2002). Previous research (Weber and Weber, 2001; Graetz, 2000; Averweg and Erwin, 1999; Hotek and White, 1999; Underwood-Stephens and Cobb, 1999; Rothwell and Kazanas, 1998; Turban, 1996; Palvia and Chervany, 1995; Rouda and Kusy, 1995; Guimaraes et al., 1992) suggests the need for critical factors to be addressed during periods of significant change in order for the organization to be successful. Through the examination of a specific case involving significant change, the successful implementation of a decision support system (DSS) within an organization in higher education, the process of dealing with a significant change is scrutinized and evaluated against these critical factors.The research methodology employed to examine the DSS implementation (business unit in higher education) combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Not only are the critical success factors (CSF) identified in the literature present and confirmed, but two additional factors may merit recognition. These two additional success factors are:1. the need for curriculum development and appropriate training by which the organization can formulate an education plan to deal with change; and2. the need for clear communication addressing the personal gains of those individuals who are both involved and affected by the significant change process.Complementing the change curriculum is the need for ongoing assessment with feedback. This aids in determining whether the change itself was good or bad for the organization, and whether the curriculum of introducing the change needs further refinement. It provides a venue to not only adjust the curriculum, but also confirm ongoing buy-in by staff.Although the focus was on a DSS implementation within a specific organization, there are implications that these factors, including the two proposed, may have implications beyond the specific significant change and provide insight in how to deal with more generalized and broader organizational \"Significant Change.\"\n2 Change and critical success factors: 2.1 Significant change defined\n3 Proposition of new factors: 3.1 Flexible curriculum\n4 Research - methodology and findings: The facilities planning and management (FP&M) operations at Iowa State University has recently gone through the implementation of its computerized facilities management system (CFMS) called facilities administrative management information system (FAMIS). The FAMIS system captures vital daily operational activity and allows management the functionality to both monitor and analyze this information, to aid in making both tactical and strategic planning decisions. The process started in late 1997 with the decision to explore an external vendor's product for the organization's aging and non-Y2K compliant legacy CFMS. FP&M began its preparation for implementation with a target date to \"go live\" in July 1999.Examination of the implementation revealed the use of a process for planning, analysis, and some assessment over the many months of implementation dealing with preparation, training, and group discussions of the software application. The success of the system, implementation, full use, and commitment to move forward was marked with the removal of the remnants of the legacy system in March of 2000.After a full year of utilization of the FAMIS system, the organization has had time to work out operational issues and establish the presence and need of this DSS. To explore the use of CSF more in depth within FP&M, the first step was to survey the staff who were employed at the time of implementation and now use the system. Most research in similar areas has used a structured interview. A self-administered questionnaire patterned after a typical structured interview question was judged to be the most effective way to collect data and also allowed the respondents the opportunity to invoke confidentiality if desired.4.1 Quantitative methodology and findings\n5 Discussion: Although the implementation of FAMIS has been deemed a success, the organization could have made significant strides toward establishing an overall organizational change process. Future changes of similar magnitude, as evidenced by the lack of the enthusiasm for upgrades and enhancements, now require ongoing rehashing of issues thought to be resolved. The organization may have missed an opportunity to initially build a foundation for organizational change management, and must now devote resources toward not only building this process in retrospect, but doing damage control as well.It should also be noted that factors influencing a change transformation can conceivably be placed on a continuum of influence, with critical success at one extreme and critical failure on the opposite. The emphasis of this investigation was at one end, focusing on the critical and important factors, thus, leaving the discussion of any other factors and the continuum itself for future research.\n6 Limitations of this research: Like Weber and Weber (2001) the environment of the study may pose some limitations that need to be considered when interpreting results based solely on the survey. The sample size, respondent biases, lack of a control group, and employee-employer relationships are a source of potential influence. Self-reporting on a questionnaire is subjective rather than objective. Recognizing these issues, the author attempts to address some of these by utilizing a complementing exploratory case study methodology. The role of the researcher having a dual function is viewed as an aid in performing the qualitative methodology. However, this duplicity, even though it may add to the trustworthiness of the feedback data can just as easily have lead the research astray. One's perspective and objectivity is constantly questioned, especially when dealing with personal and sensitive information from the respondents. When and where it was feasible, informational data was confirmed by at least one additional source either documentation on record or by a follow up discussion with another staff person. It is also recognized that although one could see that identified CSF were indeed present in the implementation of the DSS for the FP&M organization, caution may need to be exercised in extending these findings to an organization outside of the institution as well as outside of higher education. Finally, it is recognized that there was no effort to test the need for each CSF either individually or in multiple combinations to establish which are actually most vital.\n7 Summary: In today's environment as an enterprise attempts to deal with significant (traumatic) change, there may be a formula for a successful implementation. To maximize the opportunity for success, it is recommended that the action plan start with a valid understanding of change and the need for the enterprise to confront it. The ability to adapt to one's environment is evolutionary in nature and it is recommended that appropriate planning and analysis be conducted before taking action. There needs to be a solid plan based on learning and change theory, and models that provide the enterprise with a foundation upon which to build their very own framework specific to the individual enterprise. Supporting this framework is the need for a curriculum by which the enterprise attempts to engage staff in the change transformation process. This is viewed as a roadmap for learning by which all participants benefit from the process and the organization minimizes frustration and maximizes the potential gain. It is also a means for buy-in by all strategic stakeholders and end-users. This buy-in is based on the perception of fairness and individual self-gain, which in turn is based on the humanistic and psychological interests of those involved with the change. The final component of the process is assessment (with feedback) of not only the actual change, but of the process and the tools utilized to accomplish the action.Organizations need to incorporate into their planning process a way to handle the inevitable \"Significant Change.\" By having an action plan that addresses the critical factors for success, supported with a prescribed change process methodology and curriculum, the enterprise may not only have a successful transformation, but it may also become a more flexible organization willing to deal with change in the future.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - As organizations attempt to deal with change that is transforming, research has identified factors that need to be present in order to optimize the change transformation. The purpose of this research paper is to focus on those critical success factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - After presenting a summary of the identified success factors, a combined quantitative and qualitative research methodology focusing on a single case study examines these critical factors in more depth.\nFindings: - Presented are identified factors of previous research, and two additional critical factors are revealed: flexible curriculum - the need for a comprehensive action plan having a prescribed curriculum; and perception of personal gain - the need to present a clear understanding addressing the aspirations and individual personal goals of those who are both involved and affected by the significant change.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Beyond the limitations inherent in conducting both qualitative and quantitative research on a single case study, the emphasis of this investigation was at one end of a success continuum. While the focus was on the critical and important factors (one end), that leaves the discussion of any other factors and the continuum itself for future research.\nPractical implications: - By having an action plan that addresses the critical factors for dealing with significant change, the organization increases its chances of a successful transformation, and it may also become a more flexible organization able to deal with future change.\nOriginality/value: - Through this research, two new critical success factors are identified that have impact upon organizations attempting to go through a major significant change transformation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Kwik Fit apprenticeship stands out from the crowd: Inspection rates the scheme top in all areas
|
[
"Awards",
"Apprenticeships",
"Motor industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The UK's automotive repair and servicing company Kwik Fit has received highest possible ranking for its apprenticeship scheme.\nApprentices develop into future leaders of the company: Paul Binks, Head of learning and development at Kwik Fit, said: \"This grading is a resounding endorsement of the huge investment we have made in our learning and development program and our commitment to be a leader in the sector. Apprentices are vital to our business as they develop into the future leaders of the company.\nPassion for cars: Emma Bromwich recently completed her apprenticeship and is now an advanced fitter at Chipping Norton. Having studied art and design at college, she decided she did not want to continue to university. Instead, with a passion for cars, she decided to call into her local Kwik Fit center one day where, coincidentally, the company had an apprenticeship opportunity.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Examines the factors that have helped the Kwik Fit apprenticeship scheme to top honors in the latest Ofsted inspection.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Provides details of the apprenticeship scheme and contains an interview with someone who has completed it successfully.\nFindings: Details the combination of classroom, training-workshop and in-center activity, with particular links between theory and practice.\nPractical implications: Shows that almost nine out of ten apprentices stay on at Kwik Fit at the end of their apprenticeship, and many participants progress to senior levels in the company.\nSocial implications: Highlights the example of one female apprentice working in a male-dominated environment.\nOriginality/value: Explains the workings of a \"traditional\" apprenticeship, with apprentices permanently full-time employed from the day they start.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
To what extent does need for touch affect online perceived quality?
|
[
"Quality",
"E-commerce",
"Subjective norms",
"Impulsiveness",
"Need for touch"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Direct experiences with products have diagnostic power (Kim and Morris, 2007), so consumers often prefer, compare and categorise sensory cues in relation to the specific product they are considering, as well as the service offered by the firm and the store's image (Helmefalk, 2016). Some consumers also need to try products before they buy them (Childers and Peck, 2010), suggesting their preference for information obtained through their haptic system. Most consumers want full, direct information, especially before purchasing products with sensory attributes (Park et al., 2012), all of which relates to the concept of need for touch (NFT) (Childers and Peck, 2010; Cho and Workman, 2011; Elhai et al., 2016; Park et al., 2012; Peck and Childers, 2006).\nTheoretical background: Weighing and evaluating alternatives is a key phase in the consumer purchase process. Online consumers often confront asymmetric information (Biswas et al., 2009) and intangibility (Comegys et al., 2009) - factors that impede the development of e-commerce, because customers lack the opportunity to try or physically examine actual products (Comegys et al., 2009; Hulten, 2012; National Observatory of Telecommunications and Information Systems (ONTSI), 2015). Without the ability to touch products and gauge product quality easily, consumers also might make poor product choices, such that they risk receiving unwanted or low quality products that do not match their descriptions or the shoppers' expectations (Comegys et al., 2009). Some authors thus emphasise the relevance of perceived service quality (Kim et al., 2011), website quality (Kim et al., 2009; Lee and Wu, 2011), e-tailer perceived quality (Das, 2016) and perceived shopping quality (Lo and Qu, 2015) in a particular channel. Orth et al. (2013) relate product quality evaluations to interpersonal (salesperson-consumer) forms of touch, though not to product touch.\nHypotheses and research model: E-commerce orientation\nMethodology: Sample\nData analyses and results: Data analysis\nDiscussion: Commercial establishments face competitive, radically altered environments, mainly due to retail digitalization (Hagberg et al., 2016). As the importance of e-commerce continues to increase (Wang, 2016), a major drawback remains, namely, consumers' inability to touch and try out the product or service purchased online. The resulting information asymmetry can adversely affect the online buying process and evaluations of product quality; product quality perceptions are closely related to perceived shopping quality and the experience (Basha et al., 2015; Lo and Qu, 2015). The current study therefore addresses factors that might affect people's NFT and, indirectly, their perceptions and evaluations of product quality. In this way, the present work extends research on how direct and indirect experiences with products affect consumers' perceptions of product quality, by offering a novel perspective on customer evaluations that accounts for the roles of e-commerce orientation, subjective norms and impulsiveness. The authors thus ascertain, in contexts marked by uncertainty and asymmetric information, the role of various antecedents of NFT in determining consumers' behaviours to evaluate perceived quality. As Workman and Cho (2013) state, an integrative theory of shopping is needed to understand the use of a channel to make a purchase. They suggest including personal, social and epistemic factors in any model that aims to explain shopping, because these determinants constitute indirect sources of information that might replace the act of touching the product. By comparing the effect of NFT on perceived product quality in offline vs online channels, across 540 observations, this study produces some interesting academic and managerial implications.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the potential impact of need for touch (NFT) on perceived product quality and the possible roles of purchasers' social (subjective norms), personal (buying impulsiveness) and epistemic (e-commerce orientation) factors, as well as the likely interaction effect of the shopping channel.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical study is based on 540 observations, analysed in a partial least squares structural equation model.\nFindings: The link between the NFT and perceived quality tends to be negative, especially for online purchases. E-commerce orientation reduces the need to touch products, but subjective norms and buying impulsiveness have no significant effects.\nResearch limitations/implications: The NFT scale might be improved by adding more items. Some of the structural model coefficients indicate a low effect size. Finally, the results are limited to Spanish purchasers of the focal product.\nPractical implications: Firms should appeal to purchasers' e-commerce orientation to reduce the negative implications of a need to touch products among consumers shopping online.\nOriginality/value: The need to touch a product may be an obstacle to online purchases, yet few studies deal with its impact in online, relative to offline, contexts to evaluate product quality. This study also integrates personal, social and epistemic factors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Fashion "see-now-buy-now": implications and process adaptations
|
[
"See-now-buy-now",
"Fashion buying",
"Merchandising",
"Supply chain management",
"Fashion business model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently, a democratisation of fashion through an increased inclusivity and accessibility of fashion shows has occurred. The promotion of brands' collections on social media during and directly after fashion shows has facilitated a desire for fashion immediacy amongst consumers (Mountney and Murphy, 2017). Catering to consumers' need for instant gratification, the \"see-now-buy-now\" model reduces the traditional time-to-market from six months to immediately after the fashion show or next day (Berg et al., 2018). This creates an urgency to \"buy now\", resulting from consumers' need for stimulation after seeing an item on the catwalk. Therefore, a shift in the fashion calendar from traditionally \"out-of-season\" to \"in-season\" appears to be taking place, resulting from the presentation of merchandise for the current season. Thus, see-now-buy-now is a disruptive innovation, challenging the traditional fashion business model of the biannual fashion shows displaying items six months in advance of the season in which items are available to buy and changing the nature of fashion consumption.Due to the adoption of the see-now-buy-now model by some brands and not others, retailers that sell multiple brands may find this extremely challenging. Multi-Brand Fashion Retailers (MBFRs) need to coordinate multiple brands and their different buying, merchandising and supply chain processes (BMSCP) through the adoption of different business models (Hagemuuller and Wolff, 2017). Thus, logistical complexity is created for MBFRs as the alignment of orders, production and delivery schedules with suppliers is needed as a result of the adoption of see-now-buy-now by some brands and rejection by others. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the implications on MBFR's BMSCP resulting from the adoption of the see-now-buy-now model by some brands. In order to achieve this, two research questions are posed:RQ1. What are the implications, imperatives and barriers of see-now-buy-now on the traditional buying, merchandising and supply chain processes of Multi-Brand Fashion Retailers?RQ2. What are the steps of the buying, merchandising and supply chain processes of Multi-Brand Fashion Retailers under see-now-buy-now?By answering these questions, a modified buying, merchandising and supply chain process model, adapted to incorporate see-now-buy-now, will be established.The paper is structured as follows: firstly, a literature review of see-now-buy-now, fashion buying and merchandising and supply chain management is conducted in order to establish and critically evaluate the current practices and academic research in these areas. This is followed by a discussion of the method carried out in the present study, outlining the research design and rationale. Finally, the findings from the case studies and in-depth interviews are analysed and reported alongside a discussion comparing and contrasting them to extant literature, followed by future recommendations and research limitations.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 See-now-buy-now\n3. Methods: This exploratory study uses industry case studies and qualitative in-depth interviews to analyse see-now-buy-now within a real-life context. By conducting case studies, a deeper understanding of the see-now-buy-now context, potential processual changes and implications on the traditional BMSCP by multiple industry data sources is delivered (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Schwandt, 2001). A case study method was adopted as it allowed us to gain insights into BMSCP from participants within the systems themselves in order to provide explanations and expert opinions into how see-now-buy-now would impact those processes (Swanborn, 2010), thus directly addressing our research questions. Firstly, the traditional BMSCP were identified through secondary research and confirmed through case studies before a modified process framework was created through the analysis of the case studies (Yin, 2014). As only the BMSCPs of the organisations were investigated, embedded case studies were used (Yin, 2014).The cases were chosen through theoretical replication, defined as the case choice based on \"different theoretical conditions\" of information-rich cases for in-depth information gathering, as the companies are all MBFR but different in their MBFR format (Yin, 2014). In adherence with Yin (2014)'s recommended number of cases for theoretical replication and previous studies examining similar topics (Brandes, 1994; Bruce and Daly, 2006), this case study treated three cases. A MBFR case selection framework was established based on Sheth's (1981) model of industrial merchandise buying behaviour (see Table 1).The case studies consisted of retailers stocking multiple brands including see-now-buy-now and non-see-now-buy-now brands that are positioned within the luxury or premium segment, all operating under the wholesale format and being at least partially non-vertically-integrated. These selection criteria ensured an engagement with the problem of the coordination of different brand schedules for BMSCP of MBFR.Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted to deliver a deeper understanding of the see-now-buy-now context and processual changes (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). Participants were selected by non-probability homogenous and heterogeneous purposive sampling, as well as snowball and self-selection volunteer sampling (Saunders et al., 2012). Interviewee selection criteria included participants' backgrounds, positions and responsibilities. Each were required to currently work within the field of fashion to obtain up-to-date industry knowledge (see Table 2).A total of 11 in-depth interviews were conducted (four as part of the case studies and seven additional ones with external observers). Data saturation point was reached. Interviews were conducted face-to-face, lasting approximately 30-60 min, adhering to the recommended guideline for in-depth interviews (Jamshed, 2014). An interview guide kept the interview focused on key themes whist allowing participants' individual perspectives and experiences to emerge (Patton, 2015). The interview guide (Table 3) was adapted to suit each individual and their role, thus the number of topics and questions varied depending on participants' backgrounds and themes under investigation (Saunders et al., 2012).A pilot case including two interviews were conducted with department store managers in order to ensure question clarity and that the appropriate themes could be explored. Pilot studies were not included in the data.Case data were analysed by means of cross-case synthesis, described as the determination of replications or contrasts between cases through argumentative interpretations of text data categorised in word-tables (Schwandt, 2001; Yin, 2014; Patton, 2015). Each case was treated as a separate study to compare findings (Yin, 2014). Individual case data were displayed separately within one analytical framework (Patton, 2015) according to five uniform categories (Johansson, 2001; Yin, 2014) within a case-ordered descriptive meta-matrix. Due to the MBFR case selection based on theoretical replication, similarities and contrasts were predicted and incorporated in the case design.The case study findings were reported in a linear-analytical approach to connect the implications of see-now-buy-now on the traditional BMSCP of MBFR to existing research to develop the case study design (Yin, 2014; Patton, 2015). This research method was deemed appropriate in understanding if and how see-now-buy-now has affected the fashion industry through the investigation of multiple viewpoints (Saunders et al., 2012) and generates data to identify themes and patterns in order to abductively generate a modified BMSCP for MBFR with see-now-buy-now brands (Gabriel and Griffiths, 2004).Interviews were analysed by means of first and second cycle coding, starting with data reduction through first cycle coding where data was assigned labels through essence description (Milnes et al., 2014). During the coding process, large amounts of data were analysed through data disaggregation, breaking it down into manageable segments, conducting on-going comparisons, categorisations and classifications (Schwandt, 2001). Meaningful statements were analysed through the creation of meaning units (codes) via meaning condensation of emerged information. Within second cycle coding, sub-codes within the first cycle codes were established to determine patterns (Milnes et al., 2014). To display and classify the categories, codes and sub-codes were attached as either descriptive or attribute codes (Milnes et al., 2014), thus a coding framework was established based on the literature review and emergent data (Milnes et al., 2014; Patton, 2015). Following this, the data was displayed according to the research questions and then in form of conceptually clustered checklist matrices to analyse the collected data according to variables and themes evidenced (Yin, 2014; Milnes et al., 2014). This aided the analytical process through hierarchical data depiction as well as identification of patterns, themes, categories, relationships and emergent issues connected to see-now-buy-now (Yin, 2014; Patton, 2015). The researchers coded parts of the data sets individually first, before discussing emerging patterns in order to ensure reliability.\n4. Results and discussion: RQ1: What are the implications, imperatives and barriers of see-now-buy-now on the traditional BMSCP of MBFR? 4.1 Case study findings: see-now-buy-now obstacles\n5. Conclusion and implications: This research demonstrates that the implications of see-now-buy-now on the traditional BMSCP of MBFR are mainly related to agility within the supply chain through flexibility and responsiveness as well as process and network-integration by means of lead-time reduction and supplier-relationship management. Hence, this research found that the application of QR to both internal and external stimuli renders MBFRs' BMSCP more agile. As such, this research shows that agility is necessary within a see-now-buy-now adapted BMSCP through the reduction of all-time spans within each step of the supply chain (Ciarnienea and Vienazindiene, 2014) through gathering and analysis of PoS data (Mattila et al., 2002; Christopher et al., 2004). This research demonstrates that most steps of the traditional BMSCP are still applicable under see-now-buy-now but have to be re-engineered and shortened. Multiple steps within MBFRs' BMSCP could be combined and executed in parallel. Moreover, MBFRs' BMSCP are found to be rolling processes with continuous analysis and planning connecting multiple internal and external functions. As such, buyers and merchandisers adopt a more hybrid approach to their roles, overlapping their traditional responsibilities with each other, contrasting to previous literature (Jackson and Shaw, 2001; Goworek, 2007; Clark, 2014). Therefore, the BMSCP adapted to see-now-buy-now is suitable for vertically-integrated retailers with their process and network integration by means of information-sharing and collaboration. Thus, MBFR need to develop towards a vertical-integration through close relationships with suppliers. Consequently, the key findings are the need for a process-shortening, as well as better process and network alignment between MBFR and brands through agility, supplier-relationship management and vertical integration of MBFR to stay competitive against time-based competition and the need for more of a hybrid buying and merchandising role.This study contributes to knowledge through the exploration of see-now-buy-now and its implications on the traditional BMSCP and the subsequent creation of a new BMSCP framework. Research on see-now-buy-now from a MBFR's holistic BMSCP viewpoint does not exist, thus this research framework can be used as a basis for future studies on buying and merchandising processes. Contrasting existing research, this study takes a process-view rather than focusing on individual process steps. Therefore, this study contributes to knowledge through the establishment of a holistic BMSCP adapted to MBFR through the consolidation of multiple own-label buying BMSCP models and application of those to MBFR.Prior studies have described the BMSCP as consecutive and lengthy (Johnston and Lewin, 1996; Johansson, 2001; Kok et al., 2006; Goworek, 2007; Kumar and Banga, 2007; Iannone et al., 2013; Varley and Rafiq, 2014; Clark, 2014; Shaw and Koumbis, 2014), which suggests that the traditional BMSCP processes do not cater to the current fashion consumers' needs. However, this study provides a new framework whereby multiple steps can be combined and executed in parallel, which may shorten the process from 12 months to 3 months. As such, the findings can be used to assist practitioners in buying, merchandising, supply chain, general management and consulting in streamlining business processes towards network integration, with a revised business strategy, which is necessary to stay competitive in today's consumer-driven fashion market.\n6. Limitations and future research: Given the difficulties in gaining access to industry participants, one or two interviews per case study were conducted which is considered a limitation. Whilst this delivered sufficient information, as data saturation was reached, additional interviews will increase validity and complement theoretical replication with literal replication (Yin, 2014). Moreover, the findings are limited to German and UK MBFRs. Hence, future research on see-now-buy-now's impact on global brands and their subsequent process adaption from either a process point-of-view or a focus on specific steps would be beneficial, expanding research to different geographies. Furthermore, as the brands adopting see-now-buy-now to date are primarily high-end or luxury, the focus of this research was on this market, thus future research could investigate whether there are any differences for fast-fashion retailers. Further, as the fashion industry is subject to rapid change, it would be interesting to investigate iterative business models that enable speed-to-market and newness, like \"product drops\" within and across market levels, from both a retailer and consumer perspective.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify if and how the see-now-buy-now model impacts the traditional buying, merchandising and supply chain processes (BMSCP) of multi-brand fashion retailers (MBFR) and whether they need to be adapted in order to facilitate this development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This exploratory study includes three industry case studies, triangulated with external observers. A total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted within Germany and the UK.\nFindings: Findings demonstrate that in order to adopt the see-now-buy-now model there is a need for process-shortening, as well as better process and network alignment between MBFR and brands through agility, supplier-relationship management and vertical integration in order to stay competitive against time-based competition. Whilst most steps of the traditional BMSCP are still applicable under the see-now-buy-now model, they must be re-engineered and shortened, with the steps being rolling rather than linear, with buyers and merchandisers operating in a more hybrid role.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses the lack of research on the see-now-buy-now model as well as on the BMSCP of MBFR and the implications that see-now-buy-now could have on those processes. A modified buying, merchandising and supply chain framework adapted to incorporate see-now-buy-now is created which will be useful for academics and practitioners.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Religious identity: a new dimension of HRM? A French view
|
[
"Human resource management",
"Employee behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, religion is becoming an increasingly visible part of social life. New places of worship are being constructed, religious consumerism is on the rise and organisations associated with the various religions, such as faith schools, shops, restaurants, travel agencies and banks, are proliferating (Mazumdar and Mazumdar, 2005). Businesses are not spared from this development, faced as they are with the need to incorporate religion into the work space and add a new dimension to their human resource management (HRM). This need will be investigated in the French socio-legal context.\n1. The emergence of religion as a factor in HRM: an analysis of management discourses: This first part is given over to an analysis of management discourse based on three documents on the management of religious diversity: a general guide compiled by the IMS[1] and intended for use in 200 companies and two practical guides compiled by EDF (Electricite de France)[2] and Orange[3]. The material was subjected to a content analysis. Three points ensue from that analysis. The first concerns the structure of the documents and the second the representations of religion and the management of diversity, while the third consists of an analysis of the religious practices described.\n2. Incorporating religious diversity into HR strategies: a mixed blessing: Religion is an understudied aspect of diversity (King et al., 2009). Some studies highlight the risks involved in not taking account of religious diversity in the workplace. On an individual level, not managing it gives rise to feelings of injustice and dissatisfaction; on the organisational level, the possible consequences are increased labour turnover, a loss of skills and deteriorating economic performance. Incorporating the management of religious diversity into HR strategies with the aid of management tools such as those examined above can be justified as a means of reducing these risks (cf. Table II). In the first part of this section, the positive consequences of this policy of incorporating religion into HR strategies are outlined. In the second part, the hidden face of the management of religious diversity is investigated, particularly in terms of the threat it poses to social ties.\n3. Conclusion: secularism and HRM: The documents analysed (Part 1) attempt to rise to the challenge that HR specialists face following the emergence of demands for recognition from various faith groups. They provide responses of a tactical nature[7], but without overcoming the difficulty of incorporating such recognition into a strategic vision (Part 2).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, human resource management (HRM) has entered into a somewhat strained relationship with religious diversity. In France, the need to deal with demands for recognition of faith practices has led to the compilation of new guides to the management of religious diversity. Is religious identity a new dimension of HRM in France?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper begins with an examination of some examples of these documents produced by large French companies. It is revealed that they contain a set of recommendations leading to differential management of the various religious identities.\nFindings: Incorporating such a practice into an HRM strategy is a mixed blessing, bringing with it both hopes and risks. On the one hand, it may help to maintain equality and boost firms' economic performance. On the other hand, however, it may also compromise group cohesion and disrupt social ties.\nOriginality/value: In view of these contradictory tendencies, the paper concludes by asking whether the principle of secularism should be extended to the management of HR.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Knowledge management and academic information behaviour: A preliminary study of metaliteracy among junior faculty staff in the digital environment
|
[
"Collaboration",
"Communication",
"Academics",
"Information management",
"Knowledge management",
"Metaliteracy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 1999, Brenda Dervin wrote that man is a complex combination of body, mind, heart and spirit (Dervin, 1999). People have an unconstrained ability to produce information. This goes beyond the understanding of information as a resource and contributes to the phenomenological interpretation of information as a knowledge process or part of the system in which awareness of user's needs is crucial for understanding information behaviour (IB). Dervin's user-oriented framework has many implications in the digital environment. Since the internet developed, the direction of information research has changed, and over time, digital networks have become a basic area for the development of social media-orientated studies. The scientific community reacted very dynamically to these changes. Trudi E. Jacobson and Thomas P. Mackey developed a metaliteracy model which made online information and social network-orientated worlds more understandable. They paid attention not only to the medium and content but also - as in Dervin's theory - to a user network collaboration capability.\nBackground: In Polish universities, the distinction between teacher and researcher is not simple. Most employees work in \"academic-didactic\" (research-teaching) positions and perform both functions. They need to balance their efforts between research and teaching responsibilities. Faculty authorities in Poland are increasingly supporting their employees with various types of courses that increase the effectiveness of their work.\nLiterature review: Jacobson and O'Brien (2015) tried to show how digital badges can be used in a metaliteracy student teaching process using massive open online courses designed to teach a very large number of students. Digital badges can be used as an assessment tool but not as a credential (Abramovich, 2016). The problem stressed here is the short period of existence of the metaliteracy concept. There is a visible difficulty in communicating the qualifications of the teacher and the student's subsequent competence after the course. Our answer to this problem is to apply Burke's (2018) model, which omits the learning results context and will be used to determine the impact of metaliteracy skills on KM processes and on being effective in academic culture.\nResearch questions: Previous studies on metaliteracy have provided a detailed elaboration on students' metaliteracy and student teaching processes (Grettano and Witek, 2014; Jacobson and O'Brien, 2015; Martin, 2013; McCarty, 2005; Torras i Calvo and Kuzmin, 2013). As far as we can consider information literacy as a core feature of metaliteracy, we can also see very extensive research on the impact of information literacy on collaboration in various groups of users (Abramovich, 2016; Adzgauskiene et al., 2009; Correia et al., 2009; Hansen and Widen, 2017; Torras i Calvo and Kuzmin, 2013; Widen and Hansen, 2012; Wu et al., 2018; Yildiz and Ucak, 2014). However, none of the prior investigations has examined the nature of metaliteracy in the collaborative academic work of junior faculty staff.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two complementary methods were used during the study: group interviews and observation. The sense-making interviews combined with the observation of participants KM practices do not interfere with the staff teaching process and allows important issues to be discussed with the participants during of the classes.\nFindings: Like in the Marchand organisational study (Marchand et al., 2002) participants of this study have bipolar informational orientation. It requires different skills and tools to meet internal and external information needs. Young scientists are looking for effective ways to present their achievements. This applies to both research and teaching responsibilities. To do so, they must scan two types of culture - i.e. patterns of behaviour, external ways of information transfer in the discipline' discourse and internal practices within the organisation. We based the seven metaliteracy subcategories entirely on the Mackey's and Jacobson's model and our interpretation of their impact on the KM presented below.\nOriginality/value: Metacompetencies and informational behaviour are strongly embedded in the academic environment. We suggest considering our work as a potential inspiration for the reuse of the research framework. This preliminary observations in the humanist group may be an interesting reference point for other research on the scientific community. This applies to other groups related to the university - faculty, students and seniors (one of the authors is already conducting research on older people, who are from the University of the Third Age). The next step should also be the development of more quantitative measurements that will improve the mixed method operationalisation of the framework.\nDiscussion: The problem of metaliteracy is highly complex regarding the academic context. This is evidenced by the latest scientific publications, i.e. Mortimore and Baker (2019) noticed that students develop their metaliteracy by using professional, technological support. In our study, one can notice both similarities and differences between the interests and behaviour of groups P1 and P2. In the area of metacompetencies and cognitive IB in culture acquaintance, representatives of P1 and P2 similarly, as active researchers, need to analyse data and information for the purpose of visualisation. They understood significances of format type and delivery mode, especially while importing references and using reference add-ons in text editors. They made an autonomous turn in references management, and they developed awareness of the principles of operating visualisation tools. In the area of adapting to scientific communication, researchers from P1 and P2 both emphasised strong usability of databases and multiple media formats. In general, participants understood issues of personal privacy, information ethics and intellectual property. They were using digital identity to explore the KM tools, and they were aware of leaving a digital trace by login and authentication. In the area of applying context for user-generated information, they prepared visualisations as a result of data analysis and synthesis. They found useful to explore the capabilities of reference managers to set up group cooperation. Both groups start to consider creating curriculum by self-archiving and open knowledge sharing.\nConclusion: Junior faculty staff have individual needs and IB, but they have also social conditions for shaping information processes through their own metaliteracy. \"Coping\" due the information use and KM is possible by using some individual competence (metacompetencies) and participating in the innovation culture and academic project teams (Vick and Nagano, 2018). The information user needs to be equipped with a set of cognitive, mental and physical skills, which provide an understanding of the information genres and information culture.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of metaliteracy on collaborative and individual information behaviour (IB) among academic staff. The goal is to observe the impact of these competencies on knowledge management (KM) and IB in research tasks connected with the humanities and social sciences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents an implementation of two combined frameworks into a study on the IB of academics: metacompetencies described by Mackey and Jacobson in the metaliteracy model and Burke's triple-A model. By using the Dervin's micro-moment time-line interview framework, authors try to observe the state of development of information literacy and other supportive competencies among younger lecturers and researchers.\nFindings: Scientists develop patterns of collaborative behaviour based on seven metaliteracy areas in KM.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study did not include students and other groups related to the academic environment. Their involvement in information processes is a very wide issue and should be the subject of a separate article.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to research development in the area of information literacy as a KM efficiency factor. IB in this paper is a broad concept, in which the development of metaliteracy is an important aspect of lecturers' and researchers' KM and collaboration skills.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Hungry for change: the food banking industry in Australia
|
[
"Food poverty",
"Food banks",
"Carol Bacchi",
"Corporate food system efficiency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There remains a paucity of literature on food banking in Australia, and much of it is dated (Boekenstein, 2014; Horton, 2004; O'Hearn, 2004). In the last 20 years, the food banking system has expanded and become more corporatized. In order to place the evolution of food banks in context, we first outline the nature of emergency relief. The provision of emergency relief in Australia has had a long tradition in social welfare history and can be traced back to colonial times. In the nineteenth century, charity was the main institutional assistance protecting poor people from starvation and homelessness. The Benevolent Society of New South Wales was founded in 1813 to provide \"outdoor relief\" or rations, and remained the dominant charity throughout the nineteenth century (Dickey, 1980).\n2. Design/methodology/approach: This paper draws on secondary data; reports and grey literature sourced from the internet as well as information provided by Foodbank Australia and food banks in South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australian to outline the history, development and operation of Australian food banks as a case study. Food banking is then critically analysed by applying aspects of Bacchi's (2009) framework for examining the nature and framing of social problems and policy.\n3. History and development of food banks in Australia: The first food bank opened in New South Wales in 1992, closely followed by Victoria a year later (O'Hearn, 2004). In the intervening 22 years, food banks have expanded to every state and territory in Australia; the most recent being the launch of the food bank Tasmania office in Hobart in 2010 (Eckersley, 2010). Despite the challenges of distance and resources, food banks have moved beyond capital cities and have distribution centres in eight regional centres. The expansion of food banks prompted the formation of Foodbank Australia in 1996, an overarching body to provide national policy, organisation direction and focus for state food banks (O'Hearn, 2004).\n4. Food banking - How it works?: (i) Food bank funding\n5. Are we being fed a lie - What's the problem here?: A full examination of Bacchi's analytical framework (Bacchi, 2009) in the context of food banks is beyond the scope of this paper; however, the next section will focus briefly on three of her six analytical questions.\n6. The future of food banks in Australia - bankrupt . . . or catalysts for change: The food bank industry is firmly entrenched and it is highly unlikely that the growth and expansion will stop or reverse. Food banks in and of themselves are meritorious, but do little to solve long-term food poverty and hunger. However, they are uniquely placed to collaborate with government to take action on the structural issues which underpin hunger. Indeed, leadership in advocating for government to address hunger is evident in a recent Foodbank Australia Report with calls for extra funding, transport industry partnerships, tax law reform and government policy action on food insecurity (Foodbank Australia, 2012, 2013). In short, food bank must navigate the tensions between, corporate efficiency, food charity and human rights; however, some concern exists that this may be outside their scope (Pagliaro, 2013).\n7. Conclusion: This paper has traced the development of food banks in Australia from an emergency food response to a corporatized industry. After applying aspects of Bacchi's analysis framework to food banks, it is our view that the issue is presented as one of food re-distribution, masking the underlying problem of maintaining corporate food system efficiency. Food corporations are \"rewarded\" for food donations through tax concessions, by public perception of corporate pride at helping the poor and \"green\" credentials for diverting food waste from landfill. While food banks remain the dominant solution to food insecurity in Australia, debate will continue to be deflected from the underlying structural causes of hunger. Little research has been done on food banking in Australia, however; the trajectory of the industry offers fertile ground for further work; including the effectiveness and future of food banks as well as agency/client perspectives.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: Over the last 20 years, food banks in Australia have expanded nationwide and are a well-organised \"industry\" operating as a third tier of the emergency food relief system. The purpose of this paper is to overview the expansion and operation of food banks as an additional self-perpetuating \"tier\" in the response to hunger.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper draws on secondary data sourced from the internet; as well as information provided by Foodbank Australia and Food Bank South Australia (known as Food Bank SA) to outline the history, development and operation of food banks. Food banking is then critically analysed by examining the nature and framing of the social problems and policies that food banking seeks to address. This critique challenges the dominant intellectual paradigm that focuses on solving problems; rather it questions how problem representation may imply certain understandings.\nFindings: The issue of food banks is framed as one of food re-distribution and feeding hungry people; however, the paper argue that \"the problem\" underpinning the food bank industry is one of maintaining food system efficiency. Food banks continue as a neo-liberal mechanism to deflect query, debate and structural action on food poverty and hunger. Consequently their existence does little to ameliorate the problem of food poverty.\nPractical implications: New approaches and partnerships with stakeholders remain key challenges for food banks to work more effectively to address food poverty.\nSocial implications: While the food bank industry remains the dominant solution to food poverty in Australia, debate will be deflected from the underlying structural causes of hunger.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the limited academic literature and minimal critique of the food bank industry in Australia. It proposes that the rapid expansion of food banks is a salient marker of government and policy failure to address food poverty.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Cooperating or competing in three languages: cultural accommodation or alienation?
|
[
"Cultural accommodation",
"Cultural alienation",
"Foreign language effect",
"Gender effect",
"Lab experiment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Already in the 1990s, over 50 percent of the world's population did speak a foreign language (De Houwer, 1998), and the move to use English as the lingua franca has increased rapidly in global organizations (Feely and Harzing, 2003). In their work life, people come to speak a foreign language more frequently. Many of them coordinate, negotiate, compete, and cooperate in a foreign instead of their native language. The use of a non-native language as a corporate language, however, can negatively impact aspects of organizational behavior, such as reducing trust toward work colleagues, status loss, and increasing anxiety (Neeley, 2013), as well as provoking feelings of superiority or inferiority (Vaara et al., 2005). Despite broad research on the effects of cross-cultural differences on economic behavior (e.g. Gachter et al., 2010) and of language differences on individuals' self-reported attitudes and behaviors (e.g. Bond and Yang, 1982; Gomez, 2003; Kemmelmeier and Cheng, 2004; Neeley, 2013; Ralston et al., 1995; Trafimow et al., 1997; Zhang and Guttormsen, 2016) and on group-level dynamics (e.g. Vaara et al., 2005; Harzing and Feely, 2008), the effect of using foreign languages on individual economic behavior remained understudied, to date (Akkermans et al., 2010; Harzing et al., 2011; Keysar et al., 2012; Volk et al., 2014). The current study focuses on the effect of a type of conduct that is critical for modern management of relationships within and across organizations: competition vs cooperation (see Bogaert et al., 2012). The study employs an incentivized - that is, with immediate financial impact - randomized experiment.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Cultural accommodation\nMethod: In order to identify the causal effects of using a foreign language on behavior, we employ a randomized laboratory experiment. Randomized experiments can be considered the \"Holy Grail\" for unraveling causal relationships (van Witteloostuijn, 2015). Unfortunately, and as noted by Reeb et al. (2012, p. 211), \"in international business research, we are seldom afforded the luxury of a randomized controlled experiment.\" This especially applies to questions that can only be addressed in real-life contexts. Deep fundamental processes determining individual behaviors that can be argued to be generalizable to real-life contexts, however, can be studied outside the specific business context, such as through laboratory studies (van Witteloostuijn, 2015). The effect of language on individual cooperation behavior, we argue, is such a deep and fundamental behavior that does not fully rest of contextual factors, but also - to some extent - generalizes across contexts.\nResults: The binary choices between cooperative vs competitive behavior in each round of the experiment reflect our dependent variable, which takes the value of 1 for a cooperative choice and 0 for a competitive choice. Figure 2 descriptively plots the average observed frequency of cooperative choices for each subgroup in our 3 (language)x2 (information condition)x2 (gender) design. For an initial statistical test, we follow Cox et al. (1991), who use a similar design, and calculate the numbers of each participant's cooperative choices in each treatment and run a repeated measure analysis of variance. Language does not have a significant effect (MS=5.18, F=0.25, and p=0.78), but gender (MS=189.59, F=9.26, and p<0.01) and information (MS=292.35, F=27.33, and p<0.01) do have significant main effects. There is a significant interaction effect between language and gender - that is, there is a weak gender-specific language effect (MS=57.51, F=2.81, and p=0.06). There is no significant interaction of language with the information condition (MS=2.63, F=0.25, and p=0.78), nor is there a significant three-way interaction between gender, language, and information condition (MS=3.83, F=0.36, and p=0.70). The moderation of information condition by gender is weak but statistically significant (MS=36.00, F=3.37, and p=0.07). This initial analysis reveals that all three dimensions of our experiment (i.e., gender, language, and information) affected behavior of our participants, with the language displaying a gender-specific effect.\nDiscussion: Inconsistency with cultural accommodation hypothesis\nConclusion: We started our investigation of the effects of foreign language use on cooperation behavior based on the cultural accommodation hypothesis (Akkermans et al., 2010; Bond and Yang, 1982; Ralston et al., 1995). We were not able to actually support the derived hypotheses, but, in fact, for some aspects need to reject the cultural accommodation hypothesis. Our analyses, instead, reveal a rather consistent pattern suggesting that using a foreign language alone affects behavior independent of the culture associated with the foreign language. While this is consistent with very recent theorizing on effects of using a foreign language (e.g. Volk et al., 2014), our study also adds a new aspect. Our data reveals a rather robust gender-based moderation of the foreign language effect. Independent of the foreign language, men and women react differently to foreign language stimuli. While we have suggested differences related to the responsiveness of men and women with respect to foreign language use, in our ex post discussion, we also provide arguments suggesting that even the direction of effects might differ between genders. We hope that our findings and the related discussions of the potential role of gender in individuals' responses to foreign language use can, indeed, advance related research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of using foreign languages on cooperative behavior in a prisoner's dilemma setting. The cultural accommodation hypothesis suggests that people are less cooperative in English, associated with the Anglophone cultural cluster, than in French, which is - as is Belgium - associated with the more cooperative Latin European cultural cluster.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Choices are framed as pricing strategies in the context of duopolistic competition. In total, 422 Flemish-Belgium participants with English and French as foreign and Dutch as their native language played in one of three language treatments.\nFindings: While the authors observe differences between the native and both foreign languages, which are moderated by gender, the authors do not find any difference in effects between the two foreign languages that are associated with different cultures. Extending cultural accommodation arguments, the data suggests an effect specific to the use of the two selected foreign languages.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to this literature by reporting an experimental test of cultural accommodation and alienation effects related to two foreign languages. The authors explore novel arguments, related to cognitive psychology and gender effects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Business processes exceptions in relation to operational performance
|
[
"Operational performance",
"Business process management",
"Process mining",
"Conformance",
"Exception"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizations often describe their flow of operations in terms of business process models. Tools for operations support, such as information systems, forms, and manuals, are then developed based on these business process models. However, in practice exceptions can occur that disrupt the normal flow of operations (Reichert and Weber, 2012b). The tools for operations support, which have been defined for the normal flow of operations, cannot be expected to provide optimal support in case of an exception. For that reason, we expect that the performance of business processes deteriorates when exceptions occur.\n2. Background: A business process is a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer (Davenport, 1993). Business processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers. A business process model is a (graphical) representation of a business process. Figure 1 shows an example of a business process model, in the notation of automated process discovery tool \"Disco[1]\". The process starts at the \"play\" icon and stops at the \"stop\" icon. Rounded rectangles represent tasks that can be executed. An arrow represents that if the task at the source of the arrow is completed, the task at the target of the arrow can be started. When multiple arrows leave a task, this represents a choice between the target tasks. For example, after \"register appeal\" there is a choice between \"request revision,\" \"register documents,\" and \"reject appeal.\" Multiple incoming arcs to a task also indicate an (exclusive) choice that triggers the task. For instance, \"request revision\" task can be triggered by \"request appeal\" or \"register documents.\"\n3. Research methodology: Based on the discussion from the previous section, the overall research goal can be refined into hypotheses. In particular, the following hypotheses follow from the discussion:\n4. Descriptive statistics: Table I shows the descriptive statistics of the processes that are investigated, including the type of process used, the start date of the measurements, the end date of the measurements, the number of customer cases measured, and the average throughput times of the customer cases and the standard deviation of the throughput times.\n5. Analysis and results: In order to investigate the relation of different exception types and the throughput time, we conducted a series of statistical analyses over the customer cases of each process and corresponding scenarios. Such relationships can be analyzed using parametric statistical tests, such as the linear regression, where the exception types can be considered as predictors (independent variables) and the throughput time as the dependent variable. These tests, however, give valid results only if a certain set of assumptions holds (Witte and Witte, 2014), especially the normality assumption (Field, 2013).\n6. Conclusion: This paper has shown the relation between the occurrence of exceptions in a business process and the performance of that business process. It shows that the paths that host exceptions to the normal flow of a business process have higher throughput time in the overall. It also shows that unexpected exceptions (i.e. exceptions that are not taken into account in a pre-defined process model) are associated with a longer throughput time than expected exceptions (i.e. exceptions that are taken into account in a pre-defined process model). Finally, it investigates the relation between different types of exceptions and the throughput time, and shows that: paths that have exceptions that involve repeating one or more activities in a business process have a longer throughput time. In addition, paths with exceptions that involve performing additional activities at the start or during a process have longer throughput time; and paths with exceptions that involve skipping activities at the end or during a process have a shorter throughput time.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Business process models describe the way of working in an organization. Typically, business process models distinguish between the normal flow of work and exceptions to that normal flow. However, they often present an idealized view. This means that unexpected exceptions - exceptions that are not modeled in the business process model - can also occur in practice. This has an effect on the efficiency of the organization, because information systems are not developed to handle unexpected exceptions. The purpose of this paper is to study the relation between the occurrence of exceptions and operational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper does this by analyzing the execution logs of business processes from five organizations, classifying execution paths as normal or exceptional. Subsequently, it analyzes the differences between normal and exceptional paths.\nFindings: The results show that exceptions are related to worse operational performance in terms of a longer throughput time and that unexpected exceptions relate to a stronger increase in throughput time than expected exceptions.\nPractical implications: These findings lead to practical implications on policies that can be followed with respect to exceptions. Most importantly, unexpected exceptions should be avoided by incorporating them into the process - and thus transforming them into expected exceptions - as much as possible. Also, as not all exceptions lead to longer throughput times, continuous improvement should be employed to continuously monitor the occurrence of exceptions and make decisions on their desirability in the process.\nOriginality/value: While work exists on analyzing the occurrence of exceptions in business processes, especially in the context of process conformance analysis, to the best of the authors' knowledge this is the first work that analyzes the possible consequences of such exceptions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Carbon footprint model for reverse logistics of waste disposal in interior design industry
|
[
"Carbon footprint",
"Waste management",
"Reverse logistics",
"Interior design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Reverse logistics (RL) has recently become a popular way to increase sustainability in the production of goods. Overuse of natural resources, a common result of advancing economic development, leads to the gradual destruction of the ecological environment. Therefore, environmental awareness and conservation are becoming increasingly important. For enterprises, manufacturing processes are linked with environmental protection. Manufacturers employ green production processes to help protect the environment. A product is considered a green product if it is recyclable, if it produces minimal pollution and if it consumes minimal resources. The wide adoption of green products spreads environmental awareness. To minimize the environmental impact of their production processes, many companies have implemented green supply chain management (GrSCM), including internal environment management, green procurement, green collaboration, and environmental design (Yan et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2013).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Green supply chain management (GrSCM)\n3. Modeling: This study established an RL model based on studies by Pishvaee et al. (2009), Benjaafar et al. (2013), and Tascione et al. (2014). The model was modified according to survey data from companies. However, since interior design work is a complex process, companies in the interior design industry were also surveyed to clarify various RL systems in Taiwan. Next, numerical data collected in a survey were used to design the model. Finally, the cases were compared to find the best solutions (in terms of minimizing CF) to the RL problem of disposing interior design industrial waste.\n4. Evaluation of the proposed model: The proposed RL model was evaluated using data from case studies reported in the literature that were used to calculate carbon emissions. Waste from interior remodeling is 3,064 tons/month. The average handling amount of wastes in Taiwan is 102.1 tons/day. In the north and mid-south of Taiwan, the average handling amount of wastes is of 41.61 tons/year. Since over 75 percent of the amount of wastes generated from the interior remodeling in the north and mid-south of Taiwan, the cases in the north and mid-south of Taiwan are shown in Tables IV and V.\n5. Implications: This study used the model proposed by Tascione et al. (2014) to develop an RL model for Taiwan. Whereas most studies in the literature analyze the carbon emissions from the comparison between cost and benefit (Dietz and Stern, 2015), this study considered the logistics for the whole lifecycle of a product. The analytical results of this study reveal that that RL can reduce the environmental impact of wastes obviously. This case study is the first to obtain results that can be extended to other countries. This study also reveals the importance of recycling plants that can process demolition waste for reuse. For example, the results of the survey in this study indicated that trashed cement, tiles, and canton tiles from interior remodeling sites can be reused, which would significantly reduce their environmental impact.\n6. Conclusion: This study developed and evaluated an RL model of the interior design industry. Survey data for 40 interior design companies randomly in the north and mid-south of Taiwan were used to test the RL model. The analytical results show that the proposed model can represent the current use of RL in Taiwan and its environmental impact. This study can propose to the companies and government to form a better policy for protecting environment. The analysis showed that waste cement can be reused in the north of Taiwan but not in the mid-south of Taiwan. Therefore, the Taiwan government can significantly reduce carbon emissions in mid-south Taiwan by building gravel recycling plants. From the qualitative survey to the companies in the mid-south of Taiwan, we know that the needs are there but waiting for building the gravel recycling plants. Companies should consider the possibility of reusing cement waste and using RL to reduce their environmental impact and to generate revenue from the reuse of demolition waste products. Except the managerial implications, this study also discussed the carbon emissions of the lifecycle of a product and its reproduced product after trashing. This proposed idea is different from the cost-based studies or produce-based studies of the carbon emissions. Additionally, this study modeled the carbon emissions in RL, which is rarely discussed in the literature. However, this study has limitations. First, it only surveyed north and mid-south of Taiwan for modeling the general cases. However, RL models may be applicable in other areas of Taiwan, for example, the east of Taiwan. Future studies can consider extending the survey and investing applications of the proposed model in other industries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Due to the increasing awareness of the need to protect the environment, reverse logistics (RL) is being promoted to improve the ecological sustainability of production. RL can lower the costs of waste disposal, increase market competitiveness, and maintain a good corporate image. Hence, modern companies are focusing on environmental protection to demonstrate social responsibility. According to the OECD report of 2003, buildings consume 32 percent of resources, 12 percent of water, and 40 percent of energy worldwide, and the building waste comprises almost 40 percent of the all waste in the world. Therefore, controlling waste from the interior design sector may help slow global warming. This paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This investigation models the current and new RL of disposing interior design waste in Taiwan. Modeling the carbon footprint (CF) of disposing interior design waste can help companies be aware of the environmental impact of disposing of waste, and how to improve it through RL. This investigation models the CFs of disposing interior design waste based on studies from Benjaafar et al. (2013), Pishvaee et al. (2009, 2010), and Tascione et al. (2014).\nFindings: Analytical results showed that the RL significantly decreases the environmental impact of wastes. Companies can control carbon emission through the findings of this study and find how to improve their recycling process through RL.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study used the model proposed by Tascione et al. (2014) to develop an RL model for Taiwan. Whereas most studies in the literature analyze the carbon emissions from the comparison between cost and benefit, this study considered the logistics for the whole lifecycle of a product. The analytical results of this study reveal that that RL can reduce the environmental impact of wastes. This case study is the first to obtain results that can be extended to other countries. This study also reveals the importance of recycling plants that can process demolition waste for reuse.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to model the RL based on literatures. The findings of this study can be extended to other cases.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Does deposit insurance promote moral hazards and adverse selection? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
|
[
"Adverse selection",
"Moral hazard",
"Deposit insurance",
"Stereotype logit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Deposit insurance scheme (DIS) is a financial safety net whereby depositors are safeguarded against the loss of their funds in the event of bank distress. There are different kinds of deposit insurance (DI) system, but the literature categorized them into explicit and implicit policies.\n2. The evolution of DIS and banking crisis in the SSA: Deposit insurance policy (DIP) has evolved from the absence, to implicit, and gradually tilting toward explicit scheme. Lists of SSA countries and the adopted DIS are presented in Table I. It shows that about 23.7 percent of them implement explicit policy, while the rest adopted implicit policy. Of this, seven countries, namely, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mauritania, and Sudan (now SDG), migrated from \"no policy regime\" to implicit and now explicit policy, while the rest transited from \"no policy regime\" to either implicit or explicit without having to go through the full circle of the evolution. Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe (first set of countries in SSA to establish DIS), for example, migrated from \"no policy\" to explicit policy.\n3. Review of related literature: We traced the origin of DI to the 1929 global recession that triggered distressed assets, high bank insolvency, loss of market trust in developed economies, and threatened large-scale private sector default. The crisis elicited several policy prescriptions including the establishment of explicit DI in the USA in 1933, based on the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 (Banking Act of 1993) to protect the financial system from instability.\n4. Methodology and research design: The study covers 47 SSA countries (Table I). Countries are categorized into two (see Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2015): explicit and implicit DI policies. For empirical purposes, we present these two categories in the following non-natural order, but with explicit policy as base outcome:\n5. Discussion of result: Coefficients of the regression in Table V are in relation to the base outcome (explicit policy). For comparison and model justification, result of the logit (stereotype and logistic) model is presented alongside the probit model. However, after the introduction of the interaction term between exchange rate regime and country peculiarities, the stereotype converges faster than both the logit and probit models. The challenge was resolved only when we estimated both models as having natural ordering, using ordered logit or probit, which also biased the assumption that DIS does not follow any natural ordering. The analysis of this and other related estimation issues are in Table VIII. Results of the odds, marginal effects, and predicted probabilities are, respectively, illustrated in Tables VI and VII.\n6. Conclusion and implications for policy: 6.1 Conclusion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the likelihood that the presence of the deposit insurance policy encourages risk appetite behavior of banks in Sub-Saharan African (SSA). It argues that financial system stability is not a function of the choice of a deposit insurance scheme, but countries' peculiarities such as quality of institutions and the macroeconomic environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used the stereotype logit regression model and covers 47 SSA countries. Countries are categorized into two: explicit and implicit DIP scheme.\nFindings: The study found that corrupt countries are more likely to adopt the implicit policy, while the explicit policy exposes them to credit risk, insolvency, and negative macroeconomic shocks, a reflection of weak institutions and unhealthy competition.\nResearch limitations/implications: Paucity of substantial local literature on institutional perspective of deposit insurance (DI) constitutes the major limitation of this study.\nPractical implications: The sub-region, therefore, faces a conundrum - desiring a deposit insurance scheme, but lacking the required institutions to maintain either a publicly owned regulatory system or the ability to transplant the private club model.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the institutional perspective of DI from SSA institutional perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Managers and strategic decisions: does the cognitive style matter?
|
[
"Decision making",
"Cognition",
"Managers",
"Strategic management",
"Management styles"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When executives create strategy, they project themselves and their organizations into the future, creating a path from where they are now to where they want to be some years down the road (Luehrman, 1998).Managers have been criticized because of their inability or unwillingness to consider the variety of strategic options open to the company (e.g. Johnson and Scholes, 1993: 201). One reason for this limited way of thinking is alleged to be the personality of the manager (e.g. Gallen, 1997; Nutt, 1986; Miller and Toulouse, 1986). As Hambrick et al. (1993, p. 402) put it, some executives are only interested in \"what is\" while others are more able to accept new untested ideas about \"what might be\". The present paper attempts to extend the knowledge of the manager-strategy relationship by studying how managers with different cognitive styles see the viable strategy for a firm.In past research, different CEO profiles have been connected with different strategy types. Wissema et al. (1980) described types of managers corresponding to six strategy types. Miller et al. (1982) found support for the idea that an executive's personality has an effect on his strategy making. More recently, Papadakis et al. (1998) also arrived at results which support the idea that, in addition to demographic characteristics, the CEO personality is connected with aspects of the strategic decision-making process.Similarly, Carpenter et al. (2004) discuss the use of personality variables in their review of the studies dealing with the upper echelons perspective. The upper echelons perspective, originally described by Hambrick and Mason (1984), is also extended by incorporating the role of context (Carpenter et al. 2004). In this study, the effect of the contextual factors will be considered in the discussion and conclusions chapter.In order to understand manager-strategy relationship better, this study presents and tests a model in which managers' cognitive styles (or decision making styles) and their strategy choices are combined. The point is that when you know the cognitive styles of managers, you can assume that their processes of strategic decision making are different if their perception and judgment are different from each other. But do they also prefer some strategies to others?This paper is divided into three sections. After a short theoretical review, data derived from 70 managers from 13 different spas will be analyzed in order to find out if there are consistent differences in the views of viable strategies between managers with different cognitive styles. Qualitative data will be put in quantitative form in order to be able to test the propositions. The article finishes with discussion and conclusions.\nCombining cognitive style and the view of viable strategy: Jungian psychological types have been widely used in studies of the decision-making styles of managers (e. g. Henderson and Nutt, 1980; Stumpf and Dunbar, 1991). In theory, everyone favors or rather naturally adopts either of the alternatives in functions S (sensing) or N (intuition) and T (thinking) or F (feeling). If one prefers sensing (S) to intuition (N) and thinking (T) to feeling (F), his cognitive style is ST (sensing-thinking). In this way, four cognitive styles (ST, SF, NT and NF) can be identified (Myers et al., 1998). The use of MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) as a measure of Jungian personality dimensions has received sufficient support to be adopted in this connection (e.g., Gardner and Martinko, 1996; Myers et al., 1998; Rosenak and Shontz, 1988).According to Miles and Snow (1978), organizations see what they want to see in the external environment and can be proactive in dealing with it. Management's strategic choices are found to shape an organization's structure and process. Their typology has received support in a wide variety of studies (e.g., Conant et al., 1990; Dvir et al., 1993; Hambrick, 1981; Miller, 1996). The typology consists of three generic strategies, defender, prospector and analyzer, and one \"residual\", reactor strategy. Prospectors have typically a very broad product-market domain and are \"first-to-the-market\". Defenders offer a stable set of products or services and compete primarily on the basis of value and/or cost. Analyzers have characteristics of both the defender and the prospector: they pursue a \"second-in\" strategy. Reactors have made inconsistent entrepreneurial, engineering and administrative choices. Next, different cognitive styles are combined with strategy types described by Miles and Snow (1978).The ST (sensing-thinking) type and defender strategy\nMethodology: Industry\nDiscussion and conclusions: The proposed relationships between managers' cognitive styles and their views of the viable strategies were examined in this paper. As well as in many other studies (e.g. Brouthers et al., 2000; Hambrick et al., 1993), the data in this study were examined at the individual manager level. Qualitative answers from 70 managers in the spa industry were classified so as to correspond strategy types (defender, prospector and analyzer) identified by Miles and Snow (1978).As expected, ST managers typically described defender strategy as the most viable future option (P1). P2 cannot be confirmed because NF types chose analyzer strategy more often than prospector strategy. As it was proposed, NT managers tended to describe most often analyzer strategy. Because reactor strategy was not able to be identified, P4 was not studied. Due to quite small sample size, these results can be considered preliminary.On the whole, results indicated that intuitive (N) types preferred analyzer or prospector strategies and sensing (S) types defender or analyzer strategies. This means that the ways of perception (S/N) are more important than the ways of judgment (T/F) when decisions about viable future strategy are made. The result was consistent with the proposition that a strong past or present orientation may lead to defender-type strategy and future orientation to prospector strategy (Bateman and Zeithaml, 1989). In a similar vein, other researchers (e.g. Herbert and Deresky, 1987; Thomas et al., 1991; Wissema et al., 1980) have found that different CEO profiles are associated with different strategy types.As well in the upper echelons' perspective (Hambrick and Mason, 1984) as in some other studies (e.g. Rajagopalan and Datta, 1996; Thomas et al., 1991; Tyler and Steensma, 1998), age and the field of education has been proposed to be among the demographic characteristics which explain differences in strategic decisions. However, the data revealed by this study did not support these ideas. There seemed to be no interdependence between the view of the viable strategy and age or field of education. As Hambrick and Mason (1984) mentioned, studying only observable characteristics might not be enough. In addition to demographic factors, psychological aspects must also be studied (Priem et al., 1999).Hurst et al. (1989) combined the dominant function (iNtuition, Sensing, Thinking or Feeling) with the strategy types which were modified from the Miles and Snow (1978) typology. They concluded that their proposed relationships require more empirical studies. However, the results of this study indicate that manager's way of perception (sensing or intuition) is more promising factor in understanding the differences in strategic decisions. In addition to that, this study extends the concept of demographic characteristics of managers used in the stylized model of upper echelons perspective (Carpenter et al., 2004).As regards Miles and Snow's (1978) typology, this study supported its use in strategy research despite some contrary comments about its applicability in studying managers' own views of strategy (Hambrick, 1982). However, more studies of different strategy types in today's business world are needed. It would be interesting to know for example how strategy types differ from each other in networking and co-operation with other companies. Further research would also be needed to shed more light on concepts like balancer strategy (e.g. Parnell, 1998) or renewing organizations (Hurst et al., 1989) - do these types really exist or are they after all some forms of the basic strategy types?In practice, understanding the differences which are connected with the views of strategies is important when members of the top management team are replaced by new ones. It has been found that leaders tend to \"clone\" themselves when they think about qualities required from their successors (Hambrick et al., 1993). In order to promote change in an organization's strategy, it might be necessary to consider a successor's personality too: sometimes a sensing (S) manager may be replaced by an intuitive (N) manager for example (see also Tyler and Steensma, 1998, p. 960). MBTI can also be used to help managers to better understand different management styles (Martin, 1997, p. 54).The field of management education might also have benefit from the results of this study. According to Skinner et al. (2000), managers typically use quantitative techniques when they gather information for example for planning or problem solving. However, qualitative methods could offer a more rich and depth understanding of complex issues. In addition to the support managers need in putting these methods into action (Skinner et al., 2000), increasing self-understanding and awareness of manager-strategy relationship could help managers to consider strategic decisions from different viewpoints.One limitation in this study was the existence of the \"common body of knowledge\" (Hambrick, 1982) or \"industry wisdom\" (Hambrick et al., 1993). It was difficult to distinguish the manager's personal view from the industry wisdom that may have partly guided the answers. In the spa industry, the \"common body of knowledge\" was expressed for example by saying that spas should have segmented markets. However, in practice, managers defined so many market segments that they covered the whole population. Another example could be differentiation which according to common wisdom would be needed in the spa industry. There was an attempt to avoid this limitation by concentrating on the overall picture of the answers instead of on separate words. In a similar vein, the existence of the industry wisdom has been pointed out in the past studies (e.g. Hambrick, 1982; Hambrick et al., 1993).Another limitation is due to the fact that the data were collected from a single industry (e.g. Boeker, 1997). However, as stated earlier, psychological type is considered to be universal (Myers et al., 1998), so the restricted source of data should not cause serious problems to generalization because all the cognitive styles were presented. Of course, the amount of data makes it risky to generalize results too widely. There is also some disagreement about using MBTI in measuring psychological type and cognitive style (Pittenger, 1993). It must be remembered that MBTI is a self-measurement tool and that only the person himself can validate the result.In this study, the effect of the contextual factors were tried to minimize by collecting the data from one industry and asking the managers to describe their view of the viable strategies. However in practice, contextual factors play an important role in the strategic choice process (e.g. Carpenter et al., 2004). Environmental as well as organizational context is important. The importance of the contextual factors (e.g. power or political climate) increases when the effect of the manager's way of perception on strategy is studied in the top management team level. That could be a natural extension from this study in the future.However, opposite to the results from the US context (Hitt and Tyler, 1991), Brouthers et al. (2000) found that managerial characteristics play a bigger role than environmental characteristics in decision making in the Dutch context. According to them, this might be because of cultural differences, methodological or industry differences. When the possibility to generalize the results of this study is concerned, the same differences should be remembered and more studies are needed in order to make the results more reliable.As regards the views of the viable strategies, more information and from different industries is needed. Qualitative data collecting seemed to be a promising tool in this connection even though there is always the problem of interpretation. In the future, it would be interesting to see how the composition of the top management team affects their view of the viable future strategy. When the development of the management team is considered, it would be valuable to know the cognitive style of the participants and in that way to understand their tendency to prefer certain kinds of choices. Naturally, it would be interesting to study how the cognitive composition of the top management team affects firm's performance.In short, as Isabel Myers (1998) stated, the MBTI instrument was developed for \"constructive use of differences\" and hopefully will serve that mission also in business and strategy research in the future.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to find out wheter the cognitive style of the manager affect as his view of the viable strategy for a firm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study uses data from 70 managers in the spa industry.\nFindings: - Concludes that managers' cognitive style and particularly their way of taking in information (sensing or intuition) have effect on strategies they tend to prefer. Intuitive managers tend to view the prospector or the analyzer strategy as the most viable future alternative for a firm. The analyzer or the defender strategy is preferred by the sensing managers.\nOriginality/value: - For managers, the results of this study emphasize the importance of knowing oneself and especially one's way of perception and understanding its suggested effect on strategic decision making. This paper also attempts to inspire researchers to include the cognitive style in studying the effects of the managers and top management team on firms' strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How open is OpenGLAM? Identifying barriers to commercial and non-commercial reuse of digitised art images
|
[
"Open access",
"Digitized art images",
"Museums and galleries",
"Open content",
"Open images",
"OpenGLAM"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since 2011 when Rijksmuseum pioneered the OpenGLAM movement by providing free and unrestricted access to thousands of images of public domain works from its collection, several other museums have followed its lead. Well established and highly influential institutions such as the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington and the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City are committed to OpenGLAM, with more institutions participating every year. Along with the movement's expansion in the GLAM sector, a growing body of literature has been exploring the potential and impact of OpenGLAM. However, academic literature has so far focussed mainly on examining OpenGLAM from the perspective of museums and galleries and on the assessment of whether OpenGLAM participation is beneficial for cultural heritage institutions, identifying the benefits, as well as the risks of participation (Kelly, 2013; Sanderhoff, 2014; Kapsalis, 2016).\n2. Overview: 2.1 Open access\n3. Case studies: 3.1 Evaluation criteria\n4. Discussion: observations, barriers and ethical considerations: 4.1 Observations\n5. Recommendations: Based on the research conducted in the scope of this paper, this section lists a series of recommendations for individual users interested in reusing open images to create new products and services, as well as for art museums considering of participating in OpenGLAM.\n6. Summary and conclusions: Since 2011 when the Rijksmuseum pioneered OpenGLAM and the open access movement in the cultural heritage sector, several art museums and galleries have adopted a similar model, providing thousands of images of works in the public domain for everyone to use without restrictions. Although there is a growing body of academic literature examining OpenGLAM, the largest part of it focusses on the institutions' perspective, outlining the benefits and risks of participation, whilst with regard to studying OpenGLAM from the standpoint of end users, i.e. those interested in taking advantage of open images to create new products and services, little has been done. This paper has answered the previously unexplored question of how easy, or how challenging, it is to reuse open images for commercial purposes, through three case studies on IMA, SMK and the MET. Although this was the primary purpose of this research, our research identifies issues which are also relevant to those seeking to reuse art images for non-commercial purposes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In recent years, OpenGLAM and the broader open license movement have been gaining momentum in the cultural heritage sector. The purpose of this paper is to examine OpenGLAM from the perspective of end users, identifying barriers for commercial and non-commercial reuse of openly licensed art images.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Following a review of the literature, the authors scope out how end users can discover institutions participating in OpenGLAM, and use case studies to examine the process they must follow to find, obtain and reuse openly licensed images from three art museums.\nFindings: Academic literature has so far focussed on examining the risks and benefits of participation from an institutional perspective, with little done to assess OpenGLAM from the end users' standpoint. The authors reveal that end users have to overcome a series of barriers to find, obtain and reuse open images. The three main barriers relate to image quality, image tracking and the difficulty of distinguishing open images from those that are bound by copyright.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study focusses solely on the examination of art museums and galleries. Libraries, archives and also other types of OpenGLAM museums (e.g. archaeological) stretch beyond the scope of this paper.\nPractical implications: The authors identify practical barriers of commercial and non-commercial reuse of open images, outlining areas of improvement for participant institutions.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to the understudied field of research examining OpenGLAM from the end users' perspective, outlining recommendations for end users, as well as for museums and galleries.\n",
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] |
Case report: Chlorpromazine and deep venous thrombosis
|
[
"Clozapine",
"Risk factors",
"Antipsychotic drugs",
"Bipolar disorder",
"Chlorpromazine",
"Venous thromboembolisms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the development of antipsychotic drugs in the 1950s, a variety of studies and case reports have been published that suggest an association between exposure to typical antipsychotics and venous thromboembolism (VTE). Such an association has also been identified with Clozapine (Walker et al., 1997). VTE includes deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), which can be fatal. Therefore, when starting treatment with antipsychotics, especially low-potency typical antipsychotics and clozapine, health care providers must account for the patient's existing VTE risk factors. Clinicians should consider interrupting or changing the antipsychotic regimen in patients in whom this adverse effect is suspected, such as in patients with chest pain, dyspnea or oxygen desaturation. More studies are currently required to determine the incidence rate, the possible predisposing factors and the biological mechanisms involved.\nCase report: A 51-year-old female with self-reported bipolar disorder presented to the emergency room brought in by police for bizarre behaviors at a bus stop, which included incessantly yelling at bystanders. She was found to have disorganized thoughts, poor sleep, rapid speech, labile mood, distractibility, auditory hallucinations and grandiose delusions. A 5,150 hold was placed and patient was started on olanzapine 10 mg BID, clonazepam 0.5 mg BID and olanzapine 5 mg Q6H PRN for agitation. Of note, the patient had flu-like symptoms and a positive influenza swab and was subsequently started on oseltamivir. The patient was confined to the ED as there were no psychiatric inpatient units that could accommodate droplet precautions at the time. She was also too disorganized to trust her with an infection prevention mask.\nDiscussion: It has been noted in multiple studies that the specific use of chlorpromazine may increase VTE occurrences. From 1953 to 1977, after the discovery of chlorpromazine's antipsychotic effects, the literature in Germany indicated that antipsychotic use may lead to fatal PE. In one study from 1954 to 1957, 11 out of 338 phenothiazine users died from PEs compared to just one in the non-phenothiazine group (Masopust et al., 2012). In a more recent study, Zornberg and Jick analyzed 29,952 antipsychotic medication users and calculated an odds ratio of 3.3 for high-potency antipsychotics and 24.1 for low-potency antipsychotics such as chlorpromazine in regards to PE outcomes (Zornberg and Jick, 2000).\nConclusion: In this case report, we describe the development of a PE associated with chlorpromazine use in the treatment of an acute manic episode in a bipolar type 1 patient. In conclusion, chlorpromazine may indeed increase VTEs, but multiple variables confound the ability to elucidate the degree of effect. Further controlled studies are needed to make progress in this long-standing debate.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Since the development of antipsychotic drugs in the 1950s, a variety of studies and case reports have been published that suggest an association between exposure to typical antipsychotics and venous thromboembolisms (VTE). Therefore, when starting treatment with antipsychotics, especially low-potency typical antipsychotics and clozapine, health-care providers must account for the patient's existing VTE risk factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this case report, the authors describe the development of a pulmonary embolism associated with use of chlorpromazine in the treatment of an acute manic episode in a 51-year-old female patient with bipolar disorder type 1.\nFindings: The patient was brought to the emergency room by the police on a legal hold for bizarre behaviors at a bus stop, which included incessantly yelling at bystanders. The patient was found to have disorganized thoughts, poor sleep, rapid speech, labile mood, distractibility, auditory hallucinations and grandiose delusions. During the course of her stay, the patient received extensive IM chlorpromazine for extreme agitation, in addition to chlorpromazine 200 mg IM Q8H, which was later decreased to chlorpromazine 100 mg chlorpromazine IM/PO Q8H. On day 4 of the treatment, the patient experienced difficulty breathing, hypoxia and tachycardia and was found to have bilateral expiratory wheezes. CT angiography showed sub-segmental pulmonary embolus and the patient was transferred to MICU service. The patient was then intubated and started on heparin by the medical team. Over the course of the next day, her respiratory distress resolved and the patient was extubated.\nOriginality/value: It is possible that chlorpromazine may indeed increase VTEs, and there are various physiological postulations regarding the mechanism of action. However, multiple confounding variables existed in the authors' report, including venous stasis and the use of restraints, tobacco and valproic acid. Each of these variables has been shown to increase VTE occurrence. Further controlled studies are necessary to identify the true relationship between antipsychotics and VTEs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Design limits for framed wall assemblies dependent on material choices for sheathing membranes and exterior insulation
|
[
"Design limits",
"Hygrothermal"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With an increasing trend towards higher building envelope insulation levels to meet more stringent building energy requirements, many designers turn to split insulated framed wall assemblies as a means of achieving higher building envelope R-values. However, higher levels of insulation, when not entirely outboard of the structure, often raise questions about hygrothermal performance. The selection of weather resistive barriers (WRB) and insulation are important considerations when trying to balance hygrothermal performance with costs, wall thickness and energy targets. Designers often rely upon collective wisdom to help select materials for their wall assemblies. Many of these positions are based on broad assumptions that apply to specific conditions which may or may not be relevant to the conditions that the assemblies will be exposed to in service. For example, some designers value the importance of drying to the exterior based on the assumption that the dominant direction of vapour flow in a cold climate is to the exterior and choose exterior insulations and WRB membranes with higher vapour permeance. Others may be concerned with inward vapour flow from rain held in absorptive cladding in the summer and look to avoid highly vapour permeable membranes. Some may deem the vapour permeance of the insulation and membrane materials irrelevant as long as enough exterior insulation is provided to control moisture accumulation of the exterior sheathing as a result of exfiltration in winter and trust that rain leaks are adequately controlled through proper detailing. While the science behind these assumptions are sound, not all of these assumptions apply to all wall assemblies and conditions. Moreover, simplistic viewpoints often overlook risk mitigating factors, such as the removal of moisture from absorptive cladding via ventilated rainscreen cladding. Conversely, some views are too simplistic, such as overlooking the impact of a rain leak below an impermeable sub-sill membrane.\nMethodology: This section presents the methodology and example scenarios to demonstrate how design limits can be employed in practice.\nEnvironmental loads and design limits: Design limits for environmental loads can be established to relate the maximum allowable limits an assembly can withstand while still meeting the established performance criteria. Environmental loads may be considered as uncontrollable, (e.g. climate, exterior temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind), influenced by design (air leakage rate, rain penetration rate etc.), or fully controlled by design (indoor humidity). The following section introduces these loads and how they are incorporated into the design limit approach.\nCombining the loads and establishing design limits: The objective of the paper is to show how the effects of interior humidity, air leakage, and rain penetration can be combined into an approach that enables design limits to be established using hygrothermal analysis of generic wall assemblies. These design limits can help designers make decision on projects without relying or limiting the need for project-specific hygrothermal analysis. In this section design limits relating to minimum insulation ratio, maximum allowable interior humidity and maximum allowable rain penetration are introduced. The design limits are discussed with respect to WRB and exterior insulation vapour permeance for the design of heating-dominated climates. Table V summarises the framework for establishing design limits by evaluating design parameters against the acceptance criteria when subjected to the environmental design loads described in the previous section.\nConclusions and future work: A primary objective of this paper was to outline how to establish design limits for the design and selection of insulation and membrane materials for framed wall assemblies using hygrothermal analysis from a holistic standpoint of establishing loads and performance criteria. Examples were provided to show how environmental loads, such as rain penetration and air exfiltration, can be related to design limits such as indoor humidity, insulation ratio and maximum allowable rain penetration. This work expands upon normal practice for hygrothermal analysis by introducing concepts that are not widely utilised in practice and explores the impact not only to the clear field assembly, but also to critical junctions, such as window sills and at wall framing. Critical junctions such as window sills are often overlooked in practice and warrant more attention when striving to more closely align hygrothermal analysis with reality. A fresh viewpoint on how walls assemblies are assessed has yielded interesting findings that do not completely align with some conventional wisdom and has reinforced other long-standing beliefs for the selection of insulation and membranes of framed wall assemblies. High-level findings include:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology for evaluating the hygrothermal performance of framed wall assemblies based on design limits. This methodology allows designers to evaluate wall assemblies based on their absolute performance rather than relative performance which is typically done for most hygrothermal analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach in developing this methodology was to evaluate wall assemblies against three typical design loads (e.g. air leakage, construction moisture, rain penetration) and determine limits in minimum insulation ratio, maximum indoor humidity and maximum rain penetration rates. This analysis was performed at both the field area of the wall and at framing junctions such as window sills.\nFindings: The findings in this paper shows example design limits for various wall assemblies in heating-dominated climates in North America. Design limits for wall assemblies with moisture membranes of different vapour permeance are provided for both the field area of the wall and at window sills. Discussions about the importance of 2D hygrothermal simulation and performance of vapour permeable sub-sill membranes are also provided.\nOriginality/value: This framework of hygrothermal analysis will enable designers to make better decisions when designing framed wall assemblies suitable to the local climate and interior specifications for their projects. It will also enable the development of a design tool that will allow designers to visually see the implications of certain design decisions and filter out designs that do not meet their design conditions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Instruction, equity, and social networks in district-wide improvement
|
[
"Social capital",
"Leadership",
"Networks",
"Professional community"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The emphasis on instructional leadership in school improvement reflects the central premise that improving outcomes for all students is not possible without changes that affect the \"instructional core\" - the relationship between students, teachers and content in the classroom (Cohen and Ball, 1999; Elmore, 2002). From this perspective, developing a common focus on instruction among all administrators fosters connections, builds social and professional capital and makes it possible to coordinate improvement efforts across classrooms, levels and schools. This attention to the relationships among administrators serves as a crucial step in improving instruction district-wide.\nConceptual framework: connecting administrators across initiatives, roles and levels: In order to develop consistent, coordinated improvements in instruction across all classrooms, all administrators - site leaders and central office personnel - need to be connected and to have opportunities to develop a common practice and a common focus (Honig, 2012; Spillane, 2006). These connections among administrators are essential for the development and distribution of social capital throughout organizations like school districts. Social capital refers to investments in the relationships and social networks that provide access to tools, information, knowledge and other resources (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988; Lin, 2002; Putnam, 2001).\nMethods: In this study, we sought to explore what it takes to develop a common focus and coordination of work on instruction and equity among all administrators in a district by documenting the development of the social networks in three districts. We asked:\nContext: instruction and equity initiatives in three districts: Brief profiles of each district set the stage for the analysis of the extent to which administrators in each district are talking together about instruction, equity and race. Notably, the districts differ markedly in their student demographics and the extent to which issues of equity and race have been an explicit focus of district initiatives.\nFindings: To what extent do district social networks provide a means of connecting and coordinating activity on instruction, equity and race among all administrators?\nDiscussion and implications: These findings make visible the organizational and systemic challenges to bringing administrators together to coordinate their work and develop a common focus on instruction, equity and race. Although almost all administrators in these three districts are talking to at least one other administrator about both instruction and equity at least once a month, the social networks focused on instruction and focused on equity are relatively independent. Furthermore, the combined networks connecting administrators who are talking about both instruction and equity have relatively low levels of density and high levels of fragmentation. In such networks, administrators have a more difficult time sharing information, knowledge and resources than they do in networks with more connected individuals and groups. The conditions for communication and sharing of information and resources about instruction, equity and race are even more difficult. In each district, large numbers of administrators are left out of the combined IER network altogether, and distinct groupings of administrators from different levels and roles are evident.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors and conditions that help to explain what it takes to mount district-wide efforts to improve instruction and address inequities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors examined the evolution of administrator social networks related to instruction, equity and race in three districts over a three-year period. The authors documented when and how these social networks support district-wide connections and consider the relationship between network evolution and each district's efforts to improve outcomes for all students.\nFindings: The authors found that administrators were most likely to be talking together about instruction, equity and race, and administrator social networks were most conducive to the sharing of information across roles, levels and initiatives when explicit efforts were made to engage administrators in common equity-related initiatives and when discussions of equity and race were part of the public conversation.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies of social networks among teachers and among teachers and administrators would provide a more well-rounded picture of how information and resources related to instruction, equity and race are shared throughout a district.\nPractical implications: Results from this study can be used to help administrators reflect on key aspects of their organizational structure and the opportunities for interaction they provide.\nSocial implications: Strategic connections among those in different roles and initiatives can foster sharing of different perspectives and support the development of community cohesion and a common understanding of joint work.\nOriginality/value: This study provides an initial step in bringing together work on social networks and instructional leadership with research related to equity and race in studies of school improvement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sex stereotyping in the boardroom: Importance of women's public-office backgrounds
|
[
"Gender",
"Networking",
"Directors",
"Boards of directors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Dispiriting. That's a word used by a business leader commenting on the fact that the number of women in corporate boardrooms, compared with the number of men, is lamentably low. Crazy. That's a more forceful word used by a CEO - a woman - who points to a report which concluded that top companies with the largest number of women directors had significantly outperformed those with the least representation.\nFemale directors in the USA have breached some barriers: The profile of the female independent director of a public company has remained constant over time in some aspects but has also undergone some change in other aspects, with variations existing between different sets of companies. In terms of consistencies over the decade, female directors continue to remain younger than their male counterparts and are consequently \"over-achieving\" relative to those men. In terms of differences, the professional profile of female directors appears to have changed from the previous couple of decades.\nBeing a woman appears to far overshadow individual qualifications: Research into how and why women are chosen (or not) for board membership is an important and growing field of study, but the confidentiality of the director selection process (i.e. getting hold of the list of candidates) makes the task a difficult one. Nevertheless, Renuka Hodigere of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and Diana Bilimoria of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, examined the subject, focusing on how newly appointed female and male directors of public corporations differ in their human capital and professional network characteristics.\nImportance of contacts, resources and influence offered by public office: Holding the profession of public official (as compared with the profession of CEO), having experience on private company boards and having public and private company CEOs in a director's network were positively associated with holding multiple board memberships for both female and male directors. However, in comparison to being a CEO, certain professions advantaged (being a professional director) or disadvantaged (being a non-profit executive) male directors alone.\nComment: This review is based on \"Human capital and professional network effects on women's odds of corporate board directorships\" by Hodigere and Bilimoria (2015). The authors examine the importance of human capital and professional networks for women's and men's appointment to the boards of directors of public companies. The study provides an in-depth analysis of how human capital and professional networks contribute to women's as compared with men's odds of corporate board membership.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint 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 study's findings reveal that the characteristics that impact the appointment of women as outside directors to public company boards differ from those of men. Relative to men, certain professions such as government relations and education improve the odds of appointment of women to corporate boards, while age lowers women's odds. The number of network ties and the degree of network cohesion was also significant in predicting the likelihood of female board appointment to public corporations relative to men's odds. The final model was able to predict female board membership correctly only in 28 per cent of the cases, while male board membership was predicted in 89 per cent of the cases, suggesting that factors other than human capital and professional networks (e.g. their gender) impact women's appointment to corporate boards.\nPractical implications: The paper 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"
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] |
The perforated borders of labour migration and the formal state: Meta-state and para-state regulation
|
[
"Migrant workers",
"Illegal labour market control and criminality",
"Meta- and para-state agents of migrant employment and social control",
"Mexico and North of Ireland",
"State and employment regulation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Studies of employment regulation have routinely focussed on the ever-contested state of relations between capital and labour mediated within the territorial and legal frameworks for negotiation and dispute resolution of specific nation states (e.g. Jessop, 1994; Majone, 1994). As globalised economic and political restructuring has disrupted patterns of work and employment, shifting the \"where\" and \"how\" of workers' experiences of control (MacKenzie and Martinez Lucio, 2005), recent research has highlighted the variety of spaces and actors involved in establishing and contesting the restrictions, principles, rules and methods of control and governance, or \"modes of social regulation\" (after Jessop, 1995; Tickell and Peck, 1995). While some studies focus on conceptualising state regulation in contested, heterogeneous contexts, a range of other, more dynamic studies have addressed the transfer of regulatory roles, of re-regulation, following MacKenzie and Martinez Lucio (2005). They underscore the myriad ways in which non-state actors are involved in social control within and across state boundaries with both positive and negative consequences for the organisation and experience of work. Moreover, broader socio-economic structures within which these processes are embedded are kept firmly in sight (for a critique of traditional regulation literature, see, inter alia, Tickell and Peck, 1995; Baldwin et al., 1998).\nLow-paid labour, migration and regulation: Processes of globalised trade and labour market liberalisation mean that:[...] how we experience control and how we exist at the intersection of different relations has become more pressing with the greater disturbances taking place in individual workplace relations and worker existence [...] there is a shift away from a more organised and settled pattern of employment and work(Martinez Lucio, 2015, p. 160).\nTerritory, labour and regulation of space and behaviour: The significant theoretical work on territory undertaken by Sack (1986) presented it as:[...] a spatial strategy to affect, influence, or control resources and people, by controlling area [...] It simplifies issues of political control, provides symbolic markers, and gives relationships of power a greater tangibility and appearance of permanence(1986, pp. 2l-34).\nContested spaces of Ireland and Mexico: These multiple dimensions of territory, labour experience and regulation have resonance in the NoI where citizens' barricades and defence committees, youths with stones (and later guns), graffiti and painted pavements were as much markers of territorial formations as the military checkpoints and helipads. There, a remarkable persistence and deepening of \"post-conflict\" sectarian division has been demonstrated (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006). Yet, with notable exceptions (Anderson and Shuttleworth, 1998; McVeigh and Rolston, 2007; Garvey and Stewart, 2015), previous studies of migration and work also have tended to separate out worker experiences from broader societal relations and structures (e.g. Bell et al., 2004; Jarman, 2004) and underplay the ways in which social context and location are linked to labour market insecurity in shaping precarious employment and living experience (see Vosko, 2006). This is significant as residential segregation has and continues to be related to segregated workplaces, a result of discriminatory employment practices that were effectively outlawed only in 1989, but whose legacy remains in a territorialisation of spatial mobility affecting where, and for whom, people would be willing to live, shop and work (Maguire, 1988, Mitchell, 2006; O'Hara, 2004). According to Nolan and Law (2013), for example, small firms that form 90 per cent of the private sector, \"tend to recruit from their immediate surroundings\", increasing the possibility of single identity environments and the reproduction of domination in neighbouring territories that are peripheral to regulation through, for example, trade union organising (Manwaring, 1981). The experience of these phenomena across the work and life boundaries of recently arrived workers remains largely underdeveloped and their subsequent testimonies shed light on troubling means of regulation at these intersections.\nMethodology: This paper presents data collected in three discrete periods by the authors in 2010, 2012 and 2013. In Ireland an action research group comprising 13 migrant workers from eight nationalities worked alongside three experienced researchers, one trade union and one supporting community organisation representative to devise questions that were of common interest in relation to migration, work and family life. A more detailed description of the methods that were inspired by Paulo Freire (1973) can be found in Garvey and Stewart (2015). The term \"migrant workers\" was agreed as appropriate as it incorporated regularly and irregularly employed people from the range of nationalities represented in the workshop. Over a period of eight months in 2010 the people in the research group used their knowledge of where low paid and precariously employed migrant workers lived, worked and socialised to engage 92 people, from Liberia, Nigeria, Spain, Ghana, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Philippines, Brazil, Portugal, Czech Republic, Cameroon and Slovakia in focus group interviews. The majority of the interviewees worked in agriculture, recycling, food processing, hospitality, care, nursing and warehouse work that coincided with official data for where most migrant workers were recruited in this period (DEL, 2009). In 2012, 20 participants were revisited for one to one and focus group interviews.\nPost-conflict NoI: The Belfast Peace Agreement of 1998 indicated a shift from the containment of the 36-year conflict involving the British Army, armed groups of Irish Republicans (drawn mostly from Catholic working class populations) and pro-British Loyalists (drawn mostly from Protestant neighbourhoods) to the normalisation of strained relations. This has involved an initial Keynesian provision of the necessary economic stability to allow the establishment of a consociational power sharing executive - in which proportional representation was designed to redress previous Catholic Irish exclusion - and the use of a Special European Union funded programme to promote civil society's role in local peace building through the growth of the community sector, identified a as positive place of engagement for those released from prison (Ruddock, 2006).\nPost-NAFTA Mexico: In the 1990s, Mexico restructured its national economy and invested in an international trade agreement with North American countries (NAFTA) with the aim of recovering its economic growth after a decade of economic crisis. Thus, the country took measures to facilitate the global competitiveness of US industry in Mexican territory. Industry would operate at the US-Mexico border, to facilitate ease of export to the USA while benefiting from cheaper labour in Mexico. Mexico, on the other hand, would diversify its production, create industrial jobs and increase wages with the support of transnational capital. Thus, the production restructuring would not only attend to economic imperatives, but it would also improve Mexicans' living conditions.\nDiscussion: In the NoI migrant worker testimonies point to a social cost of sectarian division and territorial separateness that elsewhere has been measured in terms of its economic expense (Ruddock, 2006). Historical and cultural differences were exacerbated and cemented through military reoccupation leading to physical separation of neighbourhoods in the containment of conflict from the 1960s onwards. Following the 1998 peace agreement these are now exploited to reinforce the political power of parties with a dispensation in the new sectarian division of government and a \"stale and repetitive pattern of ethnically divided competition over resources\" (Nagle, 2010). As the economy was increasingly placed in the hands of the market, the role of localised conflict resolution was placed firmly with the voluntary sector but where community, as Raul articulated above, was tied up with distinct and separate confessional identities. Amidst the stuttering uncertainty of the political process, which saw the government in London take over Direct Rule of the governing institutions between 2002 and 2007, and a 40-year stagnation of deprivation indices in areas most afflicted by conflict (Hillyard et al., 2003), short term funded community projects proved to be a poor substitute for the deindustrialisation of neighbourhoods. The latter process has arguably been most acutely felt by working class Protestant and loyalist populations whose symbolism and prestige had been tied to old industrial, mostly male blue collar, workplaces.\nConclusion: This study presents contrasting examples from the NoI and Mexico of the ways in which social contestation impacts on precarious and endangered workers in particular social spheres and distinct deindustrialised spaces. In Mexico, abandoned by formal state regulation to the logic of liberal market orthodoxy, migrant workers are subordinated by a combination of market and extra-market control with limited recourse to protection. The relationship between criminal gang networks and state tolerance (parasitism) leads to a pattern of para-state regulation sustained by informal and illegal networks subordinating workers and their families within and across working and living spaces. A pattern of meta-state regulation is exemplified by the case of the NoI where a combination, not so much of abandonment as indulgence, by the state of illegality (labour market sectarianism) and neoliberal orthodoxies, describes the principal form of migrant worker subordination: formally regular labour participation over-determined by state indulgence, or ignorance of, quasi and non-legal labour practices. The paper thus highlights a double porosity: on the one hand, of boundaries between work and living space, and on the other, formal labour market re-regulation and contemporary informal/illegal employment and control across working and living spaces.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the variation in migrant labour market regimes and what these reveal about variant patterns of state and extra state regulation in two contemporary political economies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Research based upon a participatory action research agenda in Mexico and the north of Ireland. Migrant workers and their families where involved in the project and its development. This included participation in the research design, its focus and purpose.\nFindings: Migrant workers experiences of labour market subordination are part of wider processes of subordination and exclusion involving both the state, but also wider, often meta- and para-state, agents. In different locations, states and contexts, the precarity experienced by migrant workers and their families highlights the porosity of the formal rational legal state and moreover, in the current economic context, the compatibility of illegality and state sponsored neoliberal economic policies.\nResearch limitations/implications: It is important to extend this study to other geographic and political economy spaces.\nPractical implications: The study challenges the limits of state agency suggesting the need for extra state, i.e. civil society, participation to support and defend migrant workers.\nOriginality/value: Notwithstanding the two very different socio-economic contexts, the paper reveals that the interaction, dependence and restructuring of migrant labour markets can be understood within the context of meta- and para-state activities that link neoliberal employment insecurities. Migrants' experiences illustrate the extent to which even formal legal employment relations can also be sustained by para- and meta- (illegal and alegal) actions and institutions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The generation process of internal-driven management innovation in companies in transitional economies: Evidence from China
|
[
"China",
"Grounded theory",
"Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited",
"Generation process",
"Internal-driven management innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Numerous scholars have taken technological innovation as the focus of innovation research and produced tremendous academic literatures on various aspects of technological innovation over the past half century (e.g. Cassiman and Valentini, 2016; Christensen, 1997; Dosi, 1982; Nelson and Winter, 1977; Tushman and Anderson, 1986). Relative to technological innovation, another innovation form - management innovation - only gets limited attention, though Daft and Lewin (1993) articulated that new management practices could be a source of firm's sustained competitive advantage in the editorial essay in Organization Science many years ago. Recently, some scholars have started to make efforts on the topic of management innovation (Birkinshaw et al., 2008; Birkinshaw and Mol, 2006; Cerne et al., 2013; Hamel, 2006, 2007; Khanagha et al., 2013; Lin et al., 2017; Mol and Birkinshaw, 2009), which refers to the new management practices, processes, techniques or structures and, arguably, is introduced and implemented by the organization to improve performance and create sustainable competitive advantages (Volberda et al., 2013). We are never short of management innovations in the management development history, and successful management innovation attempts provided pioneering companies with competitive advantages at that time, such as GM's M-form organization structure, BP's Peer Groups, Motorola's Six Sigma quality control methodology, Toyota's Lean Production System and P&G's Brand Management (Berggren, 1992; Foss, 2003; Kaplan, 1998; Mol and Birkinshaw, 2009; Ohno, 1988; Zbaracki, 1998). The dramatic change made by certain management innovation to an organization and the competitive advantage potential provided by successful management innovation make us believe the generation process could be and should be made more systematically, so that management innovators can tilt the opportunities in their organizations favor by keeping these processes in mind. On the other hand, just as Birkinshaw and Mol (2006) state, the extant academic research cannot provide great help to understand the generation of management innovation because most of the studies focused on the diffusion of existing successful management innovations rather than on the generative process through which it first takes shape.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 The IDMI and external-driven management innovation (EDMI)\n3. Case and methods: 3.1 The case study\n4. Framework development and results: 4.1 Framework development\n5. Discussion and conclusions: We can say 11X integration strategy is revolutionary in its consequences for GPHL, but it is evolutionary in its formation. The 11X strategy is not dreamed up in a short time, on the contrary the generation process is iterative and gradual. Our research suggests that \"eureka moments\" such as that are rare in management innovation (Birkinshaw and Mol, 2006). Our framework is developed on practical way based on empirical evidences from GPHL and demonstrates two sub processes - practical exploration process and theoretical support process - in the generation process of IDMI. This paper highlights that the development of IDMI is a systematic process and specific to the company. The major findings of this study, however, allude to theoretical and managerial implications.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how internal-driven management innovation (IDMI) takes shape, which highlights the objective-oriented and problem-oriented property of the innovation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a case study of a new practice called 11X integration strategy in Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited, a Chinese pharmaceutical group in Guangdong province, through applying Grounded Theory the authors get a concise systematic framework of generation process that is more practical and more understandable than the counterparts in current literature.\nFindings: First, this paper uncovers five stages and two parallel sub processes in the generation process of IDMI. The sub processes involves practical exploration process (i.e. primary activities) carried out by the internal change agents and theoretical support process (i.e. support activities) carried out by the external change agents. Second, by adopting a process perspective the authors are able to demonstrate how the different activities in both types of processes are combined over time in an intertwined way.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, the case the authors studied is embedded in the context of China's transitional economy, and the single case study limits us to make comparisons of the generation process of management innovation between different market economies. Second, the external-driven management innovation is still a field untouched. Third, in the research the authors explore the issues of how new management innovation is generated and implemented, but the authors do not systematically research on why different companies exhibit different levels of management innovativeness.\nPractical implications: First, the findings suggest that firms should consciously and systematically invest in IDMI to create sustainable competitive advantage. Second, the process framework provides a clear guidance to the managers in Chinese state-owned enterprises who are engaged in developing or adopting management innovation. Third, the study indicates the managers in Chinese company should be aware of the importance of external change agents to IDMI. Fourth, this study could facilitate the enterprises to develop or adopt management innovation based on their real needs rather than just \"jumping on the bandwagon\" when adopting certain new management skills.\nOriginality/value: This study offers a new generation framework by identifying possible facilitators of IDMI that does not yet exist in extant literatures, and the two sub processes - the practical exploration process and the theoretical support process - deepen the understanding of the generation mechanisms of IDMI. Furthermore, the study contributes to reaching a better understanding of management innovation in the context of transitional economy such as China.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Study shows measurement invariance of employee engagement instrument across racial groups
|
[
"South Africa",
"Financial sector",
"Employee engagement",
"Invariance",
"Multi-racial"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Companies are increasingly eager to monitor their employees' levels of engagement, but there has been little research on the multi-group invariance of the employee engagement instrument (EEI) being used to make these assessments. To address this failure, a recent South African study set out to determine if an employee engagement questionnaire demonstrated invariance across various racial groups in the financial sector. The researchers concluded that an adapted version of the EEI could be used with confidence to measure engagement across four different racial groups (African, colored, Indian, and white).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The authors set out to assess the invariance of the employee engagement instrument (EEI) used to assess engagement in the financial sector in South Africa. The sector faces a recruitment crisis and is also multi-racial.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used the database of a research company that contained 285,000 business people from various backgrounds. They attracted a sample of 1,175 respondents from financial institutions. The majority were white (62.2 per cent), but 16.8 per cent were African, 8.5 per cent were colored, and 9.9 per cent were Indian. A five-point Likert EEI was used to measure employee engagement at individual, team, and organizational levels.\nFindings: The authors concluded that the EEI demonstrated multi-group invariance across different race groups, as any deviation was statistically insignificant. The implication was that the instrument could be used with confidence across all four racial groups in the financial sector in South Africa to measure employee engagement.\nOriginality/value: The authors place their research in the context of the modern world's \"war for talent.\" The increasing mobility of workforces and the retirement of baby boomers have put employers under pressure to develop strategies that prevent the best workers from quitting. Employee engagement becomes an important tool in reducing departures. But research suggests it has been decreasing for some years.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Energy consumption, pollution and economic development in 16 emerging countries
|
[
"CO2 emission",
"Economic development",
"Total primary energy consumption"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Energy consumption plays an important role in achieving high economic growth and development in different countries. Thus, in the last three decades the world energy consumption rose more than 45 per cent increasing CO2 emission more than 40 per cent (Energy Information Administration (EIA)). This caused the increase of global warming and climate change which have become major issues of concern in the last 30 years. Therefore, energy consumption, CO2 emission and economic growth have become an important subject that attracts a great deal of research over the years. 16 emerging countries, namely Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, and Thailand have been experiencing high increase in both energy consumption and pollution. Based on the EIA, these countries basically consume more than 33 per cent of the world primary energy consumption and produce 40 per cent of the world CO2 emission. The main goal of this study is to examine the impact of total primary energy consumption and CO2 emission on the economic development in the investigated countries. The relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emission, and economic growth has been widely studied, however most of the previous studies suffered from omitted variables which might cause biased results especially the studies that conducted the Granger causality test (Stern, 1993). Thus, a complete GDP model will be presented in this study. In addition, different from the previous studies; this study will investigated the impact of energy consumption on total trade, government consumption, and gross fixed capital formation. Also, this study will include a number of countries had not investigated before. Table I shows that these countries have managed to increase their economic growth in the last three decades. However, the total primary energy consumption and CO2 emission have also increased more than 50 per cent.\n2 Evidence on the relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emission and growth: A large number of studies have examined the relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emission and economic growth in different countries. As an example, Chang (2010) have found out that the high economic growth increased both energy consumption and CO2 emission in the short run and the long run in China. The Chinese high growth has an adverse impact regarding global climate change. Fallahi (2011) however found a strong bi-directional causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP growth in the USA. Similar results were reached by Zhixin and Xin (2011) in Shandong in the eastern coast of China. A long relationship between energy consumption and growth in the investigated area was also found. In MENA countries Farhani and Ben Rejeb (2012) found a long run unidirectional causal relationship running from GDP growth and CO2 emission to energy consumption. Soytas and Sari (2009) found a one way causal relationship from CO2 emission to economic growth in the European countries. A lack of long run causal relationship between both total income and CO2 emission to reduce CO2 emission was also found. In the ASEAN countries, a long run one way causal relationship from electricity consumption to economic growth was found. Moreover, a short run one way causal relationship from CO2 emission to electricity consumption was found (Lean and Smyth, 2010). In Turkey neither energy consumption per capita nor per capita CO2 emission has a causal relationship with GDP per capita. This shows that energy conservation polices such as rationing energy consumption and controlling CO2 emission have no negative impact on Turkey's real output growth (Ozturk and Acaravci, 2010). In France, Ang (2007) found a long run relationship between the economic growth, energy use, and CO2 emission. A one way causal relationship from energy use to economic growth was also found. In Central America, Apergis and Payne (2009a, b, c) found a short run one directional causal relationship from energy consumption and output growth to CO2 emission and bi-directional causal relationship was present between energy consumption and output growth. Besides, bi-directional causal relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emission was present. In the BRIC countries, a long run positive relationships as well as short run causal relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emissions were found. Moreover, a long run causal relationship between energy consumption and output was present in the investigated countries (Pao and Tsai, 2010). Wang et al (2011) found similar results in China where a bi-directional causal relationship was present between energy consumption, CO2 emissions and growth. In Canada, Haggar (2011) found a one way short run causal relationship from energy consumption and CO2 emission, economic growth to CO2 emission, and a weak causal relationship from CO2 emission to energy consumption. In the long run, weak causal relationships from energy consumption and economic growth to CO2 emission were found. In Brazil, while the increase in its economic activities is a major source of the increase in CO2 emission, the reduction in the carbon intensity and the increase in the country's focus on cleaner energy is a main factor contributing to emission mitigation (Freitas and Kaneko, 2011). Alam et al (2011) found a bi-directional causal relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emission in India. In addition, neither energy consumption nor CO2 emission affect real income in the short run and the long run. According to the writer, that might help India to employ the energy conservation and efficiency improvement policies to reduce pollution without affecting its economic growth. In Malaysia, it was found that energy consumption had a positive long run relationship with its economic development. A bi-directional causal relationship between energy consumption and economic development was also present (Ang, 2008). In Iran, a one way causal relationship from economic growth and energy consumption (petroleum products and natural gas consumption) to CO2 emission was found. However, there was no causal relationship running from fossil fuels consumption to CO2 emission. Moreover, no evidence that CO2 emission, petroleum products, fossil fuel consumption led to economic growth (Lotfalipour et al., 2010). Niu et al (2011) found a long run relationship between energy consumption and growth in the eight Asian Pacific countries. In addition, energy consumption per capita in the developing countries was lower than the developed countries; however, CO2 emission produced in the developed countries was much lower than in the developing countries. Apergis and Payne (2009a, b, c) found out a long run relationships between energy consumption and economic growth in 11 commonwealth countries. One way causal relationship from energy consumption and growth and long run bi-directional causal relationship between energy consumption and growth were also found. The same results were found by the same researchers in a different study in Central America. In Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, it was found that energy consumption plays an important role in increasing its economic growth; however, the efforts made by these countries to reduce its energy intensity and CO2 emission were insignificant due to the increase in its independence on fossil fuels for their energy consumption (Sheinbaum et al., 2011). In China, Zhang and Cheng (2009) found one way causal relationship from economic growth to energy consumption and from energy consumption to CO2 emission. However, there was no evidence of a causal relationship from energy consumption and CO2 to economic growth; thus, the conservative energy policy and carbon emissions reduction policy can be employed without affecting China's economic growth in the long run. In the USA, Soytas et al (2007) found that income had no causal relationship with CO2 emission but energy consumption did; thus, income itself may not become a solution for environmental problems. In South Africa, a long run relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emission and economic growth and a unidirectional causal relationship from CO2 emissions to economic growth, from energy consumption to economic growth, and energy consumption to CO2 emission were found. It was suggested that South Africa had to sacrifice its economic growth to reduce energy consumption and pollution (Menyah and Rufael, 2010). Li et al (2011) found that there was a positive long run relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emission and GDP per capita in east and west China. However, this relationship was stronger in the east rather than in the west. Warr and Ayres (2010) found one way causal relationship from energy consumption to economic growth in the USA, while no evidence of causal relationship from economic growth to energy consumption was found. Therefore, to sustain long run growth, it is important to increase either energy suppliers or the efficiency of energy usage. Kahrl and Holst (2009) found that the incipient structural changes in the Chinese energy economy and the sustainable economic and energy demand growth would create important and different challenges for the Chinese policymakers. Zhang (2011) found that the energy consumption was cointegrated with economic growth and bi-directional causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Russia was also found. Pao and Tsai (2011a, b) found similar results in Brazil. Pao et al (2011) also found similar results in Russia. Zhang et al. (2011) found that the energy consumption of primary, secondary and tertiary industry demonstrated and unversed a sort of relationship with the gross domestic product in China. A linear relationship was also present between energy consumption and GDP. In the BRIC countries, it was found that the CO2 emission appeared to be energy consumption elastic and FDI inelastic. Furthermore, a bi-directional causal relationship between FDI and CO2 emission was found. It was suggested that these countries should strictly examine the qualification for foreign investment to prevent any environmental damage. A bi-directional causality between output energy consumption and output CO2 emissions was also found, while unidirectional causal relationship from energy consumption to CO2 emission was present (Pao and Tsai, 2011a, b). Apergis et al. (2010) found a long run negative relationship between nuclear energy consumption and CO2 emission and a long run positive relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in 18 developed and developing countries. It was also found that nuclear energy consumption had a negative causal relationship with CO2 emission while a renewable energy had no effect on CO2 emission. Similar results were found by Acaravci and Ozturk (2010) in the European countries. Lee and Chang (2007) found a strong positive relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Taiwan.\n3 Methodology and results: The panel model will be used in this study taking the period 1980-2008. It is specified as follows: Equation 1 where GDPP is the gross domestic product per capita based on the purchasing power party as an indicator of economic development measured in 2000 constant US dollar. GFC is the gross fixed capital formation as an indicator of investment measured in millions of 2000 constant US dollars. GOV is the government consumption expenditure measured in millions of 2000 constant US dollars. TD is the total trade of goods and services measured in 2000 constant US dollars. EM is the total carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of energy measured in million metric tons. EC is the total primary energy consumption measured in quadrillion Btu. b1, b2, b3, b4 and b5 is the slope coefficients of the model, t is time, i is the cross-section unit (ith country), a is a scalar. The variables namely GDPP, GFC, GOV, TD are taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI) while EM and EC are taken from the EIA.\n4 Conclusion: This study investigated the influence of total primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions in 16 emerging countries, namely Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, and Thailand. The panel model was used in this study taking the period 1980-2008. The Pedroni cointegration test results showed the existence of long run relationship between total primary energy consumption, CO2 emissions and economic development in the investigated countries. The Granger causality test results also showed that both total primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions have a long run and a positive short run causal relationship with the economic development, total trade, government consumption, and the gross fixed capital formation. So, it is clear that the total primary energy consumption did not only increase the economic development in these countries but also affected other economic aspects which play an essential role in achieving high economic performance in the countries under investigation but with the consequence of high CO2 emissions. These countries suffer from high levels of pollution which have increased more than double in the last three decades. Therefore, it is very important that these countries reduce their CO2 emissions. Since it was found that both gross fixed capital formation (investment) and government consumption expenditure have a significant causal relationship with CO2 emissions, it is very important that these countries increase their investment and government spending on green energy projects to increase the role of green energy in achieving their economic development. Also, it is important to adopt trade-related measures and policies to increase environmental protection after having found that total trade increases CO2 emission. Moreover, the increase in energy productivity by increasing energy efficiency, implementation of energy savings projects, conservation, and energy infrastructure outsourcing. This motivates the writer to recommend the above mentioned policy for the countries under investigation to help them overcome all problems of pollution. However, these polices should be implemented without affecting their economic growth negatively.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of total primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions on the economic development in 16 emerging countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The panel model was used taking the period 1980-2008.\nFindings: The results showed that a long-run relationship is present between total primary energy consumption, CO2 emission, and economic development in the countries under investigation. It was also found that both total primary energy consumption have a positive causal relationship with the economic development and other economic aspects playing an important role in achieving high economic performance with the consequence of higher pollution.\nPractical implications: The main recommendation of this study is to increase their investment and government spending on green energy projects to increase the share of green energy out of their total energy consumption. This can be considered a good solution for their energy woes.\nOriginality/value: Different from the previous studies, it was also found that total primary energy consumption have a positive causal relationship with the economic development and other economic aspects playing an important role in achieving high economic performance with the consequence of higher pollution. In addition, there are a number of countries that had not investigated before.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Stewardship behaviour and perceived goal congruence in local governments in Uganda: The moderating role of collectivism
|
[
"Collectivism",
"Goal congruence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In order to live in a vibrant, aggressive, demanding and often ruthless business milieu, organisations deliberately continue to follow compound goals. According to Guest (2014) and Van De Voorde et al. (2010), the pursuit of a multiplicity of goals in a volatile environment enables organisations to balance and harmonise competing interests, spread risks associated with performance through diversification and favourably compete. Lange et al. (2011) assert that for organisations to be competitive and build a good image, they require strategic goals. Organisations that continuously advocate for goal congruence reap in terms of shared responsibility, attainment of integrated workplace goals and interests and building strategic consensus (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). Such organisations also gain in form of creating a shared understanding of roles (Matanda and Ndubisi, 2013) which transforms into avoidance of risks, high supervisory costs and revenue losses (Dooley, 2004). Dooley further asserts that goal congruence acts as a prerequisite for motivation, coordinated behaviour, productivity and a control mechanism for managerial action in times of competition, technological advancement and change. For goal congruence to exist it requires several inputs such as individuals working in a collectivism manner.\nLiterature review: Stewardship behaviour and perceived goal congruence\nMethodology: In this section, the researchers present the research design, population, sample size and sampling procedure. The researchers further discuss the data collection instrument, measurement of variables, validity and reliability of the instrument.\nResults: The researchers run a number of nested SEMs to establish prognostic influence of each exogenous variable on to the endogenous variable, and establish the associations between the variables so as to test hypotheses developed from literature review. In Model 1 (Figure 2), stewardship behaviour is placed alone to predict perceived goal congruence; in Model 2 (Figure 3), collectivism was to stewardship behaviour to predict perceived goal congruence. In the final Model 3 (Figure 4), the interactive term (stewardship behaviour x collectivism) was added to both exogenous variables (stewardship behaviour and collectivism) to predict perceived goal congruence. Friedrich (1982) states that in instances where two or more variables predict a criterion variable, the researcher must suspect an interaction effect. An interaction occurs when the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable varies as a result of changes in the moderator (Baron and Kenny, 1986; Friedrich, 1982; Preacher et al., 2007). According to Jose (2008, 2013), a researcher should test for the significance of the interaction by centring the predictor variables (subtracting the mean from all the scores to get marginal mean scores), getting a product of the centred variables to come up with the interaction term, that is used to test for interaction. Interaction is achieved if the beta coefficient of the interaction term is significant (Baron and Kenny, 1986; Friedrich, 1982; Jose, 2008; Preacher et al., 2007) and indeed it was achieved (see Table IV). The three models revealed acceptable model fit indices as shown by the results of the fit indices in Table III.\nDiscussion, conclusion, implications, limitations and propositions for further studies: Discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between stewardship behaviour and perceived goal congruence. Using local governments, the paper introduces collectivism as a moderating variable to ascertain whether the mixed views in the stewardship behaviour-perceived goal congruence nexus is due to variations in collectivism.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper espouses a cross-sectional descriptive and analytical design. The authors use structural equation modelling to investigate hypotheses. Using proportionate and simple random sampling procedures, a sample of 310 respondents were drawn from local governments in Uganda of which a response rate of 72.6 per cent was obtained.\nFindings: The findings show that stewardship behaviour and collectivism are significant predictors of perceived goal congruence. Furthermore, the magnitude effect of stewardship behaviour on perceived goal congruence depends on collectivism; implying that the assumption of non-additivity is met.\nResearch limitations/implications: Only a single research methodological approach was employed and future research through interviews could be undertaken to triangulate.\nPractical implications: Variations that occur in stewardship behaviour create variations in goal congruence in local governments. It is confirmed that collectivism technically strengthens the link between stewardship behaviour and perceived goal congruence: suggesting that indeed collectivism could establish a maximal impact on the stewardship behaviour--perceived goal congruence link.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the few studies that focus on testing the interactive effects of collectivism on the relationship between stewardship behaviour and perceived goal congruence in local governments in Uganda.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strategic outsourcing in SMEs
|
[
"Surveys",
"SMEs",
"Strategy",
"Service quality",
"Business excellence",
"Cost reduction",
"Core competence",
"Strategic outsourcing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Strategy matters and according to Freedman (2013), it is about \"maintaining a balance between ends, ways, and means; identifying objectives; as well as the resources and methods available for meeting such objectives\" (p. xi). In most cases, firms seek to obtain competitive superiority by a strategic choice of cost reduction, improved quality and/or better services. Making a strategic choice is vital to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular and this is due to the resource constraints these firms often encounter (Jarillo, 1989; Hessels and Parker, 2013). They have to manage their resources with utmost care so as to ensure maximum usage. Thus, strategic outsourcing could be a promising approach for SMEs to get necessary flexibility to focus on their key skills and competences and, in turn, meet the objectives set.\nTheoretical framework: Strategies for outsourcing\nOutsourcing and SMEs: Traditionally, research on outsourcing has been conducted in large, established firms (Bhalla et al., 2008; McIvor, 2009). Yet, there is clear evidence that also new firms and small firms try to benefit from outsourcing. Mills (2002) in his study showed how new biotechnology firms utilize intermediate markets for a variety of value chain activities, while Youngdahl and Ramaswamy (2008) demonstrated that small firms benefit from the advancement of information and communication technologies and are therefore able to leverage expertise around the globe too. In their study, Pisani and Ricart (2007) found no difference between large and small companies with regard to the initiation of product development outsourcing (PDO). PDO is conducted to access new talent and, by doing so, expands the company's pool of capabilities.\nResearch methods: As the main objective of this study was to reveal the application of strategic outsourcing within Icelandic service firms, a descriptive and analytical research design was selected (Nishishiba et al., 2014). Given that only a small portion of firms in Iceland have a strategy on outsourcing, it was necessary to obtain the maximum number of participating firms. Accordingly, three surveys from 2009, 2013 and 2018 were combined. The surveys were a mixture of telephone interviews and an online survey.\nResults: In this section, the main findings of the survey are presented.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The aim of this paper was to examine strategic outsourcing among Icelandic SME service firms, from 2009 to 2018. The findings indicate that majority of firms involved do outsource their service activities; this corresponds to 79.8 percent. This extent of outsourcing is similar to former studies (Di Gregorio et al., 2009; Kremic et al., 2006). Only 23.5 percent of the participating managers in the present study reported that their companies had a strategic plan for outsourcing. The low portion of SMEs with a strategic vision is in line with the small business approach to outsourcing (Torres and Julien, 2005), and former studies on outsourcing in SMEs that showed the dominance on ad hoc activities (Smogavec and Peljhan, 2017).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: So far, there are very few empirical research studies available on the outsourcing pattern among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to examine strategic outsourcing among Icelandic SME service firms, from 2009 to 2018.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data presented in this paper cover responses from 802 small service firms, which were collected through telephone and online questionnaires. In order to have sufficient data on strategic outsourcing and to ensure a decent analysis, three surveys were combined.\nFindings: The main finding of the present paper is that SMEs that have a developed strategy on outsourcing seem to perform better than those who do not have. The former are more likely to have achieved cost reduction, especially in housing and finance, and they use outsourcing to increase core businesses. They select vendor firms more on the bases of cost and services, rather than personal contacts. Also, these firms have improved service quality, by focusing on their core competences.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' knowledge, the present study is one of the few empirical studies that have examined outsourcing in SMEs from a strategic perspective. The findings are valuable for managerial practice and could be a base for outsourcing strategies in SMEs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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